I, having returned to the real world, woke up in bed, pulled my phone from my pocket to check, and discovered time had returned to six years ago.
I stood up and walked into the bathroom, looking at my noticeably younger face in the mirror. Only then did I realize I'd spent ten years in the mission world, but only four years had passed in the real world. In other words, I was no longer the twenty-nine-year-old me, but the twenty-three-year-old me.
Looking around the strange yet familiar room made me feel like a lifetime had passed.
Suddenly, the sound of a door opening pulled me from my memories. I opened the bedroom door, coming face to face with someone I hadn't seen in ten years. My mother.
She had just returned from the market, heading to the kitchen, when the corner of her eye caught a figure standing in front of my bedroom door. Thinking there was a burglar, she was about to scream, when she realized how familiar that face was. The strength drained from her arms. Fruit from her bag scattered across the floor.
My mother's legs felt like lead, struggling to take one step at a time toward me. Her trembling hands reaching up, her eyes already brimming with tears. "Aaron. Is that you, Aaron?"
My mother wanted to touch my face, but was afraid it was just her own hallucination. That it would vanish the moment she touched it.
Since the day I disappeared, every day she'd held my photo and cried. Every night hoping to see me in her dreams. Yet over those four years she'd never dreamed of me once. This was the first time she'd seen my figure. Though my appearance had changed a bit, she still recognized me at first glance. This was her precious child, Aaron Grant.
And when I saw the silver streaking through my mother's hair, I couldn't hold back my tears anymore. Hearing her cautious, careful questioning, I couldn't help but throw my arms around her, tears streaming down. "It's me. I've come home."
Only after feeling my warm body did Mrs. Grant truly realize that her son Aaron had really returned. "Aaron, where have you been these four years? Do you know how hard your father and I searched for you?"
Mother and son held each other, sobbing. She kept recounting those four years. How she and Dad had never given up searching for any trace of me. Even though friends and even the police had advised them, saying I'd been missing so long, something might have happened. But a mother's intuition told her otherwise. She still believed her son was safe and sound. With just that faith, she and the entire Grant family had persevered for four years, never moving house, just afraid that one day I'd come back and not find them.
And now, finally, they'd waited for me. Their Aaron had truly come home.
A long while later, we both calmed down. My mother stroked my face, her eyes overflowing with heartache. "These four years must have been so hard on you, haven't they?"
Those words made me, who had just stopped crying, feel my eyes stinging again. I held my mother tight, tears flowing endlessly once more, repeating over and over, "Mom, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
Now I regretted it utterly. My heart felt like it was being squeezed until I couldn't bear it. I couldn't understand why back then I'd been willing to abandon the parents who loved me so much. All for one woman, making them search for me for four whole years. If I could go back to the past, I definitely wouldn't have hesitated to leave.
On the other side, my father had just received word I'd returned. He immediately dropped everything he was doing and rushed home. The moment he walked through the door, he saw me and Mom sitting on the sofa in an embrace. My father, usually stern and quiet, couldn't help but redden his eyes too.
In the end, I still chose to tell them everything about the ten years I'd spent in that mission world, holding nothing back, because Mom and Dad were the only two people left in this world I could still trust. I picked up the glass of water on the table, wetting my throat, also giving my parents more time to digest the shocking truth.
Yet after my parents went through the initial shock, all that remained in the end was heartache. They'd never imagined that in their memories I was still that cheerful college student, carefree and unburdened. But now I'd gotten married and had a child in another world, and even had to endure the pain of my wife and child's betrayal.
So cruel. My father looked at his son, now grown and so much more composed. His tears fell once more. "My Aaron has suffered far too much."
I looked at my parents, their faces both wearing identical expressions of sympathy. My heart flooded with remorse and regret. It was all because I'd been blindly consumed by so-called love back then, making my parents live through four long agonizing years of pain.
My father wiped his tears, gripping my hand tightly, asking what plans I had for the future.
Before I vanished from this world, I'd been in college. After I'd been missing for a month, my mother had helped me file for a leave of absence. But I'd already completed four full years of college in that mission world and had no intention of returning to lectures. Besides, though outwardly I was twenty-three, I'd actually lived for ten years more. My psychological age was already twenty-nine. Being around college students would just feel awkward.
I thought for a while and decided to find a quiet town to rest and recover for some time. My failed marriage with Lennox had left lasting effects on my psyche. I needed time to adjust on my own.
Though my parents were reluctant, they ultimately agreed. "Remember to send us a message every day to let us know you're safe."
They'd struggled so hard to finally have their son return. They couldn't bear to lose him again. I smiled and nodded, my eyes welling up with tears again. "Mom, Dad, I'm sorry."
My parents patted my shoulder consolingly. "You silly boy. As long as you come back, that's enough. Let the past be the past."
Over the following days I stayed home keeping my parents company, while searching online for a suitable town. By the time I decided where I wanted to go, a week had passed.
Before I left for the town, my parents had already helped me pack early. Inside the suitcase was stuffed full of food they'd made with their own hands, worried I wouldn't be used to eating outside food. On the day of departure my parents saw me off at the airport for a long time, until my flight was preparing for takeoff. Only then did they reluctantly wave goodbye.