Existence Itself Is an Error Ch 01

 

Chapter 1

Cherry blossom petals in full bloom flutter in the air, and a sweet fragrance wafts through the air as you pass beneath them. Even those who aren’t particularly interested in the surrounding scenery will stop and take a look.

In the most beautiful sight of the season called spring, two men and women in school uniforms were facing each other with blushing cheeks.

I saw the female student, who had been silent for a while, finally open her mouth. Because of the distance, I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but I knew the answer without even straining my ears.

I like you, I’ve liked you for some time now. A shy confession from a pretty school girl.

Against the beautiful backdrop, it looked like a masterpiece. It was as if the whole world was cheering on the achievements of these two students.

Your answer, smiling brightly at the sight of such a female student.

“I’m sorry. I like someone else.”

I checked the familiar shape of the mouth and buried my face in my hands in despair.

‘Why again?’

Why does he keep rejecting the heroine’s confessions? I’ve been watching her closely, almost every day, but when did he finally find the time to pursue another woman and fall in love with her?

This was already the fifteenth time. Both struggling for the love between the male and female leads, and struggling to bring about the end of this world.

And this time again, it was a failure.

I nervously washed my face and lowered my hand. The surroundings began to tilt and sway, filling my vision.

People strolled along the street, oblivious to the distorted scene, going about their daily lives. I was the only one here, aware that the world was falling apart.

The ending had already been decided, so resisting would change nothing. I sighed wearily and simply stared at the tangled, twisted cherry blossom petals.

At that moment, the male protagonist, who had been standing before the female student, suddenly turned his head. A bright smile appeared on his face as he spotted me, somehow recognizing me from such a distance.

“Senior!”

Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to see him wave warmly. Just before that, the world, now utterly distorted, crumbled apart.

I slowly lowered my eyelids, enduring the unpleasant tingling sensation that I could never get used to no matter how many times I experienced it.

It was a blackout.

___________

The saying, “I am the protagonist of my own life,” is a ridiculous lie. At least, that’s how it was in this world I was created in.

A male protagonist who is kind to everyone but lives with a wound that no one knows about, and a female protagonist who has a kind heart as much as her pretty face.

This was a world that existed for the love between the male and female protagonists.

People who are empty shells without egos, who cannot speak properly when separated from the main character, and whose faces become blurry, and objects that do not function properly.

An abnormal world where contradictions are hidden and normalcy is pretended to be so great that even the male and female leads, the only ones with egos, are deceived.

I was a being born into it without warning.

In a word, “error.” The only blemish born into this world without warning, a self that has developed even in a space without a protagonist.

The world where I lived alone as an ‘error’ was terrible.

My phone was dead, I couldn’t watch a movie at the cinema, and when I opened a book, the letters were all jumbled up so I couldn’t read a single word.

He had no name, no home, no family. Because he had acquired a sense of self, unlike the other characters, he found himself hungry and sleepy at certain times.

There was a time when I thought I would go crazy if I continued to live like this.

[ Help. Request. ]

The world spoke to me.

The world offered me one proposition: to connect the male and female leads and bring this world to an end.

Then, the world that had the ‘will’ to achieve a happy ending for the main characters will no longer exist just for them, and that ‘will’ will disappear.

When ‘will’ disappears, what takes its place is ‘probability’, and when ‘probability’ begins, the characters and spaces will have their own egos, and everything will return to normal.

In other words, if the female and male leads can connect, they will no longer have to live alone, nameless and homeless. They will no longer have to encounter people who are like empty shells.

I felt like I wanted to cling to even the flimsiest of ropes and desperately beg. Even if the world’s words were false, it was worth a try.

In this way, the transaction between me and the world, where our interests aligned, was successfully concluded.

_______________

“…Omg.”

I took a sharp breath and raised my head. The sweet scent of flowers, which had been so strong it stung my nose just moments before, was replaced by the cool, woody scent of the air that filled my lungs.

I exhaled sharply, slowly clearing my chest. I calmly turned my head, the petals fluttering in the wind vanished, and the empty classroom filled my eyes.

It was a familiar sight. Students, each with their own bags, were walking home, mumbling amorphous sentences.

I immediately took out my phone and checked today’s date.

March 2nd. The first day of the new high school year.

It was exactly one month until April 2nd, when the female protagonist would confess to the male protagonist. This was already the sixteenth time this situation had happened.

I swallowed a sigh and forced my hunched body to sit up. Without even bothering to pack my empty bag, I just kept walking.

I calmly nodded as I passed the students with hazy appearances.

‘Let’s think carefully about what to do and how to do it.’

If I agonize over it too much, a month will fly by before I know it. I didn’t want that kind of misfortune to happen and start over again.

I thought back one by one on the things I had done in the fifteenth ‘month’.

Pushing the male lead to become interested in the female lead.

To protect the male protagonist from getting hurt or sick.

Lastly, and most importantly.

To monitor the male lead to ensure he doesn’t have a crush on a female student other than the female lead.

‘Who does he like every time ?’

Frankly, I was dumbfounded. It was enough that the male lead didn’t like the female lead, whom the world had given him, but it was even more absurd that he kept harboring feelings for someone else, despite my strict surveillance.

At this point, I even thought it might be better to change the female protagonist into that unidentified schoolgirl. Unfortunately, a role as significant as the female protagonist wasn’t something I could just change at will.

In this situation, I was getting disillusioned every time I heard the male lead reject the female lead’s confession.

“I’m sorry. I like someone else.”

I heard that fifteen times. I almost wanted to beg them to tell me where that “person I like” was.

Then, we could have found that girl early on and locked her up to prevent her from being noticed by the male protagonist.

With a slightly grim thought in my mind, I slowed down my pace, which had been busy searching for my destination.

Before I knew it, the voices surrounding me were beginning to take on a more normal tone. I was glad to hear words that weren’t jumbled together in a crude way.

I stopped in front of a classroom and poked my head through the half-open door. A student, recognizing the color of my tie, approached me cautiously.

“Hello, senior. What’s going on in the second-grade classroom?”

I stared blankly at the student.

His facial features were distinct, and the word order of his questions was not strange. It was obvious why he, who had virtually no ego, could act as if he had one.

‘Because the male lead is here.’

“I came to look for Seo Hee-jun.”

The student who heard me looked around the classroom.

“Seo Hee-jun! I heard your third-year senior came to see you ?”

Seo Hee-jun, who had been carrying his bag over one shoulder, raised his head. A familiar face immediately caught my eye.

Her moderately curly black hair swayed with her movements. Beneath it, her round eyes held a sad, coppery glow.

The corners of his eyes were rounded, without a hint of sharpness, and a faint smile played on his lips. Despite his size, which was considerably larger than the average man’s, he possessed a cute and gentle demeanor.

It was such a perfect beauty that you would ask if it wasn’t a sculpture no matter which way you looked at it.

I felt a strange bitterness. It was closer to a feeling of slight regret than regret.

‘Until a few hours ago, you were following me around like crazy, calling me senior, senior.’

We were once again strangers, awkwardly facing each other. This was already the sixteenth time, but that didn’t mean we could remain completely calm.

Seo Hee-jun, who had been standing still, studying my face, slowly approached me. Soon, he awkwardly bowed.

“Hello, senior.”

“…….”

“I heard you were looking for me…. Oh, did the teacher ask you to bring me here ?”

Seo Hee-jun’s eyes, so clear and bright they were almost piercing, reflected back at me. They couldn’t have been anything other than the image of a pure and desirable male protagonist.

I shook my head lightly as I pondered the subtly changing lines that came with each new month.

“No, I never did that.”

“Then why?” Seo Hee-jun tilted his head as if asking. I calmly answered his question.

“Are you going home now? Come with me.”

“Yes?”

“I’m going home anyway.”

I already knew that Seo Hee-jun was going straight home without stopping anywhere else, and I had to follow him.

Of course, I had no intention of asking permission. My clinging to him didn’t harm Seo Hee-jun; rather, it was a situation that benefited him.

Because I was ready to protect Seo Hee-jun even if it meant jumping in front of an oncoming car.

Of course, from the beginning, Seo Hee-jun did not have the option of ‘rejection’.

“You can’t leave my sight, Seo Hee-jun.”

I chewed over and over that promise in my mind.

Seo Hee-jun couldn’t hide his bewilderment at my tone, which wasn’t a question or a request, and asked cautiously.

“Excuse me…. Have we met before?”

It was a question that didn’t even need to be asked.

“Yeah. I’ve met him before.”

Over the past fifteen hours, we’ve exchanged greetings, exchanged names, and become closer. So, it wasn’t a lie.

‘And I’m doing it for the sixteenth time.’

As I thought about that and made a slight expression, Seo Hee-jun awkwardly raised the corners of his mouth, perhaps misunderstanding that I was upset because of him.

“I’m sorry, senior. I think I forgot.”

“Okay. I don’t care.”

There was no need to listen to Seo Hee-jun’s apology even though he had done nothing wrong, so I grabbed his wrist.

“Let’s go now.”

With a slight tug, Seo Hee-jun stepped out of the classroom. Judging by the way he fixed his bag without resisting, it seemed like he was planning to follow along obediently.

It was just as I was turning my satisfied gaze away from Seo Hee-jun.

“Seo Hee-jun!”

A female student called out to Seo Hee-jun at the top of her voice. Her voice, too loud to ignore, echoed through the hallway.

Seo Hee-jun then stopped and asked for my understanding.

“Senior, just a moment….”

I hastily reached out my hand as he tried to turn his head. My palm pressed firmly against Seo Hee-jun’s eyelids.

Seo Hee-jun froze, unable to fully turn his head or locate the owner of the voice. His lips twitched, his movements completely immobilized.

“Seo, senior ?”

I felt the eyelids under my hands tremble.

But I had no desire to release Seo Hee-jun from his sight. I couldn’t just suck my thumb and watch him as he, unable to bear the thought, quickly set his eyes on another woman.

I yanked Seo Hee-jun’s bag strap with my other hand. He took a couple of steps toward me without realizing it.

“Seo Hee-jun.”

“Yes ?”

“Don’t look at other women.”

You have a master.

“…Yes?”

Seo Hee-jun opened his mouth blankly, unable to hide his emotions filled with confusion.