"Oh, fuck, what is this light? It's burning my eyes. It was night just a moment ago."
"Yo! Did you just curse in front of the teacher? You're screwed. What is wrong with you?" This kid with crooked teeth and glasses poked me again, harder. I sort of knew his squeaky voice.
I blinked, covering my eyes. It wasn't the dim light from my lamp next to my bed after too much whiskey. This was bright sunlight, cutting through dusty blinds like stripes. My head hurt, but not like a hangover. This was weird. I was slumped over a wooden desk, the kind with tons of old carvings on it. The room smelled like floor polish, chalk, and old books – that weird sweet smell. I felt sick, like I was gonna throw up.
"Mr. Kwon! Is there a problem?" some guy shouted from the front of the class.
My head shot up. There was this dude with a neat haircut and a tie that looked too tight, staring at me from a big teacher's desk. Blackboard behind him. Kids in uniforms – blue blazers, grey pants or skirts. My uniform. My old high school uniform. What the hell?
"No, Mr. Park. Just... a bit confused," I mumbled. My voice sounded like a teenager's, all crackly. And kids around me were snickering, so maybe I was a teenager again.
The kid next to me, Jin-ho – yeah, Jin-ho, how did I even remember his name? – whispered, "Confused? You were pretty much out cold."
I ignored him. My brain was going crazy, trying to figure this out. "Hey," I said to the girl on my other side. She had nice eyes and a ponytail. Sora, I thought. "Sora, right? What… what year is it?"
Sora looked at me, kind of worried but also like I was joking. "Min-jun, you okay? Did you fall or something? It's 2000. September. First day back after summer break, remember?"
2000? My head was spinning. Just a minute ago, I was 42, lying on my daybed in 2025, hating my life. If it was 2000, and I was wearing this uniform, that meant I was… seventeen. Twenty-five years. I'd lost twenty-five years. Or, wait, did I get them back? The whiskey… did it kill me? Was this some super weird, detailed dream? Or did I actually go back in time?
The rest of the school day was a blur. I was totally panicking inside but trying to act normal. I just mumbled answers in class and stared at textbooks about stuff I'd learned and forgotten ages ago. I saw faces of classmates I hadn't thought about in forever, and they were all young. I felt like a fake, a 42-year-old stuck in a 17-year-old's body. But my body felt weirdly light, easy to move.
When the bell rang, I pretty much ran out of there, not even listening to Jin-ho yelling after me. The streets looked… simpler. Not as many tall glass buildings, more little shops owned by families. The cars were kind of boxy, and the ads weren't as fancy. It was like walking through a museum of my own past.
My feet just kind of knew where to go, like they were on autopilot. Not to my fancy apartment in the city, but to the small, kind of shabby house where I grew up. When I saw it, the faded blue gate and the little vegetable garden Mom always kept, my chest felt tight.
I pushed open the gate. I could smell kimchi jjigae, Mom was cooking. Inside, the house was small, not much furniture. The living room had this old sofa with flowers on it, a small, old TV in the corner, and one family picture on the wall – Mom and Dad looking younger and happier, a way younger me, and a little girl with pigtails. The floor was linoleum, clean but old, and the walls were painted this faded yellow. We were poor, I realized, the kind of poor I'd worked so hard to get away from. But it also felt… like home.
My mom, Eun-hee, was in the kitchen, humming while she stirred a pot. Her hair, which was grey in 2025, was dark. She had worry lines around her eyes, but not as bad. "Min-jun, you're back. Go wash up, dinner's almost ready."
"Eomma," I said. The word felt weird on my tongue, but familiar too.
Then the front door opened, and my dad, Min-jun (yeah, I was named after him), came in. He smelled like dirt and sweat. His hands were rough from farming, his face tan. He just grunted hello and went to wash up. I remembered them fighting a lot, usually about money. They loved each other, I guess, but being broke all the time made them stressed and made me kind of quiet and keep to myself.
"Oppa!" A little blur of pigtails and giggles ran out from one of the two small bedrooms. Hana, my younger sister. She was maybe seven. Her face was round and cute, and she lit up when she saw me. In my old life, she grew up to be great, but we kind of grew apart. My fault. Seeing her now, so little and innocent, I felt this crazy need to protect her.
She ran and hugged my legs. "Oppa, did you bring me a snack?"
I picked her up. She was so light. "Not today, kiddo. But maybe tomorrow."
We ate dinner at the small, wobbly kitchen table. Simple food: rice, kimchi jjigae, a few other little dishes. No yelling tonight, just the sound of us eating. Even though the furniture was old and we didn't have much, it felt warm. Happy, in a small way I'd forgotten. I looked at my young parents, my little sister. And then I remembered everything I knew about the future. It was a heavy feeling.
Later, I was sitting on my thin mattress in the room I shared with Hana (there was a curtain between us). I just stared at the ceiling. 2000. My brain, the brain of a game developer from 2025, started listing things. The dot-com bubble was about to burst. Google would get huge, Apple would make a comeback, Amazon would take over. The big money crisis in 2008. And then… Bitcoin. Smartphones. Social media before it got crazy.
A small smile started to form on my face. The first real one in forever, even before all this… time travel stuff. This wasn't just a chance to fix my own dumb mistakes, like chasing Nami or wasting my life.
"This," I whispered to myself, feeling a thrill, "this is gonna be a huge opportunity."
Regret? Yeah, it was a strong feeling. But knowing what was coming for the next 25 years? I wasn't just going to avoid screwing up. I was going to totally rewrite my future. And this time, I wouldn't be so dumb.