Chapter 0: Prologue

“Let’s get a divorce.”

Sayoung looked at his husband’s face indifferently. Sayoung had never once imagined that the day would come when he would be the one to say these words to him first.

That is, until before he died.

Han Jaewoo, the husband Sayoung had devoted his entire life to loving, wore a rare expression of bewilderment upon being notified of the divorce. Just as Sayoung himself had never imagined it, Jaewoo likely never guessed that Sayoung would be the one to mention divorce first.

“What are you saying right now….”

Jaewoo spoke with an expression that suggested he doubted his own ears, wondering what on earth he had just heard.

Sayoung could tell what emotion lay at the base of the fluster Jaewoo was feeling. He wasn’t shocked by the ‘divorce’ itself. After all, Jaewoo had been dreaming of divorcing Sayoung for a long time already.

However, it must be shocking that the word came out of Yoon Sayoung’s mouth before his own.

Because it was surprising that Yoon Sayoung, who loved him enough to give up his life for Han Jaewoo and who had thrown away his pride to cling to him pathetically, was the one suggesting divorce first. Because his pride was hurt. Because that made him angry.

That was why Han Jaewoo was currently revealing his emotions so nakedly in front of Sayoung.

That fact felt sorrowful rather than amusing. Sayoung let out a short sigh instead of tears and continued speaking.

“I said, let’s get a divorce. It’s what you wanted anyway, isn’t it?”

“…….”

“Did you think… did you really think I was just okay with everything?”

Past memories, which he had only swallowed down alone, spread like blood between the syllables of his questioning sentence.

Even while suffering through Jaewoo’s blatant contempt and heartlessness. Even while spending his daily life treated with such rudeness that one could not possibly think it was the attitude towards a spouse, Sayoung had acted as if there was still love between Jaewoo and himself. He had ignored all the deception the man showed him, as if he couldn’t see it.

If he showed even a hint of it. If he showed himself collapsing, hurt by the fact that Han Jaewoo had never loved Yoon Sayoung from the beginning.

Then he was terrified that the man would really leave him. He was afraid Jaewoo would say that he didn’t want to see him in pain, so they should just end it right there.

It felt like enduring the pain of being abandoned by him would be harder than the pain coming from the fact that Jaewoo had approached him to use him from the start.

So Sayoung had pretended to be calm and endured Han Jaewoo insulting, betraying, and treating him carelessly.

Right up until the very day Sayoung died.

“…Sure. Well, I was actually worrying about when and how to bring it up anyway, so thank you for saying it first.”

Han Jaewoo quickly regained his stability. That usual composure returned to his face, and a smile hovered over his lips as he coolly said thank you.

He was only flustered because he hadn’t expected Sayoung to say such a thing first; from Jaewoo’s perspective, there was nothing bad about it. Although it felt slightly premature, Jaewoo had been making many preparations for a long time to divorce Sayoung anyway.

He was no longer the unknown actor Han Jaewoo who received attention by leaning on Yoon Sayoung’s popularity. The tides had already turned in Han Jaewoo’s favor.

Sayoung sat in his seat and blankly stared at the smile of the lover, the husband, whom he had loved so much.

Perhaps there had been a tiny bit of expectation remaining. Even after being abandoned so cruelly, and even after experiencing death while embracing that pain, it was clear that there was still lingering attachment in Sayoung’s heart that he hadn’t managed to completely discard.

Because he had returned to the past. Although he couldn’t know the reason how on earth such a thing happened, time had been turned back to before everything spiraled into the worst-case scenario.

If I change starting now, if I treat him in a different way than before. Then, perhaps in this returned second life, I could win his heart. Maybe I could find a way not to be abandoned.

However, even though Sayoung demanded a divorce, he couldn’t feel a single grain of lingering affection or regret from Jaewoo. Facing him, who rather wore a welcoming and relieved face, Sayoung was convinced that his choice to demand a divorce was not wrong.

Barely unclamping the fists he had clenched tight enough for fingernail marks to dig into his palms, Sayoung rose from his seat first. He felt like he was going to cry, but he held it back. Even though his two legs were trembling, he endured.

The current Han Jaewoo wouldn’t remember, but inside Sayoung’s head, all the memories of how miserably and pathetically he had clung to him before dying remained vivid. He did not want to show such an unsightly appearance in front of him ever again.

“Since our opinions match, this should be easy. Let’s discuss the details through our lawyers.”

“…….”

“I will get going first.”

‘I’m seriously sick and tired of you now, Yoon Sayoung.’

‘Can’t you please just disappear from my life? Haven’t we done enough?’

As Sayoung walked across the cafe, the last words he had heard from Jaewoo before he died cast over him like a shadow.

Had I thought I wanted to die? Because it hurt so much. Because it was agonizing. Because I was miserable and afraid. So did I think that it would be better to just die? Of course, now that things have come to this, it is a futile memory.

When he opened the cafe door and stepped out, the midday sunlight poured down brilliantly. Sayoung stopped in place for a moment. It was hard to distinguish between the sensation of being blinded by the light and pain.

Turning his head, he saw Jaewoo still sitting in his seat beyond the cafe’s glass wall. He was laughing while talking to someone on the phone. It was a gleeful face, as if he had won an unexpected lottery.

He couldn’t tell if that was actually the case, or if it just looked that way because of his own sense of inferiority. Whatever the reality was, it was no longer any of his concern. Sayoung looked ahead again and moved his stopped feet.

He probably thinks that all the tedious matters are finally over. That since Sayoung, who had clung like a leech and wouldn’t fall off no matter how hard he tried to shake him, had fallen away on his own, all his suffering was now finished.

Sayoung, too, could have accepted the end just like this. It was a second life obtained like a miracle and a new opportunity.

Sayoung had gained the chance to finally shake off the feelings for Han Jaewoo that had eaten away at his entire life, be born again as a new person, and live for happiness.

However, the problem was that Sayoung had absolutely no intention of letting him go just like this.

The reason Sayoung had silently endured all that pain was that he believed a day would come when he would be rewarded for it.

He had trusted Han Jaewoo. Even if the love he whispered wasn’t entirely sincere, he assumed that since they had gone as far as marriage, the man would have at least a little bit of care for him.

So if he did better. If he tried harder to please him, he believed that someday Jaewoo would look at him properly. He had endured while believing that.

While comforting himself by saying that the one who loves more is the loser.

But what was the end result? What was it that returned to him? Even if there was no love from the beginning, if he was a human being, shouldn’t there be a limit to what one does to another person?

If Han Jaewoo had possessed even the minimum amount of respect for Yoon Sayoung as a human being. How. How could he have gone that far?

Sayoung clenched his two fists tight again.

He could start a new life just like this. He could have pushed Han Jaewoo away so he no longer held any meaning in his life, considering that living happily and successfully would be the true revenge, and chosen to tend to his once-ruined life to find happiness.

However, Sayoung decided not to choose that direction. He wanted to return the pain of his heart, which had never been rewarded in the end, back to its owner.

People cannot perfectly understand the pain of others that they have not experienced themselves. Therefore, Sayoung resolved to use the second opportunity he had obtained to deliver pain to Han Jaewoo.

Whether this was a hallucination, a parallel universe, or he had truly turned back time—whatever it was. He would make the Han Jaewoo of this world thoroughly understand what pain Yoon Sayoung had suffered.

That was the choice of the regressor, Yoon Sayoung.