God of Ad-libs

A bungee jump platform in the countryside.

Standing 63 meters high.

At the base of the platform, two staff members in fluorescent vests chatted quietly.

“This is the last customer, right?”

“Yeah.”

Their job was simple: once the customer dangled down from the jump platform, they’d go over in a rubber boat, release the safety gear, and bring them back.

“I’ll just take a quick call.”

“Hey.”

“It’ll be over soon. Besides, it takes like 10 minutes for someone to actually jump.”

Far above, a faint figure stood on the jump platform, but they wouldn’t likely jump right away.

Bungee Jump.

Most people thought it was a straightforward thrill—just jump with a safety harness. But once they stood on the edge, their minds would be flooded with thoughts.

“True. All sorts of things go through your head up there.”

Mostly, worst-case scenarios.

The line might snap from poor maintenance. The safety gear could come undone mid-jump. The cord might twist and squeeze around them. Or the length could be miscalculated, sending them crashing into the river.

It was rare, but not as if accidents like these had never happened.

“Even if it’s a 0.001% chance, if it happens to you—”

“Whoa, whoa! They’re jumping!”

“Huh?”

The staff member quickly turned, surprised to see the customer jumping without hesitation.

Pretty brave.

The experience of jumping, shaking off all those fears, was something words couldn’t fully capture.

The staff watched as the cord stretched down beneath the blue sky, a strange sense of anticipation on their faces.

“Oh.”

“Oh.”

In truth, watching the expressions of customers as they fell was one of their own little pleasures.

A person’s raw expression.

The faces of those who had overcome the primitive fear of death to make the leap, their adrenaline bursting through.

The liberation, the thrill.

The raw emotion.

There was something about that primal, unfiltered expression that stirred something deep inside each time they saw it—

“…?”

“…?”

But this time, something seemed off in the employees’ expressions.

As the last customer fell closer and closer, to the point they could make out his face—

“…!”

“…!”

The staff’s faces went stiff as they recognized him.

No way.

They watched the customer finish his fall and hang above the water for a long, silent moment.

Dangle, Dangle, Dangle.

The customer looked their way, as if asking to be let down. Finally, the two pushed the rubber boat toward him, glancing at each other in mutual disbelief.

“Is that…?”

“Yeah…”

From the moment they could see his face clearly, the customer’s expression hadn’t changed at all.

He looked like some enlightened master or a stone Buddha.

But that wasn’t the only reason the two were so baffled by him.

“That’s… the guy from earlier…”

“What on earth is he?”

Since morning, up until now, just as they were about to end their shift—

That person had jumped five times today.

*****

Lee Taegyu, age 30.

A man who, at some point, had lost the thrill in his life.

“…Thank you for your work.”

Not long after he stepped outside, he heard excited screams ringing out from behind.

“Whoooaaaa—!”

He was envious.

The lives of ordinary people who could deeply immerse themselves in life’s moments with just a single bungee jump.

“Life’s just not interesting…”

Yes.

Lee Taegyu was someone who was completely exhausted with his own life, which felt as aimless as his steps down the hill.

Step… Step…

These days, it was hard to feel immersed in life.

Life felt unexciting, and he had nothing to look forward to tomorrow. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d experienced an emotion that shook up his day-to-day routine.

Step… Step…

When was the last time he laughed out loud? Cried without holding back? Got angry enough to raise his voice? Or even felt any clear emotion that would add color to his bland life?

He wasn’t as emotionally reactive as he used to be.

It hadn’t always been this way, but Taegyu couldn’t pinpoint exactly when things had changed.

He tilted his head back, gazing up at the sky, already half-accepting it.

The fluffy clouds floating around.

Like those drifting clouds in the sky, his life was flowing along in a dry, uneventful way, bound to dissolve somewhere along the line.

There was a time when this had been unbearable.

But now, after accepting reality, he was doing his best to try to improve things, no matter how small.

“…One ticket to East Seoul, please.”

At the bus terminal, Taegyu bought a ticket for Seoul.

Sighing, he took out a cigarette while waiting, lighting up in the smoking area beside the platform.

Click.

Looking back, he’d even taken up smoking in the hope of feeling something different.

Not that he was a psychopath, of course.

It was just that the kind of emotions that could truly paint his life had disappeared at some point. He could still feel faint emotions, though.

Like now.

“Ahem.”

An old man in a shabby, outdated suit approached, clearing his throat as he did.

“You see, I lost my wallet a while ago…”

“Ah.”

“I’m not usually the type to beg, but… tomorrow’s my nephew’s wedding, and I lost my phone, too. I’m in real trouble here… I can’t make it to Seoul without someone’s help…”

A flicker of sympathy.

When he saw the old man with dried tear marks on his face, he felt a faint pang of pity.

“You’re going to Seoul?”

“Yes, yes.”

“East Seoul?”

“That’s right! All I need is that ticket. Really, I’ll pay you back somehow if you can help me—”

“I’ll get it for you.”

“Oh, thank you! Thank you so much!”

Taegyu watched the old man grip his hand tightly in gratitude.

He wasn’t naive, of course.

He had considered the possibility of a scam, but as he watched the old man bow repeatedly with nothing but the bus ticket to East Seoul in hand, Taegyu let it go and boarded the bus.

Thud.

By pure chance, the old man was assigned the seat right next to him. They didn’t talk further, though, aside from the man repeating his gratitude three times before finally quieting down.

“…”

“…”

The express bus set off toward Seoul.

Vroooom—

As the bus sped down the highway, Taegyu, staring out the window, quickly drifted into other thoughts.

‘Maybe I was expecting too much.’

Today’s bungee jump had been underwhelming.

Sure, he felt a bit more of a thrill than usual, but it wasn’t worth the whole day trip from Seoul to here.

Still, it wasn’t the end yet.

The world was vast, with plenty of experiences he hadn’t yet tried.

‘Wonder what this weekend will be like.’

An unusual part-time job he’d lined up for the weekend.

Since it was a mysterious gig without much information available, maybe it would offer him a more interesting experience.

He was mentally prepared for it.

He had no intention of getting involved in drugs or crime, but if this boredom continued unresolved…

‘I hope it’s good.’

He thought that if he was really bored, he could even consider loan sharking—

“Loan sharking, huh?”

At first, he thought he’d misheard.

But as the old man next to him continued speaking, Taegyu’s eyes flew open wide.

“If you’re bored, you could try loan sharking, huh? Ridiculous.”

“…Excuse me?”

“Give me your hand.”

“My hand?”

“No need to pay; I owe you one anyway.”

Did he just read my mind?

“It’s close enough.”

“!”

Just as Taegyu was wondering how to react, the old man grabbed his hand.

Thump!

His eyes widened.

More than just being surprised, Lee Taegyu’s heart raced from the unfamiliar surge of emotion, one he hadn’t felt in a long time.

Clicking his tongue as he observed Taegyu’s expression, the old man alternated between looking at his palm and his face, then finally came to a conclusion.

“…You’re one unusually pitiful young man.”

Just as Taegyu opened his mouth to respond to that strange remark—

“Laugh.”

“Sorry?”

“That’s it. Just laugh more often, and your problems will start to sort themselves out.”

“No, I—”

“Just now, you were thinking, ‘How can I laugh if there’s nothing to laugh about?’ right?”

Unbelievable.

“Listen carefully. You don’t laugh because you feel like it. You feel like it because you laugh.”

The old man’s face was as serious as could be.

It was hard to dismiss words from someone who’d clearly read his thoughts.

A sage? A mystic?

Taegyu wasn’t sure who he was, but he found himself instinctively focusing on what the man had to say.

“…Would this make you laugh?”

Suddenly, Taegyu almost chuckled.

Out of nowhere, the old man raised his eyebrows in a comical frown, thrusting his chin forward with his mouth wide open, making an absurd face.

He had to be over eighty.

Slapstick wasn’t usually Taegyu’s thing, but seeing someone so unlikely to do it making such a ridiculous face in that moment made it impossible to resist.

“I… almost laughed.”

“Good enough for you?”

“Well, yes, it’s… entertaining.”

“Want me to teach you how to make this face?”

The old man’s response, with his face exaggerated like something out of a cartoon, was hilarious. His protruding jaw and raised upper lip muffled his speech, but Taegyu could still understand him.

“I think I’ve got the gist.”

“Remember it.”

“The face?”

“Yes. It’ll come in handy. After that, just absorb it with your right hand and release it with your left.”

“What do you mean—”

“I can’t explain more, but you’ll understand soon.”

With a cryptic smile, the old man patted Taegyu on the shoulder, just as Taegyu, still puzzled, felt a sudden wave of drowsiness.

“Get some sleep for now.”

An irresistible sleepiness washed over him.

***

“Sir, please wake up.”

The next time Lee Taegyu opened his eyes was long after the bus had reached its destination, East Seoul Terminal.

“Sir!”

“Huh?!”

Groggy, Taegyu was shaken awake by the driver. His bleary eyes blinked as he came to, and the first thing he did was look around for the old man.

“Um, the gentleman who was sitting next to me—”

“Excuse me?”

“The old man sitting here earlier.”

“What are you talking about? There hasn’t been anyone in that seat this whole trip.”

“…What?”

“Oh, you must mean King Sejong! Haha, good one. Come on, gather your stuff; we’ve arrived.” [1]

All he found in the seat beside him was a few bills.

Taegyu quickly realized the money was the exact amount he had spent on the old man’s bus ticket earlier.

It was bizarre.

‘…What just happened?’

As the driver continued urging him to get off, Taegyu grabbed his things and exited the bus.

Even after a quick stop in the restroom at the East Seoul Terminal, he still couldn’t make sense of what had happened.

Who was that old man? What exactly had he experienced? The questions kept circling in his mind.

“That’s it!”

“Whoo!”

“Wow, for real!”

Startled by the sudden shouts, Taegyu turned his head.

It was coming from the main waiting area of the terminal.

A few people had been watching a live broadcast on the big monitor at the center of the room and were now cheering.

–Yes, this year, Do Gwang-sun beat out strong competition to win the Best Actor Award.

An end-of-year awards show was being broadcasted.

Normally, he would have been interested.

Taegyu wasn’t the type to dislike that sort of thing.

Drama or film—it was all about problematic people dealing with problematic situations, wasn’t it? Stories that let people escape their mundane lives, offering a taste of extreme emotions they’d rarely experience firsthand.

–Let’s give him a round of applause, and we’ll hear his acceptance speech.

And the person on screen now was Do Gwang-sun.

A major actor whose works Taegyu had seen multiple times.

‘What did he say again?’

Taegyu still felt disoriented, his mind struggling to focus.

His eyes were on the monitor, but his thoughts remained fixed on the strange, dream-like events he’d just experienced.

‘Will that face really be helpful?’

The moment he unconsciously moved his facial muscles, trying to imitate the old man’s ridiculous expression from the bus—

Wrinkle.

–First of all, I’d first like to express my deepest gratitude.

On the large screen, just beside the actor giving his acceptance speech—

‘…What?’

A flicker, like a will-o’-the-wisp, floated into view.

Flare!

*****

[1] – The driver thinks that the “old man” must be King Sejong because his face appears on the 10,000 won bill.