The first thing he learned was that this body had already been dying.
Not from disease.
From neglect.
From exhaustion.
From being invisible.
Dr. Seo did not speak much while she examined him. She moved efficiently, quietly, but her eyes never stopped measuring. Heart. Reflexes. Pupils. She noted the old scars on his forearms. The malnutrition. The microfractures that had healed wrong.
"This collapse saved you," she said finally, looking at his chart. "Another few weeks in your condition, and your heart might have failed."
Saved.
The word settled heavy in his chest.
"Who… am I?" he asked.
Dr. Seo hesitated, then picked up a thin brown envelope from the counter.
"You didn't carry any identification," she said. "But someone reported a missing person from the same area you collapsed."
She opened the file.
"Your name is… Han Jae-Min."
The sound of it felt like wearing someone else's clothes.
Han Jae-Min.
Twenty-two.
Dropped out of an art institute.
Part-time convenience store worker.
Hospital records showed repeat visits for exhaustion, anemia, and unexplained fainting.
No family contact.
No emergency number.
No visitors.
No one had even come to check if he lived.
A quiet pressure spread behind Tae-Hyun's eyes.
Not grief.
Something worse.
Erasure.
Dr. Seo slid the file closer. "Do you remember anything?"
He looked down.
And the memories came.
A narrow rented room with mold-stained walls.
A cracked phone with no missed calls.
Sketchbooks filled with unfinished faces.
A mirror reflecting someone he never wanted to be.
A life so small it barely left footprints.
He closed his eyes.
"I remember… being tired," he said.
Dr. Seo watched him for a long moment.
Then softly, "So did he."
He opened his eyes.
She had not said you.
She had said he.
As if, somewhere inside her, she had already separated them.
"You can rest today," she continued. "We'll keep you for observation. Your tests…" she paused, choosing her words. "They're unusual."
He met her gaze. "Unusual how?"
A flicker crossed her eyes.
"Like someone edited a human body without leaving tool marks."
Silence.
Then she added, gentler, "But that may just be my curiosity speaking."
She stood to leave.
At the door, she stopped.
"Han Jae-Min," she said, deliberately. "Whatever you feel… you can talk to me. Some recoveries are not physical."
When she was gone, the room felt colder.
He stared at the ceiling.
Han Jae-Min.
A dead boy who had been alive.
A living man who had died.
He lifted his hand again.
Focused.
Not on pain.
On memory.
On the cells that carried this boy's history.
And they answered.
A rush flooded him—fragmented, aching, unfinished.
A landlord's shout.
A professor's disappointment.
A mother's blurred face walking away.
A night spent sketching alone under a flickering bulb.
A chest that hurt because it wanted something it couldn't name.
His jaw tightened.
This boy had not been evil.
He had not been ambitious.
He had simply… faded.
Tae-Hyun lowered his hand.
"I will use this life," he murmured into the empty room.
"Not waste it."
The television across the ward was still running.
"…tributes continue to pour in for Helix Crown CEO Kang Tae-Hyun. Stocks have temporarily frozen as the board announces an emergency succession meeting—"
The image cut to his former office.
To flowers.
To bowed heads.
To men in suits wearing grief like an accessory.
His fingers curled.
So fast.
Already dividing power.
Already rewriting his name.
Already touching what he had died to protect.
He felt it then.
Not rage.
Clarity.
They had buried him.
So he would dig his way back in.
Not as Kang Tae-Hyun.
But as Han Jae-Min.
A nobody.
A shadow.
A mistake no one would look twice at.
And mistakes were always the most dangerous.
The door opened quietly.
Dr. Seo returned, holding a small plastic bag.
"These were your belongings," she said.
Inside:
A broken phone.
Some coins.
And a folded piece of paper.
She handed it to him.
He unfolded it.
A pencil sketch slid open.
It was unfinished.
A man in a black suit, standing before a glass tower.
Faceless.
But familiar.
He stared at it.
Dr. Seo watched his reaction closely.
"…Do you draw?" she asked.
He looked up slowly.
At the doctor who would one day understand what he was.
And maybe… become the only reason he stayed human.
"I used to build empires," he replied.
Then, quieter,
"Now I suppose… I'll start with myself."
Outside the hospital window, the city continued to mourn a dead devil.
Inside it…
one learned his new name.