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Jongseob’s life practically ended the day his dad died. He’d been ten years old.
It had happened so fast that Jongseob hadn’t been able to properly react until hours after it was over. All he remembers is walking down the street with his dad, holding his hands, and suddenly he was ripped away. It was a drunk driver who swerved right onto the sidewalk, somehow missing Jongseob and taking out his dad.
They were rushed to the hospital, but it was a lost cause. His dad was dead.
Jongseob became a shell of himself. He shut himself off from the world, isolating himself from everyone. He pushed everyone he ever cared about away, even his mom. It was lonely, but he felt like it was all he deserved.
For three years he continued on like this, isolated in his grief. He didn’t go to school. He didn’t talk to anyone. He just shut himself in his bedroom and wished for another chance.
He wished harder than he’d ever wished before that he could go back. Back to that day. Maybe he’d be able to prevent it, if only he could go back.
And his wish was granted, but not in the way he wanted.
When he woke up, he was laying in an unfamiliar park in an unfamiliar neighborhood. He was terrified. Nothing looked familiar. He had no idea how he got here.
It wasn’t until he saw a familiar face. Walking down the sidewalk was his father. Yoon Keeho. He looked years younger than Jongseob remembered him.
“Dad!” He shouted, tears running down his face.
Keeho didn’t look at him. So Jongseob got up and ran at him, ambushing him with a tight hug. Keeho startled. “What--”
“Dad! It’s really you!”
“Dad?!” Keeho shouted, his voice strained.
It was then that Jongseob realized what was going on. He had gone back in time, but not to the day before the accident. He’d gone back in time to before he was even born. He wasn’t even sure if his parents were together yet.
Jongseob stepped away from Keeho, looking sheepish. “I… I’m sorry. I know you’ll probably think this is crazy, but I… I’m from the future. I’m your… I’m your son.”
Keeho’s eyes widened. He looked over Jongseob and then his expression softened. “You do look like me. If you’re really my son from the future, tell me something only you would know.”
Jongseob frowned. “You’re allergic to grass but no one knows because you think it’s embarrassing.”
Keeho’s eyes widened even further. “How do you know that?”
“You passed the allergy down to me,” Jongseob said, wanting to roll his eyes. He also wanted to cry. He was seeing his dad for the first time in three years.
Keeho laughed quietly, tilting his head. “Okay, I believe you. What are you doing here?”
Jongseob frowned again. “I… I didn’t want to come back this far. I only wanted to go back three years.”
“Ok. Why don’t you come back to my apartment with me. I assume you don’t have anywhere to stay.” Keeho said.
Keeho led Jongseob up the narrow staircase to his small apartment. The place smelled faintly of coffee and old books, lived-in but welcoming. Jongseob’s heart pounded. Every corner, every piece of furniture was new, yet the man sitting on the couch, his dad, felt achingly familiar.
“You can stay here for now,” Keeho said, gesturing to a spare futon rolled up in the corner. “We’ll figure the rest out later.”
Jongseob nodded, feeling a lump in his throat. It was surreal. This was his dad, alive, and he was really here. For the first time in years, he didn’t feel like a ghost.
Days turned into weeks. Jongseob watched Keeho move through life with an energy that felt both foreign and comforting. Keeho worked long hours at a small design firm, sometimes coming home exhausted, sometimes elated from a small victory. Jongseob tried not to interfere, though the temptation to warn Keeho, to prevent his eventual death, gnawed at him constantly.
One evening, as they shared instant noodles on the couch, Jongseob’s voice trembled. “Dad… you’re going to die one day. When I’m ten.”
Keeho raised an eyebrow, pausing mid-slurp. “Well… yeah. I assumed that was why you’re here.” He shrugged. “If it’s meant to happen, it’s meant to happen. Can’t really change that.”
Jongseob blinked in shock. He’d expected panic, pleading, anything. But not this calm acceptance.
“You really… you really aren’t scared?” Jongseob asked.
Keeho leaned back, hands behind his head. “I guess I just figure worrying about something I can’t change won’t help. It’s better to live the time I have fully, right?”
The words struck Jongseob like a wave. He realized, maybe for the first time, that grief wasn’t something to fight endlessly. It was something to understand a release.
Over the next few weeks, Keeho opened up more about himself. Jongseob heard many things he’d never known about his father, about his life before Jongseob was born. The mistakes he’d made, the dreams he put aside.
“I was happier once,” Keeho started as the two of them made dinner together. “It had everything to do with Intak. She was the shining light in my life, and I messed everything up.”
Jongseob smiled softly to himself, knowing something Keeho didn’t.
“We met in high school. I was the class president and she was one of the most popular girls in school, and yet she gave me a chance. We were young, barely out of high school, when we decided to give dating a try. She made me happier than I had ever been, but I was distant. I didn’t pay enough attention to her as I should have and she just… left one day. She told me to call her when I was ready for an actual relationship, but I haven’t been able to pluck up the courage. She’s probably long since moved on and she deserves better than me anyway.”
Jongseob shook his head, gaining Keeho’s attention. “You should go for it.”
“Should I?” Keeho asked, sounding insecure.
Jongseob nodded resolutely. “You should. You’ll never forgive yourself if you don’t. She’s still waiting for you. I know that for a fact.”
Keeho glanced at him, giving him a knowing look, but Jongseob didn’t say any more.
Keeho sighed quietly. “Okay. You’re right. I’ll call her tomorrow.”
As they shared these moments, Jongseob felt something shifting inside him. The heavy, suffocating grief that had dominated his life for three years began to loosen. Laughing with Keeho, listening to his stories, encouraging him to take chances, it all reminded Jongseob that life didn’t have to be defined by pain and loss.
The next morning, Jongseob woke to sunlight streaming through the window. Keeho was still asleep on the couch, a book resting on his chest. Jongseob knew, deep down, that it was time to go.
He knelt beside Keeho, brushing a stand of hair from his dad’s face. “I have to go back,” he whispered. “But… Thank you. For letting me be here. For letting me see you again.”
Keeho stirred, half-awake. “You’ll be okay, right?”
Jongseob smiled, a quiet certainty in his chest. “Yeah. I’ll be okay. You… be happy, Dad. Live fully. Don’t let regret hold you back.”
Keeho nodded, a faint smile on his lips. “I’ll try.”
With that, Jongseob felt the world shift. The apartment blurred around him, the sunlight stretching and bending. And then he was back. Back in his own time, standing in his childhood bedroom. The grief that had weighed him down for so long was still there, but it was lighter now, softened by the memory of his father’s younger self, alive and full of hope.
He took a deep breath and stepped out of his room, wandering down the stairs and into the living room where his mother was reading.
He sat down on the couch next to her, laying his head on her shoulder. She startled, staring down at him in disbelief. He hadn’t gotten this close to her in years.
“Seobie? What’s going on?” She asked, looking worried.
Jongseob just hummed quietly. “Tell me about Dad? How did you guys meet?”
His mother still looked worried, but she smiled softly and leaned further into him, gently wrapping her arm around his shoulders. “Well, we met in high school. I was pretty popular and he was the class president. He learned my name and insisted on calling me Takkie no matter how much I tried to stop him…”
Jongseob hummed quietly, drifting off to the sound of his mother’s voice.
The next morning, when Jongseob woke up, he did something he hadn’t done in years.
He dialed a number, listening to it ring. The line clicked and Jongseob took a deep breath.
“Hey, Shota. Do you want to get a coffee with me later?”