Not Your Daughter
It was the first night I ever fell asleep at his house.
Even without lying down on the bed, you could tell how luxurious it was. Once you actually sank into it, it was wonderfully plush. Was it just because the place was so unfamiliar?
"...I can't sleep."
My throat was parched, too. It felt like I would end up pulling an all-nighter on my very first day if I stayed like this, so I hurriedly pushed myself up.
When I cracked the door open, a soft glow leaked from the living room. Curiosity getting the better of me, I padded in that direction.
"......"
There he was, sitting on the sofa. The TV wasn't on, nor was he looking at his phone. In the quiet stillness, he simply sat in a daze, seemingly lost in deep thought—so deeply that he didn't even notice as I drew closer.
I reached out and poked his arm.
Only then did he register my presence, his eyes widening in mild surprise. Given the late hour, he clearly hadn't expected me to be awake.
And then.
"Can't sleep?"
I didn't answer his question. Instead... I just wanted to ask him in return.
"Is something bothering you?"
A bitter smile touched his lips, as if he'd been thoroughly seen through by a child.
A brief silence settled over the living room. I watched him quietly. His face wore the look of someone struggling with how to explain it—weighing whether it was all right to tell a child, and just how much to say. I strangely disliked that silence.
"You said it at lunch, didn't you? That people in the same boat ought to look out for each other."
"......"
"So just like you helped me, I want to help you too."
It might have sounded a bit silly. Back then, I was young, and not much time had passed since I was dropped into this world. Even so, I didn't want to just be on the receiving end. Fidgeting with my fingers, I summoned a little more courage.
"I-If you have worries, I can at least listen and give you advice!"
The moment I stammered, he let out a quiet chuckle. Then he gently patted my head. It was a large hand. An unfamiliar touch, yet strangely, one I didn't want to pull away from.
"You're very thoughtful. Thank you."
Lifting his hand from my head, he leaned fully back against the sofa. Tilting his chin up slightly as if staring at the ceiling, he spoke.
"When we first met, I asked you, didn't I? Whether you wanted to go back to the world you used to live in."
"Yes. I remember."
"Do you want to go back there?"
I hesitated for a moment. Did I want to return to my original world? The answer had already been decided.
"...Yes. I want to go back."
I missed Mom. I missed my friends. In the first place, I was a stranger with nothing in this world. And to that answer of mine, he...
"Maybe it's possible."
For the first time, he offered a glimmer of possibility.
...I could go back?
"Really?"
"Well... to be honest, I'm not certain yet. But the chance isn't completely zero."
Put simply, it meant it could take years, and it might end in failure.
"It's a rather absurd undertaking to begin with."
He didn't laugh when he said that. If he truly believed it was impossible, he wouldn't have worn such an expression.
"Still, I want to give it a shot. In this godforsaken world where nothing would be strange—"
"Godforsaken?"
When I repeated the word, he clamped his mouth shut, realizing his slip of the tongue. Then, coughing awkwardly as if nothing had happened, he quickly corrected himself to 'this soap-opera world.' Watching him fluster, I let out a soft snicker.
"What about you, then?"
"Me?"
"Yes. Do you want to go back, too?"
This time, the silence stretched a bit longer. Back then, I had no way of knowing what that silence meant. Only that.
"In the past, I didn't think much about it. Life back then was way too chaotic."
"What about now?"
"Right now..."
He trailed off there. I waited for whatever would follow, but in the end, I never got the answer I wanted. Instead, he reached over and handed me something resting beside the sofa. A game controller.
"If you can't sleep, want to play a game with me?"
"...I'm not very good, though?"
"It's fine. I'm not that great either."
Liar.
As I discovered shortly after, he was actually quite good at games. Yet losing repeatedly only sparked a bit of stubborn pride in me. I had to win at least one round.
"Ugh... again! Let's go again!"
"I like that attitude. Then as a reward, if you beat me—"
He made a promise: he would grant me one wish, within his power.
......
Suddenly, I wanted to win more than anything in the world.
Based on the information gathered so far, I was able to draw a few solid conclusions. First and foremost: this girl named Sia knew me terrifyingly well.
"Hehe, looks like I won again, didn't I?"
"...Rematch."
Otherwise, there was no way in hell I'd be on a losing streak like this.
After finishing our meal, we were sitting on the living room sofa playing a console game to help digest our food. The genre was a fighting game. Pick a character, whittle down each other's health—a painfully straightforward setup. The problem was that I kept losing at this simple game. Not just once or twice, but continuously.
...Is she a brick wall or something?
To offer a slightly pathetic excuse, this wasn't purely a matter of raw skill. Well, sure, there was a bit of a skill gap... but there was a far more fundamental issue. It felt like she was reading my every move. To be exact, she was playing like someone who already knew what I was thinking the instant before my thumbs hit the buttons.
Eventually, I set the controller down and asked, "Did you play this game with me in the future too, by any chance?"
The letter she had sent had stated it plainly: that she came from the future. By now, I believed those words. If she truly had traveled back from the future, nearly all the unnatural inconsistencies vanished. The only lingering question was this:
Just what kind of relationship did you have with the future me?
Judging purely by her reactions and demeanor toward me, it was practically guaranteed that we had been exceptionally close. So I decided to just venture an outright guess: that because the future me had played games with her, she knew my playstyle inside and out.
As if to confirm my theory was right on the money, she nodded. "Mm... quite a lot, actually. You promised to grant me a wish if I beat you, so I studied your habits relentlessly."
"So you cheated. Guess I don't need to feel sore about losing."
"...Do you believe me?" Sia asked cautiously.
Her voice sounded so delicate it felt completely disconnected from the person who had just pummeled me repeatedly in the game moments ago.
"You've been trying so hard to get me to realize it; how could I deny it? Unless all of that was a lie?"
"No. I would never lie to you."
Those words rang with pure conviction. As though she had no choice but to be completely honest with me.
"...All right. Then let's move on to a more constructive conversation."
"A constructive conversation?"
"That claim about coming from the future. What exactly does that mean?"
Sia fell silent for a moment. Rather than searching for an answer, she seemed to be deliberating where to begin. Then, she slowly reached toward the nape of her neck. Her fingertips caught the delicate chain resting beneath her pure white dress, pulling out a necklace set with a luminous gemstone.
The jewel didn't merely sparkle. Rather than reflecting external light, it seemed to emit a soft radiance from deep within.
"...What is this gem?"
"A treasure that was hidden away in the Imperial Court."
The Imperial Court? An unexpectedly grandiose location had suddenly entered the conversation.
"According to legend, this gem was hidden by the founding Emperor when the Korean Empire was established. Even I don't know its true name, since every historical record refers to it differently."
"Why is something like that in your hands?"
"Because you gave it to me as a gift."
...I did? Naturally, she meant the future me.
Sia continued her explanation with a faint, nostalgic smile. "In the future, the Imperial Palace gets turned completely upside down. Because of that, long-standing imperial authority and concealed secrets were dragged into the light all at once, and this gem was uncovered in the process."
The Imperial Palace turned upside down. It seemed that was an inevitable fate after all.
"So what happened next?"
"At first, the gem was treated as nothing more than a rare artifact. A historical relic of the imperial family, a treasure of the first Emperor—just that sort of thing. So eventually, it was put up for auction."
With those words, Sia looked straight at me.
"And the future you bought it."
"I bought that gemstone?"
"Yes."
"Wait, why?"
Sia didn't bother answering, as if to say I should already know.
Don't tell me...
Intuition?
The future me would undoubtedly possess the exact same Intuition. If that Intuition had nudged me toward this gemstone, I would have bought it without hesitation. No matter what anyone said, no matter the price tag.
"After purchasing it, you spent months researching it and finally discovered the truth: an immense power was slumbering inside this gem."
"...An immense power?"
"Yes. A special kind of energy capable of interfering with space and time."
Coming from someone who had been dropped into the world of a makjang drama, I had no room to talk, but it sounded completely absurd. Yet I couldn't laugh. The girl standing right before my eyes was living proof that the absurdity was genuine.
"Under the name of Seonghwa Group, you researched this gem for years and resolved to build a device that could harness its power."
Apparently, that process had been far from easy.
"There were countless failures, and an astronomical amount of money was poured into it. Above all, the gem itself was exceedingly unstable. Even so, you never gave up, and in the end, you succeeded."
"Hold on. Why did I go through all that hardship just to build a device using the gem's power in the first place?"
"That's..." For the first time, Sia hesitated. "Do you remember the first sentence of the letter I sent?"
"You asked if I wanted to return to my original world."
"That's right. May I ask for your answer to that question now?"
To that, I had already reached a conclusion. Though I'd been dropped into this soap-opera world out of nowhere and dragged into a whirlwind of dizzying incidents...
"I don't really have any desire to go back."
Rough around the edges as it was, I was quite satisfied with my current life. However.
"The future you thought a bit differently. I never heard the exact reason, but at the point when I met you, it felt like you missed your home terribly."
"So the future me researched that gem..."
"Yes. To return to your original world."
Ha, did that bastard come down with a terminal case of homesickness? Would I really arrive at that kind of conclusion? Even if it meant throwing away enough wealth to last lifetimes and the prestige people revered?
"Because sometimes, there are things far more important than that. For instance—"
Family.
Sia murmured quietly.
Hearing that word made it hit a little closer to home. How had my original world changed by now? After I vanished, how was my family getting along? Did they even still remember me?
Those thoughts suddenly drifted to the surface. Because life had been so frantic, I'd deliberately avoided dwelling on them, and even if I did, there were no answers to be found. So I had simply kept them buried in silence. Right now, I treated the matter lightly. Yet after a long time passed, after acquiring far too much in this world, and upon realizing that something remained hollow and unfilled...
Would I really end up reaching that conclusion, just as Sia said?
I looked back at the girl from the future. At any rate, I now roughly understood why I had bought the gem and obsessed over the research. Yet the most crucial question remained unanswered.
So what was our relationship?
In response, Sia briefly explained what had taken place between us in the future. To summarize it in a single sentence:
"So you're saying you're my adopted daughter in the future?"
"......"
"?"
No answer came immediately from Sia. Sensing something amiss, I looked at her cautiously.
And then.
"I'm not your daughter, though?"
Sia wore a pleasant, gentle smile. A smile that felt somehow... chilling. That kind of smile.