Hell Called an Orphanage - 1
"Can I eat that...?"
Looking at her again, it was Eunsol. That Eunsol, without a doubt.
"Yeah. Go ahead."
"Thanks, Sunwoo!"
She tore open the bag in a frantic rush and stuffed the bread into her mouth. The kids around her stared, drooling. But none of that mattered.
My small hand, the one that had passed her the bread. A hand so gaunt it looked like bare bone. It was real. No lie. I had returned to the past.
Slap!!!!
At the wet, ringing crack of the blow, Eunsol flinched hard and stared at me, her mouth still full of bread. Terror filled her eyes. The other kids reacted the same way. Of course they did. That was the sound the Director's hand made when it struck a cheek.
"Ah... that really hurts..."
"S-Sunwoo..."
"Sorry. Keep eating. There was a mosquito on my cheek."
"...A mosquito...?"
"I got it."
That settled it. This was no dream. Pain this raw, this vivid, was something a dream could never deliver. This was reality.
Honestly, I had ranted about regressing like a madman, but I never truly believed it would happen. I had only been hunting for an excuse. I hadn't wanted to live anymore. I had wanted to give up on everything and die. So I prepared even harder—threw everything I had into the preparations, threw my body into the attempt—just so I could feel satisfied that I had done my best.
And yet... I really had regressed.
"Sol-ah, what year is it to—"
"Huh??"
"Never mind. Keep eating. What year is it right now? What month and day?"
I asked everyone, not singling anyone out. I knew the faces, but aside from Eunsol I barely remembered any of their names.
Except for one.
Lee Naye.
"There aren't any mosquitoes right now... It's winter..."
"I know."
"Then why did you hit yourself...?"
"It's my cheek. I can do what I want with it."
"......"
The girl who, back in middle school, had slammed the door shut on my heart. I had thrown myself in front of the bullies to save her, and she had stood with the Director and testified against me. That girl was Lee Naye. Maybe that was why every word out of her mouth came out so blunt.
"What year is it?"
"2005..."
"What month?"
"December..."
"What day?"
"The eighth..."
"That's enough. Go."
"......"
I got the information I needed and sat back down. It was December 8th, 2005. I was seven years old—hadn't even started elementary school yet. Right. The me who had lived until 2035 had climbed thirty full years back through time.
"Sunwoo, thanks for the fo—"
Eunsol's grateful mumble, cream smeared all over her mouth, didn't matter. I shot to my feet and strode across the room.
"Mind moving?"
"Huh...? Okay..."
"Put that down first."
"Okay..."
The boy set his sketchbook and crayons on the floor and stepped aside. Kids raised with nothing usually clung hard to food and their own belongings, but the slap earlier must have scared him. Everyone gathered in this room was only between five and seven, after all.
"M-my crayons...!"
The boy's voice came from behind me after he had given up both his seat and his things. I turned only my head and asked,
"What?"
"Hic... uuh... waaaaaah!!!"
"......"
Was this really something to cry over? I hadn't even scowled. I had just turned my head and asked a question. Why are you crying? And yet he cried—full-on, bawling, howling sobs.
Which was how I ended up calling the storm down on myself.
"Which little bastard is it!!"
The orphanage Director burst through the door, cursing as he came. He had looked enormous when I was little. Now he was just a skinny old man with a tadpole belly.
"I asked who was making all that noise!! Answer me!!"
"Hic...! Hic-hic...!"
"Was it you? You were the one bawling? And you won't even answer?"
The Director rolled up his sleeves as he walked, stopped in front of the boy, and unfastened the gold watch on his wrist. Then he seized the boy by the hair with his left hand and raised his right high, ready to strike.
"You little shit...! You talking back to me?!"
"I-I'm sorry! Director! Please forgive me just this once!! Please, just once—"
"Shut your mouth. Or I'll cut your tongue out."
"Mmph...!!!"
Was that something you said to a seven-year-old? I already knew what kind of man he was, but seeing it again, he was still a human piece of garbage of the most horrific kind.
Grab!!
I caught hold of him. I yanked on the Director's pants.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?"
"I was the one who cried."
"What?"
"I made him cry, so if you're going to hit someone, hit me."
"Has this little bastard lost his mind... Hey, are you crazy? You out of your head?"
"I'm fine."
"Ha... hahaha~ Fine. All right. Let's see you take it, then. Clench your teeth. Or I'll cut your tongue out...!!"
Slap!!!! Smack-smack!!!! Slap!!!!
My head snapped left and right. My cheeks felt ready to tear clean off. My lips and the inside of my mouth split open, and every time my head whipped around, blood sprayed across the white walls and floor. But I could endure this much pain. I had taken far worse beatings more times than I could count.
"Hah...! Hah...!"
"......"
I wiped the blood from my mouth and stood. Then I lifted my head and looked straight at the Director, who was drenched in sweat and panting hard.
"You stubborn little shit...! You're hopeless. Go reflect on what you've done in the Room of Atonement. Don't even think about a single sip of water until you're done repenting."
"Yes, sir."
"Yes, sir...? You little bastard!!!"
"Guh...!!"
A kick to the gut slammed the back of my head into the wall. That one hit hard. But I clenched my teeth and held on. I could not afford to black out now. I would forget everything if I did.
"Six... eight... eighteen... thirty-one... thirty-eight... forty-five... bonus forty-two..!!"
"This kid really has gone insane..."
"Thirteen... sixteen... twenty-four... twenty-five... thirty-three... thirty-six... bonus forty-two..!!"
"Hey, you little shit! What the hell are you muttering!!!"
"Guh...!!!"
Another kick to the stomach, but I did not stop murmuring. I kept going until the Director dragged me by the hair and threw me into the Room of Atonement.
Bang!!
Click!!
Clack!!
The door shut. The lock turned. The padlock snapped shut. I crawled across the floor to a corner of the wall, pulled the crayons from my pocket, and wrote.
The first-prize winning numbers for the year I would turn ten, and the year I would turn twenty.
"Heheheh...! Ten billion...! A four-point-five-billion jackpot..!"
One first-prize winner. Payout: ten billion won. Of course, if I won too the pot would split to five billion, and taxes would take their cut, so the actual take-home would be less—but that money would be enough. No. It would be more than enough. With the stock and crypto knowledge in my head, that seed would balloon into an absurd fortune.
"Thank you, Director."
Day three locked in the Room of Atonement. I had neither eaten nor drunk a drop, and still I offered the Director my sincere thanks. I meant it. I was truly grateful. Because it was finished.
"Thanks to you, I wrote it all down without a single interruption."
I stood in the center of the room and slowly turned, taking in the walls that surrounded me. Numbers and writing packed every surface. Anyone who walked into this room and read what was on these walls could become one of the richest people in Korea. No—maybe one of the richest in the world.
But I still couldn't be certain. I hadn't confirmed yet whether the future would unfold exactly as written here. And this wasn't every scrap of information from the thirty years I had climbed back through. Only what I could wring out of my own memory, written as thoroughly as possible. Even so, it was enough. More than enough. Information so generous it was almost excessive for the ordinary life I wanted to build.
Which meant what I had to do next was....
Bang bang bang bang bang bang!!!
"Director!! I'm sorry!!! It was my fault!! I won't do it again!!!!"
First, fill my stomach.
Chomp! Chomp! Chomp!
Slurp! Slurp! Smack-smack!
Gulp! Gulp! Gulp!
I had cried so pitifully to get out of the Room of Atonement. I had dropped to my knees, wrung my hands, and begged for forgiveness with my forehead pressed to the floor. Honestly, I hadn't wanted to do any of that for a piece of trash like the Director—but for a seven-year-old, that was the best I could manage.
"I'm sorry... Sunwoo..."
"It's fine. You really did cry because of me."
"But...!"
"I said it's fine. And next time, I'll buy you a whole pile of crayons."
"You will, Sunwoo...?"
"Yeah."
"You need money to buy crayons... and you don't have any..."
"I'll have some soon. A lot."
"How...?"
"That's a secret."
My real start wasn't the ten-billion-won lottery jackpot that would come out the year I turned ten. Today was December 11th, 2005. Thirteen days from now—Christmas Eve, December 24th—would be the day my new life began. But a proper start needed preparation.
"Eunmi~ Come talk with the Director for a bit, would you?"
"...Yes... Director..."
That garbage bastard. It still wasn't the time for Eunsol to be called into the Director's office. The trash Director's sexual preferences were very specific. Elementary school girls. And once they got too big in the upper grades, they no longer suited him. That older sister, Eunmi, had been summoned to his office right up through third grade. After that, Eunsol had taken her place. No—starting next year, Eunmi and Eunsol would be called in together. The Director only brought in girls from first through third grade, that exact age range. But Eunsol, heartbreakingly, had been summoned all the way through sixth grade. She had always been a small child, and her growth had simply stalled. So she left this world before she even graduated elementary school. Whether she took her own life or the Director killed her, I never found out.
"I'll go wait in the office first, then. Eunmi, you come after you've washed up nice and clean~"
"Yes..."
Disgusting. Revolting. I wanted to grab a club right now and beat him to death—but no matter how hard a seven-year-old swung a club, I couldn't beat the Director. So I would have to bring him down another way.
"Noona."
"Hm...?"
"You're going to the Director's office, right?"
"......"
She only nodded, without a word. My chest felt heavy. Guilt pressed in. Even so, I had to do this. To pull Eunmi noona—and everyone else—out of this hell.
"When you go into the Director's office, don't shut the door all the way. Leave it open a crack."
"Why...?"
"Not yet... but I will save you. I promise. I'll make sure you never have to do anything you don't want to do again."
"......"
Eunmi noona was only nine. Next year she would turn ten—a second-grader. She probably didn't even fully understand what was being done to her. She only knew she was being made to do something she hated. Without knowing how horrific it truly was...
"That's it...! Suck a little harder—ohh..!!"
Grit!!!
My teeth ground together. My grip on the camcorder I'd taken from the vice-director's office tightened until it felt ready to shatter. I wanted to hurl the camera aside, charge into the Director's office, and beat him until he stopped moving. But I had to hold back. I had to keep recording that filthy act as evidence. It was absolutely necessary if I was going to tear down the hell the Director had built.