1
# Chapter 1
“Life is always a continuous journey of hardship. It isn't easy. It may torment you for the rest of your life.
Still, Chan-seong, you don't have to live so relentlessly and force yourself to keep going. When things get hard, take a little break. Look around you, and talk with good people.
And then, start running again. Toward the kind of life you want to live.
Because life isn't the result. It's the process.
Whenever things get too difficult for you, don't hesitate to ask this old man for help.
Whatever it may be, your grandfather will help you.
I love you.”
I stared blankly at the will my grandfather had left behind in my hands.
I had already read it dozens of times, and the edges of the will had become worn, but whenever I read it, it felt as though my grandfather's voice was ringing in my ears.
“Grandfather.”
I was 59 years old now.
It had truly been a life I had lived relentlessly.
After trying several times, I finally joined a major corporation, and I had lived fiercely, cutting down on my sleep and working day and night.
In the process, I earned numerous titles worth talking about, such as Sales King, the all-time number one sales record in the sales department, the largest-scale sales success, and the youngest executive.
I had even bought an apartment overlooking the Han River, the kind of apartment everyone considered their dream home.
“It was all pointless.”
From the outside, it looked like nothing but a shining, successful life, but the reality was utterly miserable.
My children, who had gone abroad to study, contacted me only when they needed something. They didn't even ask how I was doing.
The wife I had married through a match had found herself another man outside using the money I had earned.
And the company I had devoted my entire life to had used some convenient excuse to move my desk out into the hallway.
The humiliation I felt at that moment was beyond words.
All I had left now was a cold apartment where dust continued to pile up.
No friends. No one.
“What did I live like that for? What did I do it all for?”
Had I struggled so desperately just to live a life like this?
I had never even taken a single trip like everyone else, believing that happiness meant working hard, bringing home money, and building a family....
Only now did I finally understand what my grandfather had written in his will.
Life isn't the result. It's the process.
Now that I was facing the result, the truth I had desperately tried to ignore stabbed straight into my heart.
I had lived my life wrong.
“Grandfather.”
My grandfather had passed away a long time ago. His face had become blurry in my memories, and even his voice had faded until it was barely there.
But the warmth of his affection still remained.
The loving touch of his hand as he stroked my hair, his gentle voice... Today, I missed them more than ever.
“I think I lived my life wrong.”
I tightly gripped the will and murmured quietly.
“Grandfather, please help me.”
I kept searching for my grandfather as I lamented my circumstances, until I eventually fell asleep without even realizing it.
And when I opened my eyes—
“Hey, Lee Chan-seong! Congratulations on getting the job!”
I had returned to the summer when I was 29 years old, the year I had joined a major corporation.
---
“Phew.”
I wiped the sweat running down my forehead with the edge of my sleeve.
I had no idea how I had managed to cram so much stuff into that tiny semi-basement room. It had taken half a day just to get everything out.
Looking at the now-empty room, the three years I had spent here long ago flashed through my mind.
“Lee Chan-seong, are you done getting everything out?”
I didn't even have time to get lost in my memories.
I left the semi-basement behind at Gi-hyeon's voice as he helped me move.
Gi-hyeon, who was pushing the boxes into the small moving truck, dusted off his hands and asked,
“I'm asking if you got everything out.”
“Yeah, yeah. It's all out. There wasn't much to load in the first place. I threw away all the useless stuff. I told you I didn't even need a moving truck.”
“Whatever. Get in. I've got work this afternoon, so I need to make this quick.”
Once I climbed into the passenger seat, Gi-hyeon skillfully operated the navigation system.
Our destination was the outskirts of Gyeonggi.
My grandfather's house.
“This is the right address, isn't it?”
“Yeah. It is.”
“How long has it been since you last went down there? And when are you coming back up?”
“It's not so far away that I can't come back.”
It was a place you could call the countryside, but people still lived there.
There was public transportation, and I could come out whenever I wanted if I made up my mind to.
Gi-hyeon was about to shift gears when he turned to look at me.
“Hey, Lee Chan-seong.”
“Don't look at me with such serious eyes. It's making me uncomfortable.”
“This guy, seriously. I'm just asking to make sure.”
“Make sure of what?”
“Are you really okay with giving up on joining the company?”
At Gi-hyeon's question, I smiled faintly.
It had taken me three years just to prepare for that company's recruitment process.
When I said I was going to give up on joining a company I had worked so hard for, he had come to my house, grabbed me by the collar, and shaken me.
He knew exactly how hard I had worked. He knew how desperately I had clung to that goal for those three years.
He was a good guy.
Losing someone like him was one of the mistakes I had made in my life.
“Yeah.”
“Don't you regret throwing three years away?”
Not three years.
Thirty-three years, my friend.
Turning my back on that company wasn't easy. And now that I had memories of my previous life and information about the future, perhaps there were far more things I could do.
I might be able to rise through the ranks faster, or meet a better person and build a happy family.
I could live the way I wanted.
But—
“I don't regret it.”
I took out my grandfather's will from inside my clothes.
Surprisingly, the contents of my grandfather's will had changed after I returned to the past.
“Chan-seong, I hope you liked your grandfather's help.
I feel like this isn't enough, so I'll also give you the house I used to live in. It's your house now.
Your grandfather will always support your new life.
I will always love you.
P.S. If you have the time, stop by the teahouse as well. You should be able to open the door with the house key.”
Grandfather, thank you.
The only thing I regretted was that I hadn't been able to tell him I loved him more while he was alive.
I rubbed the key attached to the end of the will and spoke.
“I regret it... but I don't regret it.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Just because. Now get going. We've got a long way to go.”
“You crazy bastard.”
The moving truck rattled its way forward.
I leaned against the window and stared blankly at the scenery passing outside.
Today marked exactly one week since I had returned to the past.
Those seven days had been incredibly busy.
I spent one day trying to understand my regression, and another crying as I read my grandfather's will.
I spent the remaining five days deciding how I would live from now on, and today, I finally started putting all those decisions into action.
“How are you going to live once you get down there? What about money?”
“I've got some saved up. It'll be enough to live on for the time being.”
“Will that be enough for long? You have to do something.”
“You know the teahouse my grandfather used to run? It's got a quiet, nice atmosphere.”
“Oh, Yangjibareun Teahouse? Isn't that basically the village gathering place where everyone hangs out?”
“My grandfather left it to me.”
It was a teahouse in the countryside, so the income probably wouldn't be very high.
But that didn't matter.
Since I knew information about the future, I was practically the god of investing.
I had already put money into several stocks.
It was practically pocket change, but in just a few months, that money would grow substantially and come back to me.
“Can you really make money from a teahouse?”
“My grandfather made a living from it alone. So I should be able to, right?”
“Any other plans?”
“Not really. For now, I want to take some time off, meet my friends, meet people, and stuff like that.”
Spend good times with good people.
Fill my life with moments like those.
That was the biggest goal I had set for myself after returning to the past.
“So I'll come up every now and then. Don't be too sad just because your hyung isn't around.”
“You crazy bastard.”
“You know the saying, birds of a feather flock together?”
“Yeah. I'm a crazy bastard too.”
Gi-hyeon and I looked at each other for a moment before bursting into laughter.
For the remaining two hours of the drive, Gi-hyeon and I talked about this and that.
We had known each other since high school, and we had even come to the city together, so if we started talking, there was no end to the stories we could tell.
Thanks to leaving early, we arrived at our destination while it was still lunchtime.
“...Is this the place?”
“I think... so?”
“Holy crap. Your grandfather owned a house like this?”
The house waiting for us at our destination was a three-story mansion.
It was the mansion of a wealthy family, complete with a spacious yard and a parking lot.
The first impression I got upon seeing it was that it was magnificent and sophisticated. It wouldn't have looked out of place even compared to the expensive houses in Cheongdam.
...It looked even better than the Han River-view apartment I had spent thirty years working to buy.
“Was your grandfather rich? You bastard, you're from a wealthy family and didn't even know it. You had a house like this and studied in a semi-basement? Are you insane?”
“I didn't know either! It wasn't like this before!”
The house in my memories was just an ordinary little country home.
Not this magnificent mansion.
“Wait a second.”
I took out the key attached to the will.
I gently inserted it into the lock of the door, and it fit perfectly, as though it had found its rightful match.
So this really was the house.
It was a little complicated, but... it made sense.
Considering the fact that my grandfather had made my regression possible, he couldn't have been an ordinary person.
Who exactly had my grandfather been?
“Can we go in now?”
“Yeah. Hey, you can park over there.”
Once we stepped inside, it was even more magnificent and impressive than it looked from the outside.
They say a well-made building can move you simply by existing.
Gi-hyeon stared blankly at the central living room before speaking.
“Hey, can I work here as a housekeeper? Let me live here at least once.”
“Come work for me if you're okay with 500 won an hour. Otherwise, just come visit sometime. Let's take a quick look at the other rooms too.”
As we looked around along the hallway, every room reminded me of a luxury hotel.
The largest room was practically a hotel suite.
“This is like some duke's mansion straight out of a fantasy novel.”
“Then am I the duke?”
“If you're the duke, the country's doomed.”
“Let's move the stuff first. Didn't you say you had to leave quickly?”
“Oh, right. I did.”
I patted the absent-minded Gi-hyeon on the shoulder and started moving the boxes.
There wasn't much to it. We simply put the boxes containing clothes, books, and other household items down in front of the rooms, and we were done in no time.
“What about lunch? Want to eat before you go? We can look around our hometown while we're at it.”
“I'd like to, but let's do it next time. I'm pressed for time.”
Despite already having plans, the guy had gone out of his way to come help me. He got back into his car.
I felt a little bad that I hadn't given him anything for helping me.
“Come visit next time you get a break. I'll even treat you to some steak.”
“I'll come even if you tell me not to. I have to sleep in a house like this at least once. I'll come down on my next day off, so clean up a room for me.”
“Sure.”
“I'm off.”
He gave me a casual wave and left without even looking back.
He'd been busy lately since it was peak season. I had no idea when his next day off would be.
It would be better to prepare a room for him in advance.
“Well then.”
Before unpacking, there was somewhere I wanted to visit first.
The place where my grandfather had spent the most time.
The teahouse filled with the most memories of my grandfather and me, Yangjibareun Teahouse.
It was within walking distance, so I leisurely set off.
“It's been a long time.”
After spending more than thirty years in the city, seeing the leisurely scenery of the countryside made me feel relaxed as well.
I had left because I disliked this kind of life, yet somehow, I had ended up returning because I missed it.
As I walked, admiring the rice fields and farmland, I soon arrived at my grandfather's teahouse.
“Grandfather.”
It was a teahouse that hadn't been opened even once since my grandfather passed away.
A thick layer of dust covered everything, and weeds had grown all around the place.
The atmosphere even gave it a slight abandoned-house feel, but once it was properly maintained, there wouldn't be anywhere else with an atmosphere this warm.
I used to forget all my worries while reading a book here and drinking the tea my grandfather made for me.
Click. Jingle.
When I opened the door and stepped inside, the interior was covered in dust.
That was only natural. It had been left untouched for about a year without anyone to take care of it.
I wiped the dust from the bar counter with my hand and looked around the teahouse.
“Grandfather really did take good care of this place.”
It had been a year, but all it needed was a good sweeping and wiping down, along with a little tidying outside.
Especially the tea leaves stored in the storage room.
Somehow, they hadn't dried out or rotted.
There wasn't even a single corner where mold had grown, even though you'd think at least one of them should have.
Still, if I used these, I'd probably get arrested under the Food Sanitation Act.
I was touching the tea leaves and coffee beans when—
Jingle.
The bell hanging at the entrance of the teahouse rang.
Who could it be? Someone coming for an abandoned-house experience?
With that question in mind, I stepped out of the storage room.
A small child was standing at the entrance.
Five years old? Four? At most, she looked like she might be a first-grader.
The child, wearing a bright yellow dress, opened her round eyes wide and stared at me.
“Huh?”
“Hmm?”
I hadn't even opened the teahouse yet, and already a little customer had come looking for me.