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# 3: The Goose's Hidden Ability
The ramen had finished cooking, but the noodles had become soggy and clumped together again. He had turned off the heat
too late because he had been absentmindedly lost in the déjà vu.
Do-hyeon gave a bitter little smile. This was something that happened all the time too.
He placed the entire pot on the dining table and picked up his chopsticks. Then he slowly ate the ramen, unable to even
taste its saltiness.
A company telling him to leave. Debts he could not tell anyone about. A wife and children who had abandoned him. An
empty bank account.
And this damned sense of déjà vu that had followed him all his life.
At fifty-eight, for a man whose only possession was debt, something like déjà vu was completely useless.
Today was the same as yesterday, and tomorrow would be the same as today.
Since every day was practically the same anyway, perhaps it was only natural that he sometimes felt as though he had
experienced things before.
There was nothing new left in his life.
Do-hyeon finished the rest of the ramen broth. But suddenly, his eyes grew hot again.
He wiped his eyes once with the back of his hand, pushed the empty pot aside, and turned off the light.
Then he spread out his blanket in the darkness and lay down.
He could not see the ceiling.
Instead, faint light from the neighboring building seeped in through the window.
Sleep would not come.
There was no way he could easily fall asleep on a night like this.
Thoughts of repaying his debts, the face of the HR manager he would have to see again tomorrow, and the thought of a
life from which everything had disappeared kept spinning around in his head.
Do-hyeon tossed and turned.
Then, suddenly, an old memory came to him.
When he was young, he had a habit he always practiced before falling asleep.
He would tightly close his eyes beneath the blanket and earnestly imagine what might happen the next day.
The night before a school outing, he would wonder, “What will the weather be like tomorrow?”
The night before an exam, he would wonder, “How will the exam go tomorrow?”
And strangely enough, the next day, he would often encounter scenes similar to the ones he had imagined.
But young Do-hyeon had thought it was simply his imagination.
The kind of daydream everyone had about the next day.
As he grew older, he forgot that habit.
There was nothing in an adult's life worth eagerly looking forward to tomorrow for.
If anything, there were more days when he wished tomorrow would never come.
But tonight, for some reason, that distant old habit came back to him.
He could not sleep anyway.
Tomorrow would probably be just as miserable as today.
Maybe if he knew what was coming in advance, he could at least prepare himself.
No.
Perhaps he simply wanted something to hold on to.
In this pitch-black night.
In this hopeless life.
Something, anything, he could lean on.
With half a self-mocking feeling, Do-hyeon tried it again for the first time in decades.
He closed his eyes and earnestly wished.
“What kind of day will tomorrow be?”
Even though he knew it was pointless, it was almost like a ritual to help him fall asleep.
And so, he drifted off.
How long had he slept?
He dreamed.
No.
It was too vivid to be called a dream.
Scenes appeared.
Him opening his eyes in the morning and getting up with a stiff body.
Someone bumping into his shoulder on the subway during his commute.
Him arriving at work and sitting at his desk.
The menu in the company cafeteria at lunchtime.
A phone call that would come in the afternoon.
And a scene from an alley he always passed on his way home.
They were fragments of nothing more than an ordinary day.
Neither particularly miserable nor particularly extraordinary.
Just fragments of a normal tomorrow passing through his mind as though he had already lived through it once.
Half-asleep, Do-hyeon vaguely thought as he watched the scenes.
Another dream like déjà vu.
Then he fell back into a deep sleep.
The next morning, Do-hyeon opened his eyes and got up with his body feeling stiff.
At that moment, a strange feeling passed through him.
This movement just now...
Where have I seen it before?
But he did not think much of it.
It was the usual sense of déjà vu.
He washed his face, got dressed, and left the house.
On the way to the subway station, he stood on the platform among the usual crowd.
The train arrived.
The doors opened.
People pushed their way inside.
Amid the bustling crowd, someone collided hard with his shoulder.
“Ah, I'm sorry.”
Do-hyeon instinctively apologized and raised his head.
And at that moment, a chill ran down his spine.
This scene.
He had definitely seen it.
The exact scene from his dream the night before, where someone bumped into his shoulder on the subway during his
commute.
Do-hyeon stopped in place as people pushed past him.
He stood there blankly, feeling his heart begin to pound rapidly.
It must be a coincidence!
He desperately tried to convince himself.
Bumping into someone's shoulder on the way to work was common.
And déjà vu was something he experienced every day.
Yes.
It was a coincidence.
But throughout that day, Do-hyeon repeatedly experienced strange things.
At lunchtime, he went to the company cafeteria and found the exact same menu he had seen in his dream the night before.
In the afternoon, a phone call came at exactly the time he had seen in his dream.
On his way home, the scenery of the alley he always passed appeared before his eyes exactly as he had seen it in his
dream.
Each thing was insignificant on its own.
They were simply ordinary pieces of everyday life.
Taken separately, each one was something he could easily dismiss by saying, “That can happen.”
But those insignificant things had matched one after another throughout the entire day, in exactly the same order he had
seen them in his dream the previous night.
On his way home, Do-hyeon's mind was extremely complicated.
That was not déjà vu.
Déjà vu was merely the feeling that you had seen something before. It did not actually come true.
But today was different.
It was not a feeling.
Each thing had actually happened exactly as he had seen it.
It was as though he had visited tomorrow in advance the night before.
Could it be?
Do-hyeon stopped walking.
The déjà vu that had followed him throughout his entire life...
What if it had not actually been an illusion?
What if the habit he had as a child, when he would wish before falling asleep and then see the next day, had not simply
been childish imagination?
He swallowed hard.
No!
Do-hyeon shook his head.
It could just be that several coincidences had overlapped today.
He could not know from just one occurrence.
His life was not leisurely enough for him to make a fuss over something like this.
But another thought occurred to him.
Then he had to find out.
If he really had such an ability, wouldn't all he had to do was try it one more time?
Tonight.
If he earnestly wished once again...
Would he see tomorrow again?
Do-hyeon quickened his steps toward his studio apartment.
Something that had been extinguished deep inside his heart for a very long time had begun to flicker faintly again.
Whether it was hope or simply another illusion, he did not know yet.
When Do-hyeon returned to his studio apartment, he did not make ramen that night.
He had no appetite.
He was not hungry.
His mind was occupied by only one thought.
Everything he had seen in his dream had happened exactly as he had seen it.
The collision on the subway.
The cafeteria menu.
The afternoon phone call.
The scenery of the alley.
Every single thing.
Not one had been different.
Do-hyeon sat on the floor and hugged his knees.
He remained like that for a long time beneath the fluorescent light, while two voices continued arguing inside his head.
[It's a coincidence. Things like that happen to everyone.]
[No. How could all of that be a coincidence?]
There was only one way to find out.
The method was simple.
Tonight, he would earnestly wish once more and fall asleep.
Then tomorrow, he would see whether it came true.
If it happened again...
Do-hyeon stopped himself from thinking any further and shook his head.
Don't get ahead of yourself.
After all, the only thing he had left was time.
There was nothing to lose.
He went to bed early.
He spread out his blanket and lay down.
Normally, he would have tossed and turned worrying about his debts, but tonight was different.
His heart was strangely pounding.
Like a child starting something again after having forgotten it for a very long time.
Do-hyeon closed his eyes.
And just like the night before, he earnestly wished.
“Show me tomorrow. Show me what will happen tomorrow.”
This time, he wished even more clearly.
More desperately.
As though he were praying.
At first, nothing came to mind.
There was only darkness.
Do-hyeon grew anxious.
So it really had been a coincidence?
Had he simply gotten lucky that day?
But just as sleep began to creep over him, something started to appear.
Scenes unfolded.
The coworker he would encounter in front of the company elevator the next morning.
The words that coworker would say.
The topic the manager would bring up during the morning meeting.
The menu he would eat for lunch.
And around three in the afternoon, a sudden shower that would pour down outside the office window.
The final scene was particularly vivid.
The clear sky suddenly darkening.
Heavy raindrops pounding against the windows.
Employees who had failed to bring umbrellas nervously looking outside and stamping their feet.
Half-asleep, Do-hyeon engraved that scene clearly into his mind.
A shower.
Three in the afternoon.
If it really rained at that time tomorrow...
Then it was not a coincidence.
The next morning.
As soon as Do-hyeon opened his eyes, he grabbed his phone and opened the weather app.
Today's weather: Clear. Chance of precipitation: 0%.
Do-hyeon stared at the screen.
It said the weather would remain clear all day.
There was no rain forecast anywhere.
He swallowed hard.
Then this would be an even more definitive test.
Even the weather service said it would not rain.
If a sudden shower really poured down at three in the afternoon, then it would be proof that what he had seen in advance
was real.
Do-hyeon left home earlier than usual and arrived at the company.
He stood in front of the elevator.
A moment later, a junior coworker from his team approached him.
“Oh, Manager. You came in early.”
A chill ran down Do-hyeon's spine.
It was exactly as he had seen the night before.
This junior.
This spot.
These words.
“Yeah.”
Do-hyeon barely managed to answer.
The junior, however, casually looked at his phone while waiting for the elevator, completely unaware of what was going
through Do-hyeon's mind.
The same thing happened during the morning meeting.
The topic the manager brought up was exactly the one Do-hyeon had seen the night before.
And the lunch menu was exactly the same as well.
Each time another prediction came true, Do-hyeon's heart beat faster and faster.
Now there was only one thing left.
Three in the afternoon.
The shower.
Do-hyeon could not concentrate on his work and kept checking the clock.
Then he looked out the window.
The sky was clear.
It was blue without a single cloud.
Could it really rain under a sky like this?
Two o'clock.
Still clear.
Two-thirty.
Still clear.
Do-hyeon grew anxious.
Was the final prediction going to be wrong after all?
Maybe that was the limit of his ability.
No.
Maybe there was no ability at all, and it was simply...
Two fifty.
Suddenly, the sky began to darken.
Do-hyeon shot up from his seat and approached the window.
From the horizon of the previously clear sky, dark clouds were rapidly rolling in.
And then it was three o'clock.
Pitter-patter.
Raindrops began to fall.
At first, only a few drops.
Then thick streams of rain began pounding against the windows.
It was a sudden shower.
The exact same shower Do-hyeon had seen the night before.
The office erupted into commotion.
“Huh? It's raining?”
“Ah, damn. I didn't bring an umbrella.”
“They said the weather was going to be clear. Why is there suddenly a shower?”
The employees crowded around the windows, stamping their feet.
Exactly as Do-hyeon had seen them the night before.
Do-hyeon stared out the window and felt goosebumps spread across his entire body.
It was real.
It was not a coincidence.
Yesterday and today, the tomorrow he had seen before falling asleep had become reality without a single detail being
wrong.
The thing he had dismissed as déjà vu his entire life was not an illusion.
The habit he had as a child, of wishing before falling asleep and then seeing the following day, had not been childish
imagination.
He could see tomorrow.
For real.