Chapter 1

“I pressed ‘Like’ on a malicious comment.”

A gentle, supple tenor echoed inside the tiny, half-pyeong confessional booth. Hemmed in by dark timber walls, the young man cast his gaze downward, folding his hands together. “For these, and all the sins I have failed to recall, I ask for forgiveness.”

Long lashes cast subtle shadows beneath his deeply creased double eyelids, lending an air of modest deference to what would otherwise be a sharp, upturned slant of the eyes. Beyond the perforated wooden partition, a quiet presence stirred.

“And what made you do such a thing, my son?” the priest asked gently through the screen.

Staring down at his clasped hands, Mu-yeong gave a quiet confession. “Because I hate that celebrity.”

“And what made you despise him so?” the priest asked, his tone carrying quiet, pastoral concern.

“He looked too happy.”

The young man bowed his head in meek confession. The exposed nape of his neck showed startlingly pale against the collar of his black windbreaker. On the other side of the screen, the priest offered a low, troubled sigh.

“Has this celebrity ever brought you personal harm, brother?” the priest asked, a puzzled furrow in his tone.

“Yes,” the young man answered without a heartbeat of hesitation, his quiet voice carrying total, unyielding conviction. “That person stole my name.”

A beat of thick silence settled inside the booth.

The priest let out a slow sigh through the partition. “Brother, a name is not something that can be stolen. Even if he happens to share the very same name as yours, you must let go of this bitterness.”

The priest instructed firmly, “For your penance, I ask that you leave one positive, encouraging comment for this celebrity each day for the remainder of Lent. May God our merciful Father, who reconciled the world to Himself through the death and resurrection of His Son…”

At the conclusion of the long prayer of absolution, the priest traced the Sign of the Cross.

“By the ministry of the Church, may God give you pardon and peace,” the priest concluded solemnly, “and I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

“Amen,” the young man whispered, bowing his head one last time.

Dropping the slip bearing his name and baptismal name into the collection basket, the young man stepped out of the booth. The moment the wooden door swung shut behind him, the red occupancy light overhead flared into a frantic, erratic blink. Seated in the very back row of the pews, a nun rose and gave the confessional door a polite knock.

“Father, you can come out now. There’s no one else in line. You’ve been inside for quite some time, so I came to check.”

The door clicked open. Clad in his black cassock, the priest stepped out, wearing a look of profound bemusement.

“…Is that so?” the priest asked, his brow knotting in perplexity. “Didn’t a parishioner just finish their confession?”

Blinking in bewilderment, the nun replied, “What are you talking about, Father? There’s nobody here except me.”

Glancing around the empty sanctuary, the nun cast an eye toward the red indicator light, which had finally ceased flashing.

“The sensor must be malfunctioning again,” Sister suggested, gesturing toward the ceiling fixture.

The priest let out an incredulous chuckle as he stepped clear of the booth.

“Then again, perhaps I nodded off and dreamed it all…” The priest gave an amused, self-deprecating chuckle. “It did sound like an utterly absurd confession, after all. Though, dream or not, the seal of the confessional remains absolute.”

The faint murmur of their voices receded down the aisle. Seated right beside the confessional, the young man scrolled down his smartphone screen and tapped a video. The bold title jumped out with crystal clarity.

How Can a Person Be Literal Sunshine? Choi Sijin’s Favorite Items Collection
200K views · 1 week ago
#ChoiSiJin #CHOISIJIN #WhatsInMyBag

Muting the volume to zero, the young man paused playback and tapped open the comments section. The video, uploaded only a week prior, was already flooded with hundreds of replies.

@Woong-nyang-nyang-nyang
5:38 Look at his face when talking about his hyung lol. But you can definitely tell he grew up showered with love from his family. Zero darkness to him, so to speak.
└They say he recovered from some rare illness? Heart disease? when he was little, so his family dotes on him like crazy! Total sweetheart♥♥♥

@KimBunny-cc153
He immediately caught my eye the moment Next Flight came out, so I voted for him. Bright, kindhearted, and truly someone you just can’t help but love. Always rooting for his growth as an actor!

@hrrr_son
Ha… Choi Sijin, I fucking love you sm 😭 My baby sunshine puppy mochi chick

@BoyGroupCollector
Lmaooo why are fans’ comments so hilarious? Y’all can’t honestly call him handsome, so you just keep repeating “cute” lololol

@SiJinsays_S2
└Everyone, please don’t feed the attention whore

@BoyGroupCollector
└It’s the truth tho? His acting sucks ass too, bro’s literally a one-trick pony with that eye smile

The young man pondered for a moment before tapping his keypad.

Sijin-ssi, you look so delightfully soft and squishy!!

Having submitted his comment, the young man rose from the pew and headed outside. Not a single person among the sparse foot traffic spared him a glance. When someone barrelled forward on a direct collision course without even registering his presence, he stepped aside of his own accord, dodging the impact with seasoned ease.

Stepping out of the dimly lit church, a brisk breeze swept across his cheeks. He climbed into his black Carnival parked in the lot. A carved lotus pendant dangled beside a Catholic rosary from the rearview mirror, chiming softly against the glass. Feeling pleasantly refreshed, he flicked the silver crucifix with the tip of his finger.

So what if the priest didn’t believe my confession? He had made his confession, he hadn’t been struck from the parish registry, and his baptismal name remained intact. Better yet, his sins were completely wiped clean. Before turning the ignition, the young man brought his hands together in pious devotion.

“Forgive us our trespasses… Namu Amitabha Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva.”

As if in divine response, his phone buzzed the instant the prayer left his lips. A faint smile curled his lips as he answered the call.

“Yes, Boss,” Mu-yeong answered, bringing the phone to his ear.

―“You’re running late today,” Kim Sang-beom grunted over the line. “Did you fail to catch proof of Kim So-hyun-ssi’s husband cheating?”

“I snapped photos of them kissing in the car,” Mu-yeong reported smoothly. “I had a quick errand to run, but I’m on my way back now.”

―“Well, you sure are a natural when it comes to staying invisible,” the boss chuckled through the speaker. “I’ll order a double portion of jajangmyeon for you.”

“Yes, sir, thank you,” Mu-yeong said, the grin audible in his voice.

Hanging up with a bright grin, the young man pulled out of the parking lot. The Carnival glided smoothly onto the asphalt like water through a brook. With a Buddhist recording of the Heart Sutra chanting through the stereo, he bobbed his head in rhythm to the wooden fish clapper.

The name printed on the young man’s national identity card was Seo Mu-yeong. His Catholic baptismal name was Lazarus; his Buddhist dharma name was Ga-ryeon, Lotus of the Household. Just as he possessed three names, the tortuous history that shaped him was divided into three distinct chapters.

First: at eleven years old, Seo Mu-yeong had his true birth name stolen by Choi Sijin, and with it, his destiny. Stripped clean of the memory of his own name, he had been reduced to a hollow husk, a body that barely remembered to draw breath. His presence faded so drastically that he became, for all practical purposes, half an invisible man.

Second: the sisters at the convent-run orphanage took pity on his dying frame and administered the emergency rites of baptism. Mu-yeong, bedridden and fading away, snapped his eyes wide the second the baptismal name Lazarus was bestowed upon him. Once the civil name Seo Mu-yeong was officially assigned to his file, he managed to clamber out of bed and walk on his own two feet, frail though he remained. Even so, amidst the flock of bustling orphans, the nuns inevitably forgot only one child’s birthday: his.

Third: when Seo Mu-yeong turned nineteen, Choi Sijin appeared as a contestant on a boy group survival audition program. Mu-yeong sought Sijin out, demanding his name back, only to be brutally beaten by security and tossed into the gutter. As he lay crumpled on the pavement, not a single passerby noticed him.

From that point forward, the gulf between their lives widened relentlessly. Choi Sijin successfully made his debut. After the project group ran its course and disbanded, he transitioned smoothly into acting, headlining a couple of hit television dramas.

Mu-yeong, meanwhile, enlisted in the military the moment he graduated from high school. After undergoing a Buddhist precept ceremony during his service and receiving a dharma name, his chronic ailments finally subsided. Though he remained as invisible to people’s eyes as ever, that very curse became the asset that secured his current job after discharge.

Up ahead, the edge of a dust-streaked sign for an errand agency crept into view. That ten-pyeong office was not only the workplace where Seo Mu-yeong’s faint presence proved to be an unmatched professional aptitude, but also the very position he had chosen in order to dig into Choi Sijin’s tracks.

Seo Mu-yeong wanted his name back. He wanted to dismantle everything Choi Sijin had built using the stolen weight of that name, leaving the man entirely alone in the world. And the people who had aided and abetted the theft of his name would pay their dues as well.

Yet Choi Sijin’s father was the head of a private lending firm with deep mob ties, while Seo Mu-yeong was just Seo Mu-yeong. He lacked the money and brute force required to kidnap Sijin and interrogate him. His only viable play was to gather enough blackmail material to lure Sijin out completely alone.

To do that, he first needed an exhaustive understanding of who Choi Sijin really was. Over the past six years, Mu-yeong had watched every single video, listened to every song, read every interview, and memorized every social media post. And over the last few years, he had honed the investigative craft at the errand agency.

The time had finally arrived to make his move and uncover Choi Sijin’s fatal flaw. Easing his foot off the accelerator, Seo Mu-yeong hummed along with the chanted verses.

“Free from delusions, attaining ultimate nirvana, all Buddhas of the past, present, and future rely on the Prajnaparamita…”

Paramita was the sacred path toward attaining bodhisattvahood. He knew how to endure grueling labor, how to stomach humiliation, and he was both diligent and steadfast; surely all that remained was to practice a little more charitable giving to others.

If he led such a virtuous life, the Buddha would surely turn a blind eye when he eventually cracked Choi Sijin’s skull open. Of course, he harbored no desire to commit actual murder. Still, if push came to shove, he might have to rough Sijin up a bit, or perhaps put him under with an anesthetic.

Bringing the van to a halt, Seo Mu-yeong let out a quiet gasp just as he prepared to unbuckle. “Ah, right.” Opening the habit tracker in his calendar app, he tapped ‘Daily Repeat’ and typed on his keypad.

● Wake up at 6:00 AM
● Run a lap around the neighborhood
● Check Choi Sijin’s schedule
○ Follow Choi Sijin
○ !!Leave positive comments for Choi Sijin!! (~until Easter)