Even If You Went Back a Thousand Times
“You look like you’re having a hard time. Definitely.”
Of course he wasn’t saying it because he actually saw something. Anyone looking at the man’s ashen, gloomy face would have said the same thing.
“And you’re carrying a lot on your shoulders.”
At Park Su-hwan’s words the man flinched, his whole body giving a little jolt. He didn’t need to say anything more—that reaction alone was answer enough.
Su-hwan chose his next words carefully, eyes narrowing as he studied the man.
“…”
Pinned by that gaze, the man lowered his head without even realizing it.
The way he kept glancing around, eyes darting nervously, anyone watching would have thought this was a police station, not a shaman’s shrine.
Okay. One more piece of the estimate just fell into place.
“You’ve taken a lot of unfair hits at work, haven’t you? Things that weren’t even your fault.”
The man’s face went slack with shock, but Su-hwan kept his expression perfectly casual, as if it were nothing special.
People who constantly read the room were easy to treat like doormats out in the world. They bent over backward to match everyone else’s moods just to avoid conflict.
And a man who stammered on top of that? There was nothing more to say.
“Th-that’s…!”
Baekya, who had been sprawled out rolling around, suddenly got up and climbed onto the man’s knee. The abrupt contact froze him solid.
“…?”
Su-hwan’s face twisted into an expression of pure disbelief at Baekya’s sudden stunt. Is this little bastard deliberately trying to ruin my business right now?
Fortunately the man didn’t seem particularly put off by Baekya. He just looked briefly startled by the sudden approach.
Tch. The whole atmosphere just deflated.
The carefully built mystical mood Su-hwan had worked so hard to create was instantly lightened by the puppy’s interruption.
When I’m working I should at least put him somewhere else for a bit. Honestly.
If there had been another room it might have been different, but this place was a cramped one-room basement. He was going to have to think seriously about this problem later.
“Pushed around here, pushed around there. Like a neighborhood punching bag.”
“That’s… that’s why I regret it. Why I ever chose this job.”
Su-hwan cocked one eyebrow and chewed over the man’s words.
It didn’t sound like simple dissatisfaction with the company or the people. His gut told him there was something deeper underneath.
Ah.
That was when a single sharp thought flashed through his mind.
Would someone who reads the room this carefully have ever chosen his own career path?
“There was something else you really wanted to do, wasn’t there?”
The answer was no.
The man’s eyes went wide, filled with shock and fluster. Once again Su-hwan had hit the bull’s-eye.
“…Y-yes. The truth is I wanted to be a poet. I never wanted to go to engineering school at all.”
A poet?
It had been a long time since Su-hwan had heard that occupation. These days most people chased money, which only made it rarer.
Hold on. What’s this?
Listening to the man, Su-hwan caught a strange sense of dissonance.
“But everyone said if I went to engineering school I’d have an easy time getting a job, so at least I wouldn’t have to worry about putting food on the table.”
That was it. The man’s speech was gradually becoming natural. Thanks to that, he was far easier to understand than at the start.
“What’s the point of any of that when it doesn’t even suit me?”
He still hadn’t noticed the change in himself.
“You’re speaking well now, aren’t you?”
“Wha—!!”
Startled by the remark, the man jolted so hard his whole body shook.
- Kang!
Baekya, sitting on his knee, swayed unsteadily, and the man hurriedly grabbed hold of him.
“S-sorry. How is this…?”
Su-hwan’s reaction wasn’t much different from the man’s. He simply could not make sense of what was happening in front of him.
It wasn’t like his mouth was unlocked or anything—so why is he suddenly speaking so fluently?
He briefly considered whether the man had been acting the whole time on purpose, then discarded the idea. There was no reason for him to do that.
“The stress at work got so bad I started stuttering. No matter how much treatment I got, nothing worked, but…”
“Is that so?”
If it wasn’t a permanent disability, the symptoms could certainly improve. The problem was why it had to be right now. The timing felt oddly suspicious.
Strange. Come to think of it, his complexion looks a bit brighter too.
“Yes. Really. I can’t even remember the last time I spoke properly. Honestly, it was all wrong from the beginning. If I just hadn’t gone to engineering school, none of this would have happened.”
Yes. That was the origin of every suffering he was living through now.
“If you wanted to be a poet, then originally you were thinking of creative writing, right?”
Su-hwan didn’t know much about universities. Studying had been a very distant story in his life, but even he knew that much common knowledge.
“Yes. And I wanted to express the world in my own way. Publishing a poetry collection under my own name—that was my dream.”
The man poured out the dream he had held deep in his chest for so long.
His eyes were full of lingering attachment, regret, and longing for the dream he had never achieved.
“That’s why I regret it. I should have just done what I wanted. All that time that passed feels so wasteful.”
Decades had flowed by since then. In all that time the man had never adapted to the company, and the extreme stress had even made him start to stutter.
“So if I could go back…”
He murmured in a low, despondent voice.
“No.”
Su-hwan cut him off firmly. He now knew exactly what he needed to say.
“What?”
“The result would be the same.”
“What do you mean… No. That’s not true. If I could go back I would definitely choose creative writing and become a poet. Without caring what anyone else thought.”
“No.”
“…?”
“Even if you went back a hundred times—no, a thousand times—the result would always be the same.”
Su-hwan looked the man straight in the eye and answered calmly.
“Because back then, that was clearly the best choice you could make. Because you had no other choice.”
“Ah…”
As understanding dawned, the man’s eyes began to grow moist.
For a long time he had tormented himself with self-reproach, believing he had let the most important moment of his life slip by too easily.
“It means you didn’t make the wrong choice.”
And Su-hwan comforted exactly that place in the man’s heart. As if he already knew everything without being told.
“It won’t be easy, but even if you feel wistful about the past that’s gone, don’t regret it. It’s too precious for that.”
Su-hwan’s gaze drifted naturally to Baekya, who was still sitting on the man’s knee.
Strangely, unlike before, the puppy looked conspicuously exhausted. He was dozing off with his head nodding, as if all his energy had been drained.
“Time that has already flowed never comes back. If you couldn’t do it then, you can do it now. As much as you want, adjusted to the situation. Right?”
Hearing those last words, the man finally let the tears he had been holding back burst free. He began to sob, shoulders heaving like a child.
“Our Mungchi. Looking pretty again today.”
Choi Yu-ri said, gazing with pure satisfaction at the Shih Tzu, Mungchi, who was lying comfortably on a cushion. Affection for the little dog dripped from her eyes.
“No way. Of course not.”
She thought back to the crazy guy she had run into a few days ago. The man in a hanbok, sweating buckets, sitting at a bus stop.
She had heard that every kind of cult was running rampant these days. She just hadn’t known there were weirdos with concepts that strange.
He did look like he was barely scraping by, though.
Just remembering the way he had suddenly started trembling and muttering that little performance made her laugh.
If you were going to do it, at least do it properly. The acting had been so terrible it was embarrassing for anyone watching.
Even more ridiculous was what came after. When the acting didn’t work, he dropped the act and started pouring out every kind of curse.
“The more I think about it, the madder I get.”
There were things people should and shouldn’t say. But that man had acted however he pleased just because his feelings were hurt. And he had brazenly demanded a bokchae on top of it.
“Let’s see if an accident actually happens.”
If that bastard’s words were true, today was the day the accident would hit. Choi Yu-ri snorted at the man’s prediction.
Accident, my ass. Mungchi didn’t have a single sore spot on him, and she had zero plans to set foot outside the house today. It was a long-awaited day of rest, after all.
A person sitting still in the corner of a room wasn’t going to get into a traffic accident. Not unless a car suddenly flew up to the third floor of this building.
After gently stroking Mungchi’s head, Choi Yu-ri stood up.
“Our Mungchi. I’ll just finish up the piled-up chores real quick and then come play with you.”
She gave Mungchi’s rump a couple of pats, then started in on the mountain of dishes and housework. She had kept putting it off all week because she couldn’t be bothered, so there were a lot of dishes.
If she had just done them on time none of this would have been necessary, but when you repeated the commute every day you got so tired that cleaning always got pushed to the back burner. So setting aside a proper day like this for a full house clean was essential.
Once the dishes were done, Choi Yu-ri headed straight out to the veranda. A mini washing machine was set up there.
“I can’t believe I wore this many clothes.”
The laundry basket in front of the machine was overflowing with every kind of garment. Looking at it, Choi Yu-ri let out a heavy sigh without meaning to.
Housework is just weirdly not fun, you know?
Not that she could skip it. She didn’t even have clothes to wear to work tomorrow.
She crammed the laundry into the machine. The gesture was packed with the desire to get everything done in one go.
She pulled a detergent pod from the cupboard, tossed it roughly into the washer, and jabbed the start button. With a low humming rumble, the machine began to turn.
Great. Laundry’s done as is!
Back in the living room, she gave a couple of taps to the rump of Mungchi, who was completely absorbed in playing with a ball by himself. Then she went straight to the bathroom, liberally sprayed bleach, and scrubbed the place down with water.
She wanted nothing more than to collapse onto the bed right that second, but she gritted her teeth and wiped every corner of the bathroom.
How much time had passed like that? She had just finished wiping the moisture from the bathroom floor and was about to empty the trash can when—
- Kyaeng-gaeng, kyaeng!!
Mungchi’s scream rang out from the living room. Startled, she bolted out of the bathroom.