#092
“Will you continue to interfere?”
The system window, having lost one arm, asked Gyo-ha again. Jung Hwi-kyung has no future anyway. Without Ji-ae’s wish and the system window’s intervention, he would have died long ago.
It’s a luxury to expect more after bringing back the dead. His life, like that of many others, could only be maintained through suffering.
No matter how hard he tried, it wouldn’t be easy to earn even as much as Gyo-ha’s one-semester graduate school tuition, and the only adult Hwi-kyung could rely on could die at any time without it being strange.
But isn’t this something? Jung Hwi-kyung shouldn’t carelessly say he’s having a hard time. The moment he opens his mouth, attacks like “Honestly, it’s not even that bad?” would come flying from all directions.
Everyone struggles for a stable life. Hwi-kyung is just one of the many people sacrificing their present for the future. However, Jung Hwi-kyung was given extra chances.
How could this be a curse? Some people desperately wish for another chance but only live once, while Hwi-kyung was given fifteen lives. So he had no right to think he was unhappy. He was given something others desperately want but can’t have, so why is he tired? He should live even harder.
The system window claimed to Gyo-ha that only it could truly be there for Hwi-kyung. Without the repeated lives, how could Jung Hwi-kyung have dared to enter BK International? With his unremarkable background and incomplete qualifications, he would have ended up bouncing around mediocre small companies.
It was solely due to the system window’s arrangement that Hwi-kyung could find more opportunities and better companies. Jung Hwi-kyung’s wish was fulfilled. Therefore, the system window deserved to receive compensation.
And after confirming all this, Lee Gyo-ha…
“This is why novels with regression and system windows fail…”
With these words, he reached out again towards that strange thing that had taken Hwi-kyung’s form. Despite the considerable distance, Gyo-ha didn’t stagger or fall. Then he firmly grasped it. The flames that had been climbing up the red thread on his pinky engulfed Gyo-ha’s right hand.
The system window, caught by Gyo-ha, thrashed like a trapped beast. Incomprehensible screams burst from it.
Unfortunately, because the system window had taken Hwi-kyung’s form, Gyo-ha closed his eyes while watching it struggle to break free. Seeing Hwi-kyung cry felt more painful than his hand burning up.
“You can’t eliminate me.”
“In typical novels, this is usually when it becomes possible to eliminate you.”
“What?”
“Don’t you understand what I’m saying? Get out of Jung Hwi-kyung.”
A temperament so fierce it could dry up people like the sun. Gyo-ha, who had strongly inherited his maternal family’s traits, could accomplish what the shaman couldn’t.
Even for those stuck at the edge of hell, the sun will eventually rise and shine on at least the hem of their clothes. Lee Gyo-ha intended to pull Jung Hwi-kyung out of his hell.
No matter what he had to eliminate or lose… Even if it was impossible to completely eradicate this godlike being as the system window claimed. One can never know everything until they try it themselves.
“Usually, people can get along just fine without something like you.”
Not everyone given extra chances could achieve what Jung Hwi-kyung did. At least, that’s what Lee Gyo-ha thought. What Hwi-kyung accomplished wasn’t thanks to the system window. Even if it was just inertia, maintaining daily life and enduring the maddening regression situations was because Jung Hwi-kyung was Jung Hwi-kyung.
With a little support and affection, even those who have fallen can get back up anytime. Gyo-ha knew that what Hwi-kyung needed wasn’t the “opportunity” gained from restarting.
The system window, caught by Gyo-ha, stopped twisting its body and firmly grasped Gyo-ha’s right hand that was holding it with its remaining hand. Now its form had deteriorated to an almost unrecognizable state.
Far from trying to remove the hand holding him, Gyo-ha pulled it even closer. Like trying to pull out someone struggling in a pit by any means necessary.
* * *
Understanding one person’s pain is truly difficult. That’s because everyone lives with their own sorrows. When I’m dying of pain, why should I care about someone else’s pain?
Take Lee Sung-ha, for example, who grew up wanting for nothing. He’s rich enough to sip wine in an apartment overlooking the Han River and lament, “Why is my life like this?” despite his material abundance. Most people would envy him for being born as the second child in a chaebol family.
However, Lee Sung-ha has his own pain. After all, he can never surpass his sister even if he dies and comes back to life, and his father only dotes on his younger brother. His grandmother, who is clearly involved in a cult, frequently curses him as the one who will ruin the family.
Surprisingly, Sung-ha was sometimes unhappy. Despite having money rotting away from abundance. Humans, when satisfied with one thing, inevitably find something else lacking and indulge in unhappiness.
The same goes for Lee Jung-hye, who seems like she wouldn’t bleed even if stabbed. She was constantly threatened in her succession rights solely because she was a woman. For Jung-hye, marriage was merely a means to solidify her position within the company.
Everyone around Jung-hye respected her but found her difficult. Because she always had to achieve beyond expectations to be recognized, Jung-hye wasn’t happy despite what she had. About 300 out of 365 days were a continuous string of fatigue and irritation.
Given that even those born into chaebol families live like this, how many truly happy people could there be in the world? Even newborns just learning to crawl surely face challenges like “Why is it so hard to roll over?”
It was the same for Lee Gyo-ha in understanding Jung Hwi-kyung. Why is he so obsessed with regular work attendance, and why does he think he must work? Is it right to consider it natural to be at a disadvantage?
Even after directly rummaging through Hwi-kyung’s mind, it was impossible to understand him completely. Isn’t there a nice saying that each person is a world unto themselves? Gyo-ha didn’t know where that saying came from, but he thought it was correct.
If humans could fully understand one world, humanity wouldn’t live like this.
“Damn it…”
When he opened his eyes, Gyo-ha was back on the morning of the first day of his first semester in graduate school.
And on his hand that had firmly grasped the system window, there was a burn mark that hadn’t been there before.
The first thought Gyo-ha had when he came to his senses was “I’m screwed.” Anyone would think that if they returned to the morning of their first semester in graduate school sixteen times.
Why did he come back? Moreover, it wasn’t like the fifteenth iteration where his memories had vanished. Gyo-ha first emptied a bottle of lukewarm water and got up from bed. The morning news he was sick of watching was playing on TV.
If you listen to something repeatedly like this, your English will improve even if you don’t want it to. Cursing the damn regression, Gyo-ha searched for the phone he had tossed onto his desk. It was still 6 AM. Due to the time difference, it would already be 5 PM in Korea.
His right hand holding the phone ached. Blood seeped faintly from the burn mark large enough to cover his entire palm. Having never experienced being burned or injured like this in his life, this wound was proof that Gyo-ha had indeed fought with the system window.
The problem was that he couldn’t tell whether that fight had been successful or not. There was a mark on Gyo-ha’s pinky where the thread had been tied, but that too couldn’t prove anything. So what? Why did he come back to the beginning again?
Gyo-ha entered Hwi-kyung’s number, which he could now dial with his eyes closed, into the messenger application. Jung Hwi-kyung always had the damn default profile. There was just a single period in the name field.
This way, he couldn’t even tell what Hwi-kyung’s condition was. He immediately called Hwi-kyung. It was fortunate that science and technology had advanced. If it had taken as long to make international calls as in the 20th century, Lee Gyo-ha would have collapsed from lack of patience.
With each passing second of the dial tone, his throat burned with anxiety. He was terrified that someone other than Hwi-kyung might answer the phone, like before. Jung Hwi-kyung was the only person who could instill such anxiety in Lee Gyo-ha, who could watch horror movies with a smile.
Should he forget about the call and just rush back to Korea? Gyo-ha paced around the studio like a madman while waiting for the call to connect. At this moment, he didn’t even think about the pain in his right hand.
“Hwi-kyung?”
And finally, when the call connected, Gyo-ha’s anxiety peaked. Say you’re Jung Hwi-kyung! Or I’m coming back to Korea right now? Forget graduate school, I’m coming to find you?
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
