I used to call my old school uniform my "polyester prison," but now, that just sounded dumb. Pulling on that slightly itchy blazer each morning wasn't so bad anymore. It was like, okay, new chance. The shock of being back in time was wearing off, and instead, I felt this little buzz of excitement, like I finally knew what I was doing.
The biggest change, the best one, was being home. My apartment in Seoul back in 2025? It was just a lonely, empty place. But this little house, even with its old floors and my family always around, felt… right. Mornings weren't about dragging myself out of bed with a whiskey headache anymore. Now, I woke up to Eomma cooking. Simple food, yeah, but she made it, and that meant something I'd totally forgotten. And Hana, my little sister. She was just a little kid again, always babbling about school or her dolls. Looking at her, so happy and not a care in the world, I just knew I had to protect that. In my old life, she married this guy… he wasn't good for her. No way was that happening again.
Even Mom and Dad, I remembered them fighting a lot, mostly about money. But now, being older in my head, I saw other stuff. How Dad looked tired after working in the fields all day, how Mom stretched every penny. But they still looked at each other in a certain way. They were tough. I started actually talking to them, not just grunting like a moody teenager. It felt good, like a wall inside me was finally coming down.
School was different too. Not just boring classes. Jin-ho, with his goofy glasses, and Sora, always quiet and watching things – they weren't just names from my past. They were real again. I'd lost touch with them completely after school, stuck in that Seoul grind. Now, walking with them, laughing about old songs (they were ancient to me, from 2025!), or just messing around – it felt good. Like a part of me I'd lost was coming back.
"Min-jun, you're actually good at basketball now!" Jin-ho said one day, out of breath. We were playing at lunch. "Last year, you kinda sucked."
I just grinned. All those workouts I did as an adult, trying to look good? Well, they made me stronger and faster than I was as a real teenager. "Guess I decided to try," I said. It was just fun, playing with them, really fun, not like the fake fun I chased before.
Weekends were good too. Instead of sleeping off a hangover, I'd play soccer with the kids in the neighborhood, or help Dad out. Every little thing felt like I was getting a piece of myself back.
But, even with all this good stuff, the adult part of my brain was working. I knew things about the future. I needed money, a start. After a few weeks, I got a part-time job at this little coffee shop, "The Morning Brew." Mrs. Oh, the lady who owned it, was nice. I washed dishes, cleared tables. The pay was pretty bad, just kid-money, but every single won I earned felt like a little seed.
After my first month, I had a small bit of cash. I went to Eomma. "Eomma," I said, trying to sound serious, "I've been reading stuff at the library, about computers and money. Can you help me open a bank account? Like, for investing? For my future. I want to learn how to handle money."
She looked at me, surprised. "Investing? Min-jun, you're seventeen. What do you know about that? That's for rich people, isn't it?"
"It's for learning, Eomma. Even small bits. Computers are going to be huge. I want to save for college, maybe start my own computer thing later. And help us out." I really laid it on thick, the responsible son act.
She thought about it. "And this cafe money? It's not for games?"
"Some for snacks," I admitted, "but mostly this. Please?"
She finally said yes. Maybe she saw I was serious, or just wanted me to be responsible. So we went to the bank. It was all old-fashioned paper forms. With her signature, I, Kwon Min-jun, was officially an investor – a tiny one, but still.
I couldn't just buy stocks in Apple or Amazon easily from Korea back then, not with my pocket money. But Korea had its own stuff. Daum, an internet company, was around. And this other one, NHN, which would become Naver – that was just starting. I put my little bits of money into Daum, and a couple of other small tech companies I vaguely remembered did okay. It wasn't about getting rich quick. It was about planting those seeds.
And I started studying like crazy. Not just school stuff, I could almost do that in my sleep. I read everything I could find about computers, programming. The internet back then was slow and clunky compared to 2025, but I could see where it was going. I started messing with coding languages. My teachers thought I was some kind of genius. Ha, if they only knew.
One night, I was standing outside, watching Hana chase fireflies. I felt this new thing inside me. This wasn't just about fixing my own mistakes. It was about making things right for my family, giving Hana a good life. Those rich chaebol families? They weren't going to run our lives. Not this time. That old regret I used to feel? It was gone. Now, there was this fire, this ambition. I wasn't just going to get through adulthood this time. I was going to win.