The Genius Decided To Live An Ordinary Life [EN]: Chapter 2

Besides the deafening crash of the accident, he remembered nothing.

Was this how it felt to spend decades huddled in darkness, without a single ray of light? His eyes were completely veiled by the dark, and his body was immobile. Like a shrimp trapped in an invisible net, or a fetus in the womb, Jinhyuk simply curled into himself.

There were days when he huddled in a dark attic, enduring by thinking of a family he could never meet. Ten years of his childhood, when he castrated his own emotions. It felt like he had slept for a long time, far exceeding that period.

The memory of the accident, the deafening crash that struck his eardrums, and the senses that had been running wild every day. Were they all just being weathered away by the sharp teeth of time?

Just as he was beginning to forget who he was, Jinhyuk finally regained his senses.

The stinging sunlight grazed his cheek, and a cool breeze made him shrink his neck.

Finally.

He thought he was coming to his senses.

*

As his senses returned, his memories also slowly came back.

Rustle-Lick, lick-.

What was that sound?

Something rough and wet, soothing the heat of his cheek warmed by the sunlight.

‘Could it be that Director Hong is licking me, the vegetable?’

I knew he liked me, but I didn’t know it was to this extent… I didn’t know a human tongue could be so rough. Did he get a tongue ulcer?

Huff, huff, huff-.

What was that sound again?

It’s said that a widower understands a widow’s heart, but this seems a bit too excited.

He barely managed to move his eyelids, which had been stuck shut, and opened his eyes.

As the light slowly entered, the blurry surroundings filled his vision.

Gradually, his focus sharpened, and the first thing he saw was.

‘What is this…’

A moist, shiny object with a pungent smell, boasting a dizzying curve.

And two holes piercing through that object.

‘This is…’

A dog’s nostrils.

And.

The dog’s tongue that had been licking him to the point of exhaustion, hoping Jinhyuk would wake up.

As his vision recovered, he could recognize the dog.

The yellowish-brown mutt with its tongue hanging out in the photo he looked at every day.

“Janggun?”

Woof-!

It sounded like a yes.

He couldn’t help but be surprised in many ways. When he saw Janggun, he simply thought they had met again after death.

But.

‘Why is my body like this?’

His voice and body were too young.

He examined his hands and body. They were adorable. His fingers were short and chubby, and his arms and legs were, to exaggerate a little, longer than a dog’s.

He quickly unfolded a newspaper neatly folded on one side of the porch.

「Voting age 20, candidates listed in order of seats, 8-party talks agreement」

Why are they writing down something so obvious…

「Presidential election, concerns about regionalism…66%. Headquarters, Korea Gallup joint poll」

「US carries out retaliatory shelling against Iran. Two offshore oil platforms in the Persian Gulf hit」

「1986 settlement preliminary review. National Assembly opens 13 standing committees」

1986 settlement?

Ah, I should look at the date first.

「October 1987 …」

A detached laugh escaped the child’s lips.

“Heh heh heh.”

I guess I really did die.

Did Chairman Hong Gijun die too?

He was so busy taking care of the old man that he didn’t even get a chance to see what kind of accident it was.

Anyway, it’s absurd to think he could have figured out the situation in that short moment.

“Still, it’s good to see you, Janggun.”

He was a friend who had always been by his side when he was lonely after his parents passed away. Janggun had lived with him until he was ten, when he was dragged away by a woman who was supposedly his mother’s stepsister. While trying to bite the pants of the people who were forcibly taking Jinhyuk away, he was kicked hard by a man who was supposedly his uncle and staggered. That was the last time Janggun was alive.

Jinhyuk hid in the attic for several days, then secretly escaped at night. He ran along the dark night road, following his sense of direction, and when he arrived at his house, more than 10km away, he found Janggun dead under the dim moonlight. He cried sorrowfully without making a sound and buried him next to his parents’ graves.

“Did it hurt a lot back then, our Janggun?”

Whimper, whimper-.

It seemed like it did.

He hugged Janggun tightly and shared the joy of their reunion.

How long did he rub his face against the mutt?

“…Hyuk-ah.”

Decades.

No, in terms of how it felt, several times that.

“Jinhyuk-ah.”

The voice he had tried to remember while hugging his knees in the dark attic of the town’s teahouse. There was only one person who would call him so affectionately with such a beautiful voice.

With a loving smile, that voice called out to Jinhyuk again.

“My baby-. If our Jinhyuk stays too long in the autumn sun, he’ll turn into a darkie, won’t he?”

Before he could even check the face that had peeked out from the gate, his eyes were filled with tears. So he couldn’t properly see the owner of the voice.

Before the hot tears could spill out, his mother came and hugged Jinhyuk warmly.

Mom. Her gentle voice and tone, the soft touch of her hand stroking his cheek. It was a warmth he hadn’t felt anywhere for a long time. The smell of fire that had permeated her body, as she had been tending the fire in the stove to cook dinner, brought back happy memories of the old days.

“Why is our son crying? Did you have a scary dream?”

His two cheeks, held in his mother’s hands, turned upwards. With the determination to see his mother, he squeezed his eyes shut and shook off the tears. Finally, a clear white face came into view.

‘Who is this young lady…’

She did resemble the photo, but she was so different in person. After passing thirty and forty, the faces of his parents, which he had memorized by sight, had become blurry. So it was no wonder that she felt unfamiliar.

But he could recognize her through the pull of his soul.

“Mom?”

Is it Mom? Is it really my mom?

His lips wouldn’t move. He hated talking about anything other than what was necessary for work, so he would only say the rest in his mind. How could he be the same even after death?

“Yes. It’s Mom. Oh my- our baby, why are you crying?”

Han Yooyoung stroked her son’s hair to soothe him. Until his sobs stopped.

All Jinhyuk could do was bury his face in his mother’s chest and express his affection.

‘I’ve met Mom and Janggun again after death.’

Just by the fact that he was younger and his movements were unnatural, he was sure that he had died. But if this was death, what was there to regret?

He had finally met his mother.

After calming his heart, Jinhyuk looked around.

The hometown where he had lived as a child, the wide fields and rice paddies, the sparkling stream reflecting the sunlight, and the distant sea. Even the mountains dyed in vibrant colors.

He slowly nodded his head.

‘As expected, I can’t see any people.’

But…

“Where’s Dad?”

Did he fall into hell alone?

He was a really good person…

***

“Hahaha! Our son! You’re nine years old, and you cried because you had a scary dream?”

His father laughed heartily while they were eating dinner. He said he had been harvesting soybeans in the field. Come to think of it, his father had always worked alone to avoid making his mother do hard work. To think he had to work even in heaven, Dad must be having a hard time.

His father, Son Kwangyeon, was also in his mid-30s. Ten years younger than Jinhyuk in his past life.

Jinhyuk truly enjoyed the meal his mother had made for the first time in decades. He didn’t know that rice cooked in a cast-iron pot could be so delicious. Even though they had a gas stove, his mother insisted on cooking rice in a cast-iron pot. She said it was good for their health.

He didn’t know. He didn’t know that the beans in the bean rice were so savory, that a meal filled with soybean paste stew, kimchi, seasoned vegetables, and pickled vegetables could be so wonderful. He hadn’t realized it.

His parents smiled contentedly as they watched Jinhyuk gobble down his food.

‘Mom, Dad. Dad, Mom.’

They were young. His parents must have been happiest when they were living with him. They must have been waiting for him here for a long time. Heaven must be created based on the happiest times.

But it was strange. They didn’t ask their son, whom they hadn’t seen in a long time, how he had been or if he had gotten married. Perhaps they knew he had lived an unhappy and lonely life, so they didn’t ask. Of course, they weren’t the kind of people who would make their child relive their unhappy life.

It seemed better not to bring it up first before they asked.

As the night grew late, he went to sleep with his head on his mother’s arm.

A smile was on his mother’s lips as she gently stroked Jinhyuk’s cheek. He closed his eyes slowly, looking at her crystal-clear eyes.

‘Our mom was really pretty.’

This is truly heaven.

But they could have built the house a little better.

The shabby old house looks too real.

There are even spiders on the ceiling.

***

Is a dream a reproduction of memories, a reflection of the unconscious, or a premonition of the future? The dreams Jinhyuk had were as dark as the future of his past life. He could hear murmuring sounds in the darkness, and some voices were quite clear.

Even when he tried hard to remember, even the memories before the accident were blurry. His heart ached as if his soul had been shattered, and his eyes naturally welled up with tears. As he struggled to grab the memories that seemed within reach, his mother woke him up.

“My baby-. Our Jinhyuk, you have to eat breakfast and go to school, right?”

Fortunately, his mother was still by his side.

But school? Do I have to go to school even in heaven?

Isn’t this more like hell?

He ran the distance of about 3km with a child’s short legs. The rectangular cartoon character backpack, which covered half of Jinhyuk’s back, swung from side to side. Isn’t it amazing? Even the backpack from that time has been restored.

He saw adults working in the fields and rice paddies. Those people must have passed away too. He passed through the narrow and bumpy rice paddy paths, and ran non-stop along the winding unpaved bus road until he arrived at school.

‘As expected, I’m the only one at school.’

He washed his hands and face at the water fountain on the outskirts of the playground and calmly took a breath.

‘I ran so much, but I’m not tired at all!’

It seems heaven is heaven for a reason.

Then, he heard chirping sounds from the school gate.

It was the children coming to school.

‘Ah, my poor friends, so many…’

They must have been happy around this time too.

***

One day. After spending a whole day, he finally admitted that he had returned to the past, not heaven. In many ways, his speech and actions were different from the other children. No matter how much he looked at the other children, there were no friends who had an adult ego like Jinhyuk. They were just kids.

And seeing that all the classmates were there, it was hard to say that they had all died. The same went for the people in the fields. It was a remote village where it was hard to see people in the first place. And since the autumn harvest was coming to an end, there probably weren’t many people in the fields.

‘My memories are becoming clearer little by little.’

The memories of his previous life, which had been far away, were also coming closer. However, his small body and young life were still something he had to adjust to. In his previous life, Jinhyuk had grown explosively in high school. But now he was nine years old, so he was small, even frail. And he didn’t clearly remember what his childhood had been like in his past life.

‘It’s a memory I want to forget, though.’

It was a childhood filled with longing for his parents, the sadness of living as a dependent, and the fear of verbal and physical abuse. But the more you want to forget a memory, the more vividly it is engraved in your heart. So it was difficult to see the reason for it being blurry as just wanting to forget it.

Decades. It seemed more plausible that it was blurry because it was physically far away.

‘I wish someone would tell me.’

By what kind of harmony he had returned. But even when he looked around diligently, the surroundings didn’t darken and a demon didn’t appear, nor did anyone’s voice sound.

***

“Hey, Janggun. Isn’t this a bit too much?”

Hee hee hek-.

In the midst of his confusion, he finished school and found the porch in the yard. He was lucky that at least Janggun was there, since there was no one else to complain to. Jinhyuk rambled on in a child’s voice.

“You know, I was about to marry the chairman’s daughter and take over the group? But then the accident happened.”

Since he was planning to retire, it wasn’t about his attachment to marriage or power. Jinhyuk was simply curious about what would happen next. After all, isn’t it human nature to want to know the ending of a novel or movie? Especially when that ending is about his own life.

A sigh escaped him involuntarily.

Janggun also sighed deeply, following Jinhyuk.

“You know what a web novel is? In those, as soon as you go back to the past, all the memories from before and after are sucked in, they say. Ugh-, I can’t even remember what happened yesterday, so being sucked in is bull… All those web novel writers are scammers and liars.”

Jinhyuk was unusually talkative only to Janggun, but Janggun just stared at Jinhyuk and kept tilting his head.

“The timing of my return is also weird, usually it’s when you’re twenty or younger, but I’m nine years old…”

That was the end of Jinhyuk’s grumbling.

‘Ah, that’s right.’

He had come back to the time when his mom and dad were still alive, so what else was important?

His earnest wish to live with his parents had come true.

But Jinhyuk’s face suddenly hardened.

‘How did they die?’

Even the memorial days he had always observed, and the cause of death. It was as dark as if it had been painted over with black magic. Could he have gotten amnesia from the accident?

“I’m going crazy. Ah, I don’t even have a cigarette, really.”

Who could he complain to about this frustrating feeling?

He searched his pockets, but of course, there were no cigarettes, and he found something that a nine-year-old would have in his pocket.

Two acorns.

Sigh-, I was really just an ordinary rascal when I was young. Jinhyuk let out a hollow breath.

“Janggun, let’s become best friends.”

Clang.

One acorn fell into the dog bowl under the porch.

“I have to give one to Mom.”

Jinhyuk headed home to find his mother.

Janggun barked like crazy from behind.