Chapter 8
The day I went to visit Grandma...
A strange text message suddenly arrived.
At first, I had carefully checked it while wondering whether Grandma might once again be trying to save my life.
But the content had been so ordinary that I had laughed.
It contained only a single photo.
A flyer announcing the opening of a food-supply mart.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.
If it had been an advertisement for anything else, I probably would have glanced at it and forgotten it.
But a food-supply mart was different.
I worked for a food company.
Information about a new food-supply mart was directly connected to sales.
So naturally, I had paid close attention.
I had planned to tell Manager Kwon about it first thing Monday morning.
But when I saw my empty message inbox, I finally understood.
That message... really came from the future.
Messages from the future.
How were the messages selected?
What kinds of information would be sent to me?
How often would they come?
How far into the future could they show me?
I had no way to understand any of it.
I frowned and sank into thought.
Right.
The notification sound had been the same as the message about the department-store fire too.
The same sound.
Messages that disappeared afterward.
Those were the only two things I had discovered so far about the messages from the future.
I could guess they came from the future.
But I still could not be completely certain.
If I wanted certainty...
I needed to confirm it with my own eyes.
“Assistant Manager Choi?”
Manager Kwon called me with wide eyes.
“Ah, yes, Manager.”
He smiled while watching me search through my phone.
“Looks like our Assistant Manager Choi saw something wrong. Haha.”
“Well...”
Manager Kwon patted my shoulder, apparently trying to save me from embarrassment.
“That happens sometimes.”
“Excuse me?”
“When you really want to do well in sales, you sometimes convince yourself that you saw something. Things like that happen.”
Anyone could tell he was trying to make an excuse on my behalf so I would not feel embarrassed.
I had not lied.
The only problem was that what I had talked about belonged to the future.
But I had already mentioned the food-supply mart.
Now I had no idea how to end the conversation.
“Inwoo.”
“Yes, Manager.”
“You landed that huge Shinwoo Department Store account recently, right?”
“Yes.”
“So naturally you don’t want to stop there. You want to accomplish something else too. That eagerness probably made you think you saw something.”
I wanted to prove that I was right.
But I had no evidence that could contradict him.
All I had were my eyes, which had seen the message from the future...
My mouth, which had read the words aloud...
And my memory.
That was it.
Manager Kwon smiled reassuringly and nodded.
“Like a mirage.”
A mirage...
That was similar to what I had thought when I first received the message from the future.
He shrugged.
“I think I even used to dream about landing sales deals because I wanted good results so badly.”
“Dreams?”
I widened my eyes at his words.
But his answer was nothing more than an attempt to comfort me.
“Just meaningless dreams.”
“Oh...”
“When I walked down the street, every company I saw started looking like a potential client too.”
He added one last line.
“Just like you right now.”
“...”
Manager...
I’m telling you, it wasn’t a mirage or a dream.
But what could I do?
I had no way to prove that the message about the food-supply mart was real.
And I certainly could not tell him about the Shinwoo Department Store incident.
I could not say that I had known about the arson attack before it happened because I had received an article from the future.
I could not tell him that the future message was what eventually allowed me to secure the Shinwoo Department Store food-hall contract.
Even if I told him everything...
There was no way he would believe me.
So all I could do was smile faintly.
“I guess I was mistaken.”
The moment I returned to the office, I quickly sat down in front of my computer.
What I needed to discover now was whether the food-supply mart was actually going to open.
It was not exactly that I doubted the messages from the future anymore.
I simply wanted to confirm it quickly.
I wanted to see proof with my own eyes.
Because this could not be a mirage.
I took a slow breath and stared at my computer screen.
“What should I check first?”
I closed my eyes and tried to remember the message.
There was no way to open it again.
So if I wanted to confirm whether it was real, I had to pull every possible detail from my memory.
“What was it again...?”
With my eyes tightly closed, I tried to picture the image from that day.
The promotional flyer for the new food-supply mart.
“Largest in Honam...”
I grabbed a piece of paper and began writing down everything I could remember.
[Honam’s largest food-supply mart opening.]
[Grand-opening event.]
[Three-day event?]
[From the 1st to the 3rd.]
[Weekend event.]
[Then it must be Friday through Sunday!]
As I continued writing...
“...Whoa.”
I reached for the desk calendar.
Then I immediately checked the dates.
“It’s July right now, and August 1st isn’t Saturday... it’s Tuesday.”
The moment I checked the day of the week for August 1st, I frowned.
“Why did I automatically assume the opening date was August 1st?”
Because the mart was supposedly opening soon, I had naturally assumed the closest possible month.
I flipped the calendar forward to September.
The moment my eyes landed on September 1st, goosebumps covered my body.
“...September 1st is Friday.”
I snapped my fingers.
