Late-Night Message from Aunt
It was late at night when the message arrived.
A short text from the aunt I had been out of contact with for so long.
“How have you been?”
My aunt’s family and I had ended things very badly between us.
At this point, I might as well have said we were estranged.
And on top of that, it was unexpected that she would reach out at such a late hour.
“What’s going on?”
My reply came out a little dry.
After all, I felt gratitude toward my aunt, yet also carried a deep grudge.
When my parents passed away, I stayed with her for a while after my childhood.
Letting a relative’s child into a house already full of two daughters couldn’t have been easy.
Even now I remain grateful for that.
But when I was in middle school, I was forced out of that house.
It was because of my cousin, the older sister.
I had done something unforgivable.
Yet no one believed me.
The injustice I felt back then still haunts me to this day.
“Sorry. Did I contact you too late?”
“Too late” — did she mean the hour was late, or that it had been too long since we last spoke?
“I’ll be near your area tomorrow.”
“Do you have time tomorrow?”
“We could finally see each other after so long.”
She was the kind of relative you only contacted when you needed something.
I didn’t want to think she was that sort of person, but the feeling wasn’t good.
Refusing her would have been easy.
One line saying I had plans and it would be over.
Then, perhaps, I would never be tied to her again.
But…
…Was it really that simple?
Shouldn’t I have a proper talk with my aunt someday?
And what was the real reason she had suddenly reached out?
So I opened Future Sight.
My third eye that sees the future.
Just as I glance across multiple monitors at once, countless branches of possible futures unfurled before my eyes.
The one where I refused her words.
The one where I accepted.
And even if I accepted, every possible conversation I might have with her split into dozens, hundreds of paths.
I searched through those futures to find the reason she wanted to meet me.
Among that countless number of branches, only one future caught my eye.
In it, my aunt was undressing.
“...Huh?”
Future Sight only showed me the scenes I would directly witness.
Which meant that in this future, my aunt was removing her clothes in front of me.
But it didn’t stop there.
In a slightly farther future, I saw her two daughters stripping right beside her.
Cousin Cha Ji-yeon and Cha Se-yeon, my younger cousin.
The two women stood there flaunting their underwear in front of me, as if tempting me.
…What exactly had happened to lead to a future like this?
“Yes. I’m free tomorrow. See you then, Aunt.”
Following that future, I decided to accept.