Chapter 1: If the First Life was about Love, the Second will be about Revenge

Divorce, which had been ignored for so long, became easier than eating cold porridge.

It was an expected outcome, as the only reason the divorce between Jaewoo and Sayoung hadn’t happened until now was solely due to Yoon Sayoung’s lonely struggle.

Jaewoo proceeded with everything at a surprising speed.
Anything requiring coordination was entirely adjusted to Sayoung’s convenience and schedule.
The way he rushed, as if afraid Sayoung might change her mind, was all too blatant.

The boundless consideration, something she had never once received during their nearly seven years of marriage, was almost laughable.

Sayoung tried to imagine the divorce proceedings that would have occurred had she not died.

Han Jaewoo would have rushed things just as he was doing now, but she, in the midst of it all, would have been struggling desperately to win back his heart.

Sayoung tried not to dwell on the lingering feelings that had been forcibly severed, pointlessly weighing the days that would have followed her death against the present she would not have had.

Fortunately, she didn’t have to try very hard.

That memory—of how even as she bled on the cold floor, her consciousness fading in agony, the only thing that came to mind was Han Jaewoo’s face looking down at her with contempt.

That miserable memory—of how among the countless days flashing by like a panorama, not a single grain of genuine affection from Han Jaewoo had ever existed—became Yoon Sayoung’s shield.

She hadn’t been able to see it herself because she had died, but Sayoung was certain he wouldn’t have shed a single tear even at her funeral.

Of course, he was an excellent actor, so he would have put on a heart-wrenching performance of tears for all to see.
He would have gained much sympathy with it.
But within those tears, there would not have been the slightest bit of sincerity.

Her funeral, which must have been excessively grand, was clearly not for Yoon Sayoung, but merely a tool for Han Jaewoo to save face.

The relationship of husband and wife with Sayoung meant only that much to Han Jaewoo.

Sayoung walked through a park, clutching the perfectly finalized divorce papers in her hand.
Despite it being winter, the sunlight was warm.

The warmth of the sun on her whole body, the winter wind brushing past her cheeks, none of it felt real.

Compared to the current situation—where she, who had surely thought herself dead, had woken up not only perfectly fine without a single injury but also having traveled back two years in time—this measly divorce might be nothing.

But to Sayoung, the divorce papers in her hand felt more surreal than the fact that she had come back to life by turning back time.

Regression was something she had encountered like an accident, regardless of her will, but the divorce was something that had happened by her will.

Anyone who knew with what kind of heart Sayoung had loved Han Jaewoo would not easily accept the fact that she had been the one to propose the divorce.
The same was true for Yoon Sayoung herself.

“……”

Sayoung found an empty bench in a corner of the park and sat down.
The laughter of children playing in the distance sounded faint, as if coming from another dimension.

After opening her eyes again, she had met many people besides Jaewoo and had even resolved all the legal issues, yet Sayoung suspected that she might actually be a ghost, wandering this world.

To be brutally honest, it wasn’t that she hadn’t considered trying to win Han Jaewoo’s love in this second life.
An old love was like a potent drug, making it difficult to escape the swamp of addiction on one’s own.

Though in the eyes of others it may have been nothing more than lingering attachment and obsession, Sayoung had always been sincere.
It was a heart she couldn’t give up until the moment of her death, despite being ignored and disregarded in every way for so long.

Even at the moment she was told about the divorce by Jaewoo, what saddened and pained Sayoung most of all was the fact that she was being abandoned by him.

So, it wasn’t as if Sayoung hadn’t thought, ‘What if this time, with a different approach, based on the information I learned in my past life, I try to win his heart once more? Maybe this time I can finally receive the love from Han Jaewoo that I so desperately wanted.’

‘I’m sorry, but I have never loved you, not for a single moment.’

‘You have no use to me anymore… why should I continue to live with you?’

‘For your sake too, let’s just quit this act.’

‘When I look at you, Yoon Sayoung! I feel so suffocated I can’t breathe!!’

But whenever she closed her eyes, those voices kept coming back to her.
The fact that Han Jaewoo’s voice was the only thing she could recall in her dying moments was simply unforgettable.
It was horrifically painful.
It felt as if thousands of needles were coursing through her veins.

She would have been less miserable if he had simply cheated on her.

The decisive reason he had resolved to divorce her stemmed from the fact that he had developed a one-sided love for someone else.
That fact made Sayoung all the more despairing.

Worse yet, the other person was an Alpha and someone who didn’t even properly reciprocate Han Jaewoo’s advances.
It was merely Jaewoo, on his own, burning with affection and pestering him.

Although romance between two Alphas wasn’t as taboo these days as it once was, Alphas attracted to the same gender were still a minority.
And yet, for him, to stand proudly before him and show his heart, Han Jaewoo had abandoned Yoon Sayoung.

The person who had become a shadow solely for Han Jaewoo’s sake for all that time.

And how persistent and vicious that process had been.

Long before informing Sayoung of the divorce, Han Jaewoo had made many preparations.

While Sayoung, as an actress who had retired after marriage, was slowly being forgotten from people’s minds, he firmly established himself as a capable, affectionate, caring actor who loved his spouse beyond measure.

Behind the scenes, he mobilized all his connections and funds to spread rumors.
It didn’t take long for the star Yoon Sayoung, who had turned Han Jaewoo into a Cinderella, to become the worst possible spouse—one who was unfaithful to her family life, promiscuous, and subjected her husband to sordid envy and jealousy.

Even if it were revealed that Han Jaewoo had taken another to heart, people would have easily pitied him, thinking, ‘Things must have been so bad for the ever-devoted Han Jaewoo to be drawn to an Alpha, leaving his Omega spouse.’

‘If I hadn’t died in that accident at that moment, could I have handled it all?’
Could I have endured it?

‘Could I have possibly borne the talk of everyone claiming the marriage breakdown was my fault, on top of being abandoned by Jaewoo?’

As her thoughts reached that point, Sayoung unknowingly tensed her entire body.
The papers she was holding in her hand crinkled with a rustle.

Only then did Sayoung pull back from her deep thoughts and lower her head to look down at the piece of paper she had never wanted to receive in her past life.

This is the reason why she couldn’t live a new life as if nothing had happened.
The reason why she couldn’t struggle to win Han Jaewoo’s heart once more.

Time had turned back, and no one in this world would remember Sayoung’s death, but Yoon Sayoung herself remembered every detail of the hell she had experienced.

‘I couldn’t just forget.’
‘I didn’t want to forget.’
‘One life of just enduring, holding back, and bearing everything was enough.’

She planned to make Han Jaewoo experience the same pain she had suffered.

‘What it’s like to be ignored, disregarded, and insulted by the person you love?’
‘How heart-wrenchingly painful it is to watch the person you love look at someone else?’

In this life, she planned to make sure he, who would know nothing, understood it all perfectly.

Sayoung didn’t know the intentions of the being that had turned back time for her, but she had decided to determine the fate of her new life this way.

If the first life was about love, the second life will be about revenge.

****

“Jeongmin, pull the car over for a second.”

Yoojun, who had been sitting in the back seat looking over his script and yawning repeatedly, said upon spotting a cafe out the window.
The manager, Jeongmin, who had been driving quietly so as not to disturb him, glanced at Yoojun in the rearview mirror and asked.

“Here? Why?”

“I want to grab a coffee. I just can’t seem to wake up today.”

At Yoojun’s answer, Jeongmin looked at his actor for a moment with a sympathetic expression.

The movie filming was nearing its end.
It was natural for physical limits to be reached.
On top of that, there were many action scenes and an unusually frequent schedule of night and dawn shoots, so it must be even more draining.

Pulling the car over to the side of the road, Jeongmin unbuckled his seatbelt and said.

“I’ll go get it quickly. Just wait here a moment.”

“Wait a minute.”

Yoojun stopped him, put down his script, and put on a mask that covered more than half his face.
By the time Jeongmin made a quizzical face, Yoojun was already opening the car door.

“I’ll go, to wake myself up.”

“Uh… Are you sure you’ll be okay?”

“It’s early, so there aren’t many people anyway… and it’s right there, so it should be fine. You want one too, right?”

Jeongmin, with an awkward expression, re-buckled the seatbelt he had undone and nodded.
Yoojun glanced around the quiet surroundings, then quickly got out of the car and walked towards the cafe.

“A top actor buying me coffee first thing in the morning. Park Jeongmin, you’ve really made it.”

Muttering something he knew Yoojun would scold him for as nonsense if he heard, Jeongmin gave a short stretch.

No matter how you looked at him, Kim Yoojun had a personality that could never be described as affable, but he was a generous person in many ways to those within his circle.

Especially Jeongmin, who could be called his closest aide, was taken care of with nothing lacking, both materially and mentally.
Compared to others in the same profession, he was lucky enough to be told he must have saved the country in his past life.

It was no joke; countless people were already aiming for Kim Yoojun’s manager position, having heard rumors from who knows where.

‘I need to keep my head on straight and stick with him for a long, long time.’
Jeongmin made that vow in his heart and hummed a tune.
Feeling good from the morning on, it seemed like it would be a good day.