Real Man

The situation had already reversed in favor of Yoo-hyun.

The thin, trembling eyes of the man and the figure of the woman with her head bowed just proved that point.

The woman seemed to be wracking her brains for a solution, but she could find none.

In the end, they only had one option left.

It was at that moment when Yoo-hyun put his finger on the call button on the phone.

The man shouted as fast as lightning, “Hey! Run!”

“Brother!”

After that brief conversation, the three people frantically ran away.

The funny thing was that the young man in the cast was the fastest of them all.

“Crazy bastards,” Yoo-hyun smiled coldly.

All three faces were already captured on his cell phone’s video recorder.

Did they think he would just let it all pass?

A cold smile crossed Yoo-hyun’s face.

Clack. Clack.

As Yoo-hyun walked away, the spectators with keen expressions on their faces opened up a path for him.

He didn’t even want to bother.

Because it was all over.

“Sigh…” Yoo-hyun sighed and walked between them.

“It was all because of those guys…”

Then he recalled the image of himself 20 years ago, where he had his head down low.

He had that miserable memory of getting down on his knees and wiping away his tears, when in fact, he never did anything wrong.

“…”

For a moment, Yoo-hyun tilted his head and wondered.

“Something is strange.”

Going over the same situation again just added to his confusion.

The memory of the past and the situation he encountered a while ago were too similar to be a coincidence.

That wasn’t all.

Past memories came to his mind at the same time as the vivid scenery unfolded before him.

It really felt like he went back to that point in time.

“What’s happening?” Yoo-hyun tilted his head again.

With complicated thoughts running through his mind, Yoo-hyun simply continued to walk.

He suddenly reached the road that he had passed by countless times before.

Upon seeing the face reflected on the reflective glass, Yoo-hyun was forced to stop walking.

Reflected in that glass was a young man, not an old man.

This is exactly what he looked like 20 years ago.

“What is this…”

Was it all just a dream?

All of this seemed too realistic to be a dream.

Yoo-hyun slowly lowered his hand to cover his mouth.

He definitely looked younger because there were no wrinkles and dark circles around his eyes.

The bright skin tone and vivid red lips also made his face appear younger.

But above all, his expression was much better because there were no wrinkles or even laugh lines.

“Ah!”

When he pinched his cheek, he felt the pain.

“Not a dream…”

The memories of the past 20 years were so genuine.

He really did push through like crazy to achieve his goal and eventually became the CEO.

He did…

But now everything was in vain.

At that moment, he remembered what the old bartender had said as he offered a free cocktail.

– “It will help.”

The moment he downed the glass, his head started pounding and he felt as if he had lost his mind.

“…”

He shook his head.

Getting this much trouble just because of a cocktail?

That’s a ridiculous story.

It was then.

Creak.

The door of the restaurant opened in front of Yoo-hyun and men in suits came out.

It seemed as if they were in a good mood after eating lunch.

For a moment, Yoo-hyun had no choice but to freeze.

It was because he could see the faces of the seniors he had previously worked with in the past.

But they were young.

They were always young, but now they were too young.

In an instant, he felt like his sanity was crumbling.

Bump.

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“…”

The man who bumped his shoulder against Yoo-hyun bowed his head.

It was clearly Kim Young-gil’s face, the one who told him about Kwon Se-joong’s death.

Of course now, though, what he saw was a youngster.

Then someone else’s voice was heard.

“Assistant Manager Kim, what are you doing? Come here.”

“Yes, Deputy General Manager. I’m going.”

Kim Young-gil hurried to walk away.

Yoo-hyun looked at the people walking ahead with a blank expression on his face.

Their friendly appearance now contrasted greatly with the bitter look he had seen at Kwon Se-joong’s funeral.

Yoo-hyun continued to walk along the path as if possessed… until he saw a tall building.

It was Hansung Tower.

The building’s name was written at the top of the information board in front of the building.

This was also the place where Yoo-hyun spent most of his life for the past 20 years.

Squeak.

Clank. Clank.

Someone got out of a car in front of the main gate.

The guard on duty came running to greet the person.

The staff around Yoo-hyun started moving in line and bowed.

The man who received such a greeting walked on with a shrug.

Yoo-hyun was in that person’s shoes just yesterday.

He remembered things again.

It had been 20 years ago, so now.

Yoo-hyun was supposed to be here.

He was supposed to go to see the company in person and set his goals for the future after receiving a text message about passing the document screening process for Hansung Electronics.

He remembered seeing a similar scene like this then.

As he looked up at the building, he recalled how he had a goal of becoming the person on top.

Since it was the same day as when he met the traumatic ‘accident con artists’, his memory of this day remained quite clear.

Yoo-hyun stayed in the same place for a long time and then turned around.

How far had he walked?

Yoo-hyun wandered around the street like crazy and finally sat on a bench with a withered face.

He then looked up and looked at the sky.

The blue sky remained the same.

But everything else in the world had changed.

Even his body.

This was a frighteningly accurate depiction of reality as witnessed by his very eyes.

“Does this make sense?”

No matter how hard he tried to wrap his head around it, he couldn’t accept it.

But then what if it was real?

Yoo-hyun bit his lower lip and saw a newspaper next to him.

<On the 10th anniversary of the inauguration of Hansung Group, Chairman Shin Hyun-ho presented both innovation and growth.>

That was the news at the top of page 3.

There was also a picture of the former chairman of the group, whom Yoo-hyun had followed until the former chairman’s death.

All the other newspapers showed the same thing.

They all pointed exactly to what had happened in 2007.

“Sigh…”

The moment he sighed, a thought crossed his mind.

‘Mother?’

Oh. That’s right.

If he had returned to the past, his late mother would also be alive.

That alone was enough for him to confirm the reality.

Yoo-hyun took out his cell phone without delay.

It did not take too long for the ringing sound to change.

-Hello. Hyun-ah, what’s the matter?

The voice he heard was friendly.

It was his mother’s voice.

That one thing triggered Yoo-hyun to collapse completely.

Regret.

And shame.

All of those emotions rushed into his heart like a tidal wave.

Yoo-hyun covered his mouth with his hand and barely calmed his heart to speak. Of course, he could hear the youthfulness in her tone of voice.

It came out naturally without any instruction.

“Mother…”

He couldn’t talk for long because his heart was about to explode.

He wanted to go see her right away, but his mother’s words to finish up in school and then come home rang in his ears.

Upon checking her last text message, it seemed like he still had work to do at school.

“I just need two days.”

After hastily organizing his thoughts, Yoo-hyun tried to get up from the bench, but then his complexion suddenly changed.

“Oops.”

He didn’t know where he lived now.

Thinking about it for a while, a thought popped up into his head.

That’s right.

The address of his rented room was left in the text he sent to his mother.

However, it was difficult to find a way to get there.

He asked people directions, took the subway, and changed buses.

After going through such a troublesome time, he realized he had just returned to the past.

Yoo-hyun got off the bus and went up the alley.

Woof. Woof.

The barking sound of a dog.

Villas that are close together.

A string of wires over his head.

A strangely-located green roof house between uphill roads.

This feeling of walking through his past memories felt unfamiliar.

As his steps continued, curiosity turned into expectations.

“What will it look like?”

There was a delivery box in front of the door.

It must have been a side dish sent by his mother.

Yoo-hyun opened the door with the key he had in his bag and entered.

Click.

When he turned on the light, the gloomy room brightened and a familiar landscape unfolded before him.

It’s small.

It’s very small.

It felt smaller than the bathroom in Yoo-hyun’s house.

After taking his shoes off and going in, he saw a small family picture on the wall.

Younger versions of his mother, his father, and his sister were all smiling up at him.

Staring at the family in the picture, he started remembering the memories he had forgotten.

At that moment, he muttered unknowingly, “You fool.”

He was never a good son.

Yoo-hyun only saw them once or twice a year after starting work and becoming independent.

He didn’t even take care of them when they got busy, but his mother never complained.

It wasn’t until his mother died in a sudden accident after suffering so much.

He had thought he was emotionally closed-off, but he remembered being very heartbroken at his mother’s funeral.

“Sigh…”

Yoo-hyun took a deep breath and sat at his desk.

The phrase written on the desk was very impressive.

<Don’t regret it.>

He would have been proud to have lived a life that fit that motto.

There was no regret in Han Yoo-hyun’s successful life.

Or so he thought so.

But now he felt it very deeply, it wasn’t true.

Perhaps heaven gave him this opportunity to reverse the life he regretted so much.

Yoo-hyun, who had been lost in thought for a while, turned on the computer on the desk.

Whoosh.

First, the booting sound of the computer hit my ear.

Then next, he couldn’t believe a computer could be this big.

It had been a while.

He looked around the desk while the boot screen came up on the monitor with a size of only two palms wide.

On the screen, Hansung Group’s personality test paper was shown.

Upon opening it, everything in it was meaningless.

This was just a test intended to filter out extremists who either had personality problems or did not fit the company.

Nevertheless, looking at the black-colored questionnaire, he could roughly guess what it was like when he took it.

Desperate times.

It wasn’t a matter of life or death, but he was really desperate.

He pushed himself hard not to become a loser in life who couldn’t enter a large company.

The bookshelves full of English and electronics major books were proof of all the hard work that Yoo-hyun put himself through.

In short, Yoo-hyun was weary and worn-out.

Looking at the computer screen, it was even more evident how much he pushed himself.

There was a folder of self-introductions written to large companies such as Hansung, Ilsung, Shinhwa, Yurim, and LK.

Inside that folder, there were more than hundreds of files with filenames from ‘Version 01’ to ‘Final’, ‘Last’, and ‘Real Last’.

He even showed an obsession that may have gone beyond desperation.

Upon opening the file called ‘Organization’ in the folder, a calendar with the job schedules was displayed.

All the companies previously mentioned were listed here and those were marked with either O or X. Hansung Electronics was the only one marked with O.

That meant that the rest of the companies have been eliminated from the choices.

And today.

The final document screening results, including the results for the personality test, came out.

Yoo-hyun even encircled today’s date.

“If it were the past me, I would have jumped with joy and marked O.”

That’s how it would have been.

Even at that time, Hansung was one of the best conglomerates in Korea.

When he got the job, it felt like he had the whole world in his palms.

His goal then was clear, too.

To become the CEO of Hansung Electronics.

In the end, he found out only after achieving that goal.

That it was all short-lived.

Yoo-hyun’s young face smiled bitterly.