🔊 TTS Settings
Chapter 2
Lee Sua’s long-time friend and fan, Kwon Jinho, felt so sorry about that.
“Being too talented can be a problem. They never let a person rest.”
“Yeah.”
“…You don’t plan on acting again?”
Lee Sua stared at her phone without saying anything.
“If you read the script you’d know. Director Hong and that writer are writing this piece around you again. They said they want to make a film with you as the lead before they retire.”
“I know.”
“Even though it fizzled out this time too, they still believe in your skills. I’m sure the next project will make you the lead. And you… you still want to act, right?”
“I do.”
“See! Just say it. I’ll give you an exclusive contract. I already talked with our manager.”
At last they were going to get Lee Sua to return! Thinking her father’s wish and his own dream would finally come true, Kwon Jinho smiled broadly.
Someone next to him chuckled.
“But it’s too late.”
“Huh? Hey, are you serious—are you talking about age? We’re still in our thirties! These days people in their forties are called young, too.”
“Not that.”
Kwon Jinho instinctively realized this was a final chance. Whatever reason he gave, if he didn’t persuade her now, Lee Sua might remain offstage forever.
“I—wait, in front!”
Lee Sua, who had been speaking slowly, suddenly pointed ahead. Kwon Jinho, glancing at her, was startled. There had been nothing a moment ago, but now something jet-black sat on the road—
Kkki-gigik!
Kwon Jinho saw it. He felt the collision, and in place of his frozen self, a white hand turned the steering wheel.
The car, screeching painfully as it swerved left, didn’t avoid the black something and slammed into it violently.
Bang!
The very first audience of my life was my mother.
Every night my mother and I made it through the day by taking turns telling stories under the covers. When I imitated someone comically, my mother laughed and I felt extremely happy.
By the time I could read a picture book out loud without it being taken away, and when I stopped being beaten for misreciting prayers or failing to follow doctrine, I wanted to show my mother a bigger stage—me performing on it.
It ended up becoming a forever-lost dream.
“Sua, eat your food.”
“Yes, Mom!”
I hurried with my short legs and sat at the low table. My mother, sitting across from me, picked up her spoon with a very tired face.
“I’ll eat well.”
I purposely spoke loudly, scooped up a big bite of the slightly overcooked rice, and put it into my mouth. My mother told me to chew well and picked the rice grains from the corner of my mouth.
‘Observation report #74 — reaction similar to memory.’
If there is a god, did it hear me?
A week after the car accident and waking up in a ten-year-old’s body, I was gradually accepting that I had gone back in time.
‘If this is not a delusion in my brain but reality, is this the same world I lived in?’
Did the regression occur within the same universe or did it connect to a different universe?
Is that person exactly the same as my mother, or ultimately someone else?
I continued observing.
Observation report #97: Fell while playing in the park. My mother, who had been resting on a bench, immediately ran over and helped me up.
Reaction similar to memory.
Observation report #131: I fussed about the side dishes and got a harsh scolding. But she immediately apologized for scolding too severely.
Reaction similar to memory.
Observation report #256: I ran to hug my mother when I met her on the way home from school. My mother staggered a little but still embraced me. Her embrace was warm as in my memory, and the tired smile that rose across her face was kinder than my memory.
…
It was about time to draw a conclusion.
I checked one last time.
Observation #300.
“Mom, Mom, Mom.”
I shook my mother awake at dawn. Startled, she woke up half-asleep and pulled me into her arms.
“What? What’s wrong? What happened?”
Groping her face to see if I was crying, when she felt me trembling, she stroked my head.
“Did you have a bad dream? It’s okay. Mom’s here. Mom will protect you.”
Only then did I accept that this person really was my mother. I cried because it had been a long time since I had felt protected by someone.
I cried in my mother’s arms for a long time, then fell into a deep sleep.
To be honest, at that time I thought my mother wasn’t really that kind or tender.
She always had a tired face and a blunt tone. She rarely smiled and sometimes got angry suddenly and then apologized later.
But I now knew she wasn’t really that kind because she was cruel—rather, she wasn’t that way by nature.
‘Raising a child alone at a young age is exhausting.’
My mother was only thirty-four. She had married young and had to drop out of school to give birth to me, and now she did factory work she had never done before, so there wasn’t a day she wasn’t tired.
Kindness comes from physical strength. When I succeeded as a child actor and we had some financial breathing room, there were many more days when my mother could smile comfortably. I was so happy about that.
‘It didn’t last long, though.’
My mother died four years later at the age of thirty-eight. She was killed by a fanatic from the cult we had barely escaped.
Coincidence or not, the age I had been in the car accident was also thirty-eight.
I hadn’t found a way to find out how the accident led to regression. I accepted that this situation might be real, but I couldn’t rule out the possibility it was a hallucination generated by my dying brain.
So it made sense to postpone solving those questions and concentrate on the present problem.
If it was a hallucination, at least I would die feeling good. If it was real, I could save my mother.
“Why are you staring at me like that? It’s awkward.”
“Just… I like you.”
“You little…”
Over about a month of observing things, I gradually changed how I acted. If I suddenly behaved too grown-up I’d worry her unnecessarily; if I acted like a child the whole time it would interfere with what I needed to do going forward.
My mother no longer watched me nervously when I washed dishes or cooked. I took on a bit more of the housework, and my mother got a tiny amount of extra rest.
After dinner I sat close to my mother who dozed off watching TV. The news on the TV wasn’t very different from what I remembered.
‘It’s likely that only I have regressed to the past.’
I tested my mother, classmates, teachers, and people around me several times but found no useful results. Whenever I focused on small daily details that might have changed, I couldn’t find meaningful differences.
Consistent observation would be needed, but for now I assumed I was the only one who had gone back.
‘I must predict as accurately as possible what changes my intervention will produce.’
As an elementary school student in Korea, my immediate influence was tiny, but it would change quickly.
If I wanted to change the future in the direction I wanted, I had to move now.
I had to somehow change the future so that that bastard would never appear in front of us again.
I gently shook my mother.
“Mom, if—suppose you went back about ten years.”
“What nonsense are you going to say now?”
“Listen. Say you go back with memories intact. And let’s say it happens when you were in the U.S. studying. Then Dad starts chasing after you because he likes you. If you got married the same way, there’s a chance someone other than me could be born. What would you do? Would you not get married?”
My mother opened her eyes wide, peeled me off her, and looked closely at my face. I widened my eyes in curiosity and wore a meek expression.
There’s no suspicion that expression couldn’t diffuse. My mother hugged me tightly and ruffled my hair.
“Waaaaah.”
“I’ll get married.”
“Really?”
“To meet you, Sua, I’d do at least that.”
“But what if you don’t have me? What if you have another kid instead?”
“Then I’ll think of them as your sibling and love them. But I’ll do my best to meet you. So will you come back to Mom?”
“Okay.”
I hugged my mother.
My mother doesn’t lie to me—she knows it won’t work.
But she wasn’t telling me everything.
When my mother looked at me, I could read her. For a moment when she heard my words, her eyes flickered, her mouth stiffened, her neck and shoulders tensed, and her hands trembled a little.
Combining the various small elements she showed at moments, I could guesstimate her true feelings.
Even if she went back to the past, my mother would marry my father to meet me. But she would regret it.
She would regret, blame, and eventually despair—but she would take responsibility for her choice to the end, just like she had before my regression.
‘I’m glad I came back.’
So I, too, would do my best to protect my mother. Even if it meant taking some risks.
