“General Manager, to be honest, as a parent, I couldn’t help but be worried. Even though he had been doing well, and we had encouraged him, wasn’t Major League Baseball a notoriously tough place? But, you see, as parents, all we could really do was trust and support him, right?”
The father, with a youthful face, had spoken firmly.
Had I still not fully woken up from a dream?
It had felt so vivid, almost unnervingly so.
As I glanced around, I noticed a ring on my finger.
Could it be... Had I really gone back to the past?
I remembered the ring originally being silver.
But the ring on my finger had turned pitch black.
I heard that in dreams, everything appeared in black and white. Whether it was a dream or not, I found myself speaking, as if I were possessed.
“...Father, just a moment.”
“Hmm?”
Looking back on the past, I remembered that around that time, I had been getting quite a bit of attention from Major League Baseball.
Fans of the previous season had even referred to it as the ‘Kang Geon-woo Season.’ Three bottom-ranked teams had been fiercely competing for last place, though I had no idea if they were really trying to draft me or not.
“I’d like to hear more of what the director had to say.”
I had firmly insisted that I didn’t need to stay in Korea, and after a long conversation with my parents, I decided to pursue Major League Baseball.
My father might have felt betrayed at that sudden decision.
Meanwhile, Ocean’s director Park Joon-gi’s face had brightened noticeably.
“Geon-woo, you…”
“Father*! I’ll risk my life to help him go abroad, either through the posting system** or, if that doesn’t work, when he becomes a free agent!”
(T/N: *In Korea, it’s a respectful form, typically used when addressing someone else’s father. **The posting system allows players from Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) or Korea’s KBO League to be “posted” for MLB teams to negotiate contracts. MLB teams then bid for the rights to negotiate with the player, and the player’s current team receives a transfer fee if the player signs with an MLB team.)
There’s no need to go as far as risking your life.
“Since there had been a possibility of him playing both as a pitcher and hitter, we would bring in renowned international instructors to help him in both roles. Please trust me, Father!”
He even boasted that he would prepare the highest signing bonus for a rookie in history.
But, to me, that didn’t really matter.
That is, if this hadn’t been just a dream.
I had already been the best once, and while money was nice to have, there’s no need to obsess over it.
I don’t even know exactly how much I had earned in total.
I was rich. Well, I lost almost all of it after trying my hand at business, though.
“I’ll think about it a bit more and get back to you.”
The general manager had kept going on about giving me the top treatment until he left. My mother said playing in Korea wouldn’t be so bad, and my father treated me like a traitor.
“Hey, Kang Geon-woo. Did you suddenly change your mind?”
“Hold on. I’ve got something really urgent right now, but I’ll come back and we’ll talk again.”
“Hey! Kang Geon-woo!”
“Son, be careful out there.”
I have something urgent to deal with right now.
Yuri... I need to meet her immediately.
* * *
I ran out of the house and, standing in the slightly musty-smelling apartment stairwell, I called and told her to come out immediately. Yuri lives downstairs from us.
It was a bit hard to believe it was a dream. When I slapped my arm, I felt pain. Of course, that didn’t mean I can easily believe I’ve gone back to the past, but if this is real...
“Oh, look at our Geon-woo. Did you miss your noona? You sounded a little rushed on the phone.”
My ex-girlfriend, no, ex-wife... or should I call her my current girlfriend since I’ve gone back to the past?
She’s two years older than me, but since I’ve returned to my senior year of high school, Yuri is now 21 years old.
Yuri, my childhood friend and the older girl from the apartment downstairs, said as she came up the stairs.
I was momentarily at a loss for words.
I had a lot to say. There were also many things I wanted to ask.
However, those memories were all mine alone.
Should I tell her that we got married, divorced, and that I returned to the past thanks to the ring she gave me?
There’s no way I could say something like that.
“...I missed you.”
I unknowingly said that. Yuri, after asking me if I missed her, seemed surprised by my response and made a strange expression.
“...What?”
I must have been a pretty cold boyfriend and husband.
Honestly, I kept regretting it even after the divorce.
Maybe it was because of my pride. Damn it. No, let’s be honest.
I just thought, naturally, that Yuri would always be by my side. That was an illusion, and to be honest, I missed her.
“I really missed you.”
When I said it again, Yuri, who was standing somewhere in the middle of the stairs, looked back and forth between our house upstairs and her house downstairs, then spoke in a flustered voice.
“Did you... eat something wrong?”
We had been inseparable since childhood, and even though she was two years older, we’d always been like friends.
But for some reason, I felt a sense of relief. It was something I truly wanted to say. Maybe I just said it, thinking this was all a dream.
“Didn’t we see each other this morning?”
Did we?
But to me, it felt like I was seeing her for the first time in years.
It’s been almost 20 years since I last saw Yuri when she was 21.
“No, um. Still. Ah. There’s something I need to ask you...”
Either way, there was one thing I absolutely had to confirm right now.
If this isn’t a dream, I’ll make up for the things I did wrong from now on.
--- [Read only at https://wyrdtranslations.blogspot.com/] ---
But I had to ask where she got the ring and what exactly it was, so I raised my hand and showed her the ring.
“Huh? Hey! Kang Geon-woo!”
“...Huh?”
“Isn’t this the ring I gave you?”
“Yeah. I have something to ask about this...”
“I gave it to you as a birthday present, and you messed it up already?”
“No, wait, where did you buy this...”
“Aha. You’ve already forgotten where you got it from?”
...
It seems like...
“Hey, Kang Geon-woo! How could you...”
“Yuri noona, please let it go just this once.”
“...What?”
The moment I said it, I flinched. I was worried that I might get sent back to the past again.
But nothing happened. Seems like it was a one-time thing. Should I consider this a relief?
“...What did you say? Say that again.”
Come to think of it, no matter how much she begged me, calling it her lifelong wish, I never called her “noona.”
Hmm.
Seeing Yuri, who used to get angry but quickly calm down when we were young, made my heart soften.
She’s cute.
“...Hey!”
When I silently pulled her into a hug, Yuri grumbled about what we would do if her dad came out, but she quieted down.
I don’t know.
Going back to the past and starting over again—could this be just my selfishness?
Am I doing what I want without even thinking about Yuri’s feelings?
I took a deep breath. A ticklish scent lingered at the tip of my nose.
“If, you know…”
“…If what?”
“We got married.”
“Huh. Kang Geon-woo. You’re jumping the gun.”
“Let’s just say we did.”
“You said you were going to the US, right? Then…”
“I’m not going.”
“What?”
“I’m not going anywhere without you.”
“W-wait, what? What did you just say?”
“No, I mean… let’s talk about that later. Let’s just say we got married.”
“…So?”
“But we got divorced because of my mistake.”
“Kang Geon-woo…”
“Would you forgive me just once?”
“Did you eat something weird or what?”
Yuri looked at me strangely for a moment, not answering my last question, and then let out a deep sigh.
“For what mistake? Cheating?”
“No, it’s not that.”
“Then I’ll forgive you just once. Because I’ve got a heart as big as the Pacific Ocean.”
I smirked. It wasn’t a lie, after all.
This time...
I’ll do it right without making any mistakes.
“I’m sorry.”
“...This isn’t going to work. Just spill it quickly—what did you do wrong? It feels like you’re trying to brush off some huge mistake, but do I look that easy to you?”
“Thank you.”
“Ah, don’t make me angry. Just hurry up and—”
“I love you.”
Yuri’s face turned red, and then she said, “Huh, ha, huh, ha, you little rascal,” as she turned around.
“I’m going to eat. I’m only letting you off the hook this once, so keep that in mind.”
Even though I felt uneasy, I was also relieved.
As she turned away, I clearly saw the corners of her mouth lift slightly.
“Hey, Kang Geon-woo!”
“Yeah?”
“There’s definitely something up. You’re not usually this obedient...”
“Seriously, there’s nothing.”
“Fine. I’m going to eat. Even if it’s hard because you miss me, just bear with it a little.”
Yuri went inside her house, but I stood there for quite a while.
Until my father came to get me.
“Hey, Kang Geon-woo!”
The phrase I’ve heard the most in this short time back in the past is “Hey, Kang Geon-woo.”
“Father.”
“What!”
“Do you hate the Oceans?”
My father is a fan of the Changwon Pirates.
He used to be an Oceans fan, but after saying that the Oceans were going to give him high blood pressure, he stopped watching baseball for a while. Then, one day, he suddenly bought a Pirates uniform.
“Geon-woo.”
“Yes.”
“That team... No, more than that. What happened to the guy who said just a few minutes ago that he was going to the Majors?”
“I’m sorry.”
“About what?”
“For suddenly changing my mind.”
Was going to the Major League a mistake?
Maybe. No matter what happens later, for now, that’s the decision I made.
“No, it’s not exactly that... Did you just change your mind all of a sudden?”
“A little, and also, Father.”
“What is it?”
“It’s good to see you.”
As I said that and hugged my father with open arms, he looked at me with a doubtful expression and said,
“Had the soup you ate this morning gone bad...?”
Yuri, and my father, too.
It feels like I’m being treated poorly, but is that just my imagination?
* * *
As the day came to an end, my head became even more muddled.
I couldn’t figure out what was happening to me. Is it really possible to return to the past?
Is this ring some kind of time machine?
But one thing I learned from baseball is to leave behind what I absolutely can’t do and at least do what I can.
This means I’ve given up on figuring out the reason or the mechanics behind how this happened. I’m not talented at anything other than baseball.
I just need to confirm one thing.
That this is absolutely not a dream.
Even pinching my arm, it didn’t seem like a dream in any way.
I calmed myself down, put on the ring, and lay down on the bed.
When I woke up, I thought that if I was still 19 years old, I could believe this wasn’t a dream.
I tossed and turned for a while. Maybe because I wished this wasn’t a dream, I couldn’t fall asleep easily.
Still, I eventually fell asleep, and I had a dream that followed the last one, where Yuri appeared again.
“Well, I can’t just let it slide for nothing.”
“What?”
“If you grant me three wishes, I’ll let it slide. This is what you call the generosity of an older woman, rookie Kang Geon-woo. Got it? Hm?”
I’m not a genie, so why three wishes?
Anyway, when I woke up...
I was still 19 years old. I had a message from Yuri on my smartphone, and my mother woke me up to tell me to eat breakfast.
The only difference was that the ring had turned silver again.
And three black circles were engraved on the ring.
Could this be some sort of wish gauge or something?
Anyway...
It seems like I really have returned to the past.
