Episode Thirteen
Jung Si-hoo pretended not to know Lim Yu-jin until the very end. He turned and left the spot.
Lim Yu-jin called out to his retreating back. “It’s not because of you. If I become unhappy in the future… it’s not because of you.”
Jung Si-hoo stopped walking for a moment. However, he started moving again, leaving Lim Yu-jin to collapse in despair.
“Do you really not remember me?”
Of course, that wasn’t the case. Jung Si-hoo remembered Lim Yu-jin perfectly. In this regression, he had simply tried to change the future by enrolling in a completely different school. He never expected Lim Yu-jin to come looking for him.
He felt as though things were becoming more and more tangled with every regression. What kind of future would make Lim Yu-jin unhappy this time? Jung Si-hoo was afraid. Because of that fear, he was deeply shaken.
Just then, a shadow fell in front of him. Jung Si-hoo looked up to see someone standing there. It was Kim Tae-yang.
“Are you okay? What did Yu-jin say to make you look like that?”
In this regression, Jung Si-hoo had already revealed to Kim Tae-yang that he was a regressor. It wasn’t something he did on purpose. Kim Tae-yang had found Jung Si-hoo when he was mentally breaking down and asked what was wrong. In need of a pillar to lean on, Jung Si-hoo had confessed everything to him. It was also Kim Tae-yang who had advised him to enroll in a different university.
Jung Si-hoo asked Kim Tae-yang, “Did you tell her? That I enrolled in this school?”
Kim Tae-yang rubbed his nose sheepishly as he answered. “I tried to pretend I didn’t know you, you know? It just didn’t work out.”
“Why?”
“You know me. I’ve always been a terrible actor.”
“Ha.”
As Jung Si-hoo looked at him in disbelief, Kim Tae-yang scratched his head awkwardly and continued. “And I had this thought. If Yu-jin is going to be unhappy no matter what happens, like you said, wouldn’t it be better if you were by her side?”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“I mean, if she’s doomed to be unhappy anyway, isn’t it better to at least be with the person she loves?”
In the past, he would have argued that such a thing made no sense. But now, Jung Si-hoo couldn’t say a word. He realized that Kim Tae-yang’s point actually made sense.
“…Is that so?”
“I wouldn’t know. I’m just saying. But think about it. Consider what might be best.”
While Jung Si-hoo was lost in thought, Lim Yu-jin had a dream that night. In that dream, she was with Jung Si-hoo. They were together all the way into the future. However, that dream ended with them getting into a traffic accident together.
In her dream, Lim Yu-jin went to find Jung Si-hoo. She asked him, “You said that the futures we spent together were always unhappy. But I don’t have those memories.”
She continued, “But I’ve been thinking… is it possible that I’m the one who can’t remember the futures we shared? Am I losing my memories of those specific parts, just like everyone else?”
“!”
The shock on Jung Si-hoo’s face marked the end of Episode Thirteen.
***
Episode Fourteen
Episode Fourteen delved into the events before Jung Si-hoo became a regressor.
It had been that way since the first time he saw her. Jung Si-hoo’s heart was stolen by Lim Yu-jin. And just as Kim Tae-yang had pursued Lee Soo-jung, he went straight for Lim Yu-jin.
Perhaps his sincerity reached her, because before that winter passed, Lim Yu-jin accepted his feelings. Their love continued through Jung Si-hoo’s military service, through their respective graduations and finding jobs, and all the way until Jung Si-hoo proposed to her.
Having promised to marry, the two people believed they would love each other forever. But then, tragedy struck.
A traffic accident.
Just before the accident, Jung Si-hoo realized his ability to regress. He changed the past several times. In the early stages of gaining his power, he couldn’t even imagine a future without Lim Yu-jin. He believed that if he kept changing the future, a happy one would eventually arrive.
However, Lim Yu-jin only became more miserable. It started when the traffic accident they always faced together suddenly became an accident she had to face alone.
Lim Yu-jin met many different deaths. And when he was finally able to avoid her death through his efforts, she ended up disabled, unable to use her legs.
She continued to be unhappy, and on the day he finally saw her as a deaf person, Jung Si-hoo made up his mind. For the sake of her happiness, he would no longer envision a future where they were together. If that was what it took for her to be happy, he would do it.
It was after he changed the past for this purpose that Lim Yu-jin realized he was a regressor and began to remember. In truth, Jung Si-hoo had experienced several futures where he wasn’t with her. Those were terrible times. They were times filled with nothing but loneliness. If Jung Si-hoo hadn’t been mentally strong, no one would have been able to endure it.
Lim Yu-jin, seeing the confirmation in his expression, spoke up. “Why did you do that? In the end, even if I’m happy, it means nothing if you’re miserable. If you’re unhappy, I can’t be happy either.”
Lim Yu-jin shed tears as she spoke. Only then did Jung Si-hoo realize the meaning of what Kim Tae-yang had said.
Sure enough, Lim Yu-jin pleaded with him. “Stay with me. And this time… please, don’t regress. Let’s just be together. Even if this world turns into hell in the future.”
Jung Si-hoo nodded his head.
Time flowed toward the future. The two stayed together, just as they had promised. Once again, a truck rushed toward them.
Lim Yu-jin asked, “You’re not going to regress this time, right?”
But unexpectedly, a bitter smile played on Jung Si-hoo’s lips.
“You… don’t tell me?”
“I’m sorry, Yu-jin. This time, I’ll make sure to change it. So that you can be happy.”
That was the truth. Among the countless regressions Jung Si-hoo had experienced, there had already been a future where he told her everything and promised to stay together until the end, no matter what tragedy came. Lim Yu-jin simply didn’t remember it.
The truck slammed into them, and as Jung Si-hoo regressed once more, Episode Fourteen came to an end.
***
Episode Fifteen
Jung Si-hoo made his final plan. He decided to leave immediately upon regressing.
Thus began his life in Germany. Jung Si-hoo spoke with Kim Tae-yang on the phone every night.
“You’re doing exactly as I said, right?”
“I told you not to worry. Are you my mother or something?”
The reason Jung Si-hoo spoke with Kim Tae-yang every day was simple. In this regression, he couldn’t save Kim Tae-yang personally. If he had tried to save him directly, he would have missed his window to study abroad.
Regardless, he made the call today as well. This was the last one. As of today, he would change the future where Kim Tae-yang met his death.
“Right. I’m glad to hear you’re doing well.”
“Yeah. Anyway, I met a strange woman today.”
“Who?”
“I got distracted for a second this afternoon and almost got hit by a car.”
“What? Hey! I told you not to let your guard down!”
“Ah, don’t worry. I’m alive and talking to you, aren’t I? Anyway, I was about to be seriously hurt, but…”
“But what?”
“A woman saved me. Then she asked me where you were.”
Jung Si-hoo knew instinctively who that woman was. It was Lim Yu-jin. He asked urgently, worried that Kim Tae-yang might have mentioned his studies abroad.
“So, did you tell her?”
“No, I didn’t. You told me never to do that.”
“Even though she knew my name?”
“Just because she knows your name doesn’t mean I’m going to tell her. It could have been some new kind of scam. It was actually a bit creepy. She even knew my name.”
Kim Tae-yang confirmed that he hadn’t told Lim Yu-jin about the move to Germany. Jung Si-hoo was relieved.
However, he unexpectedly ran into Lim Yu-jin on the Eiserner Bridge.
‘How?’
Panicked, Jung Si-hoo pulled his hat down low and tried to pass by her. But Lim Yu-jin’s voice caught him.
“Where are you going?”
She continued, “I told you never to regress, so where do you think you’re going?”
She was right. Even though they had supposedly started over, Lim Yu-jin strangely remembered Jung Si-hoo.
The camera closed in on each of their expressions as Episode Fifteen ended.
***
Episode Sixteen
Back on the Eiserner Bridge.
Jung Si-hoo couldn’t understand it. He couldn’t figure out why Lim Yu-jin remembered the previous future. So, he asked her.
“How…”
“I don’t remember everything. This time, the memories of the future cut off at some point too. But I remember everything about our promise to stay together until the end. And in the previous regression, I made a decision.”
“What was it?”
“If you tried to regress again, I decided to push you away. To make it so that being with you never happened.”
Come to think of it, just before the traffic accident in the previous regression, Lim Yu-jin had suddenly pushed Jung Si-hoo aside after their final conversation. He had thought it was just an instinctive action to save him, but to think she had such an intention.
Jung Si-hoo stood there stunned for a moment. He eventually regained his composure and spoke.
“But why did you come here? It’s been proven. Being together only makes us unhappy.”
“I know.”
“Why did you come if you knew? I came all this way to avoid you. I wanted you to be happy.”
“Because being with you is my happiness.”
“……What?”
“No matter what miserable ending we face, being with you in the end is what makes me happy.”
She continued, “I thought about it. Why was it that I could only remember the futures we shared? After thinking it over, I realized why. It was the futures where you weren’t there. Those were the only ones that were truly unhappy. That’s why I was so resentful. Because I wasn’t with you. I couldn’t forget because I was so resentful. Like a ghost that can’t leave this world because of a grudge.”
“How can you… say something so foolish?”
“I thought it sounded pretty plausible, no? Regardless of what you called an unhappy future, I’m certain I wasn’t unhappy. Even in my final moments, I would have been happy knowing you loved me. That fact would have flashed before my eyes like a panorama.”
“But you’ll die. Even if you don’t die, you’ll become as miserable as someone who has.”
“I told you, I’m not unhappy. Even if I can’t see, even if I can’t hear, even if I can’t walk anymore—even if it’s a worse situation that combines all of those. If you’re with me, I’m not unhappy. And what’s wrong with dying? None of us can live forever anyway. So no matter what happens, stay with me.”
“Yu-jin…”
“Stay with me and please don’t regress anymore. So that I can keep my happy memories until the end. So that I won’t forget them.”
“Let’s go now. Let’s go and love each other so we have no regrets.”
In the end, Jung Si-hoo was led back to his home country by Lim Yu-jin. He enrolled in the same university as her one year later. And just as she requested, he told her everything that had happened during his regressions.
Time flowed toward the future, and Jung Si-hoo and Lim Yu-jin faced another traffic accident. However, Jung Si-hoo did not regress, just as she had asked.
A few years later.
Jung Si-hoo and Lim Yu-jin were walking through the campus they hadn’t visited in a long time. Jung Si-hoo’s narration began to play over the scene.
[After that traffic accident, we underwent several major surgeries where our lives hung in the balance, and we miraculously survived.]
[There were lingering side effects. For a while after the surgery, I couldn’t hear well, and she had difficulty walking. But we cheered each other on and eventually overcame it all.]
[And that was when I realized. It would have been okay even if I hadn’t regressed. We would have ended up happy anyway.]
Suddenly, the streetlights across the campus lit up. Lim Yu-jin stood in the middle of the light, smiling brightly as she asked, “How is it? Do you like it?”
Jung Si-hoo smiled back and answered. “I like it.”
“Are you satisfied?”
“Yes. I’m satisfied.”
Jung Si-hoo’s narration played once more.
[The perfect future I wanted wasn’t necessary from the start.]
[The happiness that sat quietly by the roadside, under the streetlights, and beneath my feet while I searched for a perfect future—I finally realized that I had been missing it all along.]
[Love was right there.]
Then, Lim Yu-jin and Jung Si-hoo kissed.
With that, Episode Sixteen came to an end. It was the moment the filming for *Your Brilliant Sparkle* concluded.