Pain.
That was the first thing Han Jiwon felt.
A dull, relentless ache throbbed behind his eyes, spreading through his skull with every heartbeat.
It felt as though someone had driven a nail into the center of his forehead and was slowly twisting it deeper.
Jiwon groaned beneath the blankets.
“Ugh…”
His mouth was dry, his body heavy with sleep.
For a few moments, he lay perfectly still, waiting for the pain to subside.
It didn’t.
He slowly opened his eyes.
The ceiling above him was nothing more than a dark blur.
Where was he?
Then, one memory surfaced after another.
The street.
The red pedestrian light.
Headlights.
A horn.
That blinding flash of white.
Jiwon’s breath caught.
He remembered falling.
The impact.
Then nothing.
His fingers tightened around the blanket.
It had been a dream.
A terrible dream brought on by exhaustion.
That had to be it.
Jiwon let out a tired breath and sank back into the pillow.
“…Damn.”
His head throbbed again.
He needed water.
Maybe the bathroom would clear his head.
He glanced toward the window.
There wasn’t a trace of daylight beyond the curtains.
Saturday.
The thought came naturally.
No work.
For some reason, that realization brought him a small sense of relief.
He pushed the blankets aside and sat up.
Still half asleep, he swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stood.
He didn’t bother with the light.
He knew the way.
A few steps forward.
Then left.
Then straight to the bathroom.
His feet carried him through the darkness on instinct, one hand sliding along the wall to keep his balance.
Then—
TWANG!
A bright, hollow chord rang through the room.
Jiwon’s foot struck something hard.
“—Huh?”
His balance gave way.
He stumbled forward and hit the floor.
THUD!
“Ghh—!”
Pain shot up his leg.
Jiwon grabbed his shin, sucking air through his teeth.
“Ah… damn it…”
He rubbed the aching spot and glared into the darkness.
“What the hell…?”
The last trembling notes slowly faded.
Jiwon pushed himself to his feet and looked around.
Nothing.
Just darkness.
He needed the light.
His hand moved along the wall, searching for the switch.
Nothing.
He frowned and felt farther along.
Still nothing.
That was strange.
The switch had always been there.
He took another step, his fingers brushing against something smooth.
A frame.
Then another.
Something thin and slightly rough.
Paper.
A poster.
His hand moved again.
Another frame.
Another poster.
Something about the room felt wrong.
Not just the furniture.
The entire space.
The walls.
The proportions.
Even the air around him felt unfamiliar.
“Where is that damn switch…?”
He searched higher.
Nothing.
Lower.
Still nothing.
Then his fingers found a small plastic button.
There.
Jiwon paused.
It wasn’t where he remembered it.
He pressed it.
Click.
The room flooded with light.
Jiwon blinked against the sudden brightness.
Then he looked around.
And froze.
This wasn’t his room.
Or rather—
it was.
Just not the room he’d known for the last twenty-two years.
A narrow bed stood against the wall, its blankets tangled and half fallen to the floor.
Clothes were scattered everywhere.
An old backpack sat beside the desk, surrounded by textbooks, loose papers, pens, and empty bottles.
The desk was buried beneath notebooks and CDs.
An aging laptop sat beside a small speaker, a cheap microphone, and a pair of worn headphones.
But it was the walls that drew his eyes.
They were covered in music.
Posters overlapped one another in messy layers.
Album covers, magazine clippings, concert photographs, ticket stubs, handwritten notes.
And in the corner stood an acoustic guitar.
Jiwon stared at it.
The strings were still trembling.
“So that’s what I kicked…”
A faint smile almost touched his lips.
Then his gaze wandered across the room again.
He knew this place.
Thirty-two years ago, this room had been his entire world.
He had spent countless nights here, listening to music through cheap headphones and imagining what it would feel like to stand beneath stage lights.
Back then, he had believed those dreams would eventually disappear.
There would always be time.
His gaze drifted toward the wardrobe.
A dusty mirror stood beside it.
Jiwon walked over.
His reflection slowly emerged through the blur.
He stopped.
An eighteen-year-old boy stared back at him.
He was overweight, dressed in loose, rumpled clothes.
Long black hair fell across his forehead, covering half his face.
Jiwon blinked.
His reflection remained blurred.
Then he realized why.
He wasn’t wearing his glasses.
“…My glasses.”
He turned toward the bed.
A pair of cheap black-framed glasses rested on the wooden nightstand beside his pillow.
He picked them up and slipped them on.
The room snapped into focus.
So did the reflection.
Round cheeks.
Pale skin.
Young eyes behind thick lenses.
A face he hadn’t seen in decades.
His face.
Jiwon stared at the boy in the mirror.
Neither moved.
Then he slowly raised a hand and touched the glass.
The room was exactly as he remembered it.
His lips curved into a faint smile.
“I came back.”
Silence settled over the room.
Then—
DING.
Jiwon’s smile vanished.
He glanced toward the desk.
The laptop was still dark.
His phone hadn’t moved.
Another chime sounded.
DING.
A translucent blue window appeared in front of him.
Jiwon stared at it.
The interface hovered silently in the air.
He stepped closer.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[IDOL SYSTEM]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Host detected.
Age: 18
Previous Life: 50 years
Memories: Preserved
Experience: Preserved
Physical Condition: Restored
Potential: Analyzing…
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon blinked.
“What…?”
He reached toward the window.
His fingers passed straight through it.
There was no glass.
No screen.
Nothing he could touch.
Yet the interface remained exactly where it was.
The text changed.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[PRIMARY REGRET DETECTED]
“I never tried.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon’s expression tightened.
Another window appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[REGRESSION CONFIRMED]
Timeline deviation detected.
Original fate: Terminated
New fate: Undetermined
Objective established.
LIVE THE LIFE YOU ABANDONED.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
“An objective…?”
The window flickered again.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[IDOL SYSTEM — STATUS]
Host: Han Jiwon
Age: 18
APPEARANCE
Face: 11 / 25
Potential: 92
Physique: 14 / 30
Potential: 88
Skin: 12 / 25
Potential: 94
Style: 8 / 20
Potential: 91
Presence: 5 / 20
Potential: 98
PERFORMANCE
Singing: 16 / 45
Potential: 100
Dancing: 8 / 40
Potential: 93
Rapping: 6 / 35
Potential: 61
Acting: 10 / 30
Potential: 79
MENTAL
Confidence: 4 / 20
Focus: 9 / 25
Free Points: 0
CAP LOCKS: [LOCKED]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon leaned closer.
“Face… eleven out of twenty-five.”
His eyes moved down the list.
“Physique… fourteen.”
Then Performance.
“Singing… sixteen.”
He paused.
“Out of forty-five.”
Jiwon frowned.
“What exactly am I looking at?”
The System responded immediately.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[SYSTEM NOTICE]
The first value represents the Host’s current ability.
The second value represents the Host’s current maximum.
Potential represents the Host’s ultimate natural ceiling.
Current maximums can be increased by fulfilling the requirements of each CAP LOCK.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon’s eyes lingered on the potential values.
He looked back at the mirror.
The awkward eighteen-year-old staring back at him was hardly impressive.
Then his gaze returned to the System.
A quiet laugh escaped him.
“So I’m not completely hopeless.”
The System offered no response.
It simply hovered in the air.
Jiwon straightened and adjusted his glasses.
His eyes settled on the final line.
CAP LOCKS: [LOCKED]
A small smile appeared.
“Fine.”
He looked at the blue window.
“If you’re going to give me a second chance…”
His expression hardened.
“…I’m going to use it.”
Then—
“Jiwon-ah!”
A woman’s voice came from outside the room.
“Come eat breakfast before it gets cold!”
Jiwon froze.
He knew that voice.
“Jiwon-ah!
Are you awake?”
His fingers tightened around the edge of his shirt.
His mother.
Jiwon slowly turned toward the door.
“…Mom?”
The word barely left his lips.
The blue window flickered once.
Then disappeared.
The room fell quiet.
Only his mother’s voice remained on the other side of the door.
“I’m coming,” Jiwon finally answered.
His voice trembled.
But this time, he smiled.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon stood there for another moment, listening to the quiet movement beyond the door.
Then he took a breath and opened it.
The hallway looked just as familiar.
For the first time since waking up, he wasn’t afraid of what he might find.
He followed the sound of dishes and footsteps toward the kitchen.
As he descended the stairs, the smell reached him first.
Warm rice.
Grilled fish.
Sesame oil.
A simple breakfast, the kind his mother used to make before the day began.
The familiar scent filled the house, so ordinary that it almost felt unreal.
Jiwon slowed as he reached the bottom of the stairs.
He could hear his mother’s voice from the kitchen.
“Jiwon-ah, hurry up.
You’re going to be late.”
He stepped into the dining room.
His mother was standing beside the table, setting down another dish.
Her hair was tied back loosely, and she was wearing the same kind of simple house clothes he remembered from his childhood.
She turned at the sound of his footsteps.
“There you are.”
She smiled.
“You finally woke up.”
Jiwon stopped.
He had seen her countless times in photographs.
In his memories.
In dreams.
But seeing her standing there, alive and perfectly ordinary, was something else entirely.
For a moment, he couldn’t speak.
His mother tilted her head.
“Why are you staring at me like that?”
Jiwon lowered his gaze.
“…Nothing.”
He forced a smile.
“I just had a strange dream.”
“A strange dream?”
She laughed softly and shook her head.
“You always had strange dreams.
Go wash your face.
Breakfast is getting cold.”
Jiwon nodded.
“Okay.”
He turned toward the kitchen.
And then he saw him.
His father was already sitting at the table.
An old newspaper was folded beside his plate, one hand resting near a cup of steaming coffee.
He was dressed for work, his shirt neatly buttoned and his hair combed back the way Jiwon remembered.
Nothing about him was remarkable.
He looked exactly like an ordinary father getting ready for another ordinary day.
But Jiwon stopped walking.
His breath caught somewhere in his throat.
For a few seconds, he could only stare.
His father looked up from the table.
Their eyes met.
“Jiwon?”
That voice.
That familiar, slightly rough voice.
The same voice that had told him to study hard.
To get into a good university.
To find a stable job.
To live a better life than his father ever had.
Jiwon’s vision blurred.
He quickly lowered his head.
But it was already too late.
His eyes burned.
A tear slipped down his cheek.
His father frowned.
“What’s wrong with you?”
Jiwon shook his head.
“Nothing.”
His voice broke.
His father began to rise from his chair.
“Did something happen?”
Jiwon couldn’t answer.
He crossed the room in a few quick steps.
Then he wrapped his arms around his father.
The older man stiffened.
“Jiwon?”
Jiwon held him tightly.
For a moment, his father simply stood there, too surprised to react.
Then his hand slowly came up and rested against the back of his son’s head.
“Hey…”
His voice softened.
“What happened?”
Jiwon closed his eyes.
He didn’t want to let go.
Not yet.
His father was warm.
Alive.
Breathing.
For decades, Jiwon had carried the memory of the day he lost him.
He had forgotten the sound of his voice.
The warmth of his hands.
The way his father smelled after coming home from work.
And now, somehow, he was standing here again.
Jiwon’s shoulders trembled.
His mother watched from beside the table, her expression slowly changing.
She glanced at her husband.
Then back at her son.
“Did he really have that bad of a dream?”
His father gave a helpless little shrug.
“I don’t know.”
Then, after a moment, he patted Jiwon’s back.
“Come on.”
His voice was gentle.
“Sit down and eat.
You’ll be late for school.”
Jiwon laughed through his tears.
School.
The word sounded strangely beautiful.
He finally pulled away and wiped his face with the sleeve of his shirt.
His father looked at him for a moment.
Then he smiled.
“That’s better.”
Jiwon nodded.
“Yeah.”
He took his seat at the table.
His mother placed a bowl of rice in front of him.
“Eat while it’s hot.”
Jiwon looked at the food.
Then at his mother.
Then at his father.
The three of them sitting together at the same table.
It was nothing special.
Just an ordinary morning.
But to Jiwon, it was something he had once believed he would never see again.
He picked up his spoon.
And for the first time in thirty-two years, Han Jiwon ate breakfast with both of his parents.