So I Wouldn't Regret It Anyway - 3
Late Sunday evening, I set up a large tent in front of the convenience store, the kind you’d normally see at a street stall. It was the same one I sometimes used when Doctor Jang and Pastor Kim’s group came by to hang out.
The reason I was taking it out now was simple: A-Young and DoDam were coming soon, and we were going to grill meat together.
Especially A-Young—she seemed to have been deeply moved by the memory of eating scallion pancakes in front of the convenience store and sleeping in a tent. She’d been the one to push hardest for it.
"The scallion pancakes Oppa made for me on that rainy day were so good."
"…."
It was all something I’d done in the previous loop, too.
The thought made my hands stop.
Sometimes I still couldn’t quite believe that things from the last loop had come along with me.
People, and time.
Even memories you could talk about as if they were tucked in beside you….
None of it had ever been allowed to me before.
"…."
Maybe because I’d spent so long taking annihilation and repetition for granted, the present felt strange. Being here with other people now seemed almost unreal—like watching a familiar sunset through the blue tent and somehow finding it both ordinary and unfamiliar at once. The wind carried the faint smell of potato pancakes from Monk Juji, and for a moment my thoughts drifted far away.
"…."
For some reason, I really did feel alive.
And separate from that, a regressor’s instincts stirred.
It should be about time for the rain to start.
I turned around.
Then I looked up at the sky.
The clear sunset vanished in an instant. Dark gray clouds swallowed the blue-black sky, and rain began to fall in a steady, drizzling sheet.
Plip.
Plip-plip.
Plop—!
One drop.
Two drops.
The rain that had merely left specks on the ground suddenly began to pour like a downspout.
Whoooosh—!
Just as expected.
As always, the weather during the regression period never changed.
And there was still something else that hadn’t changed: if I couldn’t find the bracelet, regression might start all over again just like this.
"…."
But would it really?
What if all the future regressions keep going the way this one has?
When I open my eyes.
On the first day A-Young contacts me.
I run to A-Young, and she hands me a handkerchief….
And then.
Again.
And again.
"…."
Standing in the falling rain, I found myself imagining a regression like that.
Whoooosh—!
"…."
…Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.
I had the thought that maybe it would be all right if things stayed like this.
So without thinking, I held out my bare left hand. Cold rain and wind touched my skin. Tiny droplets from the sky whipped down without end.
The moment my fingertips were about to meet them, a bright voice rang out beside me.
"Taek Oppa!"
"Boss!"
"!"
I stopped my hand.
And looked to the side.
"…."
Down the slope leading to the convenience store, A-Young and DoDam walked side by side, each under a yellow and blue umbrella, carrying plastic bags filled with the drinks and side dishes they wanted.
To my surprise, Berry was following behind them with a pink umbrella. She had a phone with a pink heart pattern in one hand and kept glancing over this way.
Seeing them, my thoughts snapped back into the present.
So Berry came along out of curiosity too? One more person than I expected, but good thing I bought plenty of meat.
As A-Young walked toward me, her eyes gleamed beneath the baseball cap.
"Wow! A tent! Are we camping like last time? That was so amazing."
"…."
DoDam tilted her head, phone in hand. Berry must have been messaging her, because the phone kept buzzing nonstop.
"Hmm? Isn’t this more like a big tarp everyone can fit under? Like the kind they use at food stalls?"
"Is that so? Well… back then, we pitched separate tents and slept in them, so…."
The three of them came under the tent.
They each shook out their umbrellas. The raindrops clinging to the yellow, blue, and pink canopies flew upward, returning to their clear original state.
Tap-tap.
Tap.
The rain hammered endlessly against the tent.
Through it all, A-Young looked at me. Then, with an apologetic expression, she said,
"Oppa, we’re here. We’re pretty late, aren’t we? Shopping took longer than we expected…."
"It’s fine."
I said,
"No problem."
*
The endless early-summer shower.
The heavy rain soaking the earth, ironically, couldn’t beat the thin tent.
So we held our feast beneath it.
DoDam raised a can of beer and shouted, "All right, when I say cheers, you all clink glasses with me. Cheers!"
"Cheers!"
"Cheers…."
"…."
Fssshhh—!
In the middle of the meat party, Berry was grilling beside the table where DoDam, A-Young, and I were sitting. Wearing her familiar pink apron, she skillfully arranged the meat with tongs and scissors.
She stood in contrast to A-Young, who was awkwardly flipping the meat with chopsticks beside her.
"…."
Come to think of it, A-Young wasn’t especially good at cooking, either. Since we’d all be living together at the dorm, someone would have had to handle the meals.
Berry was probably the one in charge of cooking among ABCD.
The grillers and the eaters.
Among them, Berry was the griller.
Just as I was thinking that, Berry silently placed a piece of meat onto my plate.
"Here."
"!"
DoDam snatched it up with wooden chopsticks and stuffed it into her mouth. The golden-brown meat disappeared between her small lips. Then she tilted back a can of beer and gulped it down.
With a clack, she set the can down and shouted in an old-man voice,
"Aaaah! Now this is it! This is life! This is life, and I am a rich bitch with a billion coins."
"Pfft!"
A-Young held up her fruit soju glass and snickered beside me. From the breath that drifted out beneath her baseball cap came the smell of alcohol—far more than the amount she’d actually drunk.
Is A-Young a lightweight?
Swaying, A-Young looked at DoDam and said,
"Hehe, DoDam, you sound like an ajusshi."
"Heh-heh-heh! I may look like this, but I’m a fresh young thing."
"Saying stuff like that makes you sound even more like an ajusshi…."
"Heh, want me to really talk like an ajusshi?"
"Ahaha! Go on!"
"Huh? For real?"
"Yeah!"
Normally, A-Young would have brushed it off.
But DoDam, with alcohol in her, leaned a little too far into it.
Her cheeks red, DoDam made a sly face and sidled over toward Berry, who was still grilling. Berry saw her coming and let out a small sigh.
"Heh-heh-heh… Princess Berry really is adorable, and she grills meat well, too…! Isn’t that basically a cheat character?"
"Hey, don’t call me Berry outside."
DoDam answered breezily.
"Ah… sorry, sorry. Berry-noona is such a pretty girl even in real life that I forgot and called you Berry. But I was serious about the cute part. Berry-noona is genuinely cute even without the concept. If she’d gone into streaming on her own, she probably would’ve crushed it."
"…."
Berry said nothing and quietly flipped the meat. She was the only one not drinking, and even in this atmosphere she stayed composed.
"…."
She stayed silent.
"…."
Stayed silent….
Then, with a small poke, she asked,
"…Am I really that cute?"
"!"
DoDam grinned and showered her with praise.
"Yeah! Heh-heh-heh…. Your skin’s still so plump, and your waist is all narrow and pretty. You’re a complete beauty, no question. If someone saw you, they’d think you were a high school girl in Gothic Lolita cosplay."
"Aigoo, this one’s hopeless…."
"Heh-heh-heh!"
At Berry’s disgusted reaction, DoDam dropped the act of a drunk ajusshi. She waved her hands and hurried back to her seat.
I took a sip of soju and glanced at Berry.
"…."
And yet even while she says that, the corners of her mouth are going up. Is she the type who gets happy very easily from clumsy praise…?
Unexpectedly, Princess Berry might be a persona fairly close to her actual nature.
Just as I was thinking that, the smell of alcohol hit me from the side.
When I looked over, A-Young had somehow come up close to me. She’d approached with nearly the intention of linking arms. In fact, the soft warmth of her bare arm was touching me from every direction.
"!"
Heat from alcohol.
Warmth and softness.
Light, yet somehow heavy….
Ah…
This is bad.
I pulled my arm back behind me. Then I tried to explain the situation to A-Young.
"A-Young, hold on. You’re a little too cl—"
"Here! I—worked—so hard on it…."
"…?"
Ignoring what I said, A-Young held out her phone to me.
"I really… worked soooo hard…."
"…."
On the phone screen were photos of various projects run by Aurora Prism Entertainment. Most of them had been taken in warehouses and partner company offices.
Stacks of boxes in a warehouse.
All kinds of broadcasting equipment.
A large outdoor pool being installed.
"?"
A pool?
Why did she take a picture of a pool?
Anyway.
Against that backdrop, there was a selfie of A-Young winking at the camera. It looked a little awkward, as if she’d taken it secretly in the middle of a meeting. And she’d carefully adjusted the angle so no one else would appear in the frame.
So over the past two weeks, she really went around visiting every partner company under the Big Plan. I guess the scale has grown compared to the previous loop, so it wouldn’t have been easy to gather everyone at Aurora and talk it all through there.
A-Young had gone from place to place, putting in the work.
Looking at the photos, I said,
"You really did work hard."
"…."
"?"
When she didn’t answer, I looked to the side.
The baseball cap had slipped off,
and A-Young’s head had slumped forward.
"?!"
I immediately touched a finger to her neck.
Her pounding pulse was a little fast, but steady. Her breathing, too, was a bit irregular, but coming and going rhythmically.
She just fell asleep from the alcohol….
Just as I was relieved, DoDam and Berry came over from the side.
DoDam looked at the soju bottle A-Young had been drinking from and let out a low groan.
"Ugh…! A-Young, A-Young…. She wasn’t drinking fruit soju from the start—she was just drinking regular soju. Must’ve gotten it mixed up with the one I was drinking."
"A-Young? Are you okay? Can you walk? Should we call a taxi and take you home?"
"Mm…."
A-Young muttered with her cheek pressed against the table.
DoDam watched her for a moment, then looked at me and jerked her chin toward the second floor.
"Boss, I think we should move A-Ki upstairs and let her sleep there. It’s safer than putting her in a taxi now. Got a key to the break room by any chance?"
"I don’t. A-Young always keeps the key…."
"What is this, some kind of no coed sleeping arrangement!"
After shouting that, DoDam reached out and tapped at the side of A-Young’s shorts. Then, with a cry of triumph, she said,
"Found it!"
In her hand was the break room key.
Seeing that, Berry muttered beside us,
"Sh-she’s the only one who has the key, even though she’s not the owner of the building…?"
"Yes. That’s A-Young’s space, after all."
"…."
Berry seemed about to say something, but DoDam, who had come over, cut her off.
Supporting one of A-Young’s shoulders, DoDam spoke to Berry. It was obvious she’d done this many times before; she was very used to it.
"You remember the layout inside the break room, right? Come over and hold her on the other side. We’ll carry A-Ki there and lay her down. Boss, you just hold A-Ki’s hand beside her, okay?"
"Understood."
"Uh… okay."
We carried the limp, half-melted A-Young upstairs and laid her down in the break room. Berry stayed behind for a while, saying she’d watch over her.
In the end, only DoDam and I came back downstairs.
"Well, we may as well keep eating."
"Understood."
Beneath the tent in the rain, we stared blankly at the night view of Seoul spread out across the way.
"…."
"…."
We lifted our glasses again and clinked them.
DoDam drank her soju and winced.
"Khh…! I do drink quite a bit, but I still don’t get why people drink soju. Is it because life isn’t bitter enough yet, so soju tastes bitter? They say if life’s bitter, soju tastes sweet."
"No, it’s because it’s cheap liquor. Properly made soju tastes sweet."
"Damn it! Capitalism."
"…."
We fell silent for a moment.
A little later, it was DoDam who spoke first.
Her face was slightly red, whether from the alcohol or something else, and her shoulders swayed a little in time with the rainstorm.
"Boss."
"Yes, DoDam."
"About becoming champion of that arena."
"Yes."
"I kept thinking about how to do it, you know? Should I gather the Dodari and open a group league… or drag in those RD guys and make them fight us head-on…. That glasses girl really does seem like someone I ought to settle things with at least once…."
"?"
Ms. Eunhwa?
She hadn’t struck me as especially flashy, aside from the occasional call. Still, it seemed DoDam had quietly lit a rivalry fire toward her.
DoDam shook her head.
"Anyway."
"…."
"But that all takes way too long."
"It takes too long?"
"Yeah. If you do it little by little like that, it feels like it’d take more than a year just to get called decent at the game."
"…."
A year was….
That is pretty long.
As if she had read my thoughts, DoDam grinned knowingly.
"You think so too, don’t you, Boss?"
"…."
"So I changed my thinking a bit. Instead of holding little by little tournaments until everyone loses interest and I quietly become the king of some back alley, I came up with a way to grab attention in a much flashier way."
"How?"
The girl who loved games said,
"You just declare yourself champion from the start. Go around talking so loudly everyone thinks, ‘Who the hell is this idiot?’—so loudly that they’ll think you’ve lost your mind."
"?"
"And then…."
She clenched her fist.
"You just keep winning."
"…."
"Appear as the champion from the very beginning, and just keep defending it."
"…."
DoDam smiled brightly and looked my way.
"What do you think? Doesn’t that sound like the kind of attention-grabbing move that would go completely insane?"
"…Certainly. If you declare yourself the owner and champion of the arena from the very beginning, the level of attention would be on another level. It would also create a much more provocative atmosphere than an ordinary tournament."
"Right? Right?"
"Yes. It’s a very ingenious plan."
We looked out at the Seoul nightscape again.
"…."
"…."
And then.
This time too….
It was DoDam who spoke first.
"Bigman-nim."
"…."
"Would he like that too?"
"…."
"If I become champion…."
"…."
DoDam said, somehow sounding lonely,
"I hope he’ll watch my stream. Even just once."
"…."
"I’m Bigman’s first apostle, after all."
"…."
I didn’t answer. I just kept looking ahead, quietly.
The last weekend of May.
Countless lights glittered in the rain.
Lights that burned every ounce of themselves just to shine, even for a single moment.
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