Park Do-yoon had two lives.
His first life began when the sun went down.
In that life, he was a twenty-four-year-old man with earrings in both ears, several tattoos he had gotten under circumstances he would never explain to his father, and a shoe collection worth enough to make any sane person question his priorities in life.
He liked nightclubs.
He liked drinking.
He liked traveling without a clear itinerary, booking hotels that were far too expensive, buying clothes he didn't actually need, and uploading everything to TikTok as if his life were a premium documentary about how to spend money in the shortest time possible.
His second life began after midnight.
In that life, he talked to the dead.
And strangely enough, it was his second life that was the more orderly one.
At 1:37 in the early morning hours, Do-yoon was sitting on the sofa of an apartment in Mapo, staring at a dead woman who had been dead for three weeks.
The woman sat on the floor.
Crying.
She had been crying for almost forty minutes.
Do-yoon looked at the time on his phone.
Then he looked at the woman.
Then he looked back at the time.
“So,” he said at last, “are we still on the same part?”
The woman nodded.
Her tears kept falling.
“He didn’t come.”
“Who?”
“My boyfriend.”
Do-yoon waited.
There was no further answer.
“Which boyfriend?”
The woman lifted her face.
Her look immediately told Do-yoon he had chosen the wrong question.
“I only had one.”
“Oh.”
Do-yoon nodded slowly.
The problem was, he really wasn't very good at dealing with crying women.
Living women, especially.
At least a dead woman couldn't contact him on KakaoTalk after the session was over.
“He said he would come.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Which tomorrow?”
The woman fell silent.
Do-yoon looked at her.
“Because you've been dead for three weeks.”
“I know.”
“And he still hasn't come.”
“I know.”
“So most likely—”
“Don't.”
Do-yoon shut his mouth.
Fine.
At least there were still professional boundaries.
He set his phone on the table.
The apartment was actually nice. Two bedrooms, a white-and-light-wood interior, and large windows facing other apartment buildings that were still lit even though it was almost two in the morning.
Seoul never really slept.
People were still coming home from work.
Delivery drivers were still bringing food.
Couples were still fighting over the phone.
Young people were still stumbling out of clubs with faces that looked like they had just made a bad decision.
And in one of those apartments, a dead woman was waiting for a boyfriend who wasn't coming.
Do-yoon sighed.
“Does he know you're dead?”
The woman nodded.
“He came to the funeral.”
“There.”
“He cried.”
“There.”
“Then he left.”
“Yeah.”
“He never came back after that.”
Do-yoon rubbed his face.
“Because he's still alive.”
The woman stared at him.
Do-yoon pointed at himself.
“I'm still alive too. We all have things to deal with.”
“He said he loved me.”
“A lot of people say that.”
“Does that mean he lied?”
“No.”
Do-yoon fell silent for a moment.
He had never liked this part.
His job often sounded like the job of a psychologist, except his patients were dead and could sometimes knock things off shelves without touching them.
“Sometimes people love someone,” he said softly, “but that doesn't mean they know what to do after that person is gone.”
The woman lowered her head.
Do-yoon let her cry.
For a few seconds, he didn't joke.
He didn't check his phone.
He didn't complain.
He simply stayed quiet.
Then the woman asked, “Do you think he's already forgotten me?”
Do-yoon looked at her.
“I don't know.”
“Can you see?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I'm a shaman, not CCTV.”
The woman fell silent.
Do-yoon gave her a faint smile.
“Sorry.”
For the first time that night, the woman almost laughed.
Almost.
Then came a knock.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
Do-yoon turned toward the door.
The woman turned too.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
Three times.
Evenly spaced.
Do-yoon stood.
“Who knows you're still here?”
The woman shook her head.
“No one.”
Do-yoon walked toward the door.
He didn't open it right away.
His hand stopped a few centimeters from the handle.
There was something outside.
Not human.
He could feel it.
The air in the hallway suddenly felt colder.
The light above the door flickered once.
Do-yoon drew a breath.
Then his expression changed.
The change was small.
Almost imperceptible.
His shoulders, relaxed a moment ago, straightened.
The last traces of sleep vanished from his eyes.
When he spoke, his voice no longer sounded like that of a man who, five minutes earlier, had been debating whether to order fried chicken.
“Don't open the door.”
The woman stared at him.
“Why?”
Do-yoon didn't answer.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
The knocking came again.
This time, louder.
He stared at the door.
Then he slowly whispered,
“Because whoever's knocking isn't here for you.”
Outside, someone laughed.
Softly.
Very softly.
Then the voice said,
“Do-yoon.”
He froze.
Not many things could scare Park Do-yoon.
Ghosts weren't one of them.
He had seen too many.
But the voice that had just called his name—
He knew it.
Do-yoon took one step back.
And for the first time that night, all the color drained from his face.
Because that voice should have been dead.
For years now.