I let out a sigh as I flipped through the pages of the book—srrrk.
Against my will, I’d started an involuntary digital detox. In the end, I had no choice but to look for clues in analog form. I shoved the book I’d skimmed back onto the shelf, pulled out a new one, and turned the pages.
The soft rustle of paper turning. The thud of a book closing.
There probably aren’t any clues in a place like this, huh. I looked around the room again. As I’d already said several times, it was a room so bare it was almost excessive.
There wasn’t much to call interior decor, and everything was kept so neat that it lacked any sign of life.
The floor space looked about twice the size of my room, but the furniture was even simpler than what I had at home. No wonder it looked nearly three times as wide.
The only things here that gave off even the faintest scent of a person were the liquor cabinet and the desk.
On the shelves fixed to the wall sat all sorts of bottles, including the vodka I’d taken a few sips of earlier. Looking at them, there seemed to be well over ten bottles.
Apparently, Gang Jimin’s hobby had been home bartending. There were base spirits like vodka and whiskey, but there were a lot of liqueurs too. Traces that she often made cocktails for herself.
Even this tiny thing overlapped with his hobbies.
Another parallel theory?
I found myself wondering if there was some kind of connection between Lee Jincheol and Gang Jimin… That sounds like some cheesy pickup line.
Forget it. The other party is deceased.
Wouldn’t it be right to watch my mouth at this point?
I picked up the bottles one by one and examined them, but there was nothing special.
There were a few expensive ones that made me want to taste them, but if I drank again in this condition, then I’d be a dog. A dog.
Ah. This is something you can only buy at duty-free… Huh?
I shook my head violently to shake off my worldly desires—fuck, my skull is ringing.
Anyway, I threw off temptation and moved away from the liquor cabinet.
The overlap in hobbies was the same with books.
The bookshelf was quite large. It looked like it held dozens of books, most of them mystery novels, and most of those were books I’d read.
Our favorite authors overlapped too.
The complete Sherlock Holmes. Well, that’s basic literacy for any mystery novel maniac. Oh. Even the edition is the same. Besides that, Miyabe Miyuki. Nostalgic. Stacy Willingham. She writes well. Yokomizo Seishi. Now this, this guy knew how to read mystery novels!!
A sense of inner intimacy sprouted rapidly. We might have gotten along pretty well.
I grinned and crouched down in front of the bookshelf.
It was to make sure I examined every inch down to the bottom of the shelf, and I immediately found something unusual.
…It was an album.
“Hmm…?”
When I took it out, it was quite thin. So until I opened it, I hadn’t thought it was an album.
It was an album decorated with great care. It had a neat, orderly feel to it.
As if only carefully taken photos had been selected and developed on a chosen day.
From thousands of photos collected since early childhood, only the ones they truly wanted to include had been chosen and chosen again. That kind of album.
Is this how albums are made these days? Then again, even family photos are stored on external hard drives now; analog albums like this must be hard to see unless someone deliberately sets out to make one.
I skimmed through the album. This family seemed to be a family of four too.
Two young sisters were smiling brightly at the camera. I couldn’t quite tell which one was Gang Jimin.
The family photos, continuing like a timeline, cut off at a certain point.
Even though there was still plenty of blank space left.
…My thoughts began to veer in an unpleasant direction.
There’s no need for even something like this to be a parallel theory, you know.
I shut the album with a smack and put it back where it had been.
Once again, I moved as if running away, and this time I rummaged through the closet.
The clothes were just as bare. Black. White. Beige. Black. Gray.
Solid colors or solid colors. It absolutely did not look like the wardrobe of a woman in her early twenties.
Most of the clothes were boxy oversized T-shirts too. Even the winter clothes set aside separately were mostly knits and cardigans.
What the hell. This is worse than me, and I’m nearly in my late twenties…?
As I rummaged through the clothes, something strange caught my eye.
There was a cardboard box inside the closet.
When I took it out and opened it, it contained things like bankbooks and a registered seal.
I’d forgotten because of the home bartending and the album, but this was the kind of thing I’d originally started searching for.
I placed it on the desk and examined it carefully.
First, the registered seal. Nothing particularly noteworthy.
And four bankbooks.
I opened them, thinking there might be some kind of information, but there was nothing—not even deposit and withdrawal records.
It seemed they’d been made and never actually used. Well, these days people use online banking and cards; there’s rarely any need to bring a physical bankbook all the way to the bank.
Thanks to the mobile age, most of the gimmicks from the mystery novels I’d read had become completely useless.
At least one bankbook, apparently made when she was young, had small transactions recorded in it, but there was nothing useful.
And the last one seemed to be her main account… maybe?
It showed four million won, but whether that matched the actual balance was unknown.
Gang Jimin had only just turned twenty. She was either a newcomer to society or a college freshman.
There wasn’t much to gain, but I didn’t get discouraged.
As I kept rummaging through the cardboard box, sure enough, if you seek a path, something is bound to come out.
An old notebook.
Inside was an old notebook she probably hadn’t used recently.
When I opened it, crooked handwriting was written inside.
Faded paper, crooked letters that looked as if they had been written by a small hand.
Excited, I flipped through the pages quickly.
This notebook was something Gang Jimin had used since she was young.
And there are things you’d expect to find in a notebook like this.
Are there?
There are, right?
There are..!!
A triumphant smile rose on my face on its own.
That’s right. What other reason would there be to keep an old notebook like this?
So-and-so’s contact info. Old addresses. I don’t need that.
xMarble ID. Hanxgame ID. xite ID.
Yes. This was it.
All sorts of passwords she’d used since childhood were written here.
***
The IDs and passwords created by elementary schooler Gang Jimin generally followed the same favorite pattern.
Simple passwords and flimsy security. With just a little thinking, they were so sloppy that if you figured out one, you could crack all the rest.
Normally, people don’t use passwords like these for accounts they make after getting older. They’re a bit too flimsy to drag into things like internet banking or joint certificates.
But how much incredible security does a computer password need?
For things like this, people usually use familiar numbers, numbers they’ve been typing on keyboards for half their lives until they come out as naturally as breathing!!
Especially if sleep mode appears often, then the password will be even easier to type.
For a long while, only the sound of tap-tap-tapping could be heard.
After five failures, it locked, and sixty seconds of silence passed.
Then only the sound of keyboard tapping could be heard again.
Then another sixty seconds of silence.
After many such attempts continued.
At last, the lock was undone.
“…Haha.”
The laugh that came out of my trembling throat shook as it escaped.
I won. The promised day I had been waiting for had finally arrived. My head was filled with nothing but that thought.
Now what should I do first? Check my Asgard account? It must be gone, right? My ten thousand hours of playtime must be gone too, right?
Fuck, is that important?!
The important thing is the fact that Hela: Odinson will be installed on this computer, and that alone!!
Everyone, out of my way!!
It is the hour of heroes and great men!!!
Prepare the liquor and the doghouse!!
“…”
My head, heated and flushed with excitement, cooled down in an instant.
Because the moment I clutched my head, fought tooth and nail, and finally unlocked it, what greeted me was a terrifying trap.
“Uh… uhbuh… ubbububu…”
Gang Jimin’s desktop was as barren as her room.
The default Windows wallpaper, with exactly three icons.
An internet browser.
The recycle bin.
And one text file.
“Urk…!!”
The problem was the name of that text file.
The feeling of it.
It was far too violent.
[will.txt]
Concise.
Ruinous.
A violent name.
***
The title alone had tremendous destructive power.
From the violent title itself, to the way it sat right there in the center, to the fact that it was on the PC of a woman who had swallowed a fistful of sleeping pills and attempted suicide.
I had an ominous feeling, but I couldn’t pretend I hadn’t seen it and move on either.
As if possessed, I clicked the file and opened it.
The file opened, and a will appeared.
The suicide note wasn’t very long. At a rough estimate, maybe five hundred characters.
This short memo was her final words.
There wasn’t much miscellaneous detail about herself. Rather, most of it was greetings to various acquaintances.
Words like faded gratitude and pitiful apologies.
At the resignation permeating every single letter, I unknowingly frowned.
The sentences were neat, but at the same time sharp-edged.
They were polite, but at the same time filled with spite.
A sense of loss could be glimpsed in every corner of the short piece of writing.
It felt as though my own dark past had been shoved right in front of my eyes, making it deeply uncomfortable.
The will, which made me feel as if I could tell what kind of person the human Gang Jimin had been, ended by adding trivial details like, [I hope my inheritance is used for something good. If there is room for legal dispute, I would prefer the Red Cross,] and, [I would like the cash I put separately in my wallet to be given to the person who has the trouble of clearing away my body.]
“Hoo…”
With difficulty, I lifted my hand and closed the Notepad file.
I thought about putting it in the recycle bin and erasing even its traces, but I couldn’t bring myself to move my hand.
Even after agonizing over it, I still couldn’t delete it. At least I wanted it out of sight, so I dragged it into some random folder and let out the breath I’d been holding down.
She is no longer here. This will, too, will no longer be read.
It was truly bitter.
A single Notepad file sitting alone on the desktop.
That pitiful will written inside it would never be read by anyone now.
With a bitter expression, I opened my mouth.
“…Let’s just install Odinson!”
I do feel bad saying something like this…
But.
But we only met today…!!