I've Decided to Regress
I envy people who live ordinary lives.
Because even that much was never mine.
Maybe my birth itself was ordinary enough. I must have come into the world the same way everyone else does — natural delivery or C-section, nothing special. But that was the only ordinary part of it. Not a blessed arrival. A birth soaked in resentment and regret. I can't be sure, but it was probably something like that. Otherwise, why would anyone abandon a three-year-old in front of an orphanage?
"Waaah!! Waaah!! Waaah!!"
I must have been left there like that — wrapped in a cloth, screaming my lungs out.
"Oh no… don't cry, little one. I'll be your family now."
If I'd met a warm-hearted director like that, I might have called my life ordinary after all.
"I'm hungry… please give me food…"
Slap!!!
The orphanage director struck a child's cheek without mercy for daring to ask for a meal. The boy, blood streaming from his mouth, was dragged away by the hair.
Bang!!
The door slammed shut with a violent crash. That door would not open again for two full days. Throw a tantrum for food, and you got locked in there for forty-eight hours. No eating. No drinking. Just trapped inside, soiling yourself and surviving on what you produced.
I endured five years in a place like that. Some kids died. I survived.
Then I started elementary school.
At lunch, I ate like a man possessed — shoveling rice, slurping, smacking my lips. I crammed an entire day's worth of food into that single meal. On Fridays, I packed three days' worth into my stomach. That didn't mean I stopped being hungry. It just meant I wouldn't die. I ate to survive. I ate to hold on.
"Sol, sweetie~ Why don't you come have a little chat with the director? Heh heh heh…"
"Yes…"
When I was little, I didn't understand. I just thought the director favored Sol — that he gave her extra food and affection — and I was jealous. It wasn't until middle school that I learned what actually happened inside that office.
It was horrific. And I was so, so sorry. But there was nothing I could change. I couldn't even apologize. Sol had already gone to heaven.
Thud!! Thud-thud!! Thwack!!
Feet stomped my body without restraint. I'd thought that without the director around, the beatings would stop. Once I hit middle school, though, simply living at an orphanage was enough to make me a target. Parentless mutt. Beggar trash. Thief. They hit me with facts and pinned lies on me. Even that, I could endure. Getting hit was familiar by then.
But then something happened that I could not stand.
"Rip that bitch's clothes off."
"N-no… d-don't!! Ahhh!!!!"
"……"
She was a friend from the same orphanage. They'd dragged her to the abandoned construction site where I was already taking a group beating, and they were tearing her clothes. For the first time in my life, I fought back against the violence. The result was pathetic. Undernourished, beaten for no reason by the director day after day, I was far too weak. Still — I protected her.
"Th-thank you… sob…"
"Forget it. Let's go home."
"Okay…"
I took her back to the orphanage. And the moment the director saw her in that shredded school uniform, the front of his pants bulged.
"W-why don't you come have a little chat with the director? Heh heh heh heh…!"
How low can a human being sink? How monstrous can a person become? There is probably no bottom. Not for scum like that director.
"Hey! Disobey me and you'll be back in the Atonement Room!"
"D-Director…"
That filthy room reeking of waste. Even after more than a decade, it remained the most terrifying hell any of us knew. So I decided to give him a taste of it.
"To the Atonement Room."
"Y-you little shit…! Hey! Let go of me!!"
I grabbed him by the hair and hauled him inside. I threw him into the corner thick with filth and stomped him without mercy. And only then did I understand — the most horrific, most terrifying demon in my world had been nothing more than a pathetic, weak man.
After crushing that director who was even softer than the middle-school thugs, I got arrested. And then something truly astonishing happened.
"I'm telling you the truth! The director has been molesting the girls! I hit him to stop him!!"
"For God's sake… A good man like him, molesting kids? And your friend already gave a statement saying you just attacked him out of nowhere, you know that?"
"What…?"
The friend I had saved stood with the director and testified against me. I couldn't understand it. Why would she do that?
Fortunately, I was still under the age of criminal responsibility, so they released me — but I could never go back to that orphanage. They sent me to a different one, where a kind director and happy children lived. But by then I couldn't trust anyone. I shut the door to my heart completely. I kicked away the chance to be ordinary, the chance to be happy, with my own two feet.
I became a high school student. The moment I turned eighteen, I had to leave the orphanage with three million won in self-reliance settlement money. That was the law. A legal system that didn't consider reality for a second. What is an eighteen-year-old supposed to do with three million won? In Seoul, you can barely rent a monthly room with that.
But there was no law that said I had to die. I found a boarding house for three hundred thousand won a month that included breakfast. And there, for the first time, I felt something warm — real human kindness.
The landlady was kind and beautiful. Honestly, she looked young enough that you could have called her "unnie" without it sounding strange. Sitting next to the college girls who boarded there, she barely looked older. Thanks to her, I finally learned what a mother's warmth felt like. Breakfast, and even late-night snacks — I spent happy days eating well.
But happiness never lasted long for me.
"I'm sorry… Auntie has to move…"
"……Thank you so much for everything."
"Do you have somewhere to go…?"
"I'll figure it out."
The news came out of nowhere. The college girls boarding with me were just as stunned. But when a house is going up for auction, what can you do? We packed our things without complaint, and I never saw the landlady again. I do know what became of her daughter, though — that wild little spitfire. She grew up to be someone famous, loved by countless people.
After that, I scraped together a semi-basement single room and juggled part-time jobs with my studies. And finally, the day that could change my entire life arrived — the CSAT.
I had gritted my teeth and studied for this. I was confident. My school grades weren't bad, and I was sure I'd score well on the exam. It felt right.
I boarded the bus headed for the testing site. Or rather — I tried to.
Bang!!!
Honestly, I had earphones in, so I didn't hear it. I only learned later.
Screeeech!!!!! Craaash!!! Boom!!!!
A tire on the moving bus suddenly blew out. The vehicle lurched, collided with a car in the next lane, and flipped onto its side.
"The… the CSAT…!"
My luck was truly rotten. I blacked out in the accident, got hauled to a hospital, and never sat the exam. Retaking it would have cost time and money I couldn't spare, so I decided to just get a job.
After six months of job hunting, I landed a position at a small company. Good middle- and high-school grades, a solid interview — that must have been it. I was happy. My life is finally becoming like everyone else's. Thinking that, I powered through the work, the company dinners, the client entertainment, the overtime. Sales meant catering to clients and entertaining them, which was exhausting, but after a few years I adapted — and even got promoted to assistant manager.
It felt like a clear path forward. Climb the ladder step by step, become an executive, build a proper family, live happily. Or so I thought.
And then…
"Recommended resignation…?"
"I'm sorry… But the company's in trouble. What am I supposed to do? Try to understand."
"But why only me…"
"Well… you're a high school graduate, and you never really got on the right track with anyone, did you? What can I say?"
"……"
I was forced out and became unemployed. For months I didn't want to do anything. I locked myself in my room and clung to my phone — games, movies, webtoons, novels. And in those webtoons and novels, so many stories shared the same theme.
Regression.
"If I went back to the past… could I live a proper life…?"
I thought about it seriously for a couple of days. On the third day, I snorted, brushed it off, and got up. Things like that don't happen. I had to find another job and keep living.
I found another job. I worked hard. I even started dating a coworker.
"Oppa, we should break up."
"Huh…? Why all of a sudden…?"
"I'm pregnant."
"……Then isn't that even more reason not to break up??"
"It's not yours."
Thud.
I could almost hear a sound effect that shouldn't have been audible. My girlfriend was pregnant — and it wasn't my child. It turned out to be a section chief from another department. She married that superior, and I fled the company like a man running for his life. There was no reason to. The ones in the wrong were the section chief and my ex. So why did I do that?
Anyway, I got a third job. Being this good at landing work — maybe that was a talent of its own. This time, I was going to do it right. No office romances. Build the right connections. Attend night classes and earn a college degree.
"……"
"Manager… bankruptcy?"
"Why are you asking me?! I'm losing my mind too!!"
The company went under. The president somehow got wind that he was about to be investigated for embezzling company funds, cleaned everything out, and fled overseas.
It's fine. I landed a fourth job. I had a little money saved, and with what I'd earned working hard, I bought a used car. The condition wasn't bad. I hadn't been scammed.
And then…
BOOOOM!!!!!
My car exploded. It fell into a sinkhole that appeared out of nowhere in the parking lot.
"How is it only my car…"
Really — only my car dropped into the sinkhole. The lot had been strangely empty. Did everyone else already know a sinkhole was going to open there??
It's fine. I can just buy another car. I had insurance, after all.
"Ah… I'm sorry, sir, but your coverage does not include a special rider for natural disasters. In the case of a sinkhole, it qualifies as an act of God, so…"
"……"
I stopped listening after that. But even this was fine. Like I said — I could just buy another car. From now on I'd work hard and get a brand-new one this time, not a used one.
"I'm sorry about this…"
"You're letting me go…?"
"The company got acquired, and apparently the other side made mass layoffs a condition of the deal…"
"Section Chief!!"
"Don't take it out on me… I'm on the layoff list too…"
"……"
I locked myself in my room again. Why is my life like this? Why am I this unlucky?
And then the thought came back to me.
Regression.
Yeah. Let's regress. Why shouldn't I be able to? Most people regress through some freak accident or a stroke of destiny. Destiny I don't know about — but when it comes to rotten luck, I'm the undisputed champion.
And so I began preparing to regress.