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Chapter 6
1. Hit the Road, Jack (5)
When I first moved to Seattle in my late teens and started working at clubs, someone once asked me this:
“Do blind people dream too?”
It was a simple question, but it carried many meanings.
Strictly speaking, dreams are visual experiences. So how could someone who couldn’t see possibly dream?
But blind people do dream.
Those born blind dream through smell and sound.
Of course, my case was a little different.
My eyesight began fading when I was five years old, and by seven I had completely lost my vision.
Before that, I could clearly see the world.
All my dreams remained frozen in those years, but I still dreamed constantly.
And in those dreams, I always had nightmares.
The dream of the day my younger sibling died.
The dream where I watched my little sibling splashing around in the bathtub from far away.
That day, I simply thought my sibling was playing.
But my sibling drowned in that bathtub.
If only I had moved faster back then.
If only I had noticed sooner.
Could I have saved them?
Of course, I was only five years old too, so nobody blamed me.
But the image of my mother crying in heartbreak after losing her child never left my mind.
Guri Station.
The moment I stepped out, I was greeted by a suffocating view of buildings packed tightly together on every side.
Yet simply being able to see moved me deeply.
Whenever I saw little children walking hand in hand with their mothers, thoughts of my sibling occasionally resurfaced.
But it was okay.
That had happened almost ninety years ago now.
What love lasts forever?
What sadness lasts forever?
Right now, the joy of being able to see outweighed those passing fragments of sorrow.
“So that’s autumn foliage.”
My hometown was Albany, Georgia, in the United States.
The hottest month, July, reached around 33°C, while January dropped to about 5°C.
I’m sure somewhere in my childhood memories I had seen autumn leaves before.
But I couldn’t remember them.
When people used to describe forests turning red as the weather cooled, I always wished I could see it just once.
And now, I finally could.
I stood in front of a tree planted near the road outside the station and looked up at the bright red leaves.
The tree seemed like it had a lot to say.
Each leaf appeared to carry its own emotions.
Were they turning red from sorrow because they were about to part ways with their green leaves?
But strangely, it didn’t move me as much as I expected.
I thought simply being able to see would make me overwhelmingly happy.
Maybe it was because I had absorbed Minjun’s memories of living his whole life with sight.
‘That’s a little disappointing.’
I thought I’d feel happier.
I had envied these ordinary things for my entire life.
But rather than joy, all I felt was how beautiful everything looked.
After quietly admiring the autumn leaves for a moment, I scratched my head.
“First… I should find home.”
I wondered where to even begin, but my feet moved naturally on their own.
These were roads Minjun had walked countless times.
As I followed the familiar paths, I gradually realized this was the way home.
After leaving the station, crossing a large intersection, and entering an area packed with old buildings, the scenery before me looked strange.
“Was there an earthquake or something?”
An entire district of buildings had been completely demolished.
Not a single structure remained standing, as though a massive earthquake had destroyed everything.
Huge excavators pushed aside piles of rubble.
I passed large banners that read the following:
“Redevelopment Construction in Progress.”
The neighborhood looked extremely old.
I walked through narrow alleys lined with aging stores.
At this point, I no longer worried about getting lost.
Minjun’s memories would guide me.
When I slipped my hand into my pocket, I felt a key.
Probably the house key.
My feet were heading home, and I had the key in my hand.
So what was there to worry about?
Life itself was just a journey of wandering aimlessly until eventually reaching your destination.
I passed through one narrow alley after another.
The asphalt in the tiny alleyways was cracked and uneven enough that only one person could barely squeeze through.
If I had walked these roads back when I was blind, I probably would’ve fallen countless times.
At last, I arrived at the place that instinctively told me
This is our house.
And suddenly, I felt nervous.
After my father died when I was seventeen, I had always lived alone.
But now, knowing that my mother and younger sibling lived here, my heart pounded.
I had been married twice and fathered nine children, so living with family wasn’t unfamiliar to me.
Yet nothing had ever filled the emptiness left behind by my mother and sibling.
And now, thinking I had both again made my chest swell with emotion.
I pulled the key from my pocket and inserted it into the aluminum door lock.
Click.
The lock opened.
Once I opened this door, I would see the house where Minjun lived.
Just as I carefully pulled the door open with nervous anticipation—
A sweet voice came from inside.
“Oppa?”
A young girl’s voice.
I had already searched through Minjun’s memories, so I knew immediately it belonged to his younger sister, who was eight years younger than him.
Still an elementary school student, Minjun’s little sister came running over.
“Oppa!”
She wore pink strawberry-pattern pajamas and immediately threw herself into my arms.
Elementary school girls in America usually matured quickly, but Korean children seemed tiny.
Looking at the little girl clinging around my thighs, I desperately searched my memory for her name.
“Uh… Subin.”
“Oppa, did your exam go well?”
“Huh? Ah, yeah. It went well.”
“Oppa, help me with my homework.”
“……”
I’m the kind of person who stayed far away from studying.
Can I even help her?
Dragged along by Subin, I entered the small living room and froze when I saw a brown lump sitting on newspaper spread across the floor.
‘An elementary school kid still can’t control her bowels?!’
Subin jumped down in front of the newspaper and said,
“I have clay homework to do, but it’s hard. Help me.”
So it wasn’t poop after all.
It was clay for a school assignment.
Thank goodness. My little sister actually knew how to use the bathroom properly.
Sitting beside her, I carefully touched the clay.
Because my first impression had been so terrible, I was reluctant to touch it at first.
But the moment I felt the texture, I realized it was familiar.
Clay.
We often used it in lessons at the school for the blind.
The teachers always praised us whenever we used our imagination to shape something with it.
Of course, I could only imagine what my creations looked like.
‘This might actually be fun.’
Subin looked at me and asked,
“But why are you kneeling like that?”
“……”
I glanced at how she was sitting.
Her legs were folded strangely underneath her.
How was it physically possible for someone to sit like that on the floor?
For an American who spent his entire life sitting in chairs, this felt like torture. It was practically yoga.
I couldn’t let my own little sister become suspicious of me, so I tried copying her posture.
Surprisingly, I sat down naturally.
And it was incredibly comfortable.
‘Are Asians naturally flexible or something?’
Who knows.
Not like it matters.
“So what are we making?”
“My face!”
“Really? That seems unfair for me.”
Subin looked confused.
“Why?”
“Because you’re pretty. If someone’s ugly, you can just make them however. But if someone’s pretty, you have to put in a lot of effort to make it actually resemble them.”
Subin’s face instantly brightened.
“Hehe!”
Kids and adults alike really do love hearing they’re pretty or handsome.
It was kind of pathetic that the first time I used flattering comments like that was on my own little sister, but at least it made her happy.
And honestly, it wasn’t even a lie.
Minjun was ridiculously handsome, and his sister was adorable too.
Bright sparkling eyes, long straight hair, and good proportions, just like her brother.
Apparently this family simply had amazing genes.
Playing with clay while crouched beside my little sister.
Even though none of this truly belonged to me, I felt unbelievably happy.
My real sibling in my previous life had been a younger brother, but now I finally understood what it felt like to sit and play with a younger sibling like this.
“No! My nose is taller than that!”
Subin added more clay to the nose I had made.
Every time I intentionally made her look ugly as a joke, she puffed her cheeks angrily.
And somehow, it was unbearably cute.
While smiling at how adorable she was, thoughts of my mother suddenly surfaced.
“Subin, where’s Mother?”
Subin narrowed her eyes suspiciously.
“What’s with that old historical drama way of talking?”
“……”
“Since when did you start calling her ‘Mother’?”
I’m over seventy years old. Am I supposed to call her “Mom”?
Subin brushed her hands off and looked at the clock.
“She’s still far from coming home. You know Mom gets back around two in the morning, so why are you asking?”
Mom comes home at two in the morning?
Only then did I search through Minjun’s memories again.
Minjun’s mother worked at a restaurant.
After preparing food for the kids once Subin returned from school, she left for work around five in the evening and came home near two in the morning.
Only then did I finally come back to my senses after being distracted by my little sister and look around the house.
Two small rooms.
One tiny living room that also served as the kitchen.
Even poor families in America usually had spacious homes because land was cheap.
But Korea was different.
Maybe around 426 square feet?
No sunlight entered the house at all, and mold spread across the wallpaper.
This house was smaller than the bathroom in my previous home.
Living in a place like this felt unhealthy.
Subin got angry because she disliked the clay face she made and stomped away huffing.
“It has to dry like this, so don’t touch it.”
“Okay.”
“Alright, Oppa, go wash up now.”
“Uh…”
Maybe because it wasn’t really my house, I found myself obediently listening to my little sister.
After brushing my teeth and washing my face in the bathroom, I returned to the living room.
Subin was gone.
I could see her watching TV in the master bedroom.
‘My room was over there, right?’
Until middle school, Minjun had shared a room with his mother.
But after entering high school, his mother and sister shared one room while he was given a separate one.
I followed the memories guiding me and opened the door to my room.
A bitter laugh escaped me.
A small floor desk.
One bookshelf.
Bedding spread directly on the floor.
And a cloth wardrobe standing alone.
Just how poor was Song Minjun’s family?
Even my father, who worked as a miner during the 1930s, lived in a better house than this.
I placed the guitar bag down and sat at the desk.
Even sitting like this still felt strange.
How could this posture possibly be comfortable for long periods?
Opening the desk drawer, I found writing utensils, a notebook, and a few sheets of music.
The other books were all on the bookshelf.
So why was this notebook hidden in the drawer?
“Ah… a diary.”
I had never written one myself, but I knew many people did.
As I opened Minjun’s diary, I muttered quietly,
“Kid, what exactly do you want me to do for you?”
Whether I remained in this body for a long time or returned to the afterlife after a few days, I had already seen what lay beyond death.
And if I went back now, I’d obviously be riding the express train straight to hell.
So the least I could do was fulfill this poor kid’s wish and pray I’d end up in a slightly less painful corner of hell.
I glanced at the smartphone I still wasn’t used to using.
The phone recognized Minjun’s face and lit up.
The date appeared on the screen.
October 7th, 2025.
Twenty-one years after my death, I was reborn into the body of a young boy in the East.
