A piece of writing I wrote out of boredom

Lucid Dream [The Chronicles of the Officer]

lucid dreaming

Reality and dreams

After working overtime, I came home late at night, and it was almost dawn. I, a paint company employee, had finished the color classification and report given to me by the manager. Today, too, the dream of leaving work on time disappeared like a mirage, as if it were a vain hope. (To be honest, I didn't expect it after seeing it every day.) The timing of the work given to our department is truly incredible. (I write "giving" but read it as "postponing.") Now I think it's amazing that they gave me work at the very moment I dreamed of leaving work on time. Did I do something wrong? Still, I can proudly say that I live my life treating everyone kindly and being friendly to my superiors. When I force myself to be positive and say that I'm really good at my work, I feel a little better. Thanks to the work that the manager frantically put off, I'm about to be promoted to team leader. Should I attribute this to the manager? I thought it would be a waste to think about him during this joyful moment of leaving work, so I decided to erase that idiot manager from my memory.

As I leave the office and walk down the street, I feel the refreshing night air. I see noisy bars where people drink until this late at night, people staggering drunk, and crowded clubs. A rainbow on the street. Oh, no, even up to here... I have money, but it's been months since I've seen my friends because I'm so busy. I couldn't even go to the class reunion that was supposed to be held last week because my department suddenly canceled. Seeing other people living well wasn't really a good thing for me, but I guess I can't help but miss my friends. (Oh, why do I look so pitiful?)

'I should go home and drink a can of beer'

I've been busy every day, but lately, I've been so busy I haven't been able to take time for myself. I briefly considered the sacred thought of a vacation, but being a slave to my paycheck, I quickly dismissed the thought and went to the convenience store to buy some snacks. Seeing four cans of beer for 10,000 won, I quickly grabbed them. Whoever came up with this event... They must be a true genius. Or... an angel? Mr. Planner... Didn't the wing removal surgery hurt...? I left the convenience store with a brisk pace and headed home. My rented, yet cozy, home, bought with the money I'd saved over the years by cutting back on food and material pleasures...! As soon as I arrived, I put the beer in the freezer, and the thought of the ice-cold beer filled me with happiness. I took a warm shower to relieve my exhaustion from working overtime. The sweet scent of shampoo made me feel a little less tired. As usual, I thought, "If I just removed my makeup, I'd be reapplying it anyway, so why bother?" But for the sake of my one and only pride, my fair, blemish-free skin, I endured the hassle and pain and thoroughly removed it. As I change into cozy pajamas, I think to myself, even if I go on a staycation, isn't this still relaxation? I crack open a cold beer and the sound of the carbonation makes me think that I go to work just to drink this. I take a sip and the ice-cold beer cools my throat with its refreshing carbonation. Oh... This is the taste! As I watch TV while chewing on the savory squid, I don't envy anyone else at this moment. Like a cultured citizen, I try to enjoy some culture after a long time and change the channel, but there's nothing to see, so the poor remote control is suffering.

'I guess trot is popular these days...'

When I was flipping through the channels, all I saw were programs related to trot. I, who live like a ghost at work, realized that I had only just discovered trot, which has been popular for a long time. At the same time, my resentment towards the company that ruins my life deepened. After flipping through the channels for a while, I came across a program called 'Ghost Stories You Didn't Know About'. It's called Dangmogoe for short. It's a very famous program where celebrities read stories about ghosts they have personally experienced. I heard it's popular these days, but since I was crazy about student ghost stories, I sometimes watch this program during breaks at work.

"Today's story is... lucid dreaming."

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"One late night, I got home from work and was so tired that I fell asleep right after taking a shower. I had been working overtime for a long time, so I was so tired that I had a dream. However, it was a special and free dream compared to my usual dreams. That dream was what is commonly called a 'lucid dream'. In that dream, I thought about achieving in my dreams what I couldn't achieve in reality, so I vented all the resentment I had built up toward my boss. It was something I would never have been able to do in reality. When I opened my eyes to the sound of my alarm, it was morning. I got ready for work as usual and left the house. I had to go to work, but I went to work with a slightly more relieved heart than usual. I had lucid dreams like this for a week, and each time, I let go of the resentment I had built up toward people. "

"A week had passed, and on Monday, I was subjected to sexist insults and humiliation from my former boss. I couldn't vent because he was my boss, but I also felt like the company wouldn't be on my side if I reported it. As my colleagues said, it was something I just had to endure."

"I was so annoyed that I left work earlier than usual. I fell asleep without even changing my clothes, hoping to have a lucid dream so I could get revenge, even if it was just in my dreams. As I was about to fall asleep, I started to think that maybe I was relying too much on lucid dreams."

"But before I knew it, lucid dreams had become an oasis in the tiring and harsh reality. Today, I was so grateful and happy that the lucid dream that came to me in my dream didn't even remind me of the thoughts I had been worried about earlier. Even though quite some time had passed, my anger showed no signs of abating. In my dream, I was driving my car to the company lobby and stepped on the accelerator. I didn't step on the brake, so I broke the lobby window and got out of the car, and the team leader who had insulted me was crushed to death under the car. It was a dream, and I didn't even know what I was doing because of the shame and insult, so I just thought it was refreshing and I think the thought of 'it was just a dream anyway' came to mind first, rather than the non-existent guilt of having destroyed the lobby, which the damn company considered the face of the company and valued more than its employees. "

"So the next day, I went to work. After letting it go like that, I definitely felt relieved and refreshed. While I was diligently working on my tasks, I suddenly received a text message from my friend. The moment I checked the contents, I almost dropped my phone. It said that a senior I really hated in college had been in a car accident. The reason I was surprised was because I remembered that I had vented my anger on my senior in a dream. Of course, I didn't directly harm him in the dream. It was just an argument. So I decided to think of it as just a 'coincidence' that had nothing to do with me. However, this bad thing wasn't only my senior. Whether I called him in a dream with good intentions or bad ones, bad things happened to everyone. In the end, when I found out that my parents, who lived in another region and whom I had called in a dream because I missed them, had also been in an accident, I realized the seriousness of the situation."

"When things were happening to each and every person like that, I thought about the only person I had harmed, the team leader. That day, I couldn't get anything done. Thoughts like, 'What if the same thing happens again?' and 'Will I be able to overcome my guilt' tangled in my mind. In the end, I just went home from work half-heartedly. I wondered if I should say anything, but inside I wondered what it would be like if this person disappeared from my life. However, I felt that this was not something a human should do, so I called the team leader. At first, his voice was so full of doubt that I could tell he was suspicious. As I expected, he was confused, so he said he would gather his thoughts and hung up. That night, I didn't receive any text messages, so I couldn't sleep because I was so anxious."

"The problem was that it was exactly 9 o'clock, when everyone should have finished work. While I was making coffee in the kitchen, I heard a 'Bam!' sound from the lobby. I was so shocked that I ran out to the lobby. There was a car in the lobby that had been smashed into pieces, and the team leader collapsed in front of it. Fortunately, I was told that there were no casualties, but there were more than one or two strange things. First, there was no one in the driver's seat, and second, the engine was off. I heard these things from the police officer at the time of the incident. Also, I heard from the team leader later that the car seemed to have run into me. After receiving a phone call saying that I was not hurt, I left work with a peaceful mind for the first time in a while, and when I arrived at my front door, there was a note left in front of the door. It was a note written in red, as if it was written in blood.

'Isn't this what you wanted?'

"My eyes suddenly went dark and when I opened them, I was in the emergency room. The person who reported it was a neighbor who I was close with. Later, when I returned home and heard her story, she said that she suddenly heard a loud bang and went outside to find her collapsed holding a blank piece of paper. As expected, when I checked the note in her pocket, it was blank. Fortunately, since then, I have been living my life as usual without any problems. It has already been three years, but it is still vivid and gives me goosebumps, so I am sending this story."

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As expected of a ghost story, I was able to concentrate well and already drank all my beer. Ah... I was trying to save it... But what is this story... Since lucid dreams can happen to anyone, I'm curious. Of course, I hate the thought of it harming the people around me... But I think the manager will be okay... My whole body feels tingling at the thought of going to work tomorrow. Ah, damn, the future is bleak... Since it's almost midnight, I quickly put the beer away and went to the bathroom to brush my teeth. Brushing my teeth before bed is just too annoying... I lay down on the bed and fell asleep in an instant, maybe because of the alcohol. Ah... If I fall asleep, it's work again..... Argh!! It's morning again!!! That damn morning has come. Fortunately, I'm strong against alcohol, so I drank 4 cans, but I didn't get a hangover. But the thought of seeing that manager's face was giving me a hangover I never expected. Damn it. I really want to quit... But as I said before, I'm a slave to my salary... Today, I'm getting ready for work again... My colleagues who greet me as soon as I get to work... Yes! Thanks to my colleagues, I get the energy to go to work!! My best friend Rojin who brings me coffee as soon as I sit down... Oh, he really is an angel... With the caffeine infusion, I'm finally starting to feel better. Now that I'm feeling better, let's talk about Rojin. We first met while waiting for the interview. His last name is Yu-rojin. Thanks to Rojin's cheerful personality, we became close during the interview and even exchanged numbers on the spot... It was the first time we became so close and exchanged numbers, but I was really excited... Was I really this cool? To think I'd made a friend like this... I congratulated him on passing the interview right away and went home, where we spent hours chatting on KakaoTalk. The content of the messages was about why he got a job at a paint company, his favorite paint brand, and colors. Rojin said that he could never forget the feeling he got when he saw a painting done with a unique paint called 'mummy brown'. It was a deep color or something... He said that he liked the color mummy brown from then on... He said that he likes primary colors like red or blue as other colors. We spent time chatting like that, and finally the day came when we were notified of the interview results... When we both checked our emails while talking on the phone, our voices were hoarse from yelling... Anyway, we became close enough to eat lunch together and hang out together, even resembling each other in our school days' taste in ghost stories...? Anyway, that's all for Rojin's story!

"Oh, did you see the ghost last night? It was so scary..."

"I saw it yesterday while drinking beer, and although it was scary, I was also a bit curious. It was really interesting, wasn't it?"

"Oh, that's right... Hello, Manager."

"Oh, you must have nothing to do? I can hear your chatter all the way to the lobby."

"Oh, sorry... I'll work..."

Ah, our poor Rojin... The timing of the manager's appearance is just right... Okay, I should get to work now... Please let me be a righteous salary thief today too. God...! Man, there's so much work today!! My emails are about to explode. What kind of salary thief is this... A slave, a slave... Even while I'm working, the work keeps piling up, it seems like there's no end to it... Wow, what day is today? Is it the day God has marked for me to be unhappy? The department next door is in an uproar, they're asking for our department's help, and they even canceled our department... What the heck?? My wrists hurt from typing like crazy... My salary is going to go towards hospital bills... It was 1 AM when I finished halfway through the work. But I should at least get more... No, I should, this crazy company... An alarm went off on my phone, so I checked it and saw that Rojin had sent me an Americano gift certificate. Oh my god, this is crazy, this is an angel... As soon as I finished work, I really wanted to get out of this fucking company so badly that it would be more accurate to say I ran away rather than walked. But tomorrow is payday... Ah, it's thrilling... But right now, I don't care about paychecks or anything, I just want to go home and sleep... I usually take the bus home from work, but today I decided to take a taxi. It's cooler and more comfortable than the bus... The only drawback is the money, though... Oh my god, I don't know, is that my part-time job right now?? I quickly went home, thanked that tomorrow was Saturday, and fell asleep without even washing up. I've never missed my bed this much... My precious, expensive mattress... I just fell into a deep sleep.

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I opened my eyes to the sudden sound of a car and found myself in the middle of the road. I could see a familiar building, so I guessed it was the road in front of my company. Cars whizzed past on both sides as if they couldn't see me. There were no people walking on the sidewalk, and not even the usual colorful signs were visible; it was all black and white. The only place I was standing had any color. What the hell is this...? As I looked around, I saw a woman standing still in front of a car that was speeding towards me like crazy. Suicide...? Or was she frozen in shock? Before I could even think about that, I instinctively pulled the woman to avoid her. I fell over from the recoil, but it didn't hurt at all.

"Oh, it was a dream..?" I thought, shaking my knees and getting up from my seat. The man was gone. No, it wasn't just the man who had disappeared. The building that seemed to pierce the sky, and the cars that had been passing by at crazy speeds were also gone. I was left alone in a white space. And a pure white space that seemed to go on and on, with no end in sight. I remembered a friend who had lucid dreams many times before who had told me about an experience. When you realize you're dreaming, you feel a sense of suffocation and alienation, like you've sunk into the sea and someone is forcibly pulling you up to the surface. And since lucid dreams usually happen when you're about to wake up, you get that feeling that you're about to wake up. Just as my friend said, I'm now aware that this is a dream. However, I don't have that strange feeling my friend had mentioned, nor that feeling of waking up. I really felt like I was wandering around in reality. After wandering like that for a while, a fork in the road appeared. One side was an identical white space, and the other side was a room with a red liquid that looked like paint spilled out. My intuition has always been pretty good, but curiosity usually wins. This dream seems to be the same. My intuition tells me to go to the white space, but my curiosity tells me to go to the room with the red liquid spilled out. I decide on the red room. The reason is... I can't overcome my curiosity...? When I entered the red liquid room, it was completely painted red instead of white, and there were bright red pictures hanging here and there.

"Hey, what could happen? It's just a dream anyway..."

At that moment, a voice entered my head and tore at my thoughts as if telling me to remember. As a result, my head started to hurt as if it was going to break.

"I thought, 'It's just a dream anyway'..."

Suddenly, my breathing became unsteady and the space before my eyes felt distorted. A low, distorted voice, tinged with noise, played in my head over and over again, hundreds of times, making my head spin and feel dizzy and painful as if it were going to burst. And the smell that wafted into my nose and caught my breath was... the smell of metal... not paint, but blood. The stinging, intense smell of blood and the voice repeated hundreds of times were enough to drive me mad. "Ahhhh!!" I screamed, and then the sound vanished, as if finally hearing what I was looking for. Thinking I'd heard the voice somewhere before, I absentmindedly collected my thoughts. Then, realizing I'd entered the wrong room, I turned around and saw the wall was already blocked off. A closer look at the wallpaper on the blocked wall revealed a brown hue, as if blood had been applied to it ages ago. Even the painting hanging there was made with a mummy-colored paint called mummy brown. In this situation, all I could do was move forward... I thought. As I walked, I saw that each painting was a slightly modified version of a world-famous masterpiece, like The Starry Night or The Gleaners. Furthermore, they had a distinctive mummy brown hue. The paintings Rojin had shown me had warm colors, but these paintings all gave me goosebumps and looked like congealed blood. As I walked forward, looking at the paintings, I reached the end of the room. On the wall hung a cherry blossom design that Rojin and I had made during our friendship trip. When I bought it, I had loved the pink of the cherry blossom petals embedded inside, so I had forced myself to soak it in the red paint for a long time. But as if that was what I was destined to become, red blood began to rise from all around. The room was permeated by the distinctive smell of blood, and my head, which had felt better earlier, began to hurt even more. I looked for a way for the blood to escape, but there was no escape, and before I knew it, the blood had risen to my waist. The vivid sensation of the water erased any thought that this was a dream. Before I knew it, blood had rushed into my lungs all the way to my head, filling every space instead of oxygen. I struggled to get up, but I felt some giant hand dragging me into the blood. The oxygen-deprived spot in my brain grew longer and longer, and instead of the crimson blood, pitch-black darkness came over me. My mind gradually became dizzy.

"Eww!"

I woke up from my dream. It felt like all my desperate struggles, desperate to wake up, desperate to live, were in vain. I woke up completely empty, thanks to the alarm I'd accidentally set the night before. It was still around 8 a.m., and I was drenched in sweat. My reflection in the mirror directly across from my bed was as pale as death. Normally, I would have dismissed it as a nightmare, but at least not now, at this moment. Dreams fade from memory as I wake, but this one remained vivid even as I fell back to sleep. The rising water, the frantic, repetitive, noisy voice, even the headache that felt like being hit with a blunt object—I felt like the weekend would fly by while I was still thinking about the dream. Perhaps because the red room had been so traumatic, the mere sight of any red item in my house made me want to throw it away. The splitting headache from the dream, even after I woke up, seemed to be etched into my mind, slowly creeping into my reality like a monster. When it was time to sleep, the pain I had experienced in the dream was transmitted to me as it was, as if I was growing up. It was a harsh lullaby. I was afraid of this call to return to the dream. I was afraid that I would be trapped there again, that the ordinary daily life that had never been taken away from me would be taken away forever, and that I would only think of it as an illusion. To stay awake even a little, I drank a caffeinated beverage, something I never usually did. But as if I couldn't refuse, I still fell asleep despite the caffeine. Little by little, I began to endure, but I couldn't overcome my instinct, or rather, the call, and fell asleep.

The same car sound began to be heard again. In front of me, the same woman was about to die in the same place, in front of the same car. When I woke up from the dream, I thought about that woman. At least there was a possibility that this dream wasn't an ordinary dream but could happen in reality, so I decided to get something that wouldn't hurt anyway. The same hand that grabbed me at the same time, the same posture... and the same space I arrived in. I had the same thoughts back then, but after experiencing it once, it felt even more alien and creepy. It was a white room. I walked forward again today. Because I had no choice.

Another fork in the road, this time a room flowing blue instead of red. I unconsciously headed toward the blue room. It felt like someone was leading me. Leading, to put it nicely, but it felt more like being grabbed and pulled. Startled, I stumbled backward, and a large hand emerged from the blue room, grabbing my leg and dragging me along. I ran with all my might, but with nothing to grab onto, I was finally dragged into the blue room. I dug my fingernails into the room to try and hold on, but my own only broke. Having come this far, I decided to escape this recurring hallucination, even if it meant submerging myself in water. This room, like the red room, was painted a stark blue. Again, there was a painting, a cold one, composed entirely of black and deep blue lines. For some reason, tears welled up in my eyes. Was the pain I'd endured in the red room so painful? Was it trauma? It wasn't anything. They were forcing me to cry. Picture frames suddenly appeared before my eyes, as if to demand that I shed tears for those I'd wronged. The frame began to show me, one by one, people I'd treated poorly. At that moment, it felt like someone was blocking my eyelids from closing. They told me to engrave each one into my brain and reflect on it. Tears flowed like mad. Eventually, they forced me to my knees. After crying for a while, a bright red cherry blossom keychain, out of place in this blue room, fell before me. Only then did my tears stop flowing, as if a faucet had been turned off. The keychain, as if it had done its job, dispersed and disappeared. Only then could I straighten my aching legs and stand up. My pajamas should have been soaked with tears, but for some reason, they were soft. Rojin had told me a passage from a book she'd read the other day: "Fake tears shed by others have no impact on the world." But the reality was... they had so much impact that I had to forgive them and support them. In any case, I began to move forward. All the pictures were painted in the primary color of ultramarine, using watercolors. I like the color blue, so it was worth a look, but now all I wanted to do was get out.

Finally, I reached the end of the room. There was a fountain at the end of the room, a fountain with flowing blue paint. It was a gorgeous fountain, but it had a rusty appearance, as if it had not been maintained. When I touched the flowing paint, a black hand emerged from the fountain and led me into the fountain. I was startled by the sudden hand and was pulled into the fountain without any resistance. Although I was in the paint, it was so clear that I could see far away, like water. Just as I was about to experience drowning again, a note appeared before me. I grabbed it and my breath came back. It seemed to give me time to read the note. I unfolded the note and checked its contents. Despite being underwater, air bubbles were attached to the letters, just the right size, as if the water was keeping them away. The text read as follows.

'Apologize to those people you saw earlier and ask for their forgiveness. By 12 o'clock tomorrow.'

The moment I checked the note, I woke up from the dream. This time, I wasn't drenched in sweat or looking pale. And what had changed was... all the red objects in my house had turned blue. As if to remind me of the dream, the thought of asking for forgiveness filled my mind instead of a headache. I met with everyone I could remember, texted them, and called them to ask for forgiveness. Surprisingly, just looking at their faces reminded me of things I needed to apologize for, and the thought of saying them took over my brain. And my mouth moved on its own. Everyone I'd apologized to forgave me. And then they all said, "You're so pale...?" It was as if a ghost was controlling me, that I seemed to have no will. My mouth wouldn't open when I tried to tell them about my dream. It felt like someone had hung a heavy weight on my lips. I could only try to gloss over it, saying I felt guilty. I asked for forgiveness from everyone I could remember until nightfall, but there was one person I couldn't remember, a woman. It was a young face that looked like a middle school student. No matter how much I think about it, I can't remember. Sometimes, it hurt as if something was trying to be inserted into my brain, and each time, my brain desperately erased it. It was as if I wasn't forgetting the dream, but rather erasing it myself. Since I have to go to work tomorrow, I should sleep first. I don't have a headache right now. I don't think I'll have that dream again if I fall asleep now. I went to sleep a little nervously, wondering if something would happen in that dream again.

Morning. Surprisingly, nothing happened. In fact, I felt refreshed. Previously, I didn't feel like I was sleeping because of the dreams. Because I was sleeping normally, the fatigue I'd been experiencing vanished. As soon as I got to work, I went to the kitchenette and made coffee. When I returned to my desk to work, Rojin was nowhere to be seen. She'd arrived before me, so it was normal for her to be there. As the workday approached, Rojin hadn't arrived yet. The team leader, who usually causes a scene when she's late, was unusually quiet today. Everyone pretended Rojin hadn't even arrived, and it seemed natural for her to be gone. When I asked Si-an, who I was close with, where Rojin was, she looked puzzled and asked, "Who is Rojin?" Everyone had forgotten Rojin. "Oh, that girl... No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn't find an answer. So I left work and returned home. Even on the bus, or even on the walk home, I couldn't remember her. It was 11 o'clock. No headache, no change. It was terrifying. As 12 o'clock approached, the word "apology" filled my mind. 11:30 AM. Suddenly, I felt a craving for coffee like crazy. I remembered the coffee gift card Rojin had sent me, so I exchanged it at a cafe five minutes away from my house and drank it on the way home. The taste was a bit strange, but it quenched my thirst, which wouldn't go away even with water. By 11:59 AM, not even the word "apple" was on my mind. The more I tried to think, the more empty my mind became. I just kept drinking that coffee. By the time I finished it, it was 12 AM. I fell into a deep sleep.

When I opened my eyes, I was underwater. I was back in the water with the note. The note was folded again, and it was glowing brightly, as if telling me to read it. Unlike last time, I wasn't breathing, and my vision wasn't dark, just clear. I unfolded the note and saw this:

'You didn't apologize to me,'

'Apologize? No, just remember that I tried to save you. Remember now. And regret it.'

As soon as I read "Remember," I remembered my own unconscionable actions. In middle school, I had a best friend named Dia. Having no close friends in elementary school, I was so grateful for Dia's approach. We fit so well together that we spent our entire senior year of middle school together. Fate must have recognized our friendship, as we were in the same class. Same academy, same school, same apartment, same building, even next door... We were bound to become close. One day, on our way to the academy, I was faster than Dia, so I ran towards the traffic light, with only a few seconds left. Barely reaching the academy, I heard a loud thud behind me. I turned around to see Dia had been hit by a car, and the car sped away. Shocked, I couldn't even report the incident, so I desperately ran to the academy to escape. Arriving at the academy, I was wracked with guilt. Just before I ran, Dia's eyes seemed to resent me. To ease my guilt, I tried to focus on my studies, believing someone else must have reported the incident. The next day, I heard the news that Dia had passed away. When I arrived at school, I saw a chrysanthemum on Dia's desk, and when my friends placed chrysanthemums on the desk for Dia, my heart sank along with it. My classmates knew better than anyone that I was close to Dia, so they came to me to comfort me and play with me. In the process, I naturally became one of the group that comforted me, and along with my friends, I put Dia in a corner of my heart. I thought I had definitely put it in, but my selfish brain must have found Dia's occasional intrusion into my daily life annoying, so I pretended to put it in and then erased it. Secretly when I got into a minor car accident. And on the day of the interview, I thought that Rojin's face, which I saw for the first time, resembled someone. As I was organizing my thoughts like that, the note began to write something new as if it couldn't wait.

'Hello, my old friend, I never resented you. But you erased me?'

'But you are my only friend, right? Let's play together here. My only friend, you abandoned me, but I will not abandon you.'

As soon as I finished reading the note, a black hand pulled me into darkness. Instead of struggling with guilt, I quietly shed tears. Even though I was underwater, I probably wouldn't be able to see them anyway.

'You are a tranquilizer to me and a hallucinator to me'

So, four days later, it was reported on the news.

"This morning, Mr. Kim was found dead at his home."

"Mr. Kim was found drowned in the bathtub, and it is presumed to be a suicide. In the coffee next to him, a large amount of sleeping pill 'Eurozine', poisonous mushrooms such as Amanita muscaria, and hallucinogen LSD were detected, which is over 20 times the lethal dose. A tranquilizer called 'Diazepam' was found on the bed, and it is presumed that he had been taking it for depression. According to the testimony of a coworker, he often showed strange behavior such as suddenly laughing."