Chapter 179 : Who Wants to Go Time Traveling
Chapter 179: Who Wants to Go Time Traveling?
When was it exactly?
It was a story from my childhood.
Every evening, we sat in the living room and traveled around the world.
To the back alleys of 1980s New York, overflowing with pleasure and freedom.
To the dazzling night streets of 1990s Tokyo, chasing romance amid the bubble economy.
Sometimes… to a nameless blue beach somewhere.
All of those landscapes were contained within the music flowing from my father’s speakers.
“Taeyoon, Dongyun. Come here for a moment.”
The living room lights dimmed slightly, and my father carefully placed the needle onto the turntable.
When the crackling sound stopped, our world began.
After finishing the preparations, my father would ask us:
“Who wants to go time traveling?”
That was always how it started.
It was a familiar line from my father’s repertoire, but I loved those moments.
When I listened to the music my father played,
it truly felt like a world I had never seen before unfolded before me.
“If I play jazz, we instantly teleport to 1950s New York. And if I play bossa nova, we’re standing on a beach in Rio at sunset.”
“Wow…!”
I didn’t even understand what it meant.
But I loved the way he said it.
While my father spoke grandly, my mother clicked her tongue yet still brought over freshly made kimchi pancakes.
Eating kimchi pancakes while traveling the world—it tasted amazing.
“You know, when you close your eyes while listening to good music, it takes you there. It feels like time travel. Do you know why Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody still moves people decades later? Or why Michael Jackson’s dance and music still live on even after he died?”
“Michael Jackson! I like Michael Jackson the most!”
Even when I gave such a random answer,
my father simply stroked my head and continued explaining his philosophy of music.
“Because real stories are inside them. You know, your father wants to bring those real stories into the world. It’s something worth dedicating an entire life to.”
When my father talked about music, his eyes sparkled brighter than the stars in the sky.
Looking back now, there was also a bit of madness in them—
like a scientist who had just discovered a revolutionary theory.
One rainy day,
while looking at raindrops forming on the window,
my father played a song.
Bill Withers’ Ain’t No Sunshine.
“You know what this is about?”
My father said seriously.
“It’s the kind of music that comes out when someone loses a person they love but can’t say anything. So they just repeat the same line over and over.”
“Why can’t they talk?”
“Sometimes the sadness is so big that if you say too much, the sincerity fades. That’s why the song keeps repeating ‘ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone.’ When you’re truly sad, you can’t say anything at all.”
Sadness.
Sincerity.
There was no way a little kid could understand that.
I only remember how warm the LP record felt in my father’s hands.
And how comforting his quiet voice sounded.
Even when I nodded off, I pretended his boring explanations were interesting.
Only later did I realize—
those were the emotions of adults.
There was another thing my father used to say often.
“Music isn’t made by melody. It’s made by the empty spaces.”
“Empty spaces?”
“Yes. When the drums stop. When the keyboard pauses. That’s when listeners focus more. Anyone can keep playing endlessly, but knowing when to stop—that’s something only people who truly understand music can do.”
Looking back now,
that sentence applied not only to music, but to life itself.
—Only those who understand can stop.
But ironically, my father himself didn’t seem to understand that.
Because when he should have stopped—
he instead went completely out of control.
A road along the ocean.
We were driving.
Sitting in the passenger seat, I looked at my father’s hands on the steering wheel.
Those hands once carefully adjusted the turntable.
Now they were covered in oil stains and calluses.
Thanks to those hands, I was able to go through school without much hardship.
Feeling awkward, I looked out the window.
Meanwhile, my father and my hyung continued talking.
“Looks like Taeyoon is happy seeing the ocean again.”
“Just leave him. He sometimes pretends to be really sentimental.”
What was I supposed to do about my nose stinging whenever I saw my father?
To me, my father was someone I both resented and felt grateful toward.
Back when our Bundang house was lost and the family almost scattered apart,
thankfully my father never spoke again about romance, music, or dreams.
Without hesitation, he moved down to Ulsan and got a job at a heavy industry company.
And I knew he sent living expenses every month without fail.
That was probably the best he could do.
Thinking that, I spoke to him.
“You’re still driving this car.”
An old Sonata.
In my memories, this had always been my father’s car.
Ten years?
More like fifteen.
I couldn’t even remember the last time I sat in the passenger seat.
Back then, that seat always belonged to my mother.
Now I naturally sat there.
The seat was stiff, and the air freshener smelled strangely sour.
But somehow—
it felt comfortable.
So comfortable I almost fell asleep.
Maybe my father noticed.
He asked with a smile.
In that same warm, low voice from the past.
“Who wants to go time traveling?”
Then my hyung, sitting in the back seat, answered nostalgically.
“Wow, I haven’t heard that in a long time.”
“Hyung barely ever went time traveling anyway. You were always studying.”
“Was that so?”
That was true.
Once he got a little older, my hyung rejected the whole “time travel” thing.
Looking back now, it was probably just severe teenage rebellion.
While he pondered that, I deliberately shouted loudly.
“Me! Me!”
“Alright then… today…”
We were stopped at a traffic light.
My father reached toward the CD player in the car.
With a creaking sound, the CD began spinning.
“How about we go to 1990s LA?”
As soon as he finished speaking, the chatter of young women burst out of the speakers.
“Huh?”
Then came a familiar lyric over a rough 90s-style synth.
—Yo, I’ll tell you what I want.
Spice Girls’ Wannabe.
“Cough—!”
My hyung suddenly coughed awkwardly.
Meanwhile I almost burst out laughing while staring out the window.
“What? This totally feels like 90s LA! Whenever this song played, everyone stood up and danced!”
My father nodded his head to the rhythm.
Glancing back, I saw my hyung covering his forehead in embarrassment.
Honestly, my hyung just didn’t understand romance.
“I like this song too.”
Like a 90s teen movie,
my father and I sang along happily.
The inside of the car transformed into something like a 90s MTV set.
It felt like the glitter-clad members might jump out any second.
For the first time in a long while,
we traveled through time together.
The energy and confidence of somewhere in LA filled the old car.
Eventually, my hyung couldn’t hold back either.
When the chorus came, he sang along with us.
—If you wanna be my lover~
That’s right! I knew my hyung had it in him.
This wasn’t just music.
It was the way we remembered each other.
Maybe my hyung felt the same way.
I wasn’t sure.
But in that moment,
it felt like nothing had ever happened.
The broken family.
All the mistakes my father once made.
Everything disappeared beneath the sound of laughter.
“Feels good hearing it again, right?”
The car smoothly drove along the coastal road.
Outside the window, the blue sea of Ulsan stretched endlessly.
The sound of waves faintly reached us.
Yet inside the car, the heat of 1990s LA still lingered.
After the song ended,
I grew curious about what other CDs my father carried and reached toward the glove compartment.
“Hey—Taeyoon?”
My father’s hurried hand stopped me.
But he couldn’t keep watching me while driving.
He withdrew his hand and glanced at me nervously.
I even saw a drop of sweat forming.
What was wrong with him?
Without thinking much, I opened the glove compartment.
“Ahhh!”
I screamed in shock.
“What? What happened?”
“This… this is…”
“What is it?”
My hyung leaned forward from the back seat.
Then—
“Gasp…?”
His eyes widened as he looked at our father.
“Haha…”
My father simply laughed awkwardly and kept driving.
Inside the glove compartment I opened—
“….”
There was a limited edition Blackhole Mix Tape.
The very album I didn’t even have.
There was no parent who couldn’t recognize their child.
That was true for Seo Jeongmin as well.
Even after work, he still lay on the sofa with a can of beer, watching YouTube to check recent music trends.
Then he saw the Orbit advertisement featuring Blackhole.
“…!”
The moment he saw the DJ’s silhouette in the video, he jumped up instinctively.
Those eyes.
Those hands.
That music.
It was definitely his son, Taeyoon.
“You rascal…”
He knew his son was making music.
But appearing in such a huge commercial was another matter.
The kid could at least brag about it.
But instead of feeling hurt, he felt proud.
Surely Taeyoon would tell him eventually.
Who was he to interfere?
That’s what he thought—
but soon his search history looked like this:
Blackhole
Blackhole commercial
Blackhole Orbit
Even though the DJ wore a mask,
he loved simply watching his son making music from afar.
Then he heard about the mixtape release.
“Store purchase only? And it’s already sold out?”
Not online.
Offline only.
And apparently people had to line up early in the morning.
“What? You have to go that far to buy an album these days? Forget it. I won’t buy it.”
That’s what he said.
But honestly—
when the second release happened,
he even took a day off work and lined up at Almond Young in Ulsan.
“Ah… I have to buy it today.”
“Can’t you just listen on Maron?”
“No! It has to be CD to be real. What do you know about DJs?”
Standing in line among people trying to buy Blackhole’s album,
the occasional conversations about Blackhole sounded sweeter than any song.
“Blackhole is insane. The tracks on the CD are even better than the commercial song.”
“That CD player looked amazing.”
“Weren’t you into idols? Why the sudden Hongdae vibe?”
“No, seriously—once you hear it, you’ll understand…”
“I wonder when he’ll reveal his face.”
“Who cares about his face? I hope he never shows it.”
“Afraid you’ll be disappointed?”
“Hey! That’s not it!”
Under the brim of his cap,
Seo Jeongmin couldn’t hide his smiling lips.
Step by step, the line moved forward.
Every compliment about Blackhole he heard from behind—
all of them were about his son.
His shoulders rose with pride.
He had to resist the urge to shout,
“Blackhole is my son!”
Meanwhile, the couple in front of him bickered.
“Isn’t it too expensive?”
“It comes with a CD player though. And the case is really pretty.”
“Let me see… Oh, that’s actually nice. Should I buy one too?”
“One per person. Think carefully.”
Even their bickering looked cute.
Soon it was his turn.
And with a pounding heart,
he finally bought the limited Blackhole album.
The only regret was the one-per-person limit.
“Ahem.”
That was how Seo Jeongmin ended up getting the Blackhole mixtape—an album people called a unicorn.
“…Dad?”
My clueless hyung asked.
“Wow. Dad, you lined up to buy this? It’s really hard to get.”
But for some reason,
Seo Jeongmin didn’t want to admit it.
It felt awkward.
“No.”
“Huh? Then…”
“…I picked it up.”
Taeyoon stared in confusion.
Dongyun burst into laughter.
It was total chaos.
“No really. It was lying on the street. I couldn’t just leave it there.”
Seo Jeongmin’s face—and even his ears—turned red.
“You picked it up and it’s in perfect condition? There’s even a receipt.”
At Dongyun’s teasing, Seo Jeongmin coughed awkwardly.
“You Seoul kids wouldn’t understand. In Ulsan, stuff like this is everywhere.”
“Then give it to me.”
When Dongyun tried slipping the album into his bag, Seo Jeongmin immediately stopped him.
“No. I can’t pick up another one.”
Even if it was his son, that was unacceptable.
Thanks to the Blackhole album he had “accidentally picked up,”
the atmosphere between father and sons softened a little.
After a delicious dinner,
just as the sun was setting,
my father suddenly asked:
“Taeyoon. Dongyun. Want to go to the beach?”
“Huh? The beach?”
“Why the beach all of a sudden?”
It was strange.
What were we supposed to do at the beach this late?
“Whaaaat?”
Only after arriving did I realize.
This wasn’t just a beach.
Large banners hung everywhere.
[ Ulsan Beach EDM Festival! ]
An EDM festival with my father and my hyung.
This might actually be pretty fun.