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As soon as Lee Juwon got up, he saw the back of the man walking out the door, and the sight was so familiar it made his heart ache. Lee Juwon threw off the baby’s breath-patterned blanket covering his lap and stood up. Then, he hurriedly ran after the man in front of him.
He had clearly broken his ankle, but his legs felt strong as his feet stepped onto the ground. The wooden floorboards were cool against his bare feet, and his baggy pyjama bottoms brushed against his calves.
“Dad…?”
The middle-aged man turned around at Lee Juwon’s call.
Fingerprint-smudged glasses, a shirt that was a size too big, and even pants that were belted to the max; every little particularity matched Lee Juwon’s dad.
His dad looked at him with a look on his face that asked “What did he eat wrong?” but Lee Juwon didn’t have the time to spare on little details. He had bigger questions.
“…H-how are you alive?”
Instead of answering Lee Juwon’s question, his father clicked his tongue and replied, “Aigoo, did I die in your dream?”
“…That’s not…”
“So that’s why you were snickering!”
His father lightly put a headlock on Lee Juwon. He didn’t apply much pressure, but Lee Juwon was confused, not knowing what was going on, and felt choked. While Lee Juwon fell into confusion, his father released the headlock and got some barley tea from the refrigerator.
Trickle, the clear and brownish barley tea was poured into a colourful patterned cup. Lee Juwon unconsciously received the cup his father handed him. He could feel the cold porcelain clearly in his hands.
Creak, the sound of an old door opening made him turn around reflexively. He had to blink to make sure he wasn’t seeing wrong again. But sure enough, his mother came out of the main room wearing a small necklace.
Lee Juwon looked around his surroundings again.
The mouldings with cherry-coloured sheetrock, the fridge with a single large flower in pastel shades, and the wood-grain linoleum were familiar. There was too much feeling of life in the light smell of cooked rice and even the noise of the fridge.
This wasn’t Lee Juwon’s house, but it was Lee Juwon’s house. In other words, it was his childhood home. Lee Juwon ran his hands through his hair and shouted, “Ha… Shit, another dream?”
It had to be a dream, because it wasn’t reality, and it wasn’t a dungeon. And of all the mirage-like illusions he has had, this was by far the worst.
“Fucking squirrel, know your limits when playing around with people!”
Eager to escape the burdensome illusion, Lee Juwon gulped down the water in his hand. But even when he emptied the cup, far from waking up from his dream, he felt cool and clear-headed. He only ever drank Arisu water, but he tasted a bitter taste now that he drank boiled and cooled-down barley tea. His father, who had been watching him, said, “Honey, I think our Juwon is going through puberty.”
“Lee Juwon, didn’t I tell you not to curse?”
His mother walked up to him, grabbed his lips, and shook them gently. His mouth stuck out like a duck’s, and he was even more confused because he could feel the pain.
“Didn’t I tell you to at least speak pretty even if you’re ugly?”
Lee Juwon was speechless at the sound of a familiar voice he hadn’t heard in so long.
Whether this was an illusion or something else, Lee Juwon tightly hugged the mother in front of his eyes. He didn’t feel an empty space as he had worried. It was soft and warm, just like he remembered.
His mother shrugged her shoulders as she hugged him and looked to his father to say, “What’s wrong with him?” His father smirked and replied teasingly, “Aigoo, he’s still a baby.”
Lee Juwon stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. Instead of a sunken face worn down by fatigue, a face that still had baby fat was reflected.
“Haha…”
His eyes, which had become not only worn down but also cloudy as he nitpicked his gains and losses, became clearer, and the scar above his eyebrow from a fight with a neighbourhood bully was gone. His pale face, which he had been cursed at for looking like a corpse and putting people in a bad mood, had come to life, and his upturned eyes, which he had been cursed at for making him look like a dick, had become much gentler.
Something that he was as unfamiliar with as his changed appearance was his uniform. He couldn’t win against his father’s nagging and wore the school uniform, but it felt like a punishment to be wearing a uniform when he was over thirty. Lee Juwon looked down at his body and muttered idly, “What’s happening now…?”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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After everything that had happened, he wasn’t even surprised anymore. No, he was still surprised, but he quickly accepted it.
According to the morning news his mother was watching, today was the 24th of December, Christmas Eve. They were talking about how it was going to be a white Christmas this year.
Home alone after his parents left for work first, Lee Juwon was at a loss for what to do, but soon decided to go to school. It had been so long ago and he changed schools so often that he couldn’t remember what class he was in the winter of his second year of middle school, but as he left the house, he realized how terrifying habits could be. Even though it was a period that couldn’t even last up to half a year, his feet were still naturally moving down the road he had once travelled every day.
He took bus 51 from the bus stop in front of his house, and after five stops he got off in front of the local bank. On his way to school, the shops Lee Juwon used to frequent at that time were still there.
The hometown wheat noodle shop that served hot broth in a kettle, Hair Coco where hair was cut so short they were suspected of having connections to the school dean, the Jangmi convenience store that closed at 10 pm, and the Bonkyung bakery where a pretty noona worked part-time… The scenery in his vague memories was reproduced exactly as they were, and he felt like he had really returned to the past.
It was still early in the morning, long past the time to commute to school and work, so the streets were deserted. Lee Juwon was glad there were no passersby, as he tripped several times on the flat ground. His height had shrunk by about 10cm, so his vision was lower than usual, and his stride was different, making walking awkward. With shorter limbs, his sense of distance became unfamiliar. It was like walking with one eye closed.
“I feel like I’m in someone else’s body…”
After a short walk, the wall of Lee Juwon’s middle school appeared. Beyond the low wall, he could see a rectangular four-storey building built for maximum efficiency. Somehow, it felt smaller and older than he remembered.
Lee Juwon paused at the school gate and rubbed the back of his neck. It was endlessly embarrassing.
“I’m not even coming as a parent, and I’m wearing a school uniform…”
What was as alien as his younger self was the landscape he saw now. It was natural that when you return to a place you were familiar with long ago after years had passed, you’ll see a mix of old and new, familiar and alien. But when he was over thirty and saw the same scenery he was familiar with when he was fifteen, he was even more aware of the unreality of the situation.
After checking the large 2-7 sign on the glass window facing the schoolyard, Lee Juwon entered the building. To get into the classroom, he had to call his father and blurt out the stupid question, “What class am I in?” His father laughed in disbelief, and Lee Juwon liked hearing the sound of his laugh.
Black-haired middle school students wearing the same uniform as Lee Juwon ran down the long corridor. The vigorous energy of adolescent boys was still the same. It wasn’t a sight that Lee Juwon welcomed, as he had never missed his school days, but it was still surprising to see the scene as he remembered it.
Slide, as he pushed open the door to the second-year class 7 classroom, the eyes of the children, who were looking at the blackboard, immediately turned to the back door. A few raised their hands to greet him.
He also made eye contact with the teacher at the front desk. The social studies teacher put down the chalk on the teacher’s desk and said, “Lee Juwon, are you a university student? Do you come into class as you please?”
Laughter erupted among the children. Lee Juwon ignored them and looked around the classroom.
The small classroom was packed with students, and there were only two empty seats. Even with a 50/50 chance, he couldn’t tell where his seat was. He had even forgotten what class he was in, so there was no way he’d remember where his seat was.
But it didn’t matter. Because Lee Juwon found a place to sit.
He was nervous all the way to school. Would it really happen? The timing was right, but he wasn’t sure.
Luckily, Lee Juwon found the boy from the photo in this classroom. It was worth shamefully coming to school wearing a uniform.
As he slid into the empty seat, he was met with puzzled stares, except the teacher, who turned to the blackboard to continue their lesson. The boy next to him, who had been slumped over, looked up from his buried head and glanced sideways at Lee Juwon. Their eyes met.
“Hello.”
At Lee Juwon’s small greeting, the boy buried his head in his arms again. His back facing forward was thin and small. It was a young back that had not yet reached its second growth spurt.
The classroom fell silent again. Only the calm voice of the social studies teacher echoed through the room.
“…Agriculture is divided into subsistence and commercial farming, right? Agriculture had merged with industry to create many multinational agribusinesses, but what do you call that in four words? Yes, the globalization of agriculture. On page 160, third line from the bottom, farms that combine capital from developed countries with labour from developing countries are called plantation farms. Underline it and memorize it, it’s an essay question that’ll appear on the test.”
The classroom was dry and warm with the heater on full blast, and the teacher’s words were like a languid white noise. The children, who had been awakened briefly by Lee Juwon’s arrival, dozed off again, burying their heads in their desks.
Lee Juwon stared at the boy slumped over in the seat next to him. His head was buried in his arms, so he could only see his round ears. The thin hairs on his auricle were soft.
“There were many people who wrote ‘PlayStation’, they should restrict themselves when it comes to games… That’s what the people who are laughing right now wrote. Anyway, the pineapple we eat now is a prime example of plantation agriculture, originally a fruit so prized in Europe that it was called the fruit of kings, but with the success of greenhouse cultivation in the 17th century…”
The melody of <A Girl’s Prayer> echoed from the speakers at the front of the classroom, announcing break time. The teacher closed their book, saying they’ll continue next time but before they could even leave, the classroom burst into boisterous noise. But the boy sitting next to him was still lying down, unmoving.
Lee Juwon impulsively put his hand on his back. The boy’s back was hot as if he had been running at full speed even though he was sitting. His heart was thumping so fast that Lee Juwon could feel it in his palm.
As soon as Lee Juwon’s hand touched him, the boy flinched and lifted his head. Fortunately, he also seemed to feel the touch of his hand.
Unlike the other dreams he experienced in the dungeon, people could see him. He could touch other people. He could say whatever he wanted and act as he wished. He spoke formally toward his parents and shamefully hugged them, something the Lee Juwon of his school days would’ve never done.
Now, Lee Juwon could move as he pleased. It was as if he was living in the past. He pinched his skin, washed his face, and, if that wasn’t enough, even took a cold shower but he didn’t wake up. But he didn’t know when it would end. The illusions given by the dungeon had always been like that.
“Hello, Kang Inheon.”
So, whether or not he was being enticed by the squirrel, Lee Juwon decided to do whatever he wanted when he left the dungeon, even if it was just inside a dream. He might never be able to return to the real world again.
Whether he was in a dream or in his youth, Lee Juwon was glad to see Kang Inheon, but it wasn’t the same for Kang Inheon. Instead of greeting him face to face, he jumped to his feet. Lee Juwon’s gaze followed Kang Inheon and raised a little.
Without realizing it himself, Lee Juwon smiled. As if having drunk the potion from Alice in Wonderland, Kang Inheon was small. Even when Kang Inheon was standing, there wasn’t much difference in the eye level with himself, who was sitting down. A dream was a dream because it was unthinkable in reality.
As Lee Juwon continued to stare, Kang Inheon walked out the back door of the classroom. Lee Juwon’s gaze followed his back, but instead, several students crowded around him.
“Are you crazy? Why are you sitting here?”
“Right, and next to that stuttering bastard too.”
Stuttering bastard…? Lee Juwon’s face instantly hardened as he realized that the name referred to Kang Inheon. The children continued to whisper.
“But why’d that bastard ignore your greeting?”
“Hey hey, did you hear? Didn’t Baek Joonwoo say he’s even panhandling at the orphanage?”
“Wow… that fits him so damn well.”
Malicious ridicule poured out towards Kang Inheon’s empty seat.
A few years before Lee Juwon became a middle school student, a dungeon first appeared in the Central African desert, and then otherworldly passages opened up all over the world, and various kinds of monsters appeared. The world was thrown into chaos overnight as dungeons suddenly popped up all over the world like a new virus breaking out.
The situation, which could not be stopped by the army or the police, was gradually improved as people manifested special abilities to subdue monsters. Along the way, research into dungeons and monsters continued, and after a few years, life somewhat returned to normal.
It was something they got used to, but not something they overcame. Dungeons still broke out randomly around the world. If the dungeons weren’t stopped, people were killed by the monsters.
The government couldn’t afford to spend more tax money, even as the number of orphaned children skyrocketed beyond the capacity of the orphanages. Ironically, as the number of orphans grew, the hatred became more intense than before, and more pronounced in peer groups.
Unlike before, when they could take a step back and throw their sympathies as if it was someone else’s business, the fear that they might soon become one of them drove them to violence. It wasn’t just a matter of blame. True to that fear, many people, including Lee Juwon, lost their parents, siblings, and even their own lives over time.
“I was sure you didn’t even know that stutterer’s name…”
“Did you eat something wrong?”
He did eat something wrong… The liquor soaked in acorns given by the talking squirrel… Thanks to that, he was able to relive his forgotten second year of middle school in a dream. When he didn’t answer, one of the kids, who tilted their head, reached out and touched his forehead. “Are you sick?”
When Lee Juwon motioned for them to move away, they withdrew their hand, but they seemed displeased.
“If you’re sick, go to the nurse’s office.”
“Yeah, the teachers even let you skip class. It’s so unfair, I should become 1st place in the entire school too.”
“I think the nurse keeps letting him in the nurse’s office just to see Lee Jwon‘s face?”
“Sob… The world is so damn unfair…”
The children, gathered in twos and threes, scattered to their seats as the bell rang. Only then did Kang Inheon open the back door and enter the classroom.
After making eye contact with Lee Juwon, Kang Inheon lowered his head and quickly walked to his seat. He checked the timetable on the blackboard and rummaged through his drawer.
Lee Juwon continued to stare at Kang Inheon’s side profile as he pulled out a maths textbook from his drawer. It felt strange to see him as a child.
His little body was skinny, but there was still baby fat on his milky white cheeks. It seemed as if when you poked his cheek, it would be pushed back softly. There was a sense of separation, as the Kang Inheon he knew seemed as if he couldn’t even be stabbed by a monster’s teeth. He wanted to get a closer look at him, but his bushy hair made it hard to see his face.
It was winter, so the classroom, with its windows tightly closed, smelled like a mix of sweat and the funky scent of male students. However, Kang Inheon seemed like he’d smell soft if he were to be hugged.
Slide, the front door opened and a medium-height woman with short hair entered. The kids shouted even before their maths teacher could stand in front of her desk.
“Ah, teacher, it’s the Eve, so let’s have fun!”
“Let’s watch a movie!”
“Self-study! Self-study!”
“Tell us a fun story, please!”
“A fun story?” The teacher responded, placing a book on the table, and the children cheered at the thought of having a little fun seeing her reaction.
“Long, long ago… when tigers used to smoke…” The teacher began the story with a clichéd introduction. “Alexander the Great of the kingdom of Macedonia set out on an expedition to Persia.”
“Why Macedonia all of a sudden?” A student interrupted, but the teacher naturally passed over that and continued, “However, there were many more enemy troops than allies. Naturally, the soldiers lost their fighting spirit.”
The fact that it wasn’t a class was enough to keep them interested. Even Kang Inheon listened without slumping over his desk. Lee Juwon cupped his chin, looking at the side profile of the young Kang Inheon.
“So, Alexander the Great said to his soldiers, ‘I have received a revelation from God! I will flip this coin, and if it comes up heads, we will win, and if it comes up tails, we will lose!’ And flip, he threw the coin.”
The children’s attention was focused as the teacher mimed tossing a coin with a flick of her thumb and forefinger.
“The coin went up in the air and landed on the ground, and guess what? Yes, it was heads. When the soldiers saw that, their morale rose, they fought hard, and they won. But as it turns out, both sides of the coin were heads.”
“What?! Isn’t that a scam?”
“I can’t believe manipulation play existed in BC too…”
The kids chimed in, and the teacher shrugged. “Anyhow, when you’re on the battlefield, you have no choice but to believe in victory. The conclusion may be set, but isn’t there a time when a decision needs to be made?”
A student in the front row raised their hand high and shouted, “An askhole?”
The children giggled and laughed. The teacher chuckled lightly and continued, “Yes, when you solve a problem with a predetermined answer, you must leave the decision to the front side of a coin.”
The teacher’s story reminded him of the real-life Kang Inheon. Kang Inheon always decided the answer in dungeons too. Always in the most positive and righteous way. You always lived like that on the battlefield. Lee Juwon muttered as if talking to himself, “That’s cool.”
The teacher deliberately lowered her voice and asked, “But if it wasn’t a fake coin, what were the odds of it coming up heads?”
“Half and half! Fifty percent!”
“Right, so the first few times it might come up heads in a row, but if you repeat it 10 times, 100 times, 1000 times, it will eventually equalize to the percentage of cases, right?”
The children’s gazes became a little blurry. The teacher naturally continued, not caring, “Since we learned about the meaning of probability last time, shall I inform you about the nature of probability today?”
The children screamed “Uwaaak” when they realized they had been tricked like the soldiers of Alexander the Great. However, the teacher, who had always experienced commotions like this at this time of the year, remained calm. “You’re the slowest class, turn to page 240.”
Boooo, jeers rushed out. It was coming from the resentment of realizing the teacher’s story only served as motivation for the present. When they opened their textbooks to find a four-cut cartoon of Alexander the Great on a resting page, they grumbled that they had been cheated.
“I don’t have a book, though…” Lee Juwon whispered, nudging Kang Inheon’s elbow, and Kang Inheon, startled, stared at Lee Juwon. Their eyes finally met. His elaborate features caught his eye.
In a moment, he pushed his math textbook towards Lee Juwon and then slumped back down on his desk. Lee Juwon meant it as in looking at it together, but he somehow felt like he had just extorted his textbook.
orcinus comments:
oh how the tables turn… now lee juwon is the popular one and kang inheon is the loner lol
if chapter 4 is over 10 parts long pls dont kill me i swear this chapter is more than half of volume 2 😭
Thank you for the chapter!
Thank you for the chapter ^-^
Omg! Una actualización tan pronto?!!! Que emoción🤩
Graciaaaaaaas
😊
Aww I hope he gets closer to him this time
Thank you for the chapters ! Love the story
Thanks for the chapter!!!
Thank you for the chapter ♥️
Could this past maybe be reality? Like he actively changes his past actions, which leads the ML in admiring him, or sth like that…
He was shown a fixed future, an accurate present, and to fundamentally change them he changes his past.
I kind of like the thought of that, but it probably unlikely 🤔
clues to the plot have already been sprinkled throughout the story since the beginning hehe all thats left is to fit the pieces of the puzzle together
my thoughts exactly
Thank u
I wish he was really reborn this time
Waaaaa kids version of them! And opposite personalities too~~
Also, that flipping heads tails coinnnn 🤭 with ml always flipping heads
It’s emotional to get back in your younger years esp if it was good. Alive loved ones and not much societal tiredness and problems. Only school and kids.
awww baby eras so smol
Oh my god, seeing their past like this is just too damn wholesome. 🥹
So now I’m kind of suspecting that he might’ve actually gone back in time? It would explain why MC said something so righteous and inspirational to ML but then not remember. It will probably tie in with some sort of conflict with the bullies he mentioned and end in him getting the scar. I wonder if it’s time travel or he’s being reminded of something he’s actually done but forgotten because of his head injury.