Chapter 1: The Realm of Senses

When I woke up from bed, the usual shoulder pain I always felt wasn’t there.

There was no time to think about why.

I couldn’t be late.

That was the only thought in my head as I rubbed my sleepy eyes and got out of bed.

Through my blurry vision, I saw a small door.

I trudged towards it.

But soon, I felt something strange.

It was bigger.

The doorknob that I used to touch at waist level was now positioned higher.

My hand, which reached for the knob, also felt unfamiliar.

“Strange” was the right word.

My hand used to be larger and rougher.

But the hand here was small and delicate.

The pale skin seemed to glow faintly even in the dark room.

“Am I dreaming?”

I let out a wry laugh as I thought to myself.

I brushed it off as a dream, thinking it couldn’t be real, but the sensations from my hand told me this wasn’t a dream.

Suddenly, the idea of time travel popped into my head, something I had only ever heard of in web novels.

Did I not finish the game I was playing last night?

But there was no trace of the flashy game interface anywhere in my sight.

Click—

The door opened cautiously with a little push.

The dark hallway was unfamiliar, but at the same time, it felt familiar.

My body moved instinctively as if it recognized the layout of the house.

Thud, thud, thud—

The sound of my footsteps echoed through the empty hallway, and even that felt strange.

I thought as I walked.

My body was light, much lighter than before.

Eventually, I arrived at the bathroom sink.

When I turned on the light, the reflection of a small girl appeared in the mirror.

Her long black hair, neatly hanging down, gave off a calm and serene vibe.

The girl’s large eyes stared at her own body in the reflection.

As the girl’s lips twitched upward, the entire atmosphere shifted in an instant.

“This is… me?”

The girl’s words, which escaped from her mouth as if in disbelief, perfectly expressed how I felt.

Was this really me?

Could it be?

At that moment, I heard the sound of footsteps approaching from behind.

A boy entered the room.

He looked surprised to see me and then twisted his lips into a smirk.

“What are you doing?”

The boy’s face was familiar.

I was so shocked by his appearance that I could only mumble silently.

I hesitated for a long time, and then it hit me.

Why was I looking at myself from over there?

The boy was the younger version of me.

In other words, I was looking at myself.

Clearly, the mirror was behind me, reflecting the small girl.

“Aren’t you going to get ready?”

“Ready for what?”

“School, of course.”

The boy, Seo Harang, said that.

The voice was familiar.

It was naturally familiar since it was the voice of my younger self.

I slowly raised my hand.

A small, delicate, white hand.

“Huh, I can’t believe it.”

“What… did you eat something bad?”

“Come, come closer.”

“N-no… hey, you…”

I reached out and gently touched the boy’s face.

The smooth, wrinkle-free skin wasn’t all that surprising.

But the undeniable sensation at my fingertips pulled me back to reality.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was still clinging to the idea that this situation wasn’t real, that it was just a dream.

Smack!

Harang slapped away my small hand.

It stung a bit, suggesting that he had put some force into it.

When I blinked in surprise, Harang, startled, glanced at me before quickly turning around and running off.

“Mom!!! Hayeon is acting weird!!!”

Hayeon.

Hayeon?

I stroked my reddened hand, thinking.

Did he just call me Hayeon?

Me?

Who is Hayeon?

It was time for breakfast.

Even in my awkward stance, there seemed to be a place for me, as my young mother gently pushed me into a seat.

Everything felt strange.

I had clearly returned to the past.

But I wasn’t in my own body.

I was in someone else’s.

Hayeon?

There was no one by that name in my memories of the family.

“Mother.”

The moment I called her “Mother,” both pairs of eyes turned toward me.

One was my mother’s.

The other was Harang’s.

They both looked at me as if they had seen something they couldn’t believe.

“Mom… I’m telling you, something’s wrong with her.”

“Hayeon, are you feeling sick?”

“Should we go to the hospital?”

“No, I’m not sick.”

I shook my head as I answered.

There was nothing wrong with me physically.

But if I had to go to a hospital, it should probably be a mental one, shouldn’t it?

That thought crossed my mind.

“Mother.”

“Why was Hayeon, Seo Hayeon, born?”

I asked a small question.

From my perspective, it was a perfectly natural thing to ask.

Seo Hayeon, a sister I didn’t remember.

I had ended up in her body.

I had no way to explain this situation.

So I asked why Hayeon was born.

As soon as I finished my question, Harang dropped his chopsticks.

With trembling hands, he touched his lips and cried out to his mother.

“See, see! I told you something’s wrong with her!”

“Hayeon, look at me.”

“Are you in pain?”

“Huh?”

“What’s wrong?”

A soft, warm hand touched my cheek.

It was a touch that only existed in my memories, the touch of my mother.

As the sensation I thought I had forgotten came flooding back, my vision began to blur.

“Hayeon? Hayeon?”

Hot tears streamed down my cheeks.

I remembered my mother’s last moments.

I thought I would never see her again.

But now, here she was, alive and vivid, in this very moment.

She gently caressed my cheek and pulled me into her embrace.

The familiar scent from my memories.

It was the smell of my mother.

Tears flowed endlessly.

My mother wiped away the tears that wouldn’t stop.

“Should you stay home from school today?”

After crying silently in my mother’s arms for a long while, she looked me in the face and asked.

School.

Should I go?

If this body, Hayeon’s body, was supposed to go to school, then it would be the right thing to do.

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

I hugged my mother and nodded.

In her warm embrace, I looked past her to see Harang.

He was watching me with an uncomfortable expression.

His expression was familiar.

Since he was my younger self, I could read his feelings clearly.

Harang didn’t want to go to school.

He was jealous of me.

But there was nothing he could do about it.

He was a boy, but also Harang.

A boy who had deep thoughts even from a young age.

Harang got up from his seat and grabbed his bag.

“Then, I’m off.”

“Okay, be careful with the traffic.”

“And don’t get into fights with your friends.”

She didn’t tell him to study hard until the end.

That was just how my mother was.

Harang frowned, then let out a sigh, shaking off his emotions.

“Okay.”

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

I was afraid that the moment we parted, this dream would shatter.

My mother patted my back gently.

“Mom.”

“Are you not going to call me ‘Mother’ anymore?”

“Do you prefer being called ‘Mother’?”

My mother burst into laughter at my question.

Then she shook her head.

“Call me Mom.”

“If you call me ‘Mother,’ it makes me feel old.”

I nodded.

No matter what I called her, the fact that she was my mother didn’t change.

Even though I had become a little girl, the fact that this woman was biologically my mother didn’t change.

A sense of calm settled over me.

I acted childishly, not befitting my age.

My face flushed, and my ears burned with embarrassment.

“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 didn’t think it was a bad idea.

I nodded.

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

Carrying a small girl didn’t seem to be much of a burden.

We sat on the living room sofa, watching TV together.

As I stared blankly at the screen, countless pieces of information flashed by.

Memories I thought I had long forgotten resurfaced in succession.

Mom, who had been fiddling with the remote, changed the channel to the news when she noticed I wasn’t particularly interested.

In the passing time, with the TV on in the background, Mom unconsciously opened her mouth.

“The world sure changes quickly.”

She probably wasn’t expecting an answer.

In my memories, Mom would occasionally mutter to herself while watching TV as well.

My eyes remained fixed on the news screen.

It was only natural. The TV’s resolution looked strange.

“Uh, Mom…?”

“Hmm?”

“What’s today’s date?”

Mom took out her smartphone in response to my question.

It was a familiar form from my memories, but that familiarity made it feel out of place.

In the correct timeline, this device shouldn’t exist yet.

I reached out and took Mom’s smartphone into my hand.

It was a rather rude action, but Mom didn’t say anything.

I tapped the screen and checked the phone’s information.

The date came next.

It was the 47th version of the star smartphone series.

Then I checked the date.

June 7, 2020.

“Have you finished checking?”

“Oh.”

Just as I was confirming the date, Mom took her phone back.

In 2020, the star series had reached its 47th model.

From my memory, the second star smartphone had come out in early 2020.

I couldn’t forget that day.

That was the day a boy named Harang pestered his mother into buying the second star smartphone.

I still vividly remembered how he bragged about it to his friends.

“I, I’m just going to step into my room for a bit…”

I slipped out of her warm embrace.

The lingering warmth was hard to leave behind, but I needed to confirm something.

“Are you okay now?”

I didn’t respond.

No, I couldn’t respond.

Because I wasn’t okay yet.

I hurried out of the living room and into the hallway.

The long hallway was filled with cold air.

I hurried down it and stopped in front of a familiar door.

Harang’s room.

It wasn’t my room now.

As I naturally opened the door, the distinct smell of a teenage boy’s room hit me.

It was a rather unpleasant odor.

I quickly shut the door again.

I could check what I needed to in Hayeon’s room.

I turned and headed toward Hayeon’s room.

It was the room I had first woken up in this body.

As I entered, my body relaxed as if it was familiar with the space.

My gaze landed on the desk in the corner of the room.

The large computer wasn’t the most important thing.

What caught my eye was the large capsule connected to it.

Things that shouldn’t exist were here.

And so, I could be certain.

This was not the world I had lived in.

This was a tangled, chaotic world where the timeline was all messed up.