The World That Never Changed
The clock read 11:34. My head felt like it was splitting in two.
Fuck… how much did I even drink last night? What day is it? I swore I was going to get my shit together, Namgung Siwu…
I groaned, forcing my heavy eyelids open. The hangover was brutal. Maybe I should just stay in bed a little longer… Wait. Didn’t I have a first-period class today?
I shot upright. “What time is it?!”
I snatched my phone and checked the screen.
“Ah, shit… I’m screwed.”
“Aaaaaaaaagh! Fuck, this is the worst…”
I had completely forgotten about the first-period lecture and gone on another drinking binge. What the hell is wrong with you, Siwu…
“Whatever, I’ll just skip.”
Future me could deal with the consequences. Honestly, wasn’t that the real charm of college life? Skipping whenever you felt like it.
Just as I was about to drift back into sweet, sweet sleep, something felt… off.
Why was the time displayed in Chinese characters?
I opened my eyes again and checked my phone.
“Huh?”
The entire interface was in Japanese. I unlocked the phone and went to the home screen. Every single setting, every label, everything was written in Japanese.
“How drunk was I last night that I decided to change my phone language to Japanese?”
The only people I’d seen yesterday were Yoo Juhyeon and her two idiot friends. We’d had a massive fight, so there was zero reason for me to mess with my phone settings, and I definitely hadn’t had the time.
“Did I really do this myself?”
Luckily, I had once changed my phone to English while pretending to study the language, so even without knowing Japanese, I could navigate to the language settings easily enough. Of course, it had been so inconvenient that I’d switched it right back to Korean.
“Seriously, what the hell is wrong with me… Where is it… Is this the one?”
I quickly found the button labeled in Hangul.
조선어
“Joseon language? Not Korean? Do people still call it that these days?”
I thought only North Korea used the term “Joseon language.”
“What the… am I still half-asleep?”
I tapped the button anyway. Just like before, the entire phone interface switched back to familiar Korean.
“Was that some kind of glitch?”
It was strange, sure, but not something worth obsessing over. I tried to sink back into that heavenly sleep, but the lingering suspicion had completely chased away any chance of rest.
“Guess I’ll go to the bathroom first…”
I opened my bedroom door and headed down the hall. Once inside, I relieved myself. After all the drinking last night, the stream seemed to go on forever. When I was done, I reached for the toilet handle to flush.
That’s when I heard it.
Sizzle…
“What the hell is that sound…?”
It sounded like something cooking. Like food being fried in a pan. The distinct smell of grilling fish reached my nose.
For a second, my mind went blank.
“Fuck… wait a minute…”
Goosebumps erupted across my skin.
After Mom passed away, I had been living completely alone. There were no close relatives who would just walk into my house. Sure, some distant relatives who had treated us like strangers while she was alive had shown up a few times after her death, sniffing around for anything they could take. But I had driven every last one of them away.
So who the hell was in my kitchen?
The only person I was even remotely close to was Kang Seonghyeon, but even though I’d brought him over before, I had never given him the passcode.
I swallowed hard, throat suddenly dry.
A thief, then.
“Out of all the things that could happen… a fucking burglar? This is insane…”
But when I had left my room earlier, why hadn’t they reacted at all? Wouldn’t a thief be a little more alert? And more importantly, why would a thief be cooking fish in the kitchen instead of stealing stuff?
My head spun with questions, but first things first.
“I need a weapon.”
I started rummaging through the bathroom for anything I could use.
…And then I realized how stupid that was.
“Of course there’s nothing here…”
What kind of person keeps weapons in their bathroom? The only thing I could come up with was smashing the mirror and using a shard of glass. But that would probably slice my own hand to ribbons too, so it wasn’t exactly ideal.
Eventually, my eyes drifted to the mirror.
“Wha… the fuuuuuuck!”
A mirror was supposed to reflect my own face. That was the entire point.
But the person staring back at me was a complete stranger.
A small, delicate face. A straight nose. A sharp yet soft jawline. Silky black hair that fell just right. A lean, toned body with the faintest hint of abs. He was a little short for my taste, but he looked like he could debut as a male idol tomorrow. Handsome and cute. The kind of face that would make women lose their minds. The kind of pretty boy who probably left a trail of broken hearts wherever he went.
And when I raised my arm, he raised his. When I lowered it, he lowered his.
It was undeniably me.
The average, slightly chubby, plain face I had stared at for twenty-three years was gone. The ordinary college student who had been repeating a semester had vanished without a trace.
“Is this a dream?”
It was the most natural conclusion. Who in their right mind would accept waking up in a completely different body as reality?
“Heh… if this is a dream, it’s way too fucking realistic.”
Before I knew it, I had convinced myself this was just a wonderful dream and started admiring my new reflection, resting my chin on my hand.
“Everything’s perfect except the height…”
If I had been around 180 centimeters with broader shoulders and a more imposing build, it would have been flawless. But the guy in the mirror was definitely “handsome”… in a “cute” way rather than “cool.”
“Still, I’m insanely good-looking now. With a face like this, getting a girlfriend should be easy, right?”
I spent a blissful minute lost in that fantasy before snapping back to reality.
“But is this really a dream? Ow!”
I tried the classic pinch-the-cheek test. The pain felt completely real.
“What the actual hell is going on…”
The more realistic the sensations became, the more terror began to creep in.
That was when I heard a voice from the living room. A language I didn’t understand.
“シウ～、何か変な音がしたけど、どうした？滑っちゃたの？”
Only then did I remember that someone, possibly a thief, was cooking in my kitchen. The shock of my new face had completely driven that fact from my mind. I couldn’t understand most of it, but the first part sounded like my name.
“What… what are they saying? It sounds like Japanese… Are Japanese people so broke now that they’ve started robbing houses in Korea?”
I tried to think of a way out of this mess. Meanwhile, the mysterious person kept talking, now right outside the bathroom door.
“本当に大丈夫？！怪我でもした？！”
It was definitely Japanese. I had watched enough anime to recognize the language, even if I couldn’t understand the words.
“It’s a woman’s voice… but it sounds so familiar…”
Suddenly, my eyes stung with tears.
I could never forget that voice. I never wanted to forget it. It was a voice I had missed with every fiber of my being.
The moment my brain caught up, memories flooded through me like a panorama.
Even though I couldn’t understand the words, that voice belonged to…
My mother. The mother who had died.
This couldn’t be real. It made no sense.
I flung the bathroom door open.
It was her.
Mom.
The woman standing there looked exactly like my mother had before she passed away.
“M… Mom…”
Tears spilled down my cheeks, dripping onto the carpet in front of the bathroom.
“え？泣いてんの？？どこが痛い？！”
I still couldn’t understand what she was saying, but her expression was clearly full of worry.
On pure instinct, I threw myself into her arms.
“M… Mom… Mom…!”
“Mom? え？朝鮮語勉強してんの？てか、本当に大丈夫？今すぐ病院行こう！”
“Da… daijobu? That means… *hic*… are you okay, right? Yeah… daijobu…”
I had no idea why Mom was speaking Japanese, but I at least recognized the word “daijobu” from anime. For the next ten minutes, I clung to her and sobbed uncontrollably.
“Hic… ugh… huuuu…”
All the grief I had never been able to express at her funeral, the pain of having to let her go without even saying a proper goodbye, exploded out of me right there.
It hurt. It hurt so much. But being able to see her again, knowing I could keep seeing her from now on, filled me with a happiness I couldn’t even describe.
The memory of her cheering loudly for me at the elementary school sports day. The way she had stayed up all night nursing me when I caught the flu in middle school. Her genuine, heartfelt congratulations when I got accepted into university. The way we had hugged and cried together in front of the training camp gate when I enlisted.
All those memories played through my mind like a movie.
Mom kept speaking to me in Japanese, then, apparently deciding something was wrong with her son, gently stroked my back.
I cried for a long, long time.
…
…
…
Finally, when I had calmed down, Mom and I sat side by side on the living room sofa. Thinking she could only speak Japanese, I was about to go grab my phone to use a translation app when she spoke first.
“Siwu, when did you start studying Joseon language? You always complained it was too annoying to learn.”
“Huh…? Mom, you can speak Korean???”
“Ha… Korean? You mean Joseon language?”
“Y-yeah… Joseon language!”
She hadn’t even recognized the word “Korean” and had corrected me to “Joseon language.”
“Of course I can. We’re Joseon people, after all. Though I hear most young people these days don’t speak it very well…”
“Korean people?”
“Korean… people? What’s a Korean person?”
“Korea! The Republic of Korea!”
The joy of reuniting with Mom, the relief that she could speak Korean, lasted only a moment. I was beginning to realize there was a massive gap between our basic common sense.
“Ohhh, you mean the Korean Empire?”
“No, the Republic of Korea!”
“Republic of Korea? Don’t you mean the Korean Empire? You know, that country that existed for a little while and then disappeared?”
At least our historical knowledge matched up to a point. But to be sure, I started asking about events after that.
“Do you know what happened after that?”
“You’re twenty-three years old and you don’t even know basic history? You really need to study more…”
“Just tell me what happened!!!”
In my desperation to stop the gap in our knowledge from growing any wider, I ended up snapping at the mother I had just been reunited with.
“Why are you getting so angry… Anyway, in 1908… or was it 1910? That’s when we merged with Japan.”
That part matched too.
“A-and then?”
“And then… in 1945, we won the war…”
From here, everything diverged from the history I knew. I was stunned into silence.
“W-won? Japan… beat America?”
“That’s right~ You really don’t know that? Are you feeling okay, sweetie?”
“N-no, never mind. What happened after that?”
“What do you mean, after that?”
“What came next?!”
“What else is there?”
Mom continued dropping one bombshell after another. If what she was saying was true, and there really was nothing after that, then…
“Mom… earlier you said we’re Joseon people?”
“That’s right. We’re both Joseon people and Japanese citizens.”
“Huh?”
The dumbfounded sound slipped out before I could stop it.
“Then… last question. The city we’re living in right now. Is it called Seoul?”
“Se…oul? What’s Seoul? Do you mean Gyeongseong?”
It was 2025, and Joseon had never become independent.