Prologue

On the sidewalk of a crowded city, under stormy rain and towering skyscrapers, a little girl in a torn dress ran with all her might. The bottom of her dress had been ripped to help her move more easily. Behind her, a man in a suit and glasses chased after her.

“Where are you going, Lyn? Come back here this instant!” the man shouted.

“Please don’t follow me, Father. I have something urgent to do!” the girl yelled back.

‘I’m going to find Big Brother,’ she added silently in her mind.

Suddenly, her father slipped on a plastic bag near a dumpster and fell hard to the ground.

Lyn glanced back, saw what happened—but kept running.

‘I’m sorry, Father… but right now, I’m upset at you. I know I don’t have the right to be, since I also treated Big Brother badly. But you’re worse. He’s been missing for months and you’ve done nothing. You haven’t even shown a shred of concern. Even I—who hated him back then—still asked about him… still worried.’

Tears streamed down Lyn’s cheeks.

‘I miss you, Big Brother… Why did you have to die for me in the future? I always yelled at you, treated you like garbage…’

Sob… sob…

‘But not this time. This time, I won’t let you die!’

The little girl had just regressed from the future.

The moment her memories returned, she run out of the house without hesitation. What flooded back into her mind was the memory of her big brother—how he died protecting her when her life was in danger.

It made his feeling muddled in chaos. Guilt, sadness, anger at herself, powerlessness, longing, urgentness, and desperation, all of it tangled into one overwhelming storm of emotion as she ran, soaking wet, through the streets.

Sometimes she hired a taxi. But as the taxi had to stop somewhere, she still needed to run in the rain. She didn’t even bother to buy an umbrella—how could she, with this storm raging in her chest?

The restlessness only grew stronger with each place she searched.

The only clue she had from the future was that her brother had been living under a bridge.

A few minutes later, she found it—a cardboard house tucked beneath a bridge.

Soaked through, with the rain still pouring heavily, she slid down the grassy slope.
Once she reached the road that ran beneath the bridge, she sprinted straight toward the cardboard home. The sound of her footsteps echoed louder than the raging stream of the river rushing beside the road.

Slowing down as she reached the house, she gently pulled aside the curtain that served as a door.

Inside, a man with thick facial hair was lying on his back, asleep on a bed that stood about knee-high.

The little girl smiled softly. She stepped inside and knelt down beside him. Leaning closer, tears welled up and began to roll down her cheeks.

"Brother… thank you," she whispered, planting a kiss on his cheek.

She stood up and stepped back outside.

“Now… there’s one more thing left to do. Where did Big Brother put his stuff?”

She looked around and started rummaging through the scattered items around the house. A few moments later, she found what she’d been searching for—beside the house, buried under a pile of cardboard.

It was a small, handmade surfboard.

She carefully tidied up the area after pulling it out. Then she carried the board toward one of the bridge’s wing walls and placed it there.

“All right… with this, the future will greatly change.”

She smiled, eyes gleaming, full of satisfaction.

“Do your best, Big Brother. Don’t give up, my hero. And have fun!”