I’m Cheering You On - 1
Saturday morning.
I was still sitting at the outdoor table.
In the end, I had spent the entire day there like a stone Buddha. I ate and slept there, too. Thanks to that, my head felt a little foggy.
The Han River in front of me rippled and swayed.
I couldn’t tell whether I was the one nodding off, or whether the river itself was moving.
...
It was quiet around me.
This week was A-yeong’s intensive lesson period, so she wasn’t coming in for her part-time job. That made the place quiet enough for me to sit alone and drift through one thought after another.
For example.
Why had I regressed?
That kind of question.
...
Why me, of all people?
I had asked myself that more times than I could count.
I didn’t even think about my childhood or adolescence anymore. Even my memories from just before regression felt hazy, as if they belonged to a time hundreds of years ago.
But there were still a few things I remembered clearly.
...
The me before regression had been pathetic.
I had been an ordinary jobless layabout who sometimes did volunteer work. I had taken some interest in finance and law, but even that was only at an amateur level. I was a person with nothing special about him.
And yet I became a regressor. Even if I made more money than before, I still wasn’t much of anyone special now.
My brain had just gone a little bad, that was all.
I had become the sort of guy you could find anywhere.
That was why, at some point, I started wondering.
...
Why?
Why me?
What was this regression even for?
Say, for instance, that an American tycoon or a Saudi royal regressed. Unlike me, who had not a single spare won to his name, they already had assets worth tens of billions of dollars from the very beginning.
Social influence.
Infrastructure.
Means of protection.
Everything they had was more than enough; it overflowed.
If people like that had infinite regression, they could probably conquer the Earth in less than ten loops.
Maybe they’d even be able to scientifically analyze the phenomenon of regression itself. Or maybe they’d pretend to be religious messiahs and pull off world unification that way.
...
People like that could probably accomplish with ease what had been impossible for me: a day when everyone was happy. Better yet, they might erase all the things that made humanity suffer, like abnormal weather, famine, war, and disease.
Infinite regression was that kind of miracle.
If Jesus and Buddha saw it, they might ask if we had perhaps met somewhere before. What I was going through was a miracle on par with what they themselves had experienced.
But my life was this mess.
For me, it had become not a miracle but a curse.
A curse that let me accomplish nothing.
...
The world was too big.
And it was filled to the brim with unfair suffering and despair.
But three months was too short to save them, and my hands were too small. Inside the tiny country of Korea, I could only barely save a few people after putting on the mask of Bigman.
The nickname Bigman was a sneer aimed at myself.
...
And yet.
Even if everything reset and fell apart one day.
I wanted to do something in every loop.
I wanted to use that absurdly expensive gym that was on the verge of going bust while building my body for no reason at all. I wanted to open a bizarre little restaurant in a stagnant commercial district and laugh and chat with the discouraged merchants there.
Even if I felt empty when I met the same people again in another loop.
I still wanted to do something else.
I wanted to help people with these small hands of mine.
That was the only fun and meaning left to me.
If I gave meaning to tomorrow that I could see, I wouldn’t be able to live with my mind breaking apart. So I gave meaning to the tomorrow they would live through, and wished for their happiness.
That was likely the final meaning these small hands of mine could carry.
...
And then.
Right now, I was cheering on a small-time VTuber.
At the very least....
I wanted to help make sure she could live happily.
...
Rustle—
At that thought,
the ten-thousand-won bill in my pocket seemed to answer.
...
I took it out.
The bill was crumpled and worn from how often I had carried it around.
The ten-thousand-won note A-yeong had once given me.
In a week, this money would disappear again.
...
The only time I could repay this debt was now.
Now had meaning.
I only believed that much.
Just as I thought that, a rough, elderly voice came from in front of me.
“You’re thinking about something weird again?”
“!”
I looked up.
It was the chief monk. He was shuffling over in a monk’s robe, carrying a market bag.
“Chief Monk. Hello. What brings you here?”
“Hello, my foot. You don’t look hello at all.”
...
“You really ought to get married, you rascal.”
“What is that supposed to mean....”
“You don’t have a wife beside you, so you’re falling apart and sitting here alone thinking strange thoughts. When you were going around with your wife, you at least looked like a living man. Right now you look like a corpse.”
...
“Go wash your face and shave.”
...
Without thinking, I touched my chin.
Scritch, scritch.
It seemed like a lot had grown overnight.
“Understood. But what brings you here?”
“The bodhisattva asked me to come eat with everyone. What reason do I have to refuse?”
“Pardon?”
“All human connections are made at the table.”
“What does that....”
“Ah, forget it. I’ll use the faucet. You go wash up.”
With that, the chief monk dumped the potatoes from the bag in a clatter beside the faucet. Then he began scrubbing them away without a care in the world.
I answered,
“Understood.”
Leaving the old monk to wash potatoes behind me, I picked up my backpack and went into the restroom behind the convenience store on the first floor. There, I shaved and washed my face with the toiletries inside my bag.
After shaking off the water well enough, I came back in front of the store, only to find the place already full of people. Minister Kim, Priest Gwon, Dr. Jang, and A-yeong’s mother, all of whom had arrived in the meantime, were busy preparing the feast.
-Hello!
-Nice to meet you.
-Wow, the view here is really great.
-I had no idea there was a convenience store in a place like this.
...
I stepped into their midst.
Minister Kim smiled brightly when he saw me. He and the church members were putting up a large tent. The whole scene felt almost like a festival.
“Manager Seonwoo! It’s okay to put the tent up here, right?”
“Yes, that’s fine. It’ll be hot, so I’ll bring out the big fans from inside.”
“Oh! Thank you.”
Priest Gwon was placing outdoor tables and chairs with a few children from the orphanage. Next to them were a portable gas burner and a pot.
“Thank you for arranging such a wonderful spot for us.”
“Not at all. I only provided the place. Please relax and enjoy yourselves. I’ll bring out some drinks. Have them while you’re working.”
“Ah! Thank you so much. Kids, you should say thank you too, okay?”
I could hear the children’s shy replies from behind him.
-Thank you.
...it’s nothing.
I bowed to them. Then I went and brought out the fans and drinks from the storage room. That was when a bright, middle-aged woman’s voice rang out.
“Taek-sobang!”
“!”
I looked over.
Dr. Jang and A-yeong’s mother, Lee Eun-ryeong, were chatting away. The moment they spotted me, they grinned broadly and began rambling in that warm, easygoing way of theirs.
“Well, well! Look who it is, my drinking buddy Seonwoo Taek! Hah-hah! This fellow looks hale and hearty. Are you planning to get married soon or something...?”
“Oh my, Dr. Jang! Young people these days are so shy. Say that and they’ll run away. Taek-sobang, don’t take it too seriously.”
“Mrs. Lee, weren’t you already sizing up Manager Seonwoo as your daughter’s husband?”
“Hohoho, when he’s such a fine son-in-law candidate, it’s only natural to reserve him early.”
I let the middle-aged banter wash over me and gave them a respectful nod.
“Hello. Thank you for making the long trip.”
“It was just a quick ride from Jongno, what do you mean long trip? Old folks get around by subway, so it’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
“Hoho! I took a taxi, so I got here in no time too. I was so excited I rushed right over.”
“Is that so?”
She smiled faintly.
“Of course! Once you get older, opportunities to meet people become precious. If you gather somewhere, people act like you’re being inappropriate and won’t even welcome you.... I even asked the chief monk at the temple I always visit, and he came right away.”
...
The “bodhisattva” the chief monk had mentioned was apparently A-yeong’s mother. It was an astonishingly tightly woven chain of connections. He was still sitting by the faucet, slicing the potatoes into thin strips.
When I turned my head again,
Dr. Jang answered with a bitter smile.
“It is hard not to notice. These days are bad. On the way here, the protests and everything else were so serious it felt suffocating. It’s all because of Myeong Gi-jun, that filthy....”
Dr. Jang glanced at A-yeong’s mother and swallowed the rest of the curse with a cough.
“Ahem. Anyway, the atmosphere is pretty grim.”
...
I thought of the final issue from July.
The fierce protests by people in the cultural industries.
...
Since it happened near the end of the loop, it was something I couldn’t really solve, so I hadn’t paid much attention to it.
The Cultural Industry Advancement Act.
The aftershocks left behind by a censorship law steeped in the deceit and greed of the establishment were enormous.
It had stabbed in the back people who had believed that someone inside the system would stop such an absurd law for them. So, as soon as the shock settled, people working in the cultural sector took to the streets and began protesting.
Protests all over Seoul.
Former idols, singers, indie game developers, independent film directors, web novelists, internet broadcasters, members of small theater troupes.
People who had once been creators.
People the law had forcibly taken that name from.
People branded as inadequate under the figure of 2 billion won.
It was their last resistance against an unreasonable system. But I did not know where that resistance would end, because on July 31, the end of the regression, I would never get to see the conclusion.
I could only....
Cheer for their happiness in the future.
Dr. Jang and I sat in silence, each of us feeling a different kind of heaviness.
...
...
A-yeong’s mother patted both our backs. It was the touch of a former social worker who had comforted and soothed countless people.
“Now, now. Don’t both of you go locking up your faces like that. It’s not like acting serious will solve anything right this minute.”
...
...
Dr. Jang took off his bucket hat and ran a hand through his hair.
“Hah, haha. That’s true enough. For now, let’s eat and rest.”
It was not a way of turning away from the problem, but of waiting for the right moment to solve it. That was the subtle wisdom buried in the words.
A-yeong said things like that often, too.
...
A-yeong must have learned that somewhere.... So she learned it from her mother. She probably learned the habit of taking care of people standing beside her, too.
The curiosity I had felt about the meeting between a seventeen-year-old aspiring idol and a soon-to-retire social worker, which I had encountered at the neighborhood center, drifted past me as well. In the end, the two had become mother and daughter.
But I let the thought pass.
There wasn’t enough time.
...
So I sat in the chair.
A little later, potato jeon, bibimbap, and uggeoji doenjang-guk were laid out in front of me. I tried to help the chief monk and A-yeong’s mother as they hurried about with the plates, but they refused.
“Ah, sit still! Don’t go looking all feeble and miserable again.”
“Hoho, Taek-sobang is the host here. Today, you’re being served.”
...
In the end, I picked up a pair of wooden chopsticks. Then I tore off a piece of the crisp, perfectly fried potato jeon and ate it.
...
It was hot,
and savory.
I blew on it and chewed slowly, little by little.
The soft fragrance of potato rose to the tip of my tongue and spread in a crackling wave through the oil. It was so tender it nearly fell apart after only a few chews.
Gulp.
I swallowed it.
...
It was delicious.
...
I looked ahead.
So many people were eating and talking under the tent.
The old minister, priest, and monk drank from the same bowl of doenjang-guk and debated the meaning of life. Children from the orphanage mingled with the elderly men from Tapgol Park as they ate good food together.
The two retirees who had spent their lives racing toward the final curtain were sharing episodes from their days as a musician and as a social worker, respectively, with a bowl of makgeolli in one hand.
-Wow, it tastes even better when we all eat together!
-That’s because our chief monk’s cooking has always been excellent.
-It’s because the bodhisattva helped.
-Grandpa, do you want some candy?
-Sure, thanks.
Every face was full of smiles.
Those smiles didn’t need 100 million won, or 10 billion, or even 1 trillion.
They only needed a single act of kindness.
...
If heaven existed,
would it look like this?
As I stood there staring blankly like that,
from beyond heaven’s clouds,
yellow and blue starlight waved and glittered back at me.
-Big Brother Taek!
-Hey, Mister Hong!
“!”
I stood up.
I went to welcome the stars coming from afar.
They had apparently finished their lesson and come straight over, dressed in comfortable clothes damp with sweat.
...
I looked at them.
The aftertaste of melted potato jeon lingering at the corners of my mouth was painfully sweet. It was the sort of taste you knew you shouldn’t keep reaching for, and yet you would.
Everything was beautiful.
...
It was undoubtedly because Chief Monk’s cooking was excellent.
---