Area of Senses

Immediately after waking up from bed, I didn’t feel the shoulder pain I always felt.

There was no time to think about what was going on. I can’t be late…

With only that thought in mind, I rub my sleepy eyes and get out of bed.

Beyond my blurry vision, a small door is visible. I trudge towards it.

However, I soon feel a sense of incongruity. It’s big. The doorknob, which I always touched around my waist, was located higher up.

The hand that carefully reaches for the doorknob is also foreign.

The expression ‘unfamiliar’ would be accurate. My own hand was a bit bigger. And rough.

But the hand in this place was so small and delicate.

The white skin seemed to glow faintly even in the darkened room.

‘Am I dreaming?’

Even as I think to myself, a hollow laugh escapes my lips.

I dismissed it as a dream, thinking it was impossible, but the sensation I felt through my hand was telling me it wasn’t a dream.

The story of suddenly regressing was something I had only heard in web novels.

Last night, did I not close the game I was playing at the last moment?

However, nowhere in my sight could I see the game’s flashy interface.

Click-

As I carefully apply force, the door opens.

The unlit hallway is also unfamiliar. But it was somehow familiar.

With the thought that the house structure was familiar, my body reacted first and started walking.

Thud- Thud- Thud-

The sound of footsteps echoing in the empty hallway is also unfamiliar.

I think as I walk. A light body, much lighter than my previous body.

And so, I arrived at the front of the bathroom sink.

When I turn on the extinguished light, the figure of a small girl is revealed beyond the mirror.

The neatly descending long, black hair makes the girl’s atmosphere calm.

The large eyes of the girl in the mirror capture my body.

When the girl’s lips, which had seemed cold, twisted upwards, the atmosphere changed in an instant.

“This is… me?”

As if unable to believe it, the words flowing from the girl’s mouth were expressing my feelings exactly.

Is this appearance me? Really?

That was the moment.

From behind me, I heard the sound of footsteps, and a boy came in.

He made a very surprised expression at my appearance in front of him, then twisted up the corners of his lips.

“What are you doing.”

The boy’s face is familiar. I was so surprised by the sight that I could only mumble.

I hesitated for a long time. And I thought. Why is my appearance over there?

The boy was me in my younger days.

So, I was looking at myself.

Clearly, the mirror was behind me. It was reflecting the small girl as is from behind.

“Aren’t you going to get ready?”

“Ready…?”

“You have to go to school.”

The boy, Seo Haram-gun, said that.

It’s a familiar voice. It was my voice from my younger days, so of course it was familiar.

I slowly raised my hand. A small, slender, white hand.

“Huh, unbelievable.”

“What…? Did you eat something wrong?”

“Come here, come here.”

“Ah, no… Hey. You…”

I go closer and touch the boy’s face.

The smooth skin without wrinkles wasn’t that surprising.

But the definite sensation transmitted through my fingertips pulled me back to reality.

Still, in one corner of my head, I was considering this situation as a dream, not reality.

Slap!

Haram-gun’s hand slaps away my small hand.

It’s quite stinging, it seems to be full of force.

As I blink in surprise, Haram-gun’s flustered gaze reaches me and then falls away.

And then he turned around and ran.

“Mom!!! Hayeon-yang is weird!!!”

Hayeon.

Hayeon?

Stroking my reddened hand, I think.

Hayeon-yang? Me?

Who is Hayeon-yang?

***

Breakfast time arrived.

As if there was a place for me, who was maintaining an awkward posture, my mother in her younger days pushed my shoulder and made me sit down.

Everything was just awkward.

Clearly, I had returned to the past. But not in my own form, but in the form of another person.

Hayeon-yang, a family member that doesn’t exist in my memory.

“Mother.”

The moment I called her mother, both gazes turned to me.

One was my mother, and the other was Haram-gun’s gaze.

The two of them were looking at me as if they had seen something they shouldn’t have.

“Mom… I’m telling you I’m right. She’s weird.”

“Hayeon-ah. Are you sick anywhere? Should we go to the hospital?”

“No. I’m not sick.”

I shake my head and answer. There was no place that hurt.

Even so, if I had to go to the hospital, wouldn’t I have to go to a mental hospital?

A small thought follows.

“Mother. Hayeon-yang, Seo Hayeon-yang, why was she born?”

I throw out a small question. From my perspective, it was a natural question.

Seo Hayeon-yang, a sibling I don’t have in my memory. I ended up entering that body.

I didn’t have the confidence to explain this situation.

That’s why I asked the question of why she was born.

Thud-

The moment my question ended, the chopsticks fell from Haram-gun’s hand.

He touched his lips with a trembling hand, then shouted at his mom.

“She, she’s definitely sick somewhere!”

“Hayeon-ah. Look at Mom. Where does it hurt? Huh? What’s wrong?”

A soft and warm touch reaches my cheek.

That touch that only existed in my memory, my mother’s touch.

As the sensation I thought I had forgotten revives, my vision blurs.

“Hayeon-ah? Hayeon-ah?”

Hot tears run down my cheeks.

I remember my mother’s last appearance. I thought I would never see her again.

But now she is vividly alive in this place.

She stroked my cheeks and pulled me into her arms.

The scent in my memory.

It’s my mother’s smell.

Tears flow endlessly. The unstopping tears are wiped away by my mother’s touch.

“Should we not go to school today?”

After shedding silent tears in my mother’s arms for a long time. My mother looked straight at my face and asked.

School. Should I go?

If school is the place this body, that is. Hayeon-yang, has to go, then it was right to go.

But right now, I wanted to stay with my mother a little longer.

I hugged my mother and nodded my head.

Hugging her cozy embrace, I look at Haram-gun beyond her.

He was looking at me with a somewhat uncomfortable expression.

His expression is familiar. Since it was me in the past, I could read his emotions as is.

Haram-gun didn’t want to go to school. He was jealous of me.

But there was nothing I could do.

He was a boy, but he is Haram-gun. A boy who had deep thoughts from a young age.

Haram-gun got up from his seat and packed his bag.

“Then I’ll be back.”

“Okay, be careful of cars. And don’t fight with your friends.”

She doesn’t say to study hard until the end.

That was my mother.

Haram-gun frowned, then sighed and shook off his emotions.

“Yes.”

Even after Haram-gun left the house, I stayed in my mother’s arms for a long time.

Because I was afraid that the moment I fell away, this dream would break.

My mother patted my back.

“Mom.”

“Aren’t you going to call me ‘Mother’ anymore?”

“Do you like ‘Mother’?”

My mother burst into laughter at my question.

And then she shook her head.

“Call me Mom. Being called ‘Mother’ makes me feel old.”

I nodded my head.

Whatever the title, the fact that she is my mother doesn’t change.

Even though I have become a small girl. From a biological point of view, the fact that this woman is my mother doesn’t change.

My heart calms down.

I acted childishly, unlike my age. My face flushed and the tips of my ears burned.

“Put me down.”

I said in a calm voice.

But Mom didn’t put me down.

“Should we stay like this a little longer?”

I thought it wasn’t bad.

I nodded my head.

Mom, holding me in her arms, moved from the dining table to the living room sofa.

It’s the act of moving a small girl. She didn’t seem to be having much trouble.

Sitting on the living room sofa, I watch television with Mom.

Numerous pieces of information flash by on the blankly staring screen.

Memories of the past that I thought I had already forgotten come to mind in a chain reaction.

Mom, who was operating the remote control, turned the screen to the news when I didn’t show much interest.

In the blankly flowing time, Mom unconsciously opened her mouth.

“The world is changing so fast.”

It probably wasn’t a word that expected an answer.

Mom in my memory also used to talk to herself while watching television from time to time.

My gaze was fixed on the news screen and didn’t think of falling away.

Of course. Because the quality of the television was strange.

“Uh, Mom…?”

“Yeah?”

“What’s the date today?”

At my question, Mom took out her smartphone.

It’s a familiar shape in my memory. So it’s foreign.

An object that shouldn’t exist in this place in a normal timeline.

I reached out and grabbed Mom’s smartphone in my hand.

It was quite a rude action, but Mom didn’t say anything in particular.

I touch the screen and check the information on the smartphone.

Checking the date is next.

star47

The 47th series of the star smartphone.

Next, I check the date.

June 7, 2020.

“Did you check everything?”

“Ah.”

As I was checking the date, Mom took the smartphone back.

In 2020, the number of the star series is 47.

In my memory, the 2nd smartphone in the star series appeared in early 2020.

I couldn’t help but remember it.

That day, a boy named Haram-gun pestered his mother to buy the 2nd smartphone in the star series.

The memory of showing it off to his friends was still vivid.

“I, I’ll go to my room for a bit…”

I slightly break away from her warm embrace.

The lingering touch didn’t fall away, but a definite confirmation was needed.

“Are you feeling better now?”

I don’t answer. No, I couldn’t answer.

I wasn’t feeling better yet.

I hurriedly leave the living room and enter the hallway.

The long hallway was full of cold air.

The body that hurriedly walked stopped in front of a familiar room.

Haram-gun’s room.

It’s not my current room. As I naturally open the door, the unique smell of a teenage boy’s room wafts over me.

It was quite a repulsive feeling.

I hurriedly close the door. The work that needs to be confirmed could also be done in Hayeon-yang’s room.

I turn my body and head to Hayeon-yang’s room.

The room where this body first woke up.

I open the door and enter.

The body relaxes as if it is familiar with this room.

My gaze turned to the desk located in the corner of the room.

The large computer wasn’t a very important element.

Besides the computer, a large capsule connected next to it catches my eye.

Things that shouldn’t exist were existing.

And so, I was able to make a conviction.

This is not the world I lived in.

It’s a very messed up world where the time axis is tangled.