What Am I Supposed to Do? - 2
On the way to Han River Park.
Baek Su-cheol was all smiles behind the wheel. Baek Hyang sat in the front passenger seat, staring out the window, while I sat in the back, directly behind her.
In the rearview mirror, Baek Su-cheol glanced at me and asked, “Manager, you’re not uncomfortable back there, are you?”
“I’m fine. Very comfortable.”
“Haha, I knew my driving skills hadn’t gone anywhere. Back when I was in the army, I even drove the battalion commander’s car. My sister came to visit me once, and the whole unit went crazy because they thought a celebrity had shown up—”
“Su-cheol, don’t say pointless things in front of a guest.”
“Ah, right. Sorry. I’ve just been so caught up in how well things are going lately.”
Sulking.
Baek Su-cheol stole a glance at Baek Hyang, then awkwardly changed the subject. “Anyway, I really didn’t expect to end up having dinner with you and my sister. I mean, who would’ve thought my sister would be the one to invite someone out first? How many years has it been since she showed interest in anybody? Wow, she really does have high standards—”
“....”
Baek Hyang turned to look at him expressionlessly. He flinched, then hurriedly pivoted again. “Hah, hahahaha... Well, sure, if it were anyone else, maybe not, but for some reason, Manager, you don’t feel like a stranger to me. Not a business partner, but a dependable member of the family... Ah, pardon me. Heh. Not ‘yet.’ Anyway, I just meant that I’m glad you keep helping us.”
“That’s not it. I merely did what was natural as a colleague.”
“Haha, a colleague... A colleague, huh. Right, when I’m with you, Manager, I feel at ease.”
While that conversation went on, I idly checked the things in my suit pocket. A ten-thousand-won bill and a bundle of Five-Colored Thread were right there, and the feel of them made me quietly relieve the tension in my chest.
Would the time I spent as Investment Manager Seonwoo Taek carry over too? The trip with Do-dam, A-yeong, and Dr. Jang...
Meaningful time.
The connections from this loop could carry on into the next one as well. And I had even met a helper—Baek Hyang—who knew what regression was. She had even said she would wait for me in the next loop.
A person I could go to for advice the moment the loop turned over.
Really.
It was a kind of reassurance I had never even imagined before. That one meeting alone made me feel strangely at peace. And because of that, I started noticing the world around me more clearly.
Up front, the Baek siblings sat side by side. In the back seat—the so-called “chairman’s seat”—there was me.
Still, is this seat arrangement really right?
Anyone could tell he was treating me better than he treated his own family. I’d refused at first when he offered me the seat, but he had only smiled gently and insisted.
“I owe you so much for all the kindness you’ve shown me, Manager. Don’t worry about age or anything like that—just sit back and make yourself comfortable.”
“It’s not enough to call it kindness. You don’t need to trouble yourself over me, Representative Baek.”
“Heh. Then let’s stop worrying about each other. Let’s just keep giving and taking like this. How does that sound?”
“....”
His over-the-top courtesy made me feel almost embarrassed.
I’m the one who’s been helped by Representative Baek and Teacher Baek Hyang.
Maybe the reason A-yeong had ended up with the Five-Colored Thread in a previous loop was that the Baek siblings’ connection had made it possible.
It was an uncanny sort of fate. The very relationship I had stumbled into while rooting for the dreams of small-time VTubers had become the path that let me grasp a clue about regression itself.
Without even thinking, I touched the Five-Colored Thread again and felt that same relief wash over me.
I’m glad I got to meet everyone.
“Ah, we’re here. This is the place near the Han River you mentioned, right? You lived in a really lovely neighborhood.”
“!”
I looked out the window.
We had arrived at the road leading to the convenience store before I knew it. The Han River flowed slowly in the distance, and the hill where the convenience store stood was faintly visible.
I got out of the back seat and spoke to Baek Su-cheol through the open window. He was still grinning at me as if he were having the time of his life.
“Representative Baek. Thank you for driving us. If I need to ask you anything, please feel free to contact me anytime.”
“Haha, understood. Even if you don’t have any particular business for me, you’re welcome at the company any time, Manager.”
His words were polite, but there was a warmth to them, the kind of broad, middle-aged kindness one gives to someone younger.
So I quietly held out my hand for a handshake.
“Thank you.”
“Hahaha!”
Baek Su-cheol took my hand and shook it with a touch of theatrical enthusiasm.
Then he turned to Baek Hyang and was about to ask for her contact information, but...
“Uh, sister?”
“....”
For some reason, she got out of the front passenger seat at once. Baek Su-cheol stared in bewilderment and called after her through the window.
“Sister? Why? Bathroom?”
“No.”
“Then why? Are you getting in the back to ride with us?”
“No.”
Baek Hyang pointed at me as she spoke. The Han River wind blew, and the hem of her white hanbok fluttered briskly.
“I’m going to stop by this man’s house for a bit. I might come back late.”
“....”
“....”
Baek Su-cheol was silent for a moment, then looked back at me. With a solemn expression that somehow carried real determination, he said, “Please take good care of my sister, brother-in-law.”
“That’s not it.”
“It really isn’t.”
I took Baek Hyang by the hand and led her toward the convenience store. I hadn’t expected anyone to get lost while walking a perfectly straight road side by side, so it was the only choice I had.
Her hand is as cold as ice.
The thought came to me almost involuntarily, because there was no warmth of life in Baek Hyang’s hand at all.
We finally reached the front of the convenience store.
“Teacher, this way.”
“....”
“Teacher?”
Baek Hyang looked around, then murmured in a hollow voice, her gaze fixed toward the distant bridge over the Han River.
“I passed right by here before.”
“Pardon?”
“I was looking for you while holding my nephew’s hand. We crossed that red bridge over there. But I never thought to come up this hill.”
“Looking for me...?”
“Yeah. I could feel the connection from where I originally lived, so I went searching to give you the Five-Colored Thread. It kept struggling and fighting to find its way back to a person of destiny. I didn’t expect another regressor to show up, but I was going to help if things got difficult.”
The Five-Colored Thread was trying to come to me...?
For a moment, I wanted to take it out and check, but there was something more important to do first. I let go of Baek Hyang’s hand and slowly lowered my head.
“Thank you. You could have simply looked the other way, but you came all this way to help me yourself. I’ll never forget that. Even after the loop turns over, I will never forget this kindness.”
“....”
Baek Hyang was silent for a while. Then she looked up at the sky.
“....”
“....”
What broke the silence was still her calm, steady voice.
“You must have helped Su-cheol before too. He was probably even more desperate back then. That boy wasn’t born to live an ordinary lifespan; wealth and fortune slip away from his kind. He was never fated to live this comfortably or this abundantly. I couldn’t say it until now because it would have been revealing too much about fate, but he was never meant to become a company president in the first place. He was always fated to end in ruin.”
“Pardon?”
Representative Baek wasn’t meant to live an ordinary lifespan...?
I had no choice but to lift my head. Then I met her eyes, bright and unmistakable amid all that white. There was the faintest trace of goodwill in them.
“Whether you knew it or not, you were the one who shouldered the burden in place of Su-cheol and the people he led, and brought fortune to them, weren’t you? Perhaps you have the qualities of someone who ought to be worshipped as a blessing-bringer?”
“....”
I felt strangely flustered.
That’s not it.
I had just been taking money I didn’t need and pouring it into a small-time VTuber company, giving them the stage they needed to pursue their dreams. I had never imagined it would be dressed up in something so grand.
But Baek Hyang kept going.
“Really, the tastes of the gods never change.”
“....”
“They don’t test those who hold power over the world. Instead, they make the small ones, who have nothing but willpower, walk the path of becoming a person of destiny.”
“....”
“You, too, must have come face-to-face with a destiny to become such a person somewhere between the beginning and end of your regression.”
“!”
Baek Hyang asked me, “How was your regression?”
“....”
I hesitated.
More than half of what she was saying I couldn’t fully understand. But I was certain of one thing: she was favorable toward me, and I had received a kindness I could never pay back quickly.
So I began telling her about my regression.
About the edge of a memory that had vanished.
About the places I could still barely remember.
“The regression I remember was...”
The story ended quickly.
Just as time itself had seemed endless, I could have gone on forever if I’d been talking about every little thing. But once I condensed it down to what I had tried to do in each loop, it ended surprisingly fast.
The loop where I chased a dream—failure.
The loop where I tried to reveal the truth about regression—failure.
The loop where I studied how to make money—failure.
The loop where I struggled to change the world—failure.
Because everything ended in failure.
Then came the connection with A-yeong that I had reached after all of that.
The story of helping her.
Connection and karma.
And the loop that returned after it all.
“And so, after wandering for a long time, I eventually came here. I decided to keep my promise to her and cherish this time. Most of the time from the previous loop is gone, but even what remains is precious.”
We had even talked about the previous loop just before that, and Baek Hyang and I were now sitting side by side at an outdoor table. She was drinking the grape juice I had taken out and staring vacantly into the air.
“....”
“....”
I had no clue what she was thinking. It was almost as if she had carried too much time for too long, until her present emotions had settled into silence.
Just like me.
...
...
It was a little frightening, and a little awkward too.
Watching her like that, I suddenly understood what Do-dam and A-yeong had been saying to me so often.
— Oppa, what are you thinking about?
— Chief, what’re you thinking about?
So that’s how I must have seemed to them.
Was this mirror therapy?
I found myself thinking that next time, I should act a little more naturally around them. If I didn’t want to hurt myself by getting too attached to people, then the habit of holding others at arm’s length would need to be fixed sooner or later.
Maybe I should just speak a little more casually.
“....”
Even that kind of thought was only possible because there was still hope left.
I tightened my grip on the Five-Colored Thread in my pocket and waited for Baek Hyang to speak again. I didn’t have to wait long.
Baek Hyang suddenly stood up, went off to fetch a tree branch from a little distance away, and drew a few lines on the ground. At the start of each line, she wrote a number.
1 2 3 4
Then she marked the number 2.
1 [2] 3 4
“The loop you’re in now is here.”
“Pardon?”
Then she pointed the branch at 1.
“The loop where you met your connection before is here.”
“....”
“You think the 1 disappeared and you moved on to 2, right? Because time always rewound and you felt that emptiness of returning to the same starting point.”
“That’s right.”
“But it’s a little different.”
“How so?”
Baek Hyang tapped the 1 with the branch.
“It’s still there. This time.”
“Huh...?”
“The end of regression is like choosing one of these countless ‘times’ and ending there. So. It’s still there.”
“....”
“Because it’s still there, it can influence the ‘time’ right next to it. That’s connection and karma.”
“Th-then that means...?”
“If the spirit that chose you is satisfied, and you build enough karma for yourself to accept it, then this time continues. The greater the karma, the more times and connections you can carry forward.”
Baek Hyang tapped the 1 again and again with the branch.
“So. It’s still there. It hasn’t disappeared. It’ll keep remaining until you choose it.”
....
I still didn’t fully understand the exact mechanism.
But one thing I understood for sure.
Let’s win together!
For some reason, A-yeong from the previous loop came to mind.
Was she...
waiting there?
So that time is still there...
—