Chapter 225: Epilogue - Aston's Work Journal (5) When word spread that the scheduled enthronement ceremony had been canceled for reasons unknown, the Holy Land fell into chaos.
For that matter, the banquet I had been supposed to oversee after the enthronement ceremony was canceled as well.
The clergymen who had invited me kept bowing their heads again and again in apology, but I told them it was fine and left the Holy Land.
I was just as flustered myself, but I was also relieved that the Cardinal did not become Pope.
If she had become Pope just like that, it would have felt as though the Cardinal had gone to a place just as far away as Mr. Jinseo had.
Even during this eventful trip to the Holy Land, I was able to meet many people who still remembered Mr. Jinseo.
Ordinary customers who did not know that Mr. Jinseo had chosen Regression asked where he had gone and how he was doing.
I had to keep forcing a bitter smile and repeating the lie that he was doing well.
No matter where I drove the food truck, I felt traces of Mr. Jinseo like this and could not help but feel sorrow.
Whenever that happened, my wish to see Mr. Jinseo again only kept growing stronger.
If I could only meet Mr. Jinseo again, I would want to share the bunsik I made with him, exchange all the stories we had kept bottled up, and laugh and chat together without any burden.
Setting talk about bunsik aside for the moment.
Because far more important than bunsik were the memories I built while spending time with Mr. Jinseo.
After returning to his high school days, before his parents passed away, Jinseo could not bear to lose the family he had reclaimed with such difficulty.
So the very first thing he did after regressing was forcibly drag his parents, despite their complaints about why they had to bother with something like that, to a health screening center.
After that, he never skipped their yearly checkups, and in the year Jinseo became a second-year university student, the chronic illness that had caused his parents to leave him early was discovered.
Fortunately, it was caught in the early stages, so it was easily cured, and his parents' short lives continued on in a different direction from before his Regression.
But Jinseo was not satisfied with just that.
There was no longer any need for hospital bills for parents suffering from chronic illness as they had before his Regression, but he still needed money for them to live in a better environment.
As Rainfolt had said, since he had already regressed anyway, Jinseo decided to live more abundantly than he had in his previous life.
Stocks, lottery tickets, real estate, and so on.
Making use of the privilege of someone who had returned from the future to the past, Jinseo secured enough wealth for his entire family to live without want for the rest of their lives even if none of them ever worked again.
But even so, the emptiness that sat in one corner of his heart could not be filled.
The void left by the price he had paid to obtain the new future he wanted, to return to the past, only grew larger as time passed.
That price was the memories of the people he had met in the other world.
As time passed, those memories of the other world slowly faded, and because it hurt his heart to forget them, Jinseo moved out from his parents' home and started a food truck business so he could remember them a little longer.
Originally, he had asked around to see whether he could somehow find Rainfolt's food truck again, but Rainfolt's existence had disappeared from the timeline that had begun anew.
In the end, Jinseo gave up on finding the old food truck and bought an ordinary food truck instead, starting a bunsik business.
Drawing on the experience from before his Regression, Jinseo served carefully made bunsik to his customers, and before long, his food truck became a popular place that was frequently mentioned on social media.
Thus, in the tenth year since he began driving his food truck and selling bunsik, Jinseo had grown into his mid-thirties, beyond the age he had been before Regression.
As the once-repeated time flowed in a different direction, many things changed, and though he tried never to forget, his memories of the other world gradually grew faint in the passage of time.
"One tteok-twi-sun set is ready. Enjoy your meal."
"Hyung! I'm going to the restroom for a bit."
Unlike before his Regression, when they had met as senior and junior in the military, Jungkook had first entered Jinseo's life this time as a part-timer, and perhaps because he was in a hurry, he dashed off to the restroom in the corner of the park.
He had dyed his hair in even flashier colors than he had before Regression, when he worked at a private detective agency, and simply passing by was enough to draw people's eyes.
"Jungkook's hair just keeps getting more and more colorful."
"Does it look bad to older people?"
"What are you talking about? That's exactly how you should be when you're young. How about you try dyeing yours too?"
Jinseo's mother, who was sitting at the counter eating fried food, smiled as she watched Jungkook's back, his flashy hair color proclaiming his youth.
"By the way, Jinseo, when are you closing up today?"
"I'm thinking of staying open a bit longer."
"Really? Then would you take a quick look at this?"
Jinseo's mother pulled out her smartphone and showed him the KaXao profile photo of a woman who looked to be in her early thirties.
"She's a friend's daughter. How about meeting her once? If you like her, I can contact her right now and..."
"I'm not interested."
"All right."
At her son's answer, rejecting it without even a moment of hesitation, Jinseo's mother showed no particular reaction and simply lowered the smartphone.
During his school days, Jinseo had devoted himself diligently to his studies, and he had also faithfully completed his military service, which for him was a second time, and was now focusing entirely on his food truck business.
He was such a good son that even anyone other than his parents would think so, yet he caused them particular headaches when it came to matters of the opposite sex.
Not because he had met too many women, but on the contrary, because they had never once seen him date anyone.
Whenever his parents asked whether there was some kind of problem, Jinseo only repeated answers that made him sound like a man who had already lived out his whole life, saying that loving someone anymore was painful.
So even when his mother tried to introduce someone like this, if her son refused, she did not press him further and backed off cleanly.
"By the way, do you know what day it is today?"
"Easter. That's why we're giving out eggs for free today."
"Then how about coming to church after you finish working today?"
"I don't really want to go."
"All right, then I'll be going."
"You're not angry, are you?"
"No mother gets angry at a good son."
Jinseo's mother answered her son's concern with a smile, then got up from her seat.
Watching her from behind, Jinseo let out a long sigh.
Since regressing, he had not set foot in a church even once.
Because every time he saw a church, he was reminded of her, whom he could no longer meet.
"Lady Fedora..."
Jinseo stared at the picture laminated and affixed to the wall of the kitchen.
It was an illustration he had commissioned from a famous illustrator for a huge fee, asking for a picture imagining Jinseo together with the regulars from the other world.
The commissioned illustrator had voiced the opinion that a fantasy-style background and a food truck really did not suit each other, but once Jinseo added more money, the illustrator complied without complaint.
Did I really... choose the right thing by choosing Regression?
Jinseo raised his hand to Fedora's face in the very center of the picture, then closed his eyes and sank into memory.
It felt as though the warmth of her body, when she had grasped his hand just before they parted, still vividly lingered in his palm.
"Oh my, your Korean is very good."
"Yes, I learned it from someone I know."
"That one-piece dress you're wearing... it's a design similar to what I wore when I was in my prime. I'm jealous, since it suits you far better than it suited me."
"It's clothing I received from an acquaintance of someone I know."
As Jinseo's mother was about to leave the park, she spoke with a foreign woman who asked where Jinseo's food truck was.
"Yes, that child selling food over there at the food truck really is my son, Jinseo."
When Jinseo's mother pointed at the food truck, the foreign woman bowed in thanks and walked toward it.
Wearing a pure white one-piece dress that reached down to her knees, she stopped in front of the food truck with a parasol in hand.
Whoosh.
The wind blew, and her silver hair, which fell to her waist, fluttered.
"Welcome. This is Food Truck Polstead."
Jinseo tried to see her face, but because she had tilted the parasol slightly forward, he could not.
"One tteokbokki, please."
"Yes."
"Oh, right. Make it Special."
After regressing, Jinseo sold Buldak-flavor tteokbokki under the name Special.
It drew strong mixed reactions because so many people said it was too spicy, but it was a menu item Jinseo always sold so he would not forget the woman he could no longer meet again.
-Meow.
The moment Jinseo saw the cat slightly poking its head out from behind her leg, he dropped the ladle in his hand with a clatter into the sink.
"...Nero?"
Without realizing it, Jinseo spoke the companion's name, one he had long forgotten.
"The weather is really nice."
The foreign woman who had just placed her order folded her parasol and leaned it beside the counter seat.
The moment he saw the customer's face, Jinseo could not believe his eyes.
No. That's impossible. The timeline changed.
Though Jinseo kept denying it in his mind, saying it could not be so, he could not tear his eyes away from the foreign customer because she looked so much like the woman who remained in his memory.
Jinseo continued staring blankly at the customer's face.
The foreign woman looked back at him with a faint smile.
Silence drifted through the quiet park, and before they knew it, a full ten minutes had passed.
"Excuse me?"
"Yes?"
"The Special Tteokbokki..."
"I-I'm sorry. I'll make it right away!"
Startled back to his senses, Jinseo hurriedly made the Special Tteokbokki and put it into a cup.
"H-here it is! The CoolX is complimentary, and since today is Easter, I also included one egg for free."
"I'll enjoy it."
The foreign customer received the cup holding the steaming Special Tteokbokki and turned away.
"M-ma'am!"
Calling out to the customer who had just taken the tteokbokki, Jinseo hurriedly got down from the food truck.
Breathing hard as though he had just sprinted over a distance of more than one kilometer at full speed, Jinseo looked at the customer's face from up close.
"By any chance... did you come from the Doran Kingdom?"
"No."
"Ah... I was mistaken. I'm sorry."
Jinseo lowered his head in disappointment.
"I came from the Doren Kingdom, Jinseo."
"Huh? Ah..."
The moment he realized he had remembered the country's name wrong, the memories that had remained in his mind in hazy black and white began to regain their full color.
"How did you..."
Jinseo trailed off, mouth hanging open, before he could ask how she had come here.
Just as it would have been hard for him to explain to anyone that he had ridden a food truck into another world, it was equally hard to understand how she was now standing before him.
But it did not matter at all.
What mattered more than anything was simply the fact that she, the woman he had thought he could never meet again, had appeared before him once more.
"You really haven't changed at all, Jinseo."
Fedora, now reunited with Jinseo, took out a Polaroid photograph and handed it to him.
It showed Jinseo busily carrying food at the banquet held after Aston and Stella's wedding ended.
"The taste of the Special Tteokbokki hasn't changed either."
Fedora put the tongue-tinglingly spicy Special Tteokbokki into her mouth and made a satisfied expression.
"And just as you wished, you have met your family again. Congratulations."
Fedora turned her gaze in the direction Jinseo's mother had walked and smiled brightly, and Jinseo also tried to smile along with her.
"Jinseo?"
"Ah... I'm sorry. I can't... get hold of my emotions."
Just like that, tears he could no longer contain streamed down and blurred Jinseo's vision.
The tears he had barely managed to hold back in front of her before they parted finally began to fall only after more than ten years had passed since his Regression.
"Hyung! Sorry I'm late! There were a lot of people, so... uh... um..."
Jungkook, who had been hurrying back into the food truck, trailed off as he looked back and forth between Jinseo and the foreign customer.
There was no way he could know what had happened while he had briefly stepped away.
But there was one thing he knew for sure.
He needed to get out of this place immediately.
"Ah! My stomach hurts again! I'm going back to the restroom! I think it'll take a while this time!"
Fedora smiled with her eyes as she watched Jungkook's back as he dashed back toward the restroom.
"I'm glad to see you again too, Mr. Jungkook."
"I-is that so."
"The fact that I have come to Korea again like this... it really feels like a dream."
The smile never left her face after meeting Jinseo again, but on the other hand, tears kept flowing from Jinseo's eyes.
"Didn't you... become Pope?"
"I almost did."
"Did some kind of problem... happen?"
"No, nothing like that. I refused it on my end."
Fedora smiled sweetly as she lifted a piece of tteokbokki skewered on a toothpick.
"Because I could not forget your Special Tteokbokki."
"You came all the way here... just for that?"
"No, I did forget it. But..."
Setting down the cup holding the Special Tteokbokki on the counter seat, Fedora reached out both hands toward Jinseo's face.
The tears that kept falling from his eyes as he choked back sobs beaded at her fingertips.
"Jinseo, you were the one person I could never forget."
Just as before they parted, Fedora called him only by name, dropping the honorific.
"Were you... not the same?"
Instead of answering, Jinseo pulled Fedora tightly into his arms.
Fedora closed her eyes and buried her face against his chest.
-Meow.
Nero, who had been watching the man and woman, lifted his gaze toward the sky.
The cloudless sky was blue.
"How could I ever forget..."
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