-
What if.
"I hadn't been walking while looking at my phone."
What if.
"I hadn't taken that road that day."
What if.
"I hadn't fallen into the sewer."
What would have happened?
I think about it sometimes.
Life is a series of coincidences. Full of the unpredictable.
What-ifs are nothing but lingering regret.
However, there is one thing I can state for certain.
What is already past cannot be undone.
Even if it was…
akin to a disaster, a calamity, a catastrophe.
-
Eun Myeongseong was putting on his shoes at the entrance. His mother's voice came from behind him.
"Myeongseong. Where are you going?"
"I have plans with a friend!"
Myeongseong answered brusquely, as if annoyed. In response, his mother asked again.
"Really? When will you be back?"
"Don't know. We're planning to hang out until evening and then get drinks..."
"Oh? Well, come home early anyway. I'm making a delicious dinner tonight."
"What's for dinner tonight?"
"Pork and kimchi stew!"
"Again?!"
"Your father and younger brother like it."
"But it's been three days in a row! Is there still frozen pork left from the other day?"
"There's a little left. Anyway, you brat!"
As Myeongseong asked cheekily, his finally irritated mother poked her face out into the entranceway and scowled.
"You like pork and kimchi stew too!"
"Well, that's true… but eating the same thing for three days straight is a bit…"
"Think of it as your hangover cure."
"Tch."
Myeongseong pouted at the fact he'd be eating the same menu for the third day.
Looking at him, his mother slowly eased her scowl and spoke.
"So be back before 10. Got it?"
"Yeah. Yeah."
Myeongseong answered absentmindedly and went out, opening the front door.
-
After leaving the house and walking, Myeongseong took out his smartphone and opened F/GO.
"Really. What's so fun about this?"
Due to a friend's strong recommendation, Myeongseong had recently started F/GO.
Fate/Grand Order.
It was a famous collection game in the guise of a game, known for making people spend money on characters based on its story alone.
While Myeongseong enjoyed mobile games to an extent, this kind of game wasn't to his taste.
He'd managed to clear up to around chapter 1 or 2, but that was it.
It was a game he just couldn't get into.
'They say it gets amazing from Part 1 Chapter 6 onwards, but I just can't muster the will to play.'
He'd rather read the manga or watch the anime. He had seen Fate/Zero and Fate/stay night. He wasn't a hardcore fan completely immersed in Type-Moon, but more of a light fan who'd dipped his toes in. He enjoyed it moderately.
'The lore is interesting too, so I often read the wiki as well.'
Like, what was it, Tsukihime? Or Kagetsu Tohya?
So Myeongseong was fairly knowledgeable about Type-Moon lore.
'I'd rather watch the Case Files of Lord El-Melloi II.'
Thinking that as he walked, Myeongseong soon stopped.
"Huh? This road is blocked?"
A Y-shaped fork in the road splitting left and right.
Normally Myeongseong would go left, but the left path was blocked. Red traffic cones were placed, and a sign on the left path read [Under Construction].
"Sigh. If I go right, I'll have to detour for 10 more minutes."
Myeongseong thought for a moment, then sneakily peered past the cones down the left path.
The asphalt was perfectly fine without any cracks, and as far as he could see, there were no heavy machinery or anything unusual.
"Should I just go? I can't be bothered to go around."
Not wanting to take a 10-minute detour for what was a 5-minute walk, Myeongseong ignored the cones and walked down the left path.
"What. What's under construction here?"
As Myeongseong walked without any issues and was about to look at his smartphone to roll the gacha, that moment—
Slip.
"Huh?"
At that moment, strength left his left foot.
Wondering, he looked down to see his left foot falling into a sewer with its manhole cover open.
"Uh-uh?"
His body was, tilting.
His left foot plunged, splash, sinking into the sewer's darkness.
As Myeongseong panicked, clatter, he dropped the smartphone in his hand and tried to right his posture.
"My body, it's heavy?!"
The moment he tried to regain balance, his left shoulder suddenly tilted. As if someone was firmly pressing down on one side of a scale with a finger.
In an instant, his balance collapsed. Gravity crushing his form.
With a eerie feeling as if someone was pulling his left ankle, Myeongseong fell into the sewer.
Thud, clatter.
And the smartphone he dropped fell beside the manhole. The screen, with its cracked glass, still displaying FGO, was acting strange.
Fizz—, fizzle.
As if a light was flickering, like an old CRT TV screen shaking, it kept fizzing until finally, *click*, the power seemed to go out and the screen turned off. As if his life had been extinguished.
-
"Aaaaah?!"
Myeongseong screamed as he continued to fall.
It was so dark inside the sewer he couldn't see an inch ahead. Even trying to catch an arm on a ladder was futile; he couldn't see even a faint shadow. It felt like he was falling into darkness devoid of any light.
Falling headlong like a meteor from the sky, Myeongseong tightly shut his eyes.
Like that, for dozens of seconds.
Myeongseong raised his trembling eyelids. Darkness was still all he saw.
"Wh-why am I still falling? Is the sewer deeper than I thought?"
Myeongseong, who thought he would soon crash onto the bottom and shatter his legs and pelvis, was bewildered by the fact he was falling longer than expected.
"I-is, is this how I die?"
The falling continued.
His form gaining acceleration.
At this speed, from this height, it wouldn't end with just broken legs.
As that thought crossed his mind, Myeongseong panicked and flailed in the air. His desperate attempt to grab onto a wall or a ladder paradoxically flipped his body upside down.
"Aaaaah!!!"
His body rotated 180 degrees. As his head faced the ground, Myeongseong screamed.
I'm dying. I'm really going to die. My head will meet the ground and shatter to pieces!
'Ahh. Mom! Dad! You little brat—no, little brother! Sorry! I'm dying first!'
The moment Myeongseong felt the fear of death, his life flashed before his eyes.
His mother's smile, his father's back, his brother's childish antics.
All those moments. The days with his family—not perfect, but still happy—fleeting past.
｡ ﾟ
○ o
○
oﾟ｡ﾞ
oﾟ｡ﾞ ,
oﾟ｡ﾞ
oﾟ｡ﾞ ;
oﾟ｡ﾞ
oﾟ｡ﾞ
Myeongseong fell into water—no, into foam.
"Gurgle?!"
'Water? No, foam? I c-can't breathe!'
At the sudden sensation of not water but foam, Myeongseong held his breath.
Iridescent. Prismatic. Colors beyond the three primary colors.
Trapped in endless, bubbling, swelling, bursting infinite foam, Myeongseong felt suffocated for a moment.
Trying desperately to escape this substance, whether water or foam, he flailed his arms as if swimming, but nothing solid was there. As if they were fake bubbles. No, the bubbles were real.
'Are bubbles coming out of my body now?!'
Myeongseong soon realized that within these bubbles, new bubbles were emerging from his own body.
With every flail of his arms, as if rubbing soap, bubbles rose like hives from his body, mixing with the existing foam and emitting prismatic colors again.
As if bubbles named 'time' were escaping from his body, Myeongseong floundered in the foam, repeatedly increasing the bubbles, falling endlessly.
And———
"Pwah—!"
After falling endlessly, trapped in infinite foam, Myeongseong finally fell through and beyond the foam.
The moment he could finally breathe, Myeongseong opened his eyes wide.
"Huh…. huh…?!"
. ., ..o ☆ + ,ﾟ. *
+ .. +. * ..., ,+ .
+`, o...* .. . ☆＋.
, .. + ☆.,. o. .+
What he saw then was darkness.
Countless stars embroidering the universe, shining like hope within it.
A resplendent, cosmos.
Infinity filled his pupils.
"Ah? Ahh?"
'Space? Outer space?'
Myeongseong was now utterly dumbfounded.
So dumbfounded he couldn't even speak properly.
As if the sense in his head had said 'Sorry! I'm running away!' and broken out of his skull to flee, his expression became blank.
He couldn't comprehend it.
He couldn't even form a thought.
A moan-like trace of reason, not yet formed into words, rolled around inside and outside his mouth.
It was that absurd—yet that resplendent a sight.
But as if such sentiment was a luxury, the moment Myeongseong realized he was in space, his fall began to accelerate again.
"Aaaaaah?!"
In space, where there should be no gravity, only dark matter, Myeongseong experienced the unbelievable phenomenon of falling.
It felt as if numerous hands were pulling him.
As if some gravity acting only on him was pulling him, beckoning him to come here.
As if something outside the universe was constantly pushing him somewhere.
Stars brushed past him as if by wind.
As if the universe was passing through his body, he was falling away from the world itself.
That sense of deprivation.
The despair of falling from the sky to the earth.
"Aaaaaaaah!"
Falling endlessly, literally infinitely, Myeongseong soon spotted a certain star.
A familiar pale blue dot he'd seen once in a documentary.
The closer he fell, the nearer the blue dot became, and soon its shape became clear.
'Earth?!'
A sense of dissonance, like seeing a real-life version of a globe he'd once seen.
Soon, Myeongseong entered Earth's atmosphere and flames engulfed his entire body. But strangely, it wasn't hot. It felt as if stars, some will, some foam was surrounding and protecting him.
But that was brief. As the ground drew nearer, a familiar peninsula came into view, then soon a huge mountain, a forest, and the ground, Myeongseong let out a scream.
"Eek! Aaaaaaaaah!"
This time it's real. I'm really going to die!
Falling from thousands of kilometers up, my head will smash and I'll die!!
Myeongseong raised his arms to cover his face and tightly shut his eyes.
-
KWA-BOOOOOM!!!
A tremendous blast. A merciless roar. A violent explosion.
"Huff. Huuuuff. A-am I alive?"
Myeongseong staggered and plopped down inside a massive crater.
It seemed, for now, he had somehow survived.
He let out a hollow sound, his face looking as if he'd aged ten years, then began checking his body to see if he was hurt. And Myeongseong was startled.
"I've gotten younger?!"
Letting out a sigh of relief that he wasn't injured, Myeongseong noticed the change that had occurred to his body.
First, his hands were smaller. No, younger.
The obvious baby fat visible at a glance. Soft, plump palms. And as Myeongseong looked down at his arms, shoulders, and legs in turn, he realized he had gotten younger, and even his clothes had changed.
"Tr-traditional clothes? I've been changed into traditional clothes? When on earth did that happen?!"
Myeongseong tugged at his sleeve. He saw rough hemp clothing, the kind of commoner's traditional attire you'd see in a historical drama. Lowering his gaze to his chest, he saw the jeogori jacket; touching his head, he felt the distinctive braided hair tied with a ribbon.
"What the…. What is going on…."
Falling into a sewer. Iridescent foam. Space. Himself falling to Earth. His body without a single wound, and even younger. And now traditional clothes and braided hair.
He couldn't possibly keep his sanity. In the continuous series of confusing situations, Myeongseong couldn't gather his wits.
Crawling almost on all fours out of the crater, he saw a water-filled depression in a rock nearby and ran towards it (still almost on all fours) to look at his reflection.
"Th-that's not my face…! No, it is my face. It's exactly my younger self. Ten…, no, eleven years old?"
His momentary shock at the face reflected in the clear water, thinking it wasn't his, was brief.
Soon, as he touched his face, Myeongseong let out something—a sigh of relief, or perhaps something else he couldn't understand—realizing that apart from being youthful, it was exactly his own childhood face (even with the traditional clothes and braided hair).
"Falling into a sewer, then falling from space to Earth. Did I dimension-hop or something? Where is this place?"
Having gained the certainty that it was his own body, just younger, Myeongseong regained a shred of reason and tried to grasp the situation (or rather, roughly guess) and looked around to figure out where he was.
It seemed Myeongseong had landed in the middle of a mountain forest.
Dense trees, the crater he'd made, and gray rocks. But among them, Myeongseong spotted an open cliff. He slowly got up and walked towards the edge of the cliff.
And, he marveled.
"Huh."
No, he lamented.
What lay beyond the cliff was a sight he hadn't imagined.
A rural village with thatched-roof houses and Japanese-style buildings chaotically intermixed, as if from a modern historical drama. The village seemed in an uproar, with clamorous lights (electric lamps, gas lamps, torches, etc.) flickering, and groups of people bustling about, some wearing traditional clothes, others in Japanese police uniforms.
"Ha. Haha."
At that sight, a hollow laugh escaped Myeongseong.
The single thread of reason he'd barely held onto was about to snap.
It seemed Myeongseong had tripped into the past, specifically the era of Japanese colonial rule.
-
December 24, 1924. A meteorite falls on Korea.