Our Destiny | haobin

Two

"Wait... but would I still be human? What am I now?" Zhang Hao asks them. He still can't fully believe this, but it's better to ask questions so he can get more answers.

"To answer your question..." Jiwoong starts. "Yes, you're still human. But you're a different kind of human. You're not like the other humans who are still fully alive."

"Different kind?"

"Now you also have the ability to decide people's destiny." Jiwoong reaches for a book and Zhang Hao sees the name written on it is 'Seok Matthew'. "Watch this." He picks up a pen and starts writing something on the book.

Zhang Hao takes a closer look and sees he wrote, 'As Matthew is walking, he meets his friend Ricky along the way.'

Then he sees Jiwoong look up, so he looks towards that direction and sees a screen. He's assuming that's Matthew and Ricky.

"Wow, I can't believe this is actually real." Zhang Hao tries pinching himself. "How can we see them as if it's a tv show?"

"Like I said, we're not like regular humans." Jiwoong tells him. "So...? Do you accept? Will you help someone or not?"

"Yes." Zhang Hao nods. 'Anything is better than fully dying.' He thinks to himself.

"Alright... you only have to start off by helping one person."

"Do I get to choose the person?" Zhang Hao asks, curiously.

Gyuvin and Jiwoong looks at each other, then laugh. "Of course not."

"We have a whole bunch of people who need help, but I'll just choose a random book from here and give it to you." Jiwoong closes his eyes and scans through the books with his hands, before picking up a random one and handing it to Zhang Hao.

"Sung Hanbin?" Zhang Hao looks down at the name on the cover, then up at Gyuvin and Jiwoong.

"Sung Hanbin." Gyuvin looks at the name for a few seconds, before he looks up at the screen in front of him. Zhang Hao assumes the person being shown on it is Hanbin. "He has no one in life. His parents abandoned him when he was a child, which made him end up in an orphanage. When he turned seven, he was adopted, but his adoptive parents passed away when he was twelve. After that, kids bullied him at the orphanage, calling him bad luck and saying he was the reason his parents died. No one adopted him after that. When he turned fifteen, he met a guy his age named 'Minsoo', who he became really close to."

"Oh, alright... at least now he has this Minsoo guy, right? I'm sure he's not that miserable anymore, so this should be easy." A small smile forms on Zhang Hao's face as he closes the book, being sure he can do this. He'll go back to being fully human and living his normal life in no time.

"Well, about that..." Gyuvin starts.

"Minsoo's dead." Jiwoong tells him.

"Huh?" Zhang Hao asks, confused.

"So now Hanbin is even more miserable and gets even more bullied at school. They make fun of him for getting abandoned by his parents and they say he's bad luck for what happened to his adoptive parents and Minsoo."

"How old is he now?"

"He's eighteen." Jiwoong answers. "You must help him, Zhang Hao... And it won't be easy."

"What? But I'm in charge of his destiny now. Can't I just write that he's happy? He'll stop being miserable if I just start writing good things on his book."

"It doesn't work like that." Jiwoong shakes his head. "Matthew's one of the people I'm in charge of, so I'll use him as an example. Just like happiness, if I write that Matthew falls in love with someone, it won't happen unless he actually falls for that person. If I just write that in the book, it doesn't come true. If I want him to fall in love with someone, I'd have to write it little by little."

"Huh? But why?"

"Because it'll feel too forced for him, so that's not really what he'd be feeling." Gyuvin tells him. "So if you write that Hanbin becomes happy, he'll seem happy, but that's not how he'll really feel on the inside. He'll just think, 'why do I look happy when I actually feel sad?' Which means, you wouldn't be completing your mission."

"Oh..." Zhang Hao finally understands what they mean. "This is going to be harder than I thought."