Little Pink Starfish

“As expected, it won’t be that easy.”

Aiden rested his chin on his hand and smiled.

Then he looked around.

Scanning the nearby surroundings, nothing had particularly changed. The interior of the officetel he was staying in remained intact. The chair where his body was resting, and even Jeong Hangyeol sitting across from him, who was staring at Aiden with a dazed expression.

But looking farther, it was strange.

Beyond the window, a rainforest stretched out. The height here was also abnormal. It was a view only seen from a level different than where Aiden’s room was supposed to be.

Aiden knew this place was the boundary between the living world and the underworld. He hadn’t deliberately thought about it—this knowledge simply flowed into his mind naturally. Perhaps it was because his body was no longer that of a human. Aiden shook his head and sneered.

‘It feels… unpleasant.’

The gaze of a human and the gaze of a constellation were different. Aiden felt as if his eyes weren’t attached to his head, but to the heavens. His transformed body was perceiving far too many things.

He sensed the gate opened in the sky. He perceived the countless guardian angels pouring out of it.

And then, he sensed the gate closing.

It was thanks to the efforts of ‘The Star Hated by All’ and ‘The Archangel Who Cast Down the King of Hell.’

‘So they’ve begun to act.’

Aiden’s lips curled into a thin smile. The origins, purposes, and values of those two naturally flowed into his mind. Truly, an unpleasant sensation. The feeling of understanding others entirely…

“Would you say something?”

Staring forward, Aiden asked.

“By now, you’ve regained almost your complete form from when you were alive. There’s only one empty piece left in your soul. You should be able to recognize who I am, and why I’ve done all this.”

So please say something.

Won’t you speak to me?

At Aiden’s question, Jeong Hangyeol opened his mouth.

He opened it, recalling the sensation of air filling his lungs.

“…I didn’t want you to do this.”

Jeong Hangyeol spoke, as if vomiting out the words.

“Of course you didn’t.”

Aiden smiled faintly.

“But I also didn’t want you to leave like that. One day I woke up, and everyone had forgotten you. And somehow, I ended up taking on your role.”

Everyone called him Aiden. Even though he wasn’t Aiden, he became Aiden overnight.

Jeong Hangyeol had left only the good things behind. With his existence erased, what Aiden gained was fame and the position at the top. Since Jeong Hangyeol’s life had been wiped from everyone’s memory, all the malicious facts that once tormented him were discarded.

Like burning a failed manuscript.

“I didn’t want that.”

But that beautiful situation was precisely what Aiden most despised.

It made him sick. Those who smiled innocently and called themselves his group members gathered around, pushing him to keep working. They were each immersed in their dreams in a healthy way. But it shouldn’t have been that way. They should have grieved.

Everyone should have grieved. Aiden firmly believed that.

Invisible death somehow becomes a joke. Stories of people dying on the other side of the world become gossip less significant than the domestic quarrels heard next door.

“I was the one who made them forget me… It was my will. Those people aren’t to blame.”

Jeong Hangyeol spoke calmly.

“So you should have blamed me. Why didn’t you?”

Jeong Hangyeol’s head tilted weakly. His hair slid down his forehead as he gazed at Aiden’s face through the strands.

“I wanted you to be happy.”

Jeong Hangyeol whispered softly.

“But at the same time, I thought maybe… you would hurt for me.”

Because you were my only true friend.

Jeong Hangyeol murmured.

“Pain is only a fleeting sensation. Someday it washes away and disappears, one way or another. Just as I chose annihilation so I wouldn’t have to feel pain anymore.”

But at the same time, pain becomes a driving force that allows one to feel life.

I wanted you to be the only person who could feel my life.

Jeong Hangyeol smiled faintly.

“That was… my selfish desire.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

Aiden’s gaze sharpened.

“I did all of this for you.”

Placing a hand on his chest, Aiden spoke.

“People need to know about your death. They need to know about the pain you experienced in life. There was no reason for you to disappear. That’s why I did all this.”

He could have lived much more easily if he wanted to.

As Aiden of Codess, he could have steadily gained fame and approached the goals he sought. He could have smiled and waved before everyone, receiving blessings directed at him. Even if it was impossible, at least he could have tried.

But Aiden refused.

He didn’t need it. He knew too well how hollow and transparent it all was. He had watched an entertainer crumble under the spotlight. Aiden was the only person who hadn’t forgotten how Jeong Hangyeol had fallen apart.

“…You’re far too kind.”

Jeong Hangyeol exhaled weakly and shrugged.

“I understand your feelings. But you see…”

I didn’t think everyone needed to know about my death.

I didn’t want to show that. Not the very end of my life.

“I had already shown too much. What I like and dislike, what my goals were, how I worked to achieve them. Sometimes things I didn’t want exposed were captured on camera, sometimes my mistakes were recorded and spread everywhere.”

That was the life I lived.

I lived that way all along,

So having even my death recorded somewhere… felt a little distasteful.

Smiling faintly, Jeong Hangyeol whispered.

“That was all. That was the reason I chose annihilation over suicide.”

Jeong Hangyeol rose from his chair.

Then approached Aiden.

“And also…”

Looking down at Aiden, Jeong Hangyeol whispered.

“Even so… being forgotten by everyone was sad.”

Just one person.

I wanted you to remember me.

That was all.

I never wanted you to resurrect me or destroy yourself because of me.

“…That wasn’t your fault.”

Looking up at Jeong Hangyeol, Aiden murmured.

“It was my choice. I simply believed this was how your life should be written.”

A sharp smile appeared on Aiden’s lips.

“Either way, you’ve returned to life. That’s enough. Now I…”

It didn’t matter anymore, Aiden thought.

Whether he became a constellation or not, whether he escaped the punishment of the other constellations or received harsh judgment—it didn’t matter. What mattered was that Jeong Hangyeol stood before him. That alone was enough.

He had heard from ‘The Ever-Burning Mother’ that the final trial to become a constellation involved creation. Only those who create something could become constellations. But Aiden wasn’t sure. Was creation even necessary in this world? Perhaps nothingness itself was the most perfect state.

Even so, if ‘The Savior Who Is One and All’ had created the world, for what reason?

Aiden thought he might never understand.

But if reviving a friend who had already vanished counted as creation…

“I’ve recreated you, who had become nothing.”

Looking up at Jeong Hangyeol, Aiden smiled.

“So it’s enough now. Just one last piece remains…”

“No.”

Jeong Hangyeol grabbed Aiden’s wrist.

“No, not anymore.”

Jeong Hangyeol’s voice pierced Aiden’s ears.

A firm tone. He had never heard him speak like that before.

“Wake up. I won’t let you complete me.”

The look in Jeong Hangyeol’s eyes was pure fear. The Aiden standing before him was no longer human. Jeong Hangyeol knew that well. After all, it was his own misguided choice that had brought this about.

Aiden no longer had a human heart.

A human heart couldn’t have done all this. It was closer to a god’s heart.

“…Why not?”

Aiden spoke as if he couldn’t understand.

“There’s nothing impossible in this world, Hangyeol. It’s only a matter of whether something can be realized or not. There’s no such thing as impossible.”

Listening to Aiden’s words, Jeong Hangyeol sighed.

Indeed. The man before him had long since lost his humanity.

And so, this had happened. Jeong Hangyeol sensed the souls composing his body. These weren’t his own. They were fragmented souls that had drifted far from him. Some had become flowers blooming in fields, others were floating in the clouds above. Some were reborn as people under new names, while others were wild animals peacefully grazing.

Countless souls had been stitched together like a patchwork quilt to form him.

This is wrong. It shouldn’t be like this.

How did it come to this?

Jeong Hangyeol’s vision began to blur.

Through the blur, he gazed at the table placed between the two chairs.

A young, unknown boy was lying there.

This child too was one of the fragments born from him.

“…Are you planning to kill this child?”

Jeong Hangyeol squeezed out the question, and Aiden tilted his head.

“I can’t?”

Aiden pondered why it shouldn’t be done. He looked through the eyes of a god gazing down from the heavens, not a human.

There was no reason it couldn’t be done.

“Why not?”

He asked Jeong Hangyeol.

“Tell me why not. If I extract the soul from this child, you’ll be complete. Don’t you want to live again?”

“…I said I don’t.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Aiden smiled.

A pure smile, like a child’s—or a god’s.

“Because I want to make you live again.”