Monday, May 1, 2017 16:26 PM.
The current place was full of bookshelves and publications, neatly arranged desks, hangers and sofas.
A boy was sleeping soundly on the sofa.
The child was fast asleep enough to mistake he was dead if it had not been for the regular sound of breathing.
“So, Hojin said…”
The door opened, a man and a girl came in.
“Huh?”
The girl found the boy sleeping on the sofa.
“Oh, oppa is sleeping here again. When did he came in?”
The girl approached the boy. And tried to wake him by waving her hand.
“Oppa. Si-Guk oppa. Why are you sleeping here? Oppa?”
The fat man smiled at the girl. He took off his coat, hung it on a hanger and told the girl.
“Nayeon, just let him sleep.”
Nayeon, the little girl, stuck out her tongue while continued to wake the boy up.
The man sat on the desk chair, still smiling kindly. Then he pulled out some tissues and wiped the sweat from his forehead.
“So what did Hojin do?”
At the man’s question, Nayeon rushed back to him and chatted.
The man turned on his laptop while listening to the story.
“Hojin oppa is not so……”
Nayeon’s chatter was about a common argument among children.
Pastor Jang Yung-hoon, the man, dealt with office work that had to be completed by tomorrow while listening to her story.
“I feel sorry for Hojin, too. I think he likes Jooyoung. And Jihoon teases him about it…”
At the while Nayeon was talking, the boy sleeping on the sofa opened his eyes wide.
‘……?’
The boy blinked a few times in that state for a moment.
“Jihoon is like that, too. Jaechul teased Kyung Hwa when Jihoon said he liked her. What’s wrong with them?”
The boy sprang up from his seat.
The child’s eyes grew as big as is he was shook. The child was looking at Pastor Jang and Nayeon with stupefied eyes.
“Are you awake?”
Pastor Jang smiled and said to the child. The child could not answer anything. He was just looking at Pastor Jang with trembling eyes with his mouth opened.
“Huh? When did he wake up?”
Nayeon looked at the boy.The boy’s eyes turned to Nayeon.
“Your hair is hiding your face now.”
Nayeon fixed the boy’s hair with her hands.
The boy only looked at Nayeon, who was busy tidying up his hair, with trembling eyes. Nayein talked to him.
“It’s your birthday party soon. Why are you sleeping here? It’s kind of funny going to your own birthday party like this. Go wash your face.”
Nayeon, who roughly arranged the boy’s hair, said so while looking at the child.
The boy struggled to speak.
“……Nayeon?”
At the moment, the boy was startled and shut himself up.
Nayeon snap her finger in front of the child face with incomprehensible eyes as she looked at him.
“Are you still sobber? How many finger are these?”
The boy looked at Nayeon with a stiff expression as she playfully opened her two fingers and shook them in front of him.
Suddenly the boy jumped out of his seat.
Pastor Jang, who was still working on the papers, looked at the child.
“Did you have a nightmare?”
The boy looked at Nayeon and Pastor Jang alternately without saying a word.
Suddenly the boy began to touch his face with his hands. Then he quickly looked through his hands, body, legs, and feet.
“What’s wrong with him?”
Nayeon said in a slightly frightened voice.
The boy did not answer. He just groped his body like crazy and breathed heavily with a relieved look on his face.
Pastor Jang was convinced that something strange happened to him, so he stood up from his seat.
He approached the child.
“Si-Guk, are you okay? Are you perhaps sick?”
The boy stopped acting strange when he heard his name from Pastor Jang’s mouth.
The child looked at Pastor Jang.
“City……Country……This country…….”
The child had his voice muttering strange words.
Pastor Jang put his hand on the child’s forehead.
“Strange, you don’t have a fever.”
The child’s expression gradually changed as he felt the sweaty palm of Pastor Jang.
From surprised to disbelief, from disbelief to surprised.
The child ran straight to the window. Then he opened the window. The scent of spring during May, which was quite warm, came indoors with the wind.
But the child didn’t smell it or feel the wind.
The child looked out of the window with bewildered eyes.
“Angel’s Shelter?”
Children, Si-Guk caught sight of the spring-flowering yard, there were children playing there, and the grandmothers smiling at the children.
The eyes of Si-Guk trembled.
“What’s wrong with you? Are you really sick?
Si-Guk still did not respond to Nayeon’s worried voice.
Pastor Chang also looked at Si-Guk with anxious eyes.
Si-Guk, which had been looking down at the yard for a while, suddenly turned his head and looked at the electronic clock on the wall.
Monday, May 1, 2017 16:31 PM.
The clock was only telling him the exact time mechanically.
“Huh.”
A laugh burst out from the mouth Si-Guk.
‘What the hell is this?’
Si-Guk stared blankly at the electronic clock. Then, he lowered his eyes and looked at Nayeon and Pastor Jang.
The two people were looking at Si-Guk with anxious eyes.
“Joo Nayeon… ..Pastor Jang? Really?”
Pastor Jang shook his head at the words of Si-Guk, not understanding what he meant.
“I can’t stand this. Let’s go to the nurse.”
Pastor Jang approached Si-Guk. Nayeon followed after him. Pastor Jang took the hands of Si-Guk.
“Si-Guk, let’s go to the nurse first.”
“Yeah. I think you’re sick. The nurse will tell where you’re sick… Huh?”
Pastor Jang held the right hand of Si-Guk, and Nayeon held his left arm and tried to take him to the nurse.
Si-Guk shook its head.
He easily got out of the hands of two people. Then he stepped back a little and looked at the two.
“Oppa…”
With how Nayeon sounded she was verge in tears to Si-Guk current situation. Pastor Jang also looked at the Si-Guk with worried eyes.
“Si-Guk…”
Si-Guk could not related to the feelings of the ither two people but still tried to understand them.
There was no choice but to do so.
All of this was surreal to him, earlier he was a person who was should be dying right now in Osaka’s third superhuman prison.
Is this regression?
The word crossed in the mind of the confused Si-Guk.
‘Regression.’
He went back in the past.
Si-Guk recalled the word and let out a laugh.
‘What the fuck is this?’
Si-Guk looked down at his hand once again.
Instead of the calluses of the notorious B-class villain, there was a child’s white and fine hands.
Si-Guk was sandwich between Nayeon arms, who was crying, while Pastor Jang, who was embarrassed by the current scene, headed to his desk.
Si-Guk picked up a little desk mirror from the table.
In the mirror that was not very expensive, a 13-year-old child was looking at Si-Guk with a bizarre expression, neither smiling nor frowning.
‘No way…….’
Si-Guk put the mirror down on the desk.
He glanced through the room.
Everything that came into his eyes coincided with the scenery he had buried deep within his memories.
“Fuck.…”
In a young voice, Si-Guk uttered abusive language.
Nayeon, who was about to cry, eventually burst into tears, and Pastor Jang was surprised that he wiped off his sweat with his sleeves.
‘A regression… What the fuck….’
“What’s wrong with you? I’m scared.”
Ignoring Nayeon’s crying face, Si-Guk just smiled at the ridiculous situation where he was at.
* * *
Regression.
On January 1, 2020, a gate opened in the world, and superpowers appeared appeared with humanity. All sorts of strange things became reality.
Nevertheless, regression still remained a fantasy and novel subject.
Monsters like Orcs, Trolls, and Undead took over the streets and burn the city. But not long enough the superhuman arises and use all kinds of skills to beat them up thus building wealth through the magic stones and by-products.
Regression was dismissed as something very unrealistic.
“I’m a regressor.”
Very occasionally, there were those who called themselves regressors and made abstract predictions about the forthcoming of future.
But most of them were either fraudulent or psychotic.
And the Si-Guk remained more cynical about regression than anyone else.
Going back in time. Back in time? With the the future memories?
In the eyes of Si-Guk, it was just a pipe dream of those idiots obsessed with and regretting the time that had passed.
“Regression?”
That’s why Si-Guk was now in unbelievable situation.
“Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you.”
Children huddled together in front of Si-Guk, clapping their hands and singing happy birthday songs. The adults standing behind them were taking pictures with smiling faces.
The thirteen candles was burning above the whipped cream cake.
All of this was a familiar scene for the current Si-Guk was an incredible scene.
“Happy birthday, dear Si-Guk.”
At the end of the song, everyone cheered.
“What are you doing? Blow out the candles.”
At children’s words he prepared to blow out the candles with an awkward smile.
“Wow!”
“Happy birthday!”
When he blew out the candles, the children approached Si-Guk.
“Yap!”
Nayeon, who was crying earlier in the pastor’s room, was now smiling playfully as if she had never done so and painted cake cream on his face. Then she sucked the remaining cream out of her finger.
“Nayeon, kiss him!”
“Kiss! Kiss!”
Then, his friends united and shouted “Kiss.”
The children smiled and looked at Nayeon, and adults smiled and pressed the shutter of the smartphone camera.
Nayeon, who was embarrassed and blushing, kissed the cheek of Si-Guk.
“Whoa!”
“They will now go out. Go out.”
“Nayeon likes Si-Guk. She likes him.”
“No, I do not! I just did it because of you!”
Children’s playful voices and adult laughter.
And Nayeon’s lips touched her cheeks.
The whole thing was a vivid reality.
There was no face scene anywhere else.
Every scene further confuses Si-Guk.
‘Real regression?’
Si-Guk came returned from his thoughts when the school teachers were scooping the cakes and children huddled together on a table of five and six people eating snacks.
‘This was not a dream? Really?’
Si-Guk picked up a cup. The texture of the plastic felt vivid.
Si-Guk looked at the bubbling coke in the cup. Then he drank it slowly.
Strong carbonation and sweet smell stimulated his sense of taste and smell.
Si-Guk put the cup down.
This time, he picked up a snack on a plate.
He looked at the snacks carefully. Then he put it in his mouth and chewed it up.
The savory taste was vividly felt through his tongue.
“Is this all real?”
Si-Guk slowly got up from his seat.
“Huh? Where are you going?”
Nayeon asked.
Si-Guk smiled awkwardly and said.
“Toilet.”
“Ugh. Are you going to shit? Make sure you wash your hands.”
Si-Guk left without a word and went to the bathroom.
Standing in front of the sink, Si-Guk looked in the mirror.
There was a look of his younger self in a colorful cone hat.
It was definitely him when he was thirteen.
‘I’m back to the past? Really?’
Si-Guk shook his head.
‘Why?’
Si-Guk looked in the mirror and asked inwardly.
Why? Who? How?
Si-Guk turned on the water. He got a lot of water in his hand. Washing his face with it, Si-Guk constantly asked back.
‘Really?’
Si-Guk washed his face for a long time abd looked at the mirror again.
The young Si-Guk in the mirror was staring at himself with eyes full of doubts.
‘Wait a minute……Maybe?’
A thought flashed through his mind at the moment.
He corrected his posture.
Breathe deeply with his nose and exhale long into his mouth.
‘Status window.’
At the moment, the face of Si-Guk hardened.
His eyes shook with strong distrust and doubt.
Soon after, he had a bright smile on his mouth.