On My Side
The life of the chairman of Seonghwa Group is inherently, relentlessly busy.
Yet no matter how hectic his schedule became, he always made time for me. On weekends, he would spend the day with me; on evenings, he always ate dinner by my side; and whenever I spoke, he listened with his full, undivided attention. But as the days fell into this gentle routine, a small worry began to nag at me.
"…Am I talking about myself too much?"
"Not at all. I actually find it pretty entertaining."
He let out a quiet chuckle, clearly finding my concern endearing.
To tell the truth, that concern was merely an excuse.
"I want to hear your stories!"
Rather than babbling on about myself, what I truly wanted was to listen to him. Reading words dryly inscribed on paper had its obvious limits. Hearing my request, a faintly conflicted expression crossed his face.
"Hmm… I doubt there's much worth hearing."
It was humility, of course. He had fought through this world with fiercer determination and bolder resolve than anyone else alive. Resolving the mass poisoning of the conglomerate's founding family. Delivering an unforgettable lesson to the Crown Prince inside the imperial palace. Forging a historic partnership with Neovision. The more I heard those vivid accounts straight from his lips, the wider my smile grew. It was living proof of just how brilliant and magnificent the man before me truly was.
Still, he admitted that things hadn't always unfolded smoothly.
"I'm a stubborn bastard by nature. Once I set a course, I rarely ever change it."
"Do you… have regrets, too?"
"Humans are creatures defined by an endless cycle of regret. I'm hardly an exception."
He offered a bittersweet smile. Seeing that faint trace of loneliness in his expression, I couldn't hold back.
"Please tell me!"
"……."
He hesitated for a brief moment before speaking in a breezy, offhand tone.
"I should have transferred to the Imperial Academy."
"…The Imperial Academy?"
"Yeah. The main setting for the early parts of this world, and the school where the protagonist, Lee Se-rin, ends up enrolled."
He had gone out of his way to steer clear of that place, desperate to avoid getting dragged into the chaotic whirlpool of the original plot. But looking back from his current vantage point, that decision seemed to have been something of a misstep.
"Tsk. It would've been a massive headache, sure, but I should've just transferred in and wrecked the whole damn place myself."
"?"
He wore an expression of genuine, lingering regret.
From our very first encounter to my future self becoming her legal guardian and living under the same roof—listening to Sia's explanation brought me to one inescapable conclusion.
I mean, if this wasn't a father and daughter, what on earth was it?
"We're family," Sia answered firmly, as if reading my thoughts.
Well… to be honest, it didn't fully resonate with me yet. The one who had forged that special bond with this girl wasn't the present me, but my future self. Calling each other family still felt awkward and foreign on my tongue.
Even so, I didn't believe for a second that she was spinning lies. Even with my Intuition dead silent, there were certain truths one could recognize without supernatural help. From the very beginning, the gaze she directed at me held an undeniable fondness, and a subtle, lived-in familiarity permeated every word she spoke. In fact, the very silence of my Intuition served as the strongest proof of all: the girl standing before me was undeniably someone special to me.
Yet unanswered questions still lingered.
"Then what happened to the future me? The gemstone's power clearly worked since it transcended time and space, right?"
Sia's presence right here in front of me was proof of success. If that was the case, did my future self manage to return to our original world? Or had something gone awry, leaving him wandering the temporal void just as she had?
"……."
For the first time, however, Sia's expression shifted into something heavy and somber. Her face looked… distinctly sorrowful.
Steeling her resolve, she slowly parted her lips.
"While building the apparatus to harness the gemstone's power, you arrived at a single conclusion. A conclusion born from harsh technological reality."
"Technological reality…?"
"Yes. The jewel possessed the undeniable ability to interfere with spacetime, but mastering and controlling that power flawlessly was utterly impossible with contemporary technology. You estimated it would take at least another century before we'd see even a sliver of feasibility."
A century. That meant a hundred years. With that much time, the chances of returning to the original world were far lower than the chances of returning to dust.
Perhaps that was why I could already sense what she was about to say next.
"The number of people who could cross spacetime using the power housed within the gem was—"
Just one.
And the result of that truth stood right before my eyes. In plain terms, my future self had made a deliberate choice.
"You… tried to yield that single, irreplaceable chance to me."
Without a shred of lingering attachment, and without an ounce of hesitation. And because of that…
"We had the biggest fight of our lives. It was so bad we refused to even look at each other for days."
"?"
"Well, isn't it obvious why?!" Sia raised her voice, genuinely indignant. "That was a path you carved out with your own hands! A project you poured years of your life into, a possibility you had yearned for with everything you had! Of course it should have been you who went!"
"Wait, you two fought so hard you wouldn't even look at each other?"
"…Yes. I insisted that you had to go, and you insisted that I had to go. Neither of us would back down an inch."
Strangely enough, I could picture the scene with vivid clarity. Both the me of that future and the girl before me struck me as the type who would never yield an argument easily.
"So how did it end?"
"…I lost," Sia grumbled, her lower lip jutting out in a subtle pout. "Who could ever change your stubborn mind?"
"That feels a little unfair. Anyway, so you ended up using the jewel's power… wait, then why did you end up in the past?"
"Ah, that?" Sia beamed brightly, her smile seemingly devoid of any deceit. "I haven't the faintest idea!"
"…What?"
For a second, I thought my ears were playing tricks on me. Was this what they called getting a taste of one's own medicine? I recalled having a very similar exchange with Choi Yuna once, which suddenly made me feel a pang of guilt toward her.
"You don't know?" I pressed.
"Nope."
"How does that make any sense?"
"It's the honest truth. When I came to, I was stranded one year prior to the present, clutching this gemstone."
"……."
"If I had to come up with a plausible explanation… the apparatus itself was fairly unstable, so maybe there was some kind of calculation error along the way?"
An error…
Her answer carried a faint, nagging dissonance. It wasn't impossible, of course. Tampering with spacetime was inherently unnatural to begin with, so it wouldn't be surprising if something had gone wrong during the jump. Yet Sia's explanation felt strangely incomplete. Rather than the response of someone genuinely in the dark, it sounded more like…
The response of someone who desperately wanted to believe she didn't know.
Man, having my Intuition work right now would make life so much easier.
As that thought crossed my mind, Sia toyed with the pendant hanging around her neck and continued.
"I was completely terrified at first. But no matter how much I racked my brain, there was nothing I could figure out. Ironically, that made reaching a conclusion remarkably simple."
"What conclusion?"
"Since things turned out like this, I decided that this time, it's my turn to help you. And while I'm at it, I'll experience all the things I never got the chance to do." Sia smiled as if it were the most natural decision in the world. "I received so much from you, after all. You could call it paying back a debt of gratitude."
"You received that from the future me, though."
"Hmm? To me, you're just you." Sia tilted her head inquisitively, radiating sheer, unabashed nonchalance.
"So how exactly are you planning to help?"
"By working for the good of our Seonghwa Group, of course."
Our Seonghwa Group, huh…
I let out a soft scoff. The phrase rolled off her tongue with such effortless, unhesitating familiarity.
"Actually, ever since I returned to the past, I've been actively helping Lee Se-rin."
A completely unexpected name dropped out of nowhere. Lee Se-rin. The original protagonist of this soap-opera world. And here was my so-called daughter from the future, claiming she had been aiding her all along under the banner of helping Seonghwa Group.
Just what kind of backstory was hiding behind all this?
"The future you shared a few of his regrets with me," Sia explained. "And among them was something related to Lee Se-rin."
"Don't tell me things got tangled up because I tried to keep my distance from her?"
Sia offered no direct answer, maintaining her serene smile instead.
"Don't worry about Se-rin or the Imperial Academy. I'll handle everything smoothly on that front, in whatever way benefits you the most."
"……."
"So you just go ahead and live your life doing whatever your heart desires. You're already carrying far too much on your shoulders as it is."
Ever since I fell into this world, and ever since I took the seat of chairman of Seonghwa Group, I couldn't recall a single person ever saying something like that to me.
Well, that's only natural.
The throne I occupied wasn't one where a person could simply indulge their whims and do as they pleased. It was a seat defined entirely by crushing responsibility. Yet here was Sia, telling me to live freely and do whatever I wanted. Promising that she would orchestrate everything behind the scenes to support me. Acknowledging that the burdens I bore were already too heavy.
She called it repaying a debt, yet she demanded nothing in return, expecting no reward or compensation. Was such pure, unconditional devotion truly possible?
I quietly turned the question over in my mind.
Perhaps…
Perhaps it really is.
Maybe it was something I had temporarily forgotten ever since waking up in this strange world: a relationship where no one kept score. Not a transactional dynamic where every favor demanded an equal return, but a bond where worrying for each other, taking care of each other, and standing by each other's side came as naturally as breathing.
…Family.
I looked back at Sia. She was still smiling, looking entirely unbothered, as though the words she had just uttered weren't remarkable in the slightest. As if she had merely stated the most obvious fact under the sun.
"Hm? Why are you staring at me like that?"
"Just… feeling a little reassured, I guess."
Right now, my most reliable ally was almost certainly Choi Yuna. She was the one who listened intently to my every word, carried out my most unreasonable demands without complaint, and placed her absolute faith in me. But even with Yuna, there were secrets I could never share.
Which was why…
Even if every question hasn't been answered yet…
I simply wanted to trust the girl standing before me. In the end, wasn't that the most natural choice?
"Then lean on me as much as you want," she said effortlessly, with the warmest confidence in the world. "Because I will always, without fail, be on your side."