All My Firsts Are You (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 1

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There I was, standing in front of that house.

In my memory, it was a little faded, hazy, a wooden house with a sharp triangular roof whose colors had washed out over time.

Yet now, that very house stood solidly before me, close enough that if I reached out while running, I could almost grab it.

The house that had quietly guarded this spot even during the nine years I wasn’t by Jun’s side.

…Or maybe, what this house had really been protecting wasn’t just the dry earth, but the exact place where I had left Jun.

I hurriedly dragged my gaze downward.

If I kept staring at the house any longer, all the feelings for Jun that I should have already emptied out might spill across my face.

I opened the small wooden gate that barely reached my waist and stepped into the yard.

After just a few steps, the thick scent of green grass in the air soaked deep into my chest.

With a trembling heart, I forced myself to breathe in and stood in front of Jun’s door.

I neatly brought my toes together.

I didn’t have the courage to ring the bell right away without any mental preparation.

Was Jun really beyond this door?

That single small thought was enough to make the space inside my chest shrink rapidly, bringing a stinging pain that forced me to exhale sharply.

In the end, I kept pulling my index finger—already hovering near the bell—back toward my chest over and over.

The moment I took a deep breath, thinking I couldn’t keep wasting time like this, and reached out again—

Suddenly, the door in front of me flew open.

Without giving me time to gather myself, the man visible through the open door spoke.

“Were you chanting some spell to open the door or something? What are you doing standing there?”

I knew at a glance. It was Jun.

That blunt voice.

Those puppy eyes that still held me warmly even as he frowned in clear displeasure.

Even his brown hair that shone with gloss under the clear sunlight that seemed to overflow only around this house.

The image of the twenty-year-old boy from my memories overlapped perfectly with the man standing in front of me.

“I saw you open the gate and come in a while ago…”

I forced myself to hold his gaze.

Jun tilted his head crookedly and looked down at me.

“What, it’s been so long you don’t recognize me? You erased me from your memory ages ago, so now you can’t remember properly?”

I still couldn’t believe Jun was standing right in front of me.

It felt too unreal.

I had been staring at his eyes, his nose, his mouth as if caressing them, and all I got in return were those harsh words.

Jun looked at me—lips slightly parted, unable to say a single word—and spoke.

“Then take a good look. It’s the Kim Jun you knew, that’s right.”

My gaze, which had dropped for a moment before lifting again, wavered.

I felt heat spreading everywhere his eyes touched.

In the end, I turned my eyes to the area around the door and offered a greeting as awkward as the air enveloping us.

“Have you… been well?”

“Yeah. Dated a lot of women. Come in.”

Even though he told me to come in, I hesitated and couldn’t move right away, so Jun let out a soft sigh and nodded toward the door again.

Finally, my hesitant feet stepped through the door he was holding open.

A few steps in, there was a click—the sound of the door closing behind me.

Without looking back, I walked a little farther into the living room.

The familiar scent of tatami, sun-warmed wood, and faint green tea filled the space.

The exact fragrance that used to rise whenever I recalled the clear memories of the days nine years ago that Jun and I had spent together.

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“Please do something about this. I feel like I’m going to die every time the car turns.”

I had forgotten.

A seaside village in a small provincial town in southern Kyushu, Japan.

The place where twenty-year-old me fell in love for the first time—and experienced my first breakup—with twenty-year-old Jun.

The road here was anything but easy.

Trending

It wound endlessly in S-shapes along steep mountain roads, enough to make anyone want to ask the person who built it if this was really the best they could do.

I truly never imagined I’d come back here.

The jolting inside the car, this mountain road that showed no sign of straightening out—everything was making my already dizzy heart even dizzier.

The seaside village scenery filled with memories of Jun came into view.

Even the distant shimmering ocean felt like it was making my carefully hidden feelings for Jun ripple along with it.

All because my story had been selected. No—the problem started when Jung Eun secretly submitted my story…

It had already been six years since I started working as a broadcast writer covering hidden gems around the world and the people who live there.

For this spring’s program reshuffle, the new project we planned was .

A project where we receive viewers’ stories, visit the places tied to their first-love memories, and have actors reenact those stories.

But the very first story chosen for this grand debut project ended up being mine.

Even after a completely blind selection process with no consideration for school or regional ties.

“This is no joke—I’m seriously about to throw up. When does this road ever end?”

It wasn’t like Jung Eun reviewed the stories alone, so there was no one to blame.

All I could do for my friend and fellow writer Jung Eun—who was glaring at me resentfully while claiming she was on the verge of vomiting—was keep repeating the lie that we were almost there.

“Ha Ru, I’m dying over here too. The driver’s seat is on the opposite side from Korea, there’s a cliff right next to us, and my shoulders are so tense my back hurts now.”

We’d been driving more than thirty minutes on a road more twisted than a pretzel, so it was only natural I felt guilty hearing our team’s youngest member Hyun Su groan.

It wasn’t like I built the road, but it was true that we were driving it because of me.

Hyun Su was shaking his sides as if his back really hurt, yet both hands still gripped the wheel firmly.

Come to think of it, we had to reserve a rental car before leaving for this trip.

I remembered Hyun Su’s face a few weeks ago—winking playfully and saying he’d drive so we didn’t have to worry, even though both Jung Eun and I were still unlicensed at twenty-nine—overlapping with his current expression.

A wave of pity washed over me. Hang in there, our Hyun Su.

“Lee Ha Ru, why on earth did you have to make your first love in a mountain village that requires driving hours on these winding roads?”

“…It’s not a mountain village, it’s a seaside village. And back then, of course I had no idea I’d end up having my first love here.”

“You said after your first year of college you never saw that first-love guy again, so you couldn’t bring yourself to come back here, right?”

“That’s not it.”

I was too lazy to explain everything, so I just corrected the wrong part.

“Well, you said he was the son of the host family when you did a one-month homestay in Japan. The road is bad enough, but honestly, showing up this late would be awkward anyway, right? You might just end up having an uncomfortable meal and leaving. I vote you did the right thing by never coming back.”

Jung Eun pushed her seat back even further as if to say a love that was already over didn’t matter, then closed her tired, carsick eyes.

“I told you that’s not it.”

My tone was a little sharp, but I pressed my temple as if the reason was the worsening carsickness, not Jung Eun’s careless words.

There was no way I’d be fine driving more than thirty minutes on intestines-like winding roads either.

The dizziness that had started earlier was making my head feel heavier and heavier.

In the end, I couldn’t hold out anymore and leaned slightly against the window, arms wedged between.

Far in the distance, the sea—looking like someone had layered pale blue paint three times—was starting to reveal itself, gently rolling.

“But seriously, why didn’t you contact him even once after that? It’s hard to visit in person, but you could’ve at least messaged.”

Hyun Su tilted his head left and right from the back as if he genuinely didn’t understand.

What was the point of digging up the reason for something that was already over?

Even though that’s what I thought, as the familiar seaside hot-spring village grew closer, memories and emotions from that time resurfaced on their own without any effort.

Including the stupid mistake I made that day.

“When I was returning to Korea, I left the Japanese phone I’d been using in the airport bathroom.”

“Why didn’t you at least call the house phone? You would’ve called the landline from Korea.”

Jung Eun—who was screaming with her whole body that it wasn’t her love and was already over anyway—kept her eyes closed and asked if I had even tried something I obviously would have.

“Of course I tried. And since he never picked up, that’s probably why he stayed my first love.”

To begin with, his parents—who worked as a professor and staff at a small local university in Kyushu—had a home in Nagasaki city where their jobs were.

His older sister, who had been staying with us in that homestay house during her final year of college, must have gotten busy with her new job after I returned to Korea.

It wasn’t particularly strange that Jun never answered the three calls I barely managed to make after repeatedly typing and deleting the number out of nervousness.

Since he never once contacted the email address I had given him, he probably thought I had decided it would be too hard to continue the relationship after returning to Korea and had abandoned him.

In the end, the thread connecting Jun—who was about to quit his Japanese university and enter a film department in America—and me came undone far more easily than I had ever imagined.

“If only he had picked up back then. Then we wouldn’t be suffering like this now. Why did he have to remain such a wistful first love?”

“Sorry for being a wistful first love.”

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At Jung Eun’s grumbling, Hyun Su added that this was what people called the butterfly effect.

The closer the seaside village in the distance got, the clearer the image became—of twenty-year-old me who had welcomed first love with a sensitivity sharper and clearer than that seawater, and of twenty-year-old Jun who had been the same.

Exactly nine years ago today, on a clear day in June when late spring was turning into early summer, the two of us shyly growing our love.

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Ugh, when is this road ever going to end?

For some reason the mountain road was in a terrible mood, twisting angrily without ever straightening out.

Whether I sat still or looked out the window, it was the same. The throbbing headache starting from my forehead only grew worse.

Ziiiiing—

I cracked the window open about five centimeters. More to breathe the air than to feel the wind.

The breeze that slipped through the narrow gap poured over my forehead.

I tilted my head back slightly and took a deep breath.

With just one inhale, the green scent filling my mouth made my heavy eyelids snap open.

Was this the smell of bamboo?

Ever since earlier, tall bamboo trees that didn’t even fully fit inside the square frame of the window had been lining the road, rustling loudly.

It sounded like bamboo leaves colliding in the wind.

Wanting to taste the mysterious bamboo scent, I stuck my tongue out a little toward the breeze.

Of course I couldn’t taste it.

The green fragrance pouring into my nose only dug deeper into my mouth.

“We’ll arrive soon.”

The taxi driver wearing a black uniform and angular hat spoke up.

His voice came out a little hoarse.

Probably because he hadn’t said a word the whole way here since I don’t speak Japanese.

We had exchanged a few words while loading luggage into the trunk before departure, but in the end we couldn’t understand each other and just got in the car with bitter smiles.

Fortunately, Japanese had been my second foreign language in high school, so I could guess that what he just said roughly meant we were almost at the destination.

We really were almost there.

They said it was a small hot-spring village by the sea, and sure enough, a view unfolded of the blue ocean and adorably modest houses clustered together like Lego blocks, none of them very tall.

The sea was blocked by a low white wall for safety, but it couldn’t hide the refreshing openness beyond.

As the seaside scenery flashed by like a storm and we entered a forest path, a two-story wooden detached house came into view.

“Here.”

Thanks to my obviously poor Japanese already being exposed, the driver uttered just a basic word instead of a full sentence.

He even bent his index finger and shook it toward the ground while saying it.

I simply answered with a bright smile to show I understood.

Even though I was only staying for one month, I had greedily brought all sorts of things, so the trunk the driver set down was too heavy to drag with one hand.

I stretched both arms behind me, grabbed the handle with both hands, and rolled forward looking only ahead.

The stiff wheels rolling forward transmitted their sensation to my fingertips.

The host lady had contacted me in advance saying no one would be home when I arrived, and that she would leave the key under the third brown flowerpot from the left among the ones lined up along the front fence.

She also told me to go in first, unpack, and rest comfortably—words that were anything but comfortable.

When I unlocked the door and entered, darkness lingered in the entrance even though it was still daytime.

I went down the path to the right where sunlight leaked in, and ahead were four large sliding doors.

Beyond them was a living room with the light-green tatami I had only seen in dramas.

Forgetting completely that it was someone else’s house, I flung open the sliding doors that had been left slightly ajar to let sunlight in.

The sunlight that had been blocked in front of the doors rushed into the living room as if it had been waiting.

If I hadn’t opened the doors it would have been a disaster. Ah, it’s warm. The sunlight is so nice.

I sat quietly gazing at the window. As soon as the sunlight touched my face, drowsiness swept over me.

The heavy trunk still hadn’t left the entrance, but between the relief of being alone and the travel fatigue, all I wanted was to lie down right there.

Just then, a beige sofa next to the small table caught my eye.

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I had only meant to rest my body for a moment, but I must have fallen asleep.

At the rustling sound of someone nearby, I barely lifted my heavy eyelids.

As I raised my head—still crushed by lingering fatigue—and focused my narrow eyes, an unfamiliar boy came into view.

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A man looking down at me with eyes that clearly said I was pathetic.

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