Chapter 4 (1/2)

“Aaaaargh!”

The same dream again.

In which what had happened three months ago recurred every night.

On a daily basis I awoke from sleep, recalling the dread moment of death just as vividly.

It was like enduring unspeakable hards.h.i.+ps…

I would only hope this dream would not recur for life.

A little before 6.

I sat up in bed before the alarm went off; I had set it for 6.

I slipped out of bed and took my pajamas off. I went in the bathroom, adjacent to my bedroom and had a quick shower.

I changed into my school uniform and stepped out of the bedroom. In another room across from mine, my brother was sound asleep.

Descending stairs into the living room, I could smell delectable scents floating from the kitchen. Bean sprouts soup.

In the kitchen, a middle-aged maid was prepping breakfast.

Bean sprouts soup was largely a repeat of the breakfast menu as my father would be plastered every day and the soup was his favorite hangover cure.

As I walked out the front door, the green gra.s.s was glittering, soaking up the sun.

I bent over to pick up three papers that were sprawled out on the gra.s.s, then quietly went upstairs to my bedroom.

I read through two of them, one was a daily paper and the other was a financial one.

A big picture of a protest shrouded with tear gas and firebombs appeared on the front page of the daily paper. Dated 26th June, 1987.

Today, 29th, the protest continued, and it would not abate until the military regime surrendered.

As I finished reading and folded the papers,

“Do-jun,” the middle-aged maid stood at the door, knocking.

She brought me a gla.s.s of milk and a cup of coffee.

For three months, I had been called by the name.

Jin Do-jun.

That I was still not accustomed to.

“You don’t have to bring them up here. I could go downstairs…” I said.

“I know you could, but if your parents caught you drinking coffee, they would tell you off,” she said.

I thanked her.

With a fond look on her face, she watched me sipping my coffee.

She liked how I all of a sudden had been transformed from a spoiled brat into a respectable 10-year-old:

I honoured elders, was not fussy about food and helped clean up the house.

She couldn’t help liking me.

“Oh, you know today is your grandfather’s birthday? You are going to have dinner at his place,” she said, then grabbing the empty gla.s.s, empty cup, and the folded papers, walked out the door.

At last, today.

Three months after having been reincarnated as 10-year-old Jin Do-jun, I finally got a chance to meet my grandfather, Jin Yang-cheol, founder and chairman of Sunyang.

I had never met him in my past life, but today I, his grandson, was going to sit down to dinner with him.

66-year-old grandfather and 10-year-old grandson.

What does it mean to have been reborn as a grandson of Sunyang’s founder, whose eldest son killed me?

Has G.o.d granted me an opportunity of revenge?

Or one of forgiving them as they are now my family?

Oddly enough, it was a quiet breakfast.

My usually loquacious 12-year-old brother, Jin Sang-jun, without saying a word, stuffed food into his mouth.

My hangovered father ate small spoonfuls of the soup.

And…

Oh!

My beautiful mother.

She was far much more beautiful than the Ferrari lady!

She was the same as Olivia Hussey, star of Romeo and Juliet, and she had been an acclaimed actress called Olivia Hussey of Korea.

In the early 1970’s, as soon as she debuted in a film, she rose to stardom. She married one of her big fans and disappeared from the big screen.

That lucky man was my father, Jin Yun-ki, 5th son of my grandfather, Jin Yang-cheol.

Their marriage had been called one of the greatest love stories of the century.

At this time, Sunyang was expanding its business into the electronics field, catching up with j.a.pan.

Even if she had been an actress of exceptional beauty, she was, no more, no less, just an ordinary housewife in the Sunyang chaebol.

The grandfather was opposed their marriage at first, stating that he would have the father’s name deleted from the family register, but ended up accepting their marriage as there was a baby growing inside my mother’s belly.

I had known these details of the chaebol family in my past life, and some of them were discovered through experience.

The family excluded my father from a lot of things.

The grandfather had remained angry with the father until the day he died, and when the eldest son inherited Sunyang, my father got very small shares.

When other brothers quarreled over the inheritance, my father just watched them from a distance.