The Genius Decided To Live An Ordinary Life [EN]: Chapter 3

The next day, after breakfast, he slung his bag over his shoulder.

Perhaps because of the acorn incident, Janggun growled at Jinhyuk. Even if they were practically family, it felt like he was getting too big for his britches. Still, Jinhyuk, being a year older, decided to let it slide.

“I’m off!”

Afraid that Janggun might bite his heels, he dashed out of the house.

Fortunately, even though Janggun was faster than Jinhyuk, he only chased after him, not biting or overtaking him. He followed Jinhyuk until they reached a wide stream, then barked loudly before heading back home.

Though his memories were slowly returning, Jinhyuk still felt lost as he made his way to school for the second time. He could run faster than yesterday, and he wasn’t even out of breath.

Jinhyuk sat at his desk, closed his eyes, and meditated. He inhaled through his nose, imagining the air passing through his brain, into his lungs, and down to his core. When exhaling, he reversed the process, breathing out through his mouth. Throughout this, he consciously felt the shape and rhythm of his heart.

After a few breaths, the sweat on his forehead cooled, and the stiffness in his legs eased. A current flowed from the top of his head to his toes, and his body temperature rose.

‘I don’t know what this is, but I just do it.’

He wondered if this was the perk of being a regressor that those scammer web novel writers were always talking about, but breathing was a privilege of the living, wasn’t it?

Looking back, there were often kids like that.

Those who were more mature and serious than their peers. They would watch their friends playing with a contented smile, wander around the garbage incinerator with their hands behind their backs, or mutter to themselves while coming down from the mountains with empty bottles. Though they lived ordinary lives without standing out, now that he thought about it, they were quite mature in their own way.

‘Were they regressors too?’

Too childish to mingle with their peers, they lived in their own worlds.

The meditation didn’t last long.

Screech- Thump-.

The old-fashioned sliding door of the classroom opened, and a girl walked in. She had pigtails and was wearing a skirt.

“Hi, Son Jinhyuk? You live far away, but you’re here early again today?”

“Oh, hey. Welcome. Was the commute not too crowded…?”

What am I saying?

The girl’s eyes widened, and Jinhyuk quickly shut his mouth. Damn it, talking about a commute when I’m just a kid. Still, there was some value in having the conversation.

‘Let’s see, that kid is…’

That friend is Kim Minkyung. She lives in a village along the bus route in the opposite direction from Jinhyuk’s house. She had big eyes and cried a lot. In the first semester of second grade, he had almost gotten into a fight trying to stop another kid from bullying Kim Minkyung.

Like smoke scattered in the air gathering back into a bonfire, Son Jinhyuk’s memories slowly returned. Afraid they might fly away with his breath or disappear if he closed his eyes, Jinhyuk absorbed all the memories that came to him.

‘Looks like those web novel writers aren’t all liars.’

Though not perfect, memories were flowing in like a slow-motion video. So, they were only half liars.

Delighted by the memories seeping in, he gradually recovered his memories by talking with his friends.

*

‘I know I’ve returned to the past, but.’

Though he was looking straight ahead, Jinhyuk’s thoughts were buried in a difficult problem that he couldn’t easily solve. It was a question difficult enough even without borrowing the words of Socrates.

‘Who am I, really?’

If he had said it out loud, someone would have laughed. They might have patted his head and called him cute or flicked him on the forehead.

Contemplation about ‘self’ usually begins when one firmly recognizes their own area or role as a member of a group. Like the responsibility of being a father or mother. But Son Jinhyuk just wanted to understand. The current situation.

The question wasn’t because he didn’t know who he was. It was about who he was, who he had been, to have received such a twist of fate and returned to the past. When something like this happened, the question of ‘why did I come’ should come first. But he didn’t have the time to list and rearrange the order of questions.

Because.

“Son Jinhyuk-.”

“Yes-.”

Everyone was looking at him.

Jinhyuk stood up from his seat because the teacher had called his name. It was Mr. Choi Eungmuk. Jinhyuk’s homeroom teacher in the second grade of elementary school, which was still called ‘National School’ back then. [National School was the name for elementary schools in South Korea before 1996.] He was always smiling, and he was Jinhyuk’s favorite teacher throughout his previous life.

“Our class president, Jinhyuk, got a perfect score on this test too. Should we all give him a round of applause?”

“Wow-!”

Clap clap clap-.

The teacher’s lines and the children’s envious gazes were so familiar that it was chilling. The word ‘familiar’ wasn’t enough to describe it. He had already experienced it once before.

‘My memories are getting clearer.’

The class. It was content he had learned once in his previous life, but there was no way he could remember the details. But what difficult content could there be in a second-grade elementary school class? Besides, Jinhyuk was someone who had graduated at the top of the most prestigious university. Even back then, he had given up on everything, so he didn’t go around bragging about it.

During class, he looked at the blackboard, and during breaks, he watched the children playing, trying to recall his memories. He frowned like a child, and his deep brown eyes, full of contemplation, were as deep as the abyss.

“Our Jinhyuk, how can you be so mature? You’ve become even more composed after the Chuseok holiday?” [Chuseok is a major harvest festival and a three-day holiday in Korea.]

No, I’m just spacing out, how can you say I’m composed? And I’ve only become this mature since the day before yesterday. But he had no intention of objecting to the teacher’s words.

He just gave an awkward smile.

‘This is so confusing.’

Nine years old. Not the smart nine-year-olds of the 21st century, where universal early education was established. There were still kids who hadn’t even mastered their multiplication tables.

“Teacher, Jaesuk peed her pants-.”

There was also a kid who couldn’t bring herself to say she needed to go to the bathroom during class and just relieved herself while sitting in her chair. A girl named Kang Jaesuk was sobbing with her shoulders shaking while slumped over her desk. She was more innocent because she wasn’t as cunning or cheeky.

*

A day of classes in a rural elementary school ended after five periods.

Until lunchtime after the fourth period, Jinhyuk hadn’t recovered all of his memories. This meant that he didn’t know what was going to happen, so Jinhyuk’s confusion didn’t subside.

Especially.

‘The adoptive parents.’

Why he had to live with those people. He couldn’t remember it until the end of school. That also meant he couldn’t remember why his parents had left so far away.

Recovering his memories was more difficult than he had thought. He had thought that over 30 years would be a physically long distance. But it was strange that even Jinhyuk, with his genius brain, couldn’t easily recall them.

‘I wish I could remember this point in time.’

Someone approached Jinhyuk, who was sitting there blankly.

“Jinhyuk, do you want to come to my house today?”

“Your house?”

It was a girl named Lee Haewon. Her house was located further inland than Jinhyuk’s, near the sea. Her parents ran a store at the bus terminal. It was the only store in the rural town. They also provided accommodation for the last bus drivers, so they made a decent living. That’s why Lee Haewon’s clothes were like a princess’s, something rarely seen in the countryside.

“Yeah-, well, friend, I-.”

“Let’s go-, we were going to do something fun today.”

Lee Haewon grabbed Jinhyuk’s arm as if she was going to drag him away right then and there.

Only then did Jinhyuk remember what he had done at Lee Haewon’s house on this day in his previous life. They had picked up stones on the beach and flipped over small rocks to catch crabs. He had also eaten snacks that Lee Haewon had brought from her parents’ store.

It was shocking. Reaching a shady spot, Lee Haewon had sat on a rock, lifted her skirt, and grinned, saying she would show him something good. In fact, at nine years old, they knew everything they needed to know back then.

‘I stammered and couldn’t say anything, then made up an excuse and went home.’

Because he was embarrassed and flustered. As that memory came back, his heart started pounding again. It was as if the emotions he had suppressed in his previous life had returned, and the shock that the innocent country boy had felt back then was alive again.

“Oh, friend. I’ll go next time. My mom told me to come home early today.”

“Okay. It’s a promise? Jinhyuk, you can’t look at anyone else’s, okay?”

Lee Haewon grinned.

It seemed she was going to do that today. There were some wild kids in the countryside, and some incorrigible troublemakers. But in some ways, the country kids were more cunning than the city kids. Jinhyuk eventually concluded that it wasn’t a matter of the countryside or the city, but ‘it depended on the person.’

‘Is every moment repeating itself?’

Nine-year-old Jinhyuk wondered as he watched Lee Haewon’s back as she walked away. He had changed, but why weren’t the people around him changing? Was it because he hadn’t been back for long? It was a problem he couldn’t find an answer to.

‘Should I go to Haewon’s place?’

Well… what would I do there? My body is nine years old, but my tastes aren’t.

In his previous life, Jinhyuk had never even kissed a woman. He had kept women at a distance, almost to the point of being a germaphobe, so it was possible because he had suppressed and eliminated not only his emotions but even his impulses.

That’s right. Son Jinhyuk had no experience with women. He had chosen a life of living completely alone. And yet.

‘I feel like I have experience. A lot of it.’

He swore he had no memory of dating a woman. Was this also a perk of being a regressor? No way. Such fake memories, no different from the uncanny valley, couldn’t be a perk.

The blurry memories that confused Jinhyuk flickered in the fog, like a ghost in a mask hidden behind a dark curtain. Perhaps that ghost was a Casanova, thought nine-year-old Jinhyuk.

***

It took exactly three days for most of the memories from his nine-year-old body to return. His friends, his parents, and the people in the neighborhood. But they were only memories from his childhood, so there wasn’t much to gain from the memories engraved in his nine-year-old body. What Jinhyuk needed were the memories of the future. Especially, the memories of a few days later.

His parents never fought, nor did they ever raise their voices. They loved Jinhyuk more than anything in the world. The way they treated Jinhyuk was different from that of other people in the countryside, not only his mother but even his father.

‘Come to think of it, I never thought it was strange.’

Dad. He was very different from the other men in the neighborhood and even the school teachers.

First of all, his way of speaking.

– “Hello, elder. Have you eaten?”

– “Minkyung, when Dad comes, can you tell him that Jinhyuk’s dad came by?”

The people in the neighborhood who heard his father’s way of speaking would shrink back as if a snake was crawling on their necks.

– “Jinhyuk’s dad-, what does this Chinese character say?”

– “Jinhyuk’s dad-. Are you home now? Please name our youngest daughter-.”

They always sought Jinhyuk’s father for anything that required thinking.

Even though his father always held Jinhyuk’s hand tightly when they went out, Jinhyuk had never thought it was strange. Since he saw his father every day, it was strange to think it was strange.

Jinhyuk was frustrated.

‘Focus, focus.’

The memories of his previous life were still missing.

He was also impatient because the memories of losing his parents hadn’t come yet, and because he had lived under the abuse of his cruel adoptive parents. He didn’t want to repeat that nightmare again.

‘It’s only been a few decades, why can’t I remember?’

Trying to find the memories of his previous life felt like walking through a long tunnel with only a single candle.

At that moment, two mischievous friends approached Jinhyuk. They were friends named Kang Jinsu and Yuk Seongchan. Their fathers didn’t know each other, but their names were incredibly well-matched. Even the teachers called them Jinsu Seongchan together.

“Jinhyuk, should we three go to the mountain behind the school? There are a lot of acorns fallen there-.”

“Hey, Jinsu. Squirrels and chipmunks have to eat too-. If we take them all, they’ll all starve to death-.”

A change came over Jinhyuk.

‘Should we three?’

That’s what ‘the three of us’ means.

‘Starve to death?’

‘Die?’

It felt like he had found a missing puzzle piece.

It was a flood of puzzle pieces, but it was an easy puzzle that could be solved by arranging them in chronological order, and it was a welcome flood. It was the moment when the candle that was barely lighting the tunnel turned into a headlight.

Tears streamed down his face.

“Hey, Seongchan, you idiot. Jinhyuk is crying, you idiot. Why are you talking about dying-.”

Jinhyuk waved his hand at the children.

‘No, guys, it’s not that. Thank you.’

For helping me remember.