The day before I entered the museum.
I was fused with my bed as usual, looking at my phone.
Up to that point, the exhibition invitation had been tossed onto the desk beside my bed, on the verge of getting mixed in with the other papers.
But an intruder appeared on this precious weekend.
Bzzt- Bzzzt-
If my phone vibrates on a weekend, that day is guaranteed hell.
Text or call, either way, it means it's from the one person I least want to speak to.
[Aunt]
"Hah...."
I'd thought this year might pass quietly, but of course it wouldn't.
I glared at the phone screen and bit my lip.
This time, though, a text came flying in at the same moment.
010-XXXX-XXXX
[Excuse me. Pick up the phone already.]
[Hey]
[Pay back the money your parents borrowed]
The unpaid sum must have been considerable — the texts were loaded with fury.
A complete stranger, but I felt bad for their situation.
Still, I couldn't repay the money in their place, so I blocked the number immediately.
Bzzt- Bzzt-
The phone kept blaring away. How very persistent.
I could just switch the ringer to silent, but this didn't seem like something I should let slide.
I suppressed my anger as best I could and dredged up my reason.
—Our Ji-san~
That bright voice, without a shadow in it, soured my mood instantly.
How can a person be so cheerfully carefree, so untouched by hardship?
The moment that voice I never wanted to hear drilled into my ear, revulsion surged up.
—Have you been well? Lying around at home again?
"Yes."
—Don't be like that. A young man should work harder, live busier. It's an era where people even take on side gigs — second jobs, third jobs — hm?
"......."
Even before I became an adult, Aunt always stressed that I should live diligently, ever more busily.
Even while attending university on scholarships and government support, I got plenty of abuse about living beyond my station.
"You need money, right? I'm hanging up."
—You! You've forgotten how much your uncle cherished you, how hard he worked to raise you! If you act this heartlessly, do you think your parents and your brother up in heaven will be pleased? Hm?
'...She crosses the line every single time. Makes it hard to respect one's elders.'
—Good grief, your brother would at least have earned a proper living. But this one, honestly....
The moment I heard the word 'brother,' something in me snapped completely.
The only reason I'd endured her repeated impositions this long was the so-called debt I owed them for raising me.
For that single reason, I'd held on like a good-natured fool and kept answering her calls.
"I was actually thinking of transferring money one last time, right now, and cutting ties."
—My goodness, how can you cut family ties so easily?
"If I don't cut them now, you'll figure you can get money out of me again later and cling to me like a cockroach, won't you?"
—...What?
"Stop clinging to me like something filthy, and get lost, ma'am."
—Excuse me! How can you say such a thing...!
Blocked at last.
I scrapped my whole plan of speaking rationally and vented every feeling I'd suppressed until now.
"I'm still kind and courteous to real adults. So, kindly get lost."
—Hey. Hey! Kim Ji-san!!
I ignored the ear-piercing scream and ended the call.
Even after setting the phone down, my chest still felt so stifled that I pounded it hard.
"Ow, my chest hurts...."
My body's durability is flimsy compared to my emotions.
Maybe it was the ache in my chest, but my irritation spiked even higher.
This is exactly why I escaped that house the moment I got the job offer, without even checking the company's conditions.
"I should've blocked her ages ago."
Kim Ji-san, you dumbass.
A call that turned my mood to garbage — but still, in its own way, I felt a weight lift off my chest.
I had finally done the thing I couldn't do, the thing I'd only ever endured.
'The things I couldn't do, only endured....'
Just then, the exhibition invitation I'd tossed onto the desk came to mind.
I picked up the ticket and examined its contents closely.
Though honestly, the information was so simple there was barely any content to speak of.
[Museum - Exhibition Admission Ticket]
Location: ...... OO Building, 2nd Floor
"...I wonder if it'll be fun."
It was a day worth commemorating — the day I finally peeled a human being of no use whatsoever out of my life.
So, just for this weekend, wouldn't it be all right to touch the art I'd been trying to forget? That was what I had thought.
***
'To think I'd get to enjoy an experience like this again. ...Mom, Dad. I'm sorry.'
After my parents passed away, I made a resolution.
That damned art, so unbefitting my means and my abilities — I would never so much as look at it again.
And yet here I was, getting to experience such a substantial exhibition in the most unexpected place. I was curious how it would unfold from here.
[Is that your true wish?]
[Speak your wish once more.]
'Out loud?'
An employee might be listening from somewhere — did I really have to say it in my own voice?
'Participating with a single word isn't hard. ...Though it'd be embarrassing if the people around me heard.'
Fortunately, the other visitors taking part in the exhibition were a fair distance away from me. I craned my head toward the leaflet and whispered in a small voice.
"Hmm.... I'd like my work at the company to get a little easier."
SHRRIP-!
SHRRIP-!
[※Wish Mismatch!※]
Voice and true intent are judged to be inconsistent.
Kim Ji-san - Speak your wish.
'It knows my name?'
With the sound of paper tearing, new letters rose onto the leaflet.
I'd known from the start that my information had been hacked, but for my data to be entered even into the leaflet that old man gave me.
SHRRIP-!
SHRRIP-!
SHRRIP-!
The eerie alarm, like paper being ripped apart, repeated over and over.
Looking at the leaflet with my name floating on it, a chill ran through me.
And that was when I realized.
"Wh-what...?!"
The visitors had all disappeared, leaving only me.
'So the visitors were plants, all in on it with the staff.'
I looked around again, trying to find hidden employees or CCTV, but there was nothing.
Sensing danger, I ran hurriedly toward the entrance.
'No way.'
The scrap-metal door was gone, the entrance sealed over with cement wall. There was no emergency exit in sight either.
'Interactive exhibition or not, isn't this going way too far? No — this has to be a YouTube hidden-camera prank.'
This building was clearly a set dressed up like an escape room.
The ear-piercing alarm was probably there to mask the sound of the door being sealed.
I reasoned desperately through my situation, but my trembling hands wouldn't stop.
Calm down.
This is not a sealed space.
I am safe.
The entrance merely isn't visible to my eyes — it definitely exists.
I gripped my shaking hands to still them.
Then, taking a deep breath, I pulled my phone from my pocket.
To screw over the hidden-camera crew that had to be watching from somewhere.
'Let's see what happens when Frightened Citizen No. 1 summons the authorities.'
But when I turned on the phone screen, text I couldn't believe even as I saw it glimmered there.
[Kim Ji-san - Speak your wish.]
'...They take a prank this far?'
Irritation surged at the crew's behavior — far, far over the line.
But escaping this space came first. All I could do was play along with the hidden camera as much as possible.
I lifted the crumpled leaflet and spoke over it.
"I have spoken my wish. Now let me out."
I should never have come to see this exhibition — not at the cost of begging my late parents for forgiveness.
[※Wish Mismatch!※]
Voice and true intent are judged to be inconsistent.
The same words repeated as before. It was maddening.
What other wish is an ordinary office worker supposed to make?
[Searching for the visitor's true wish.]
"-!!"
My vision went white in an instant, and then a vivid scene unfolded.
It dredged up my memories and replayed, exactly as it had been, a sight I had witnessed in the past.
A runaway, carried out by an adolescent boy whose negative emotions — inferiority, jealousy, envy — ran rampant.
But he didn't have the foolish courage it took to blend in among runaway boys.
With nowhere to go, he gave up after just a few hours and headed home.
I was on my way back to our house, with its damp, musty smell in every season.
Wee-woo, wee-woo-
Noise erupted in the secluded villa district, where loud disturbances were rare.
A fire truck sped past me and up the narrow hill road. And not just one.
'Is something on fire somewhere?'
Even as I thought so complacently, something felt off. My damned intuition was good, even back then.
Anxious, my steps up the road grew faster and faster.
By the end, I was running hard enough to gasp for breath. And the moment I arrived at our house.
'...!!'
Black smoke filled the sky, and flames surged up fiercely.
Fire that had risen from the semi-basement had engulfed the entire villa. ...Our home was burning.
Even as the fire hoses poured water down, the flames showed no sign of shrinking.
Even as my mind hazed over, I walked straight toward that scorching blaze.
I had to pull my parents out of that pitch-black smoke.
'Mom!! Dad!!'
The firefighters blocked my body, saying I mustn't go any closer.
Coughing in the smoke, I screamed for my parents until my throat tore.
Praying, please, please let them call my name back.
If only I hadn't run away, if only I'd come home just a little earlier. Everything could have been different.
I didn't want to remain the worthless son who worried his parents to the very end.
I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry.
Soon light flared again, and I was back in the building.
"Hngh..., you son of a bitch...."
Tears and snot poured down my face.
I hurled curses at the empty air, but it brought no relief at all.
To be forced to relive the accident I'd tried so hard to bury.
The emotions of that day, even the temperature of the heat against my face — I felt it all vividly.
"Urgh-"
In the end, I dry-heaved at the nausea boiling up.
The shock of recalling that memory, and the loathing aimed at myself, took over my body.
[Speak your true wish.]
'This is what it wanted me to wish for?'
My wish, obviously, is for my parents to come back alive.
But because that isn't possible, I'd made the best wish available to Kim Ji-san, the office worker.
'It's absurd.... But somehow, it feels like it might actually be possible.'
The memory pulled straight out of my head, and a leaflet where words kept surfacing.
If this was some supernatural situation rather than hypnosis....
'I've already cried my eyes out anyway. There's nothing left to hide.'
I roughly wiped the tears and snot from my face with the back of my hand.
I swallowed down the bitter stomach acid lingering in my mouth and barely managed to open my trembling lips.
"Is reviving the dead also possible?"
[The answer to your question is as follows: Conditionally possible.]
Not simply possible — the answer was conditionally possible. Conditional....
'Which means directly bringing the dead back to life is impossible.'
But if it's conditionally possible, then with a little more compromise, it might become fully possible.
"Is turning back time possible?"
[The answer to your question is as follows: Conditionally possible.]
"Then, ten years back?"
Strokes of letters were drawn onto the leaflet, then erased, over and over.
[Possible.]
[The wish cannot be changed.]
[Confirm?]
"Yes. I don't need anything else."
[Regression ten years into the past]
[Is that your true wish?]
"It is my true wish."
[Do you truly think so?]
"I said it's really my wish!!"
I didn't know why it kept repeating the same question, tormenting me.
In the end, I couldn't hold back and snapped, unlike my usual self.
I don't care if I grind away my whole life at an X-tier company like now, or live bone-breakingly poor.
'If I can just go back to the past and change the fate of that day.'
A childhood painful enough to make me run away. None of that matters anymore.
I only need to return to before our house burned.
If I can just erase my mistake and pull my parents out of that house alive.
Festering emotions? I can carry that kind of pain for the rest of my life.
Fwish-
[Kim Ji-san - Wish Confirmed]
Beginning the climb of the 'Museum of Wishes.'
"Wh-what?!"
The leaflet drifted out of my hand and floated up with a whoosh.
The paper curled and unfurled again, its wrinkled creases smoothing out completely.
'Museum of Wishes' flashed blindingly bright.
Climbing the museum? Just as I was wondering what on earth that was supposed to mean.
[It means exactly what it says: climbing the museum that grants wishes.]
Another person's voice sounded from behind me.
Thinking the visitors had finally returned, I hurriedly turned my head. But.
"?!!"
Was it really another 'person'...?
[To prevent any infringement of human rights, each of you was given private time to make your wish.]
[The Museum considers its visitors the highest priority, after all.]
It was a strange thing to call a human voice.
It was certainly sound, and yet it was as if text were being inputted directly into my ears.
'I can't even tell if it's male or female. No — the voice isn't even the main problem here.'
The visible exterior was even more bizarre than the voice.
Walking leisurely toward me was..., a statue.
A headless statue was moving as smoothly as a person.