Chapter 38 - Father and Son III

5

“Follow me this way.”

“Y-yes...”

A soccer stadium in Busan.

Half destroyed by monsters, its outer walls had mostly collapsed. Scattered steel frameworks littered the place like wreckage. It had been a long time—a very long time—since my last visit.

The first time, I had come with someone’s father. On my second visit, I came with his son.

“Wow.”

Perhaps this was Kim Sieun’s first time in such a large stadium. He craned his head around like a crane.

“It’s huge. Do those stands fill up on match days?”

“A full house is rarer than you’d think. Still, I understand the average attendance was around ten thousand.”

Though well over five hundred years had passed since my last visit, I found my destination surprisingly quickly.

In one section of the stands, a crystal had sprouted—the kind you might expect to find deep inside a cave. It was as tall as I was.

A marker visible only to my eyes.

Privately, I called that crystal a “headstone” or “gravestone.” No one besides me could even perceive it, so I could just as well call it “that thing.”

Even Kim Sieun, standing right beside me, failed to notice the crystal directly in front of his nose.

“Now, take my hand.”

“Oh, yes.”

“I can freely enter the dreams of anyone I’ve sealed, whenever I want. You can’t. You can only access the dream while you’re holding my hand. So whatever happens, you must never let go. Understood?”

“Understood, Boss.”

Sieun cautiously took my hand. I nodded.

“Then close your eyes. Brace yourself.”

“...”

“Here we go.”

I pressed my left palm against the crystal’s surface.

My hand sank softly through it. The crystal’s surface, clear and gleaming like a mirror, accepted my body without resistance, as though it were the surface of water.

I took a step.

Then another. By the time I had taken about six steps in all, everything around us rapidly turned pitch-black. It was as though a mischievous child had slathered black paint everywhere, or as though we had entered the deepest reaches of the ocean.

“...”

The sensation was familiar to me, but it wouldn’t have been to Sieun. Through his hand, I felt every fearful flinch.

A moment later—

“Waaaaaaah!”

Suddenly, a roar erupted around us, loud enough to shake heaven and earth.

“Eek!”

Startled, Sieun opened his eyes and instinctively looked around. His eyes widened even farther than they had at the sound of the roar.

“H-huh? What’s going on?”

The roar was the cheering of supporters.

The stadium, which had been bleak and deserted save for the two of us, was now packed with home and away fans.

Where ruined debris had lain, there were now soccer-club flags, banners, balloons, and, above all, people.

“Attack! Attack! Move, move!”

Someone who looked like a coach shouted from the edge of the field.

Players ran like mad across the green pitch. Whenever they dribbled, threaded an incredible pass through, or prepared for a corner kick, cheers loud enough to shake the sky rang from the stands.

“Oh! Our club! Our eternal home!”

The fervor of cheering that could only be experienced before the world fell apart like this.

Five years ago for everyone else, and more than five hundred years ago for me.

“My love! My home!”

“Today, we shall win again!”

The club’s fans waved their smartphones and jumped in place. At the front of the stands, enormous flags fluttered ceaselessly.

Beneath those flags, billowing red like waves at evening, Sieun stood rigid.

“...”

“Look over there, Sieun.”

I pointed at the pitch. His gaze followed my finger.

The soccer ball bounced off the grass. A player chested it down and deftly surged forward.

Kim Jucheol.

“Oooh!”

The spectators gasped in admiration.

The Kim Jucheol buried beneath the mists of time in my memory was running across the pitch, a little younger and a little sturdier.

Above all, his left foot freely tapped the ball along as he sprinted forward.

“Go! Hurry! Counterattack!”

“There’s no one there!”

“Kim Jucheoooool!”

Despite being a defender, Jucheol crossed the halfway line without hesitation. Teammates and opponents alike chased desperately after him.

A striker on his team just managed to get his head to the cross Jucheol delivered with his left foot. The headed ball shook the net.

“Waaaaaah!”

Jucheol had chalked up an assist.

His performance didn’t end there. During a corner kick shortly afterward, Jucheol leaped into the air. This time, he headed the ball into the net himself.

The scoreboard changed from 1:1 to 2:1. The go-ahead goal.

A defender had produced one assist and one goal in the blink of an eye.

“Goooooal! Goal! Goal!”

“Kim Jucheol! Kim Jucheol! Kim Jucheol!”

At that very moment,

Jucheol glided lightly like a skater and ran toward the stands. A camera followed him. He vaulted effortlessly over an advertising board, approached a woman in the crowd, and kissed her.

She was holding a small child. Jucheol kissed the top of the child’s head as well. The stadium’s big screen captured the entire scene.

“What? Who’s that?”

“They say she’s Kim Jucheol’s wife!”

“Ooooh! Kim Jucheol! Kim Jucheol!”

The referee even booked him for his excessive celebration, but neither the players, the crowd, nor Jucheol himself cared in the slightest.

Beside me, Sieun murmured softly.

“Mom...?”

He seemed to recognize the woman who had kissed the soccer player. He couldn’t bring himself to close his gaping mouth.

“This can’t be. Then it really...”

His quiet muttering couldn’t continue for long. The supporters’ chant rang out.

“Kim Jucheol! Our iron wall!”

“No one can get past Kim Jucheol!”

“Kim Jucheol! Our iron wall!”

Holding the little child, Jucheol looked utterly happy. The child in his father’s arms was beaming too.

A past he could never return to.

Glory he could never reclaim.

“...”

“That was the happiest moment of your father’s life,” I said softly.

I spread my aura, creating a barrier between us and our surroundings. The crowd’s cheers receded into distant echoes. As the sound faded, the scene before us shimmered like a dream.

“And it’s the moment he’s repeating forever.”

“Th-that doesn’t make sense. He looks so happy. Why on earth did he erase himself from the world? Well? Why did he abandon his family and trap himself in a dream like this?”

“...”

Because before long, Kim Jucheol’s left foot would be utterly ruined.

Because he had fallen into drinking and gambling, abandoned his family, and squandered his life in Macau and Gangwon Province. Because his wife, left to raise their son alone, had died.

But instead of answering that way, I asked him this:

“Would you like to go ask your father yourself?”

“...”

Sieun moved his lips uncertainly.

“... Yes.”

This world had already become Jucheol’s domain, but as the one who had cast the ability, I still had some power to intervene.

When the match ended, Jucheol finished his Man of the Match interview and headed to the locker room. Still holding Sieun’s hand, I followed him. No one perceived our presence.

“Huh?”

Only Jucheol noticed me. Hopping around with his teammates, he turned our way with a radiant smile.

“Who are you? Fans of ours? You’re not allowed back here!”

“It’s me, Mr. Kim.”

“Sorry? Who are you?”

“Undertaker. The man who trapped you in this time.”

I looked him straight in the eyes.

“Don’t you recognize me?”

“...”

The smile vanished from Jucheol’s face.

At the same time, every color in this world turned gray. The players chanting in the locker room, the manager and coaching staff about to enter, even the champagne one player had sprayed—all froze in midair.

“Ah...”

Only Jucheol’s quiet sigh drifted through the room.

“Right. That’s how it was. Yes. It was a dream.”

“...”

“This was a dream. Yes, all of it was a dream...”

He quietly looked around, studying each of his former teammates with a gaze full of conflicting emotions. Then he let out a long sigh.

“Now it’s a lucid dream. That’s actually better. Since it’s come to this, I should go see my wife and son one more time. No reason to stay in the locker room with these tiresome bastards.”

“There’s really no need.”

“Hmm?”

“Once this moment passes, you’ll forget everything anyway. Meeting me just now, the conversation we’ve had. Just as the people of the world remember nothing about you, you can no longer accumulate any memories of the world.”

“Oh dear. Really? That’s harsh...”

Jucheol flopped onto a bench. Wiping the sweat from his body with a towel, he spoke.

“Then why have you come to see me, Mr. Undertaker? Is this an annual event that’s already repeated who knows how many times without me knowing? Did you come to watch my fucking awesome highlight reel live?”

“Even if it means nothing to you, it may mean something to your family.”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“The young man who came with me is your son.”

“What?”

Only then did Jucheol look at the companion beside me, as though he had finally perceived the other person’s presence.

He blinked.

“Sieun?”

“...”

“Is that you, Sieun? Is it really you? Wow, how did you get so big?”

Jucheol sprang up and rushed at Sieun. Sieun flinched but didn’t reject his embrace.

“My goodness! You’re a grown man! Wow, the last time I saw you, you were a baby—a tiny little baby! How old are you now? Middle school? High school?”

“... I’m twenty.”

“What? Twenty? Then why are you so tiny? What have you been eating to end up that short? With genes like mine!”

The tall defender seemed shocked by his son’s height.

“Um... Father?”

“Huh? What’s with ‘Father’? You’re embarrassing me. Just call me Dad like you always—”

Jucheol suddenly fell silent.

He studied Sieun’s face, then looked at mine. Concern rose in his expression.

“... Wait. I’m sorry, but when did my wife... your mother pass away?”

“... Seven years ago.”

“...”

Silence settled around us.

After a long while, Jucheol murmured, “Ah.”

“That’s why.”

His gaze flicked toward me.

“That’s why you warned me. That’s why... That’s why.”

I didn’t bother to answer. I merely gave him a small nod.

I knew all too well how terrible it felt to be forgotten by the person you treasured most. But while I always had a chance to start again, Jucheol could never be given that chance.

Ever.

“...”

“... Sieun.”

The father took his son by the shoulders. Kim Jucheol took Kim Sieun by the shoulders. There was no strength in his grip. If anything, the pressure was as delicate as the leaves of a weeping willow.

“I’m sorry.”

“...”

“Your father... your dad is a very weak man. I really was a weak man. With the world like this, I didn’t think you’d survive. No, even before the world became like this... All I did was drink and gamble. I was a horrible bastard. When your mother called, I ignored her, got angry. I really...”

Sieun listened to Jucheol’s apology as though he had no idea what expression to make. He couldn’t be blamed. To him, Jucheol was merely someone he had met for the first time today.

Seeing his son’s face, Jucheol could only shudder again.

“This. This was hell.”

“...”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Sieun. Dad’s sorry.”

The soccer player trapped in his prime repeated nothing but apologies, like a broken music box.

6

I don’t want to dwell on this story’s aftermath.

But I trust my readers now understand well enough why I despise the ability called [Time Seal] so much.

To be honest, I never wanted to discuss [Time Seal] at all. It was that shameful a part of my past. On the other hand, it is a relief to have finally told you about my ability, even now.

Yes. I sealed the time of countless people, not just Kim Jucheol.

Back then, I thought it was right.

But looking back after all those years, those people—and I myself—had given up on the world far too soon, far too rashly.

[Time Seal] played some part in my decision to call my life story a “tale of failure.” There were far too many people who could now never reach a different ending, no matter how often I regressed.

“It feels... strange.”

And yet, those who survive have no choice but to build their lives around the bonds they still have.

After leaving the stadium, Sieun kept looking back. Far away, the stadium stood precariously, its shattered outer walls exposing its innards.

“Do you wish you hadn’t come?”

“Huh? No! Not at all. It’s just, someone I don’t even remember was crying and saying he was my family, but I can’t recall who he is at all. Hmm. It’s a strange feeling.”

With a small grunt, Sieun adjusted his backpack.

“It just makes me think I should do my best to live.”

Planting his walking stick on the ground, he bowed to me.

“Anyway, thank you, Boss! Thanks to you, I found my mother’s hometown and met my father on this trip. My feelings are all mixed up, but it meant something.”

“Where are you going now?”

“I’m going to find a boat somehow and cross over to Japan! I’ve traveled pretty much all over Korea by now.”

“Japan, huh.”

In truth, Japan was difficult to recommend as a casual travel destination these days.

If someone asked me to name the two most dangerous regions in the world apart from the Korean Peninsula, I would answer without the slightest hesitation: the Japanese archipelago and the Indian subcontinent.

The beings treated as “gods” in those places loved humans so much that they had decided to care for them personally. For reference, those gods’ favorite genres were #Confinement #Training #Gore.

Everywhere in the world was dangerous, but those two places were perilous in a different sense. In genre terms, think of the difference between an apocalypse story and a horror story.

But that was a few years down the line. The Japanese archipelago was still relatively safe.

I didn’t try to curb the young backpacker’s enthusiasm.

Instead, I offered this advice.

“If you hear anything strange on the road, see a strange object, or feel anything strange at all, don’t try to investigate. Just put your palms together, offer a greeting, and move on as though you haven’t noticed. Above all, never enter a tunnel.”

“...?”

“You’ll probably stop in Fukuoka. Avoid getting involved with the provisional government people if you can... Well, anyway, remember what I said. Someday it’ll come in handy.”

“Hmm. Yes! Understood!”

I didn’t know what ending Sieun reached after crossing over to Japan. Chances were, he met a horrific fate.

But I wasn’t overly concerned. From my perspective as a regressor, life was less like a sporting match where the whistle blew after ninety minutes, and more like a journey where you stopped briefly at a station before taking to the rails again.

Unlike his father, he would still have a chance to journey somewhere else.

“See you next time, Boss!”

For the record, I trusted Kim Jucheol’s sincerity.

I didn’t want to go out of my way to twist the intentions of a man who had murmured “my son” even as he vanished from the world. Setting aside, for a moment, the question of whether he was strong enough to hold true to that feeling to the end.

If he had truly apologized for his son’s sake, surely he would have been happy to see Sieun heading toward a new destination now, rather than being crushed beneath the past?

Wouldn’t he have given him his blessing?

Looking back once more, I could see the stadium with its collapsed outer walls.

“Goooooal! Goal! Goal!”

“Kim Jucheol! Kim Jucheol! Kim Jucheol!”

There, an obscure soccer player, now forgotten by the world, was always playing a match. With his left leg intact. To the cheers of the crowd.

And forever, he would be running toward his family to celebrate.

- Father and Son. End.