A Sack of Flour Brings Back Memories (1)
It was a rainy day. Probably sometime around midnight, or maybe the early hours of dawn. I remember rushing toward the convenience store in the pouring rain.
I’d stayed behind alone in the lab well past midnight, finishing up something important for the next day. Whether it was a conference or a critical research proposal submission, I couldn’t recall anymore. The work was done, so before heading home I needed to grab a bag of convenience-store bread for a quick meal, an umbrella to somewhat shield me from the downpour, and—most importantly—cigarettes, the researcher’s best friend.
The umbrella and bread were optional. But that cursed smoke, the one that could briefly revive a wrecked mind at the cost of burning my lungs, felt absolutely necessary.
If only I hadn’t craved that single drag so badly, I might never have left the world.
The rain was so torrential that my entire body was soaked, and the streets had turned into something resembling a shallow stream. It was hard to tell where the sidewalk ended and the road began. Still, I could make out the traffic light and figure out where the crosswalk was. I leaned against the metal pole of the signal, hoping to avoid even a few extra drops—and that was when it hit me.
A jolt like lightning cracked through my body. Wait, what the… is this… an electric…?
My muscles contracted with a stinging numbness. I collapsed into the murky, flowing water. My body refused to move. Every muscle spasmed on its own, curling me up like a pupa until I went rigid.
Ha… Maybe I really should’ve quit smoking.
That was the only regret that flashed through my mind in the final moment. For the next several minutes, I couldn’t even think properly. All I felt was the horrific agony of pitch-black water blocking my airway, my lungs filling with muddy filth, and the desperate struggle for oxygen that was rapidly disappearing.
When I next regained consciousness, I was in absolute darkness. A place so dark I couldn’t see anything, yet I knew with perfect clarity that I was awake.
From somewhere within that darkness came a voice that seemed to resonate directly inside my mind.
"Hello, Mr. Lee Sun-hyeon. Welcome to the Relay Point."
"Calculations indicate that you would have played a pivotal role in saving Earth’s civilization from eventual destruction. Your arrival here represents a significant loss to both that civilization and yourself. Therefore, by administrative authority, you are entitled to a modest amount of assistance for your next beginning."
I understood it naturally, without anyone having to explain. This was the afterlife, or something like it. I laughed bitterly inside my head.
Me? The useless guy who couldn’t even graduate, whose digestion was failing and whose mind would collapse after one all-nighter? What could my half-assed scribbles possibly have done to save the Earth?
I asked the voice to confirm.
“Am I… dead?”
“By the concepts you understood during your previous service, yes. This location exists at a hyperspatial crossroads, allowing the shortest possible access to various points throughout the known universe. I will repeat: by administrative authority, you are entitled to a modest amount of assistance for your next beginning.”
I felt relieved.
I had always feared death. I thought it meant the complete annihilation of existence. But knowing that something waited beyond it—even if it was just this Relay Point or whatever—brought me unexpected comfort.
With my mind calmer, I had the leisure to slowly chew over the voice’s words.
Assistance for the next beginning. My intuition told me this was probably what people commonly called a reincarnation perk. Even if it might annoy the voice, I needed to be sure.
“By ‘modest assistance’… do you mean some kind of bonus I can use in my next life?”
“Your understanding is accurate. Please select the assistance you wish to receive.”
“Uh… I get to choose?”
“You may freely select any assistance within the scope of administrative authority.”
I fell silent, thinking. How far did this mysterious “administrative authority” extend? What kind of ability should I pick? What kind of world would I be reborn into?
Then a thought suddenly occurred to me.
“Would something like… unrealistic superpowers be possible?”
“You may freely select any assistance within the scope of administrative authority.”
The voice repeated the exact same answer in the exact same tone. It seemed I would have to be the one to make a concrete request. I’d just pick something. If it said no, I could negotiate by gradually lowering my demands.
I hesitated. Honestly, I weighed my options in a rather worldly way—what would let me live the next life comfortably. After thinking for a long time, I finally opened my mouth.
“Then……”
"Understood. I will immediately apply the gift package you have selected. However, because such an ability distorts the natural laws of causality, a modest price must be paid over the course of your lifetime according to the terms and conditions. Please understand. Now, prepare for your next journey. I wish you luck, Mr. Lee Sun-hyeon."
“Wait, no? H-hold on, I haven’t even said anything yet! I haven’t even fully decided!”
My protest was ignored. That was the last of my memories from that dark space.
But…
“…ira…”
Why was it still dark?
“…kay?!”
Haa. I want a cigarette.
“…ira… Kaira!!”
Someone was calling me. A familiar, warm, comforting voice…
“Are you okay? Kaira, snap out of it!!”
But… who was Kaira…?
Who?
It was me.
After making one wrong choice after another and dying without achieving anything, I had become the replacement for a man named Lee Sun-hyeon. The beloved only daughter of the two people shouting in front of me right now.
I wriggled my short, slender legs and thin arms. The moment I reacted, the atmosphere around me changed. It was filled with warm light soaked in relief.
With a weak motion of my arm, I pushed away the heavy thing pressing on my chest. Something pure white poured down, covering my face. This was…
Flour…?
“A… achoo.”
The small, adorable sneeze naturally came from my own throat.
For some reason, I managed to sit up from where I had been lying. My blurry vision cleared, revealing several people. A muscular man in a coarse white baker’s uniform. A short woman wearing what looked like a kitchen dress dusted with white powder…
Man and woman? What am I even thinking?
They were my parents.
“Are you alright, Kaira? Are you hurt anywhere?”
My mother’s face was still full of worry. To reassure her, I deliberately nodded my flour-covered face with exaggerated vigor.
“Yes!”
The moment I opened my mouth, some of the flour on my face flew up and got in my mouth, making me cough. While my mother looked on with concern, my father smiled as if he found my coughing adorable.
“Then go wash up. I’d like you to help me a little more until I finish the dough that needs to be baked and put out at dawn tomorrow. Is that okay?”
“Honey! The child just lost consciousness, how can you—”
“Hm, well. No need to shout like that, Pirel. She got right back up after being dusted off, so she’s fine! Right, Kaira?”
Father made an OK sign with his hand covered in sticky dough and winked. I answered with a bright smile.
“Yes! I’ll wash up and be right back.”
“Still, it’s strange. I pushed that flour sack pretty far back so it wouldn’t fall…”
“Ugh, how many times have I told you not to leave things where the child walks, huh?”
“Ow, ow, I got it. Stop hitting me, Pirel, stop hitting me! I still have a lot of dough left to make…”
I acted casual in front of my parents, who had already returned to their usual bickering and work, but the dream I’d had while unconscious after being hit by the fallen flour sack was still vivid.
The memories of research student Lee Sun-hyeon, not the ten-year-old bakery girl Kaira. The conversation with that suspicious voice in the dark space. And above all, my mind that had suddenly matured as if it had fully accepted the memories of a jaded adult man. Everything pointed to one unshakable truth.
I had a previous life.
I stared blankly at my reflection on the surface of the water drawn up in the bucket.
Light brownish hair reminiscent of the appetizing crust of freshly baked bread. Cheeks still plump with baby fat. Red eyes so lacking in pigment that every blood vessel inside was visible, staring intently at the person in the water. It should have been utterly familiar, yet it suddenly felt alien.
Every time I washed the flour off with water from the bucket, the fantasy of my past life didn’t fade—it only grew clearer. All the miscellaneous knowledge I’d had as an Earthling, now useless. The names of my beloved old family. If time flowed the same here as on Earth, then about… seven years must have passed there. It was far too short a time for my parents and little sister to forget their dead son, their dead older brother.
I hope they’re all doing well…
I scooped up another handful of water from the bucket and washed my eyes. The tears still wouldn’t stop.
The smell of a bachelor’s apartment that had lingered for over ten years, the one my girlfriend always nagged me about. The bitter aroma of coffee I’d drink without hesitation during all-nighters. The old games I would sometimes remember, play for a while, then quietly quit. The annoying weekly calls from my worried father that never failed to come on weekends.
The scar between my fingers that always reminded me of falling down the stairs as a child and tearing my hand open. Playing with a rotary phone. Complaining to Mom that I hated the bitter belly fat of Pacific saury. The photo of my hundredth-day celebration left alone in my late grandmother’s room. The pouty face I made the day my little sister was born. The transforming robot and heavy spinning top still sitting in a plastic box in my childhood bedroom.
Every time those memories brushed past, a few bars of beloved songs I used to listen to on faraway Earth echoed in my ears like a refrain. I would never be able to hear those songs again. Not in this world—whether by turning back time or leaping across space—where I didn’t even know if it was the same universe.
The adult male ego knew. That tears were unnecessary at a time like this. That no matter how much I grieved or despaired, there was no way to see again what I had left behind on Earth. That no matter what I did, those precious memories could never be reclaimed.
But the ten-year-old girl’s ego… simply could not endure it.
I cried endlessly by the well.
Only when my mother, who had come looking for me after I’d been gone too long, found me sobbing bitterly and held me tight in her arms did I finally stop.
That night. After helping my parents at the shop all day, I drew water from the well before sunset to wash myself simply, climbed into the creaky wooden bed, received my mother’s goodnight kiss, and only then closed my eyes. That was when I finally had time to reflect on the events of my previous life—no, on what had happened at that place called the Relay Point.
Please select the assistance you wish to receive… That’s what it said.
Which meant that when I was born into this world, I had received some kind of special talent. I thought hard about whether I had noticed anything unusual, but nothing came to mind.
Maybe it’s a talent for magic.
In this world, magic wasn’t anything special. There was a magic academy built by some ancient emperor not far from my father’s bakery. I’d heard that people with good heads—though bloodline alone wasn’t enough—entered the academy and became mages.
“Poof.”
I made the sound with my mouth and pointed my finger forward. …As expected, nothing happened.
I recalled all the fairy tales my mother used to tell me. In the mountains lived short, sturdy other races who dug in the earth. In the fields lived enormous other races with terrifying strength and tremendous appetites who raised livestock the size of houses. In the forests lived long-lived other races who honed the magic of nature and their skill with the bow to protect the woods.
It was an ordinary world. An embarrassingly typical otherworld.
I took a deep breath and let it out.
“Fwooosh.”
Of course, no burning breath came out. I briefly entertained the ridiculous thought that it would have been nice if the gift had been something like dragon blood.
It was a childish idea.
Alright, next. An ability. A mysterious ability. One good enough to warrant long deliberation. What could it be?
Then I suddenly remembered the abilities I had seen countless times in the manga, novels, and movies from my previous life. The real cheat abilities that were so overwhelmingly powerful they were only given to protagonists or final bosses.
My voice was already weak with sleep, but drunk on old memories, I gave it one last try and shouted with spirit.
Thinking something like Time, stop!
“Yah!”
The result was obvious. Time flowed on as usual. Stopping time—what kind of delusion was that? Maybe everything about that Relay Point had simply been a meaningless dream conjured by a child’s imagination after getting hit by a sack of flour.
As I thought about how, for some reason, a fragrant scent like freshly baked bread seemed to rise around me, I fell asleep just like that.