CH 1.1

There was a time when I lived without thinking about the meaning of time and the world. It was before I met her.

I came to her across time.

I folded my world and opened it again to find her.

We didn’t let go of each other’s hands despite the strong typhoon. She changed my world, and I saved her time.

You know, there’s a saying that people are given countless choices in life, and their life are spent according to that choice.

It’s as if a person’s life is like a novel.

The law that there is a reason for everything, the ending by choice, not by chance, and the choice given to the main character is the double track.

But.

What should we do if we already know the end of the story?

I don’t know the answer, but when you do know the ending, what will you do?

And if it’s really someone’s life, not a novel.

I’ve decided to burn the options.

I’ve redrawn everyone’s path as I have made with mine.

I’ve never been so sure. I’ve never been an adult either. I was young and clumsy.

Every step was uncertain and dark in front of me, but I followed one thing and continued walking.

May their lives be a little better.

But they’re not the only ones I love.

The first person I reached out against time was you, not them.

The person I love the most.

Someone who deserves to be loved.

That’s you.

You.

You who’s standing on the bridge over Han River.

Lee Mina.

The time is something. The world is something.

I don’t know, just screw it all up.

The world is noisy. Time is cold.

Only the tone is poetic, but the essence is tragedy. What else is there?

Oh, and dreams. A dream is a thief.

I was chasing that damn dream and now I’m sitting on the bridge of the Han River and risking my life to the wind.

Even in broad daylight like this. Even today, it’s not like winter, it’s sunny today.

I thought it would be cold, but my cheeks didn’t get colder than I thought. The reason my cheeks are red now is because of tension, not because of the cold wind.

Thinking that this stinging wind would be the last sensation I would feel, it didn’t hurt, but rather sweet enough that I could be beaten all day long.

‘So, why don’t we stay here all day? Just getting hit by the wind…..’

She held back her laughter with trembling hands. Half the day has already passed and I wanted to throw away the other half. That’s why I came to Han River.

But what are you gonna do all day? The desire to live begins to encroach the body like poison.

The limp legs are shaking under the railing. The whole nerves were automatically focused on the buttocks that were barely seated.

I’m afraid I might slip by mistake. I’m afraid I’ll be pushed down by the wind. I’m afraid I’ll die like that.

“Yeah.”

It was a small voice enough to be buried in the sound of a car passing by casually behind me, but I squeezed my strength and opened my mouth.

Since it was my last voice to be heard, I murmured, making it so that I wouldn’t tremble.

“It’s scary, I admit.”

I’m scared, and I admit that when I look down, my mind becomes blank and I only look at the sky.

“But it must be today.”

Whether it’s cancerous mass in my body, overwork due to heavy work, being chased by debtors, Or whatever the reason, I’m gonna die somehow.

Or tomorrow, my parents’ anniversary, I might die of guilt.

It doesn’t have to be today, but it can’t be delayed until tomorrow.

Mom and Dad. With what kind of face can I go see my parents tomorrow, who gave me my beautiful life that they have crafted for 16 years, only to be ruined by me in 10 years?

The thought of their faces will only make me weaker. I’ll try to have hopes that will never come true. So today I have to disappear. So that tomorrow’s me cannot be.

I took off the hand holding the railing.

So tomorrow’s me is gone.

I thought so.

For a moment that seemed like eternity, I thought that I would sink endlessly into the deep water. The moment my toes touched the ground seemed to never come. Gradually, her mind became cloudy and she became distant from her body.

So I thought I was dead. It was complete darkness in-front of me.

That is my last memory when I was 26 years old.

Immediately after realizing that the sensations in her body had disappeared, a ray of light suddenly permeated between her eyelids.

When I opened my eyes again, the whole world was filled with light. And I breathed into two lungs. Both legs were on the ground.

The sunlight fell on the pure white ground and dazzled all around. I knew it as soon as my eyes opened. That day 10 years ago, when my life was turned upside down, that it was noon at a park.

Everything was the same as then. The high sun, the large white-snowed pine trees, the cool winter breeze, the quiet park.

From the thin leather of shoes submerged in the snow to the feeling of socks soaking in the damp water that seeps through them.

If there was one other thing, it was this feeling of being wrapped around my body. It feels like waking up from a long sleep.

It was like waking up from a dream. As if you’re back where you belong.

Maybe all the unhappy times were dreams.

Or maybe I’m seeing things now, or I’m finally in the afterlife.

However, the water in the Han River was too painful to be a dream, and the air entering the nose was too cold to be a vision.

Above all, the land I am stepping on is not the afterlife, but the park in front of the apartment complex where I lived with my family 10 years ago.

And obviously, it’s the place of ‘that’ day.

I was already running towards home when I started to think, ‘Maybe, no way’.

It didn’t matter whether it was a reality or a dream. If my feelings are right, if now is the right day, I should be able to meet my parents.

Will mom and dad be there? Is it true that I came to where they are? Will they be here now, alive?

I forcibly shook off the burst of miscellaneous thoughts and I pressed my eyes to block the tears.

I tapped the password of the apartment’s common front door as I remembered. The glass automatic door moved smoothly to clear the way.

Pushing through the slow-opening glass door, I quickly scanned the leaflet on the bulletin board. The year ten years ago was printed in type.

When you press the arrow button pointing upward, the button turns on a red light. The elevator door, which was standing on the first floor, creaked slowly open.

I rushed inside and pressed the close button recklessly, then pressed the button on the 10th floor, nervously shaking my fingers and raising my head. I had to ponder over on the number that changed every time I went up one floor at a time. The elevator from 10 years ago was much slower than the speed I’m used to today.

Then the machine sounded to announce the arrival.

The door opens.

There was no time to wait for the slowly opening door with a squeaking sound. I grabbed both doors with my hands and squeezed out between them.

The front door password was the same as my house password that I used until this afternoon. My mom and dad’s wedding anniversary.

I pressed the six-digit number with my thumb and stopped breathing for a while when I heard the lock being released.

And slowly grabbed the doorknob and turned it around. When I pulled the door, the warmth of the warm house leaked out and wrapped around me.

“Mina, are you here?”

My mother’s voice, who I missed for 10 years, that long 10 years, was heard in the distance.

“……Mom?”

I called my mother carefully. My legs were shaking, but I took courage and crossed the threshold and slowly closed the heavy front door.

The door closed with a thud.

I threw off my sneakers and headed for the bedroom at a quick pace.

“*Mina! Did you see the text? You got accepted to Seoyeon High School!”

(TLN: she was called in a very intimate way to call a daughter but since I can’t find another way for English that can suit it, I just used her name.)

Before I could entered, my mother, who ran out of the bedroom first, stood in front of me. Mom was smiling with her white teeth and shaking her heels.

It was the mother I remember. Tears poured down right away.

“*Mina, are you that happy?”

(TLN: again, intimate way to call her daughter)

My mom hugged me tightly on the shoulder.

“Congratulations, Mina.”

I cried my eyes out like I was really sixteen. With my face on her shoulder, I hugged her waist tightly and sobbed because I was afraid of miss her.

“Mina, are you okay?””

My mother comforted me with a smile, thinking I was shedding tears of joy at passing.

“Mom…… I love it. It’s really great.”

It was so nice to see my mom again. Because I heard my mom’s voice. In my mother’s arms.

The sweet scent of my mom’s dress at home, my mom’s warm body temperature, and my mom’s hand patting my back.

The black hair that shakes every time my mom moves even touches my cheek. I missed everything.

I’m back. I came back to that day 10 years ago.