A black space where unprecedented memories were born and faded away.
[!]
[A dormant trait has sprouted]
I thought I caught a glimpse of that notification.
“Let’s go to the school store, Yesol!”
“Hiik!”
With a feeling like my lungs had opened wide, my upper body that had been slumped over lifted up.
I wiped away cold sweat and habitually clutched my left side, but there was no pain.
The classroom smell I’d forgotten filled my nostrils, and the faces I’d been forgetting were alive everywhere my eyes landed.
On the blackboard were playful messages of encouragement like [D-7] [There’s no way I can ruin the CSAT!]
For a flashback before death, this was too vivid.
Too… too, too vivid to be a dream.
“Hey, why are you spacing out like that?”
“Park Jaeseon?”
“What?”
“Park Jaeseon! Let me see your face!”
I grabbed the cheeks of Park Jaeseon, whom I was seeing for the first time in 8 years.
“What’s wrong with him… So are you coming to the school store or not?”
He looked this young…
I turned my gaze and looked around at the other kids. The class president organizing handouts at the teacher’s desk and kids putting in a last-minute spurt before the CSAT.
And…
There was Kim Seohyeon solving CSAT prep materials. And in Kim Seohyeon’s hand was a ‘pen,’ not the ‘pencil’ I’d blabbered about on TV.
I quickly approached him.
“Kim Seohyeon?”
The guy whose studying was interrupted looked up.
“What?”
“Wow… You really do look young.”
Ah… I really did regress, didn’t I. The feeling was strange. If I told you that just a few minutes ago I was saving your twenty-eight-year-old self, would you even believe me…
I thought he’d gotten Esper plastic surgery correction as he aged… But now that I look at him, this bastard was insanely handsome from the start.
“I need to study.”
Kim Seohyeon waved his hand with an annoyed face and buried his nose in his workbook. It meant don’t bother him.
“I’ll just go to the school store by myself…”
“No, no. Let’s go together, Jaeseon-ah.”
Seeing him sulk already, he’s definitely the same old Park Jaeseon.
I came to the school store with my old sulky friend.
Everyone I made eye contact with met my gaze. It was because all the students I passed kept glancing at me.
“Lee Yesol sunbae! Please have this!”
“…? You’re giving this to me?”
“Yes! Get well soon from your injured arm! And ace the CSAT!”
A first-year chick who’d been hesitating on the side gave me a banana milk, shouted a small fighting cheer, and left.
I’d forgotten about it. At this time, I was… insanely popular.
Late fall of my third year of high school, the most brilliant time of my life.
* * *
I swept up every bread in the school store and distributed it to my classmates. You guys who came back alive, I might not be able to take you to a buffet, but can’t I at least buy you some pieces of bread?
“Is he really crazy?”
“Maybe his trainee maintenance fee… did that go up?”
“Or are you really about to debut soon?!”
None of that, it’s because I’m happy to see you, happy.
I’m so happy I could cry… that’s why I’m doing this.
“Sniff…”
“Why, why are you tearing up? Are you crying because you feel bad about the money?”
Shake shake!
Park Jaeseon, who’d been comforting me by putting banana milk in my mouth, suddenly went into emergency mode and pulled my hair.
“You bastard, how can even your crying look so fucking…”
“Fucking what.”
“Fucking handsome…”
Crazy.
Just how good-looking am I?
I picked up the hand mirror of Jiseon sleeping next to me covered with a blanket and looked at my face.
“…!!”
Right. This was my real face.
My face before double eyelid surgery!
Seeing this face made it feel real all over again.
Wow, I really did regress for real.
The double eyelid surgery I had at my agency’s recommendation before the regression—I did it because they said ‘asymmetrical eyes make it hard to get into dramas,’ but it was a huge failure. I ended up looking like a toad with swelling that never seemed to go down… I got lip fillers wrong trying to balance out my facial features and became a flounder.
This life, I’m going with the original.
The beautifully curved inner double eyelid on my left eye, and the natural line on the right that clearly stood out whenever I smiled.
Hooray!
Seriously, I wanted to dance.
“You’re a bit weird today… Is it that when it’s time to remove your cast, you become… high tension?”
And my cast-wrapped arm that was a mess with messages of support and graffiti proving I was a huge insider.
I decided to bask in past glory for a bit.
I quickly found today’s date in the corner of the blackboard.
November 3rd.
It was a point in time with just three measly months left until graduation—no, until the great destruction of Earth.
It was the national rule for idol trainees from the provinces to move up to Seoul. Whether it was a general high school or an arts high school, anyway, the routine was to just mark attendance and head to the practice room, but unusually, I wasn’t like that.
First of all, my parents opposed dormitory life. The agency tried to persuade them a couple of times, but my stubborn father was firm.
If I really wanted to go, I should graduate, become an adult, debut, and then go to Seoul.
Thanks to that, after marking attendance at school in Cheorwon, I had to waste two hours to Seoul, four hours round trip, in my father’s truck.
Thinking about it, Father was really amazing too.
He took care of my practice room commute every day.
It was right around this time that Father, who had to take care of his son every day, got a rare break.
When I slipped on sweat during dance practice and injured my arm, the company told me to rest completely for a month.
In November, it was time for the debut group to be formed, so normally I should have been preparing to return, but…
I couldn’t repeat the same history.
Of course, primarily, just not getting double eyelid surgery would be a great revolution in my life’s history, but… I couldn’t be satisfied with just that for this opportunity given to me once more.
An opportunity given once more.
But why?
My consciousness, which had been flowing freely, raised a question.
[A dormant trait has sprouted]
That thing before I died, I don’t think I heard it wrong.
I tried to open the status window, but whether it wasn’t activated because it was before the world’s destruction or something, no matter what I did, my vision remained blank.
Having lived my whole life as an Esper who couldn’t awaken a trait, I found this situation frustrating.
[Trait: ???]
Even in the past, I don’t know how furious I got every time I opened the window with some hope.
That trait marked with question marks had finally, at last, sprouted. But because I’d returned to the past, I couldn’t view it.
Frustrating memories popped up like pop-ups.
‘Ego Confirmation Dysfunction Syndrome.’
That was my diagnosis.
They said the power that first permeated my body was greatly influenced by the ego, but it was a rare disease where that power got tangled up refusing the influence.
‘Huh, could it be?’
After the first Territory Game ended, in the reward I received, I only thought ‘I want to turn back time.’
It was because my father had become a handful of ashes before my eyes.
‘Because my ego wanted to turn back time?’
So the waves were conflicting with my desire, and my body compromised with ‘activation after death’?
Wow, Mr. Lee. Really? That sounds plausible.
But a secondary question arises here. I couldn’t have been the only person who thought ‘I want to turn back time.’ Countless citizens had unexpectedly lost their families, their lovers.
Those people all awakened with different traits. But why only me, an E-rank bottom-tier Esper?
Anyway, it’s a huge gain.
And once more, even if I get that disease again… there was a cure in the past.
* * *
“Seo~hyeon-ah!”
Our future S-rank Esper Kim Seohyeon-ssi turning his face full of annoyance.
“I’m getting my cast off tomorrow.”
“So?”
I removed the cap of the marker pen and held out my left arm.
“I was wondering if our Seohyeon could write a word of encouragement.”
“I guess you can’t see the writing on the blackboard.”
[D-5 People You Shouldn’t Talk To: Oh Yunhoe, Lee Duri, Kim Seohyeon Fighting!!]
I tried to get a bit closer during break time, but… I only got rejected.
Young punk… He was prickly too. Well, with the CSAT right around the corner, being sensitive was natural, I guess.
“Take it easy, okay? Fighting!”
Instead, I placed a nutritional supplement on Kim Seohyeon’s desk.
At the same time, among groups in the same class, rumors that Lee Yesol ‘started building good deeds before debut’ were spreading like wildfire.
You fools.
Instead of whispering about those kinds of rumors now, you guys should hurry up and build rapport with Kim Seohyeon too.
This bastard’s going to be world-class soon.
* * *
D-day 1.
And the much-anticipated day before the CSAT arrived.
“For all the test-takers across the nation, Planet trainees are cheering for you!”
As a public trainee of Planet Entertainment, I was smiling brightly at the camera together with three other public trainees.
Making a tight fist with my hand that had the cast removed. The boundary between the tanned and untanned parts was a subtle point.
“Our kids receive the camera amazingly well.”
“When did Yesol become so skilled?”
“Ah, thank you.”
“Your breathing in front of the camera was good, and you were incredibly natural. You did well.”
Even though I got younger, I guess I can’t hide my experience and know-how.
There was one reason I came all the way to the company office at a point just three measly months before the world’s destruction.
I had no money. Only dust in my pockets. If I’d known I was going to regress like this, I would have at least memorized lottery numbers.
At the very least, short-term investment stocks…
Virtual currency would take several more years to take off. There was also the method of destroying business ethics by learning composition and selling off music or CM songs that would be popular in the future, but putting it into action would easily take over three months.
And I needed big money right away to rescue Father from that hell that would take his life in exactly three months.
That was the reason I was fidgeting in front of the trainee manager right now.
“Director-nim. Would it be possible to apply for an advance on trainee allowance?”
“No way. Why, do you need quick cash?”
“Yes… Then, is there maybe a part-time job I could do? I heard you opened a pop-up store for Pangpang sunbaes this time…”
“Do you know how important this period is for you right now? After resting for a whole month, you’re thinking about part-time work? If your head was screwed on right, you should be thinking about getting first place in the end-of-month evaluation to earn extra allowance, you punk.”
“Wow… Thank you.”
Right, the end-of-month evaluation allowance, that existed.
I checked the date. It was exactly two weeks away.
