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# Rock 'n' Roll, Becoming a Bird Without Feet — Chapter 004
## 2. 1989, An Era of Turmoil (1)
I had a dream last night.
For the first time in a long while, I cooked two packets of ramen, ate until I was full, drank two bottles of soju one after another, and passed out.
In the dream,
before it became any colder,
I wanted to lie down alone
on a pale, soft sandy beach
and look up at the sky.
When I blinked,
a single drop of water fell from the sky
into my dawn dream.
It fell onto my time like a drop of blood,
leaving a mark behind.
I wanted to live my own life.
When I was young, that was a dream,
but now I had no choice but to live only my own life.
Once I grew old, that became despair.
In my dreams, I was always a star.
A dream where I would hand out
a glass of water to those thirsty for music
before waking up.
Just like that recurring dream,
that was how I wanted to live.
The dream I waited for was never really a dream.
Instead of seizing an opportunity, I waited for my time to come,
and in the end, all that remained was a fool lying beneath a persimmon tree with his mouth open.
All those countless years
spent waiting without losing hope,
kindling a fire in my frozen heart
and waiting for the day a rainbow would rise,
were truly meaningless.
I should have acted then.
I shouldn't have taken that road back then.
Even when the regrets of losing my way begged me for a glass of water,
I had none left to give.
Even if I stumbled and was swept away,
if those suffocating days were to return,
I would make water in a new color every night
and give myself a refreshing sip first.
Please, just one more time.
Please, just one more time.
* * *
Did I drink too much?
Back in my prime, I could drink five bottles of soju and still be fine the next day.
I suppose age really can't be helped.
My stomach felt nauseous and my head hurt.
The world within my half-open eyes spun around.
Then, I heard someone's voice.
"Hey, Mr. Kim. Did you see the newspaper? Good grief, I heard that bastard the Japanese emperor kicked the bucket. Is that really true?"
"Yeah, Mr. Nam. I saw it too. They say he died on January 7."
"Ah, I feel so much better. That Japanese emperor, or whatever they call him, was the 124th king, right? That's what it said in the newspaper."
"Yeah, that's right. I heard his son is going to succeed him."
"Good grief. How long has it been since we left the Joseon era behind? Why are those damn bastards still going on about kings?"
"Exactly."
What the hell?
Why were they talking that nonsense in someone else's room instead of their own?
Or was it not that?
Had I left the door open because I was hot from drinking last night and fallen asleep like that?
Maybe that's why I could hear them talking outside on the wooden platform.
"I heard the Japanese emperor bastard died, and the American president changed too. What was his name again? Some weird name."
"Yeah, George Bush. Hahaha! When I first heard his name, I thought it was a curse! Hahaha! George! Bush!"
Ah, this is too damn noisy.
Even if my head hurts, I should get up and at least close the door before going back to sleep.
But what the hell are they talking about?
George Bush?
His father became president, and now his grandson is running for president too?
Come to think of it, what they said about the Japanese emperor was strange too.
I remembered hearing on the news that a young Japanese emperor had ascended the throne in 2019, but he'd already died?
Was he sick?
I couldn't remember exactly, but I thought they said the current emperor was the 126th.
Chang-hyun slowly got up.
Huh?
My body doesn't hurt.
What's going on?
Normally, when I opened my eyes in the morning, every part of my body would ache, but today I actually felt refreshed.
Was it because I had eaten a lot of ramen before going to sleep for the first time in ages?
"Mr. Kim, I heard overseas travel has been completely liberalized, and people are flocking to Gimpo Airport. You got any thoughts about going?"
"Crazy. A construction worker who lives from one day to the next is supposed to dream about going overseas?"
"Haha. I guess I'm in the same boat."
"That kind of thing is just something those bastards living in the Blue House are allowing so they can find an excuse to go abroad. Just you wait. Even if not now, someday that Jeon Doo-hwan bastard will flee overseas. If he wants to live, he'll have to run, won't he? Maybe even the liberalization of overseas travel was a law he pushed through so he could figure out how to escape."
"Isn't Roh Tae-woo that bastard's friend? They carried out the December 12 military coup together too."
"They're all the same."
"Ha. This damn Republic of Korea. When are we finally going to get rid of this rotten military regime?"
What the hell are they talking about?
The civilian government came into power ages ago.
It's not like only the two of them had stopped in time.
They're still talking about a military regime and all that nonsense.
I really can't listen to this anymore.
Out of habit, Chang-hyun reached toward where the door should have been.
But his hand only waved through empty air.
Then two voices, tinged with laughter, came flying toward him.
"Hey, Chang-hyun. You're awake?"
"But why are you waving your hand around in the air? Hahaha, that's hilarious. Go on Humor No. 1, you'll be a hit."
Pressing his temples because of his dizzy head, Chang-hyun frowned and looked at the two men who were talking to him.
Their faces looked vaguely familiar, as though he'd seen them somewhere before, but he couldn't remember who they were at all.
Huh?
Where am I?
I went to sleep last night hugging my guitar in the corner of my rented room.
Did I get drunk and somehow end up here?
That's something I used to do in my twenties.
Chang-hyun narrowed his eyes and looked around, trying to figure out where he was.
The place definitely felt familiar, as though it existed somewhere in his memories, but everything was hazy.
Then he looked toward where the voices of the two men speaking to him had come from.
Two middle-aged men were playing baduk with a newspaper spread out beside them.
"Hey, break time is almost over, so get up already. The foreman will kill us if he sees us."
"Yeah, you're not a skilled worker. You're just a laborer, aren't you? If you get caught slacking off, you'll get your ass fired."
Chang-hyun's eyebrows twitched.
Laborer?
Foreman?
Chang-hyun suddenly sprang to his feet.
No wonder he had felt comfortable.
He had been sleeping on a black synthetic leather sofa so worn out that it looked like it could develop a hole at any moment.
He heard some men who looked a few years younger than him laughing.
"Looks like you had one hell of a nightmare. What, did you see your dead grandfather in your dream?"
"Heh heh. I wish my grandfather had at least given me the winning numbers for the housing lottery."
"Stop talking nonsense. Hey, Chang-hyun. What are you standing around for? Go mix some cement. We'll need it for the afternoon work."
He had absolutely no idea what was going on.
Chang-hyun got up from the sofa and stared blankly at the two men.
Then his gaze fell upon a mirror hanging behind them.
The moment he saw it, Chang-hyun hurriedly turned around.
But there was no one there.
Yet in the mirror, someone other than himself was clearly standing there.
He looked at the man in the mirror again.
A fresh-faced young man in his early twenties.
This is...
It was his younger self.
His youthful face, the same face that people had constantly praised for being handsome since he was young.
Chang-hyun raised his palm and slapped himself hard across the face.
Am I still not awake?
Enough with the joke. It's not funny!
As if his life wasn't already a complete sewer, even his dreams had to be like this?
He looked at his reflection and slapped himself two or three times.
The two men who had been playing baduk rushed over and tried to stop him.
"Hey, what the hell are you doing all of a sudden? You eat well at the worksite cafeteria, take a nap, then suddenly wake up and start beating your own face. What the hell is wrong with you?"
"Chang-hyun! You bastard, what's gotten into you?"
Chang-hyun's face twisted.
What an unbelievably realistic dream.
The best thing to do was wake up from this ridiculous nightmare as quickly as possible.
He shook off the two men trying to restrain him and shouted.
"Let go!!!!"
Huh?
That voice just now.
It wasn't the severely hoarse voice he was used to.
It was a clear, youthful voice.
Without realizing it, Chang-hyun grabbed his throat and froze.
The two men immediately grabbed him again.
"This bastard is trying to strangle himself now. Hey, you crazy bastard! Stop it right now!"
"Chang-hyun, you bastard. Get a grip!"
This time, Chang-hyun didn't shake them off.
Suddenly, tears came to his eyes.
Was it because he had heard the original voice he had wanted to hear even in a dream?
Just moments ago, he had wanted to wake up from this ridiculous dream as quickly as possible.
Now he wanted to stay in it for as long as he could.
First, he had to get these two middle-aged men, who reeked of sweat and possessed ridiculous strength, off him.
"I'm fine, so please let me go for now."
The two men were still gripping Chang-hyun's arms tightly.
Remembering what they had said, Chang-hyun slowly removed his hand from his throat and showed them his palm.
"Okay?"
Only then did the two men loosen their grip.
"Hey, aren't you pushing yourself too hard?"
"Yeah. The foreman says you've been working every single day for fifty days straight. If you keep doing hard labor like that, you'll end up dead early. No matter how much you need the money, take it easy and rest sometimes."
Chang-hyun silently looked at them before opening the door leading from inside to outside.
A construction site where sand whipped through the air.
The place where he had been sleeping was a container box on one side of the construction site.
Chang-hyun looked down at his body.
He was wearing a sleeveless undershirt, military-style pants with numerous pockets, and combat boots.
He walked over slowly and sat down on a sack of cement.
"What a good dream. Yeah. There really was a time like this."
It was probably winter of 1988, or perhaps spring of 1989.
Judging from the cold weather, it was probably around then.
At that time, he had worked this construction job for an entire year because he wanted to buy a Bob Dylan guitar.
"I'd only come up to Seoul not long before this."
He had originally lived in Oncheonjang, Busan.
His father had lived there too, but he moved to Jwacheon-dong in Dong-gu because he didn't want to live in the middle of the market.
Later, when property prices in Oncheonjang skyrocketed, his father had been incredibly bitter about it.
Lost in thought, Chang-hyun rested his chin on his hand and looked over the construction site.
Sanggye-dong New Town.
That's right.
I was assigned to this construction site around this time.
I was exactly twenty-three years old then.
Originally, he had been a day laborer.
Every morning, he went to a labor office and tried to convince the foremen looking for workers that he was strong enough for the job.
He barely managed to get a day's work as a general laborer at a time.
Then one of the foremen who had hired him several times asked if he wanted a permanent position.
That was how he got this job.
Sanggye-dong New Town apartments cost about as much as apartments in Yeoksam-dong back then.
Come to think of it, I helped build these apartments with my own hands, but I can already imagine how much the people who eventually moved into them instead of apartments in Yeoksam-dong would regret it and beat their chests in despair.
Of course, both then and now, an apartment was something he could never even dream of owning.
After being lost in thought for a while, Chang-hyun's eyes drifted into the distance.
At this time, my wife should be in Mullae-dong.
His wife had originally been a factory worker doing textile work at a factory in Mullae-dong.
Was I twenty-four?
She was the woman who had fallen for him after seeing him onstage when he rented a warehouse at a metalworking factory in Mullae-dong to perform.
She eventually married him.
For fifteen years, she experienced firsthand just how difficult it was to be married to a poor musician.
In the end, she left him.
He had heard news of her a few years ago.
She had gone back to her hometown of Daegu and was living alone.
Should I go see my wife's face at least once?
The thought crossed his mind, but he decided against it.
It's only a dream anyway.
I'll probably wake up soon.
I'll just enjoy the sight of my younger self and soak in the atmosphere of the old days before I return.
What else happened around this time?
He had told his family that he was going to Seoul to find work.
Instead, he ignored the work he had promised to do and formed a band.
His father had constantly urged him to go to college, but what could he do?
His grades weren't good enough.
It wasn't as if forcing him to study something he hated would make it work.
Haha.
But when he came to Seoul, he learned that even bands cared about academic background.
It wasn't like that at all in 2024, but it was like that back then.
It was an era when the fastest way for someone making band music to debut in the mainstream was through a university song festival.
A band whose members weren't university students was treated as a bunch of loafers and delinquents.
The band that won the 1988 University Song Festival was Infinite Orbit, if he remembered correctly.
Infinite Orbit, the debut band of the late Shin Hae-chul.
Their song was a rock song called "To You."
Even the legendary Shin Hae-chul, known as the Demon King today, had apparently been a member of Kim Tae-won's fan club and followed him around back then.
Chang-hyun's expression twisted as he became lost in memories of that period.
He remembered what he and the other band members had said while watching the University Song Festival.
"That's supposed to be music?"
"This is why Korean music is hopeless. Even if you washed your eyes out, you still couldn't find any creativity."
"That's rock? Hey, is that rock? Isn't it just pop music?"
"The guitarist doesn't even pick the strings once. How the hell can you call a song like that rock?"
Those were the days when his head was filled with nothing but shit.
He remembered that time when he looked down on other people's music and used it to comfort himself over the miserable reality of his own life.
Chang-hyun rubbed his nose with the back of his hand, his eyes reddening.
"I really lived like an idiot."
Ha.
But why was it so cold?
This was a dream.
Could you actually feel the cold in a dream?
Chang-hyun, wearing only a sleeveless undershirt, hunched his body and shivered.