Gather Here - 1
[July 26, 07:01:56]
[July 26, 07:01:57]
[July 26, 07:01:58]
[July 26, 07:01:59]
[July 26, 07:02:00]
...
...
...
Tick.
Tick.
I opened my eyes.
A gray ceiling.
It was the familiar one-room apartment.
Five days until the regression now.
That was the first thought that came to me the moment I got up.
Five days.
An old five-day market.
There was only enough time left to hold a market once.
Should I go look around the market with the head monk?
He had snapped at me from the first time we met, so I had a feeling he’d be exactly the same even if we met again after losing all our memories. Someday, I ought to go into that temple pretending not to know him and at least eat a meal there.
Anyway.
I was back in the one-room apartment.
“...”
It had only been two months, and yet it felt like I had returned home after an age.
The touch against my back was completely familiar. It wasn’t the soft new mattress I’d bought and used in the rooftop room, but the feel of the mattress I’d been sleeping on since before the regression.
Creak.
Creak.
It was only a little better than sleeping on the bare floor. Through the sagging mattress, I could faintly feel the ground beneath it.
The Monday silence of the one-room village I’d returned to was quiet.
Not the silence of nature around the Han River, but the silence of cheap mass-produced things buried between gray concrete walls.
“...”
-And then, over there... Ah! Bigman! Bigman-nim, welcome!
Beep.
Beep.
-One billion won, huh? One billion—?!
“...”
When I let myself drift like that,
the air around my ears felt cold enough to buzz.
I had come back to the one-room apartment on Sunday.
After I finished whatever I needed to do outside.
The moment I lay down, I fell asleep.
And now I was awake.
That was all.
“...”
I sat up. Then I perched clumsily on the bed and looked around.
“...”
I could see the familiar shape of the room.
Whether my eyes were open or closed, it hardly made a difference. That was only natural; it was a space I’d been trapped in for decades.
This room held only the things I’d used since the first day of the regression. Stuff like the cheap refrigerator, TV, and hanger the landlord had put in here from the beginning.
Every one of them tilted or creaked if it lost its balance. So I had used newspapers and magazines to prop things up in a dozen places.
Even so, some noise always lingered somewhere.
-This isn't a place for some young punk to kill time. It's where old men come to forget death until the day they die. You aren't living if you're here.
Creak.
Creak.
-You mustn't end up like me...
“...”
The shabby space of my twenties.
It was the sort of place that, once you broke away from your parents, made people living here feel certain urges. A thought that comes to you suddenly in a room full of cheap junk.
Ah, I can't live like this anymore. Someday, I have to get out of here...
That kind of muttering.
But.
I still couldn’t get out.
For decades now.
Even after becoming a man worth hundreds of billions of won.
Because I’d regress anyway.
Creak.
Creak.
The noise kept coming.
-Just take it. I’m paying for the ramen.
Creak.
Creak.
“Why?”
My ears hurt.
Creak.
Creak.
-You just looked like you were having a hard time...
I dug at my ears.
But it kept coming.
“...”
The noise in the silence, creak, creak...
Creak.
Creak.
“Creak, creak...”
Creak.
Creak.
Creak.
“Creak, creak, creak.”
Creak, creak.
Creak, creak—
Creak.
Creak.
The noise was getting unbearable. At the end of this round, maybe it would be better to fall off a cliff. If my head got smashed in first, I wouldn’t have to hear this noise for a while.
To prepare cleanly for the next round.
I would need some time.
“...”
The next round.
Next.
Next...
“...”
Just as I was thinking that.
Just as I was about to clutch my head.
Rustle—
An unfamiliar touch brushed my cheek.
The ticklish feel of threads.
“!”
I jumped and looked at my left hand.
There was the bracelet Aryeong had put on me on Saturday. A quick bracelet braided out of the Five-Colored Thread. If I were being generous, it looked like something made in a hobby craft class. But there was a reason I couldn’t help seeing it generously.
It was made by the VTuber I supported more than anyone else.
Personally.
Something she’d tied for me herself, after struggling with it for more than two hours.
What was this bracelet worth?
At minimum wage, maybe a little over fifty thousand won. If I added Aryeong’s average broadcast earnings, another hundred thousand or so. With brand premium, merch royalties, and other costs, I could probably inflate it to 1.5 million won.
And if I added the value of the personal story behind it, even one billion wouldn’t be enough.
“...”
Not that I’m going to sell it.
That was a pointless thought.
To shake that off too.
I touched the Five-Colored bracelet wrapped around my left wrist, the way a monk rolls prayer beads. Then the rough threads welcomed my fingers.
“...”
It was nothing special to touch, and yet
there was something addicting about it that I couldn’t stop at all.
“...”
It felt like it was telling me to throw away the bad thoughts,
and go finish what I had to do.
-Hehe, you should do what you have to do.
“Why?”
-If you just worry, it won't change anything.
“...”
My chest grew a little warm.
Like a yellow-haired girl
smiling under the sunset.
That kind of warmth.
“I suppose so.”
Just as she’d said,
I didn’t want to regret it.
I stood up.
“...”
For now,
Aryeong was still there.
For now,
Dr. Jang was still there.
For now...
For now.
It wasn’t over yet.
There was still meaning in it.
I had to look at the present.
They were still living.
“...”
I pulled the ten-thousand-won bill from my pocket.
The wisest king of the Joseon dynasty smiled with a wrinkled face. He said there was still a great deal left to do, that I had to watch over her until the very end...
I nodded.
“I understand.”
All right.
We had made a promise.
I took out my phone.
The person I was calling had worked hard this entire round. If I met him in the next one, I wanted to tell him the lottery numbers for the second week of May, at least.
“Hello, Attorney Kim. Did you have a good weekend?”
-Ah! Representative. Of course. Did you perhaps need something from me...?
“As I mentioned since last month, I don't think we can make any further capital contributions to the corporation now. So I'd like to proceed with the process we planned.”
-Ah, you mean that. Still, the corporation’s size has now passed 20 billion won, so if you keep to the direction you set, Representative... I don't think you need to worry too much.
“I'm going to do my best to the very end.”
-I see. It was a short time, but it was a pleasure working with someone like you, Representative.
“A pleasure?”
-This was the first corporation I'd seen that wasn't being built to generate money, but to leave something behind. It put me quite at ease. Thanks to that, I learned quite a few things as well.
“...”
-In any case, I’ll do my best until the end. Thank you for entrusting this to me.
“No, not at all.”
I ended the call.
Then I checked my final balance. I had already sold off the entire stock portfolio I’d been holding, so the cash on hand had gone up again from what I’d originally had.
8.7 billion won
“...”
From here on out, I have no idea what might happen with the live event, so I’ll have to handle it with this. And the rest of the money... I should reserve it so it can be transferred into the corporation on August 1st.
I turned off the phone in my right hand.
Then I grabbed the key I’d been searching for by rifling through my pocket for some time. It had somehow slipped deep inside and was hard to get hold of.
Clink—
The cold sound of metal.
At last, I had it.
“...”
It was time to tidy things up.
All the way to the end of the Big Plan.
For the world they could live in.
And.
As the convenience store manager.
For the space where she could live.
*
...
...
...
While he wasn't looking.
The bracelet began to glow little by little.
It was very faint, but...
Light gathered from somewhere.
Little by little.
Little by little.
It was shining.