……Maybe.
Maybe so.
Perhaps I was completely broken from the mental abuse inflicted by my stepmother, who was trying to make Ye Sara mine. Completely broken and, having become pessimistic about my future, I might have wanted to let everything go in the end.
What if Ye Sara hadn’t swallowed a handful of sleeping pills, what if she hadn’t thought she wanted to die?
Maybe I could have become the Ye Sara I saw in that streamer’s video. Giving up everything, perfectly destroying herself just to hurt the chairwoman she hated so much. In the end, she might have gone so far as to make even the chairwoman ignore her, hurting those around her and tormenting Yoo Ha-neul.
I thought that once Ye Sara became an adult, she would be able to escape from the chairwoman’s grasp. Since she had that much wealth, I thought she could do anything as long as she had the right to move that wealth.
But could that actually have happened?
Looking back, the chairwoman had already isolated Ye Sara from the world for years. I could freely live and learn various things, but could Ye Sara, who had lived detached from the world since her childhood, really view herself objectively?
In Ye Sara’s view of the world, the only one who showed her proper reaction was the chairwoman. Just her, who came to visit four times a year.
That’s why Ye Sara loved her. And at the same time, she hated her.
Ye Sara’s feelings were likely much more complicated than what was written in the will. Wanting to be together because she loved her, yet at the same time thinking she wanted to escape from that hellish place. She longed for someone to come and save her from afar, yearning for that salvation so much that she could weave it into a novel and plead for it every day.
So, maybe.
What if Ye Sara had lived and gone to school?
Just like in the game, she might have destroyed everything around her and ruined herself, making it impossible for the chairwoman to control her. Even if the end was death, Ye Sara would have gladly embraced it.
Finally, as a means of escape from the chairwoman.
And—
May Mother love me. Just as I loved my mother when I was a child.
—Yes, as proof that her own mother truly loved her.
“……”
I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling.
The notebook and letters I had unfolded were folded back and returned deep to the desk drawer where those items originally were. Unfortunately, the torn letter envelope remained as it was.
The contents written in the will were fragmented. No matter how short it was, a few sheets of paper were incredibly insufficient to cover a person’s entire life.
But that content was enough.
I understood what kind of life Ye Sara had lived until now, what thoughts and feelings she had experienced, and why she chose death in the end.
……And about the bruises on her back. The reason I felt that excruciating pain as I awakened.
At first, I thought maybe my past life’s accident had influenced Ye Sara in this world. But I quickly dismissed that thought. The idea that physical injuries from my past life carried over here seemed a bit strange. There were much more realistic assumptions to consider.
For example, maybe someone hit her.
Yeah. I thought it could happen if she had been subjected to domestic violence by the chairwoman. It was a much more plausible assumption.
However, Ye Sara had not been exposed to such direct violence. According to the will, it seemed that the chairwoman had shown Ye Sara limited love every time she visited. If the chairwoman had physically tried to subdue Ye Sara, she wouldn’t have felt ‘familial love’ towards her.
So, it wasn’t due to violence.
Then, what was the reason for those bruises on her back? What was the reason for the pain that seemed to crush her body?
The reason blood can flow through a person’s body without pooling in one place is that the heart beats. If the heart stops, the blood will pool according to the last position the person was in at the moment of death. Unless someone dies in space, gravity will pull the blood toward the ground… If a person dies while ‘lying down,’ the blood will naturally pool on their back. And over time, marks like bruises will appear.
This is called livor mortis. I remember reading about it in an old mystery novel.
……The reason my whole body was in such excruciating pain was probably because Ye Sara’s body literally ‘died and came back to life.’ I wasn’t quite sure about rigor mortis or whatever, but perhaps her nerves, which had been completely shut down, suddenly began to function again and caused the intense pain.
“……”
So what about the sleeping pills that led to Ye Sara’s death? Can a soul really enter a dead body and revive it? How could the brain function after being deprived of blood for hours?
Questions flooded my mind, but not a single answer emerged. I could only think that some supernatural phenomenon, completely unimaginable in this world, had taken place. Otherwise, there were just too many aspects that couldn’t be explained. After all, I was originally a human from another world.
“I didn’t want to give up.”
But Ye Sara did give up. She could no longer feel any reason to keep living.
This world’s Ye Sara was not the Ye Sara I knew from the game.
In fact, when I thought about it, there was no way she could have been.
Even if I hadn’t crossed over to this world, even if Ye Sara hadn’t chosen to take her own life before the original story began.
What if she could have taken a different route?
Perhaps there was a Ye Sara route, one that connected her to Yoo Ha-neul, rather than being the villain in the male lead’s path. A route where she suffered all her life, eventually saved by Yoo Ha-neul, and lived happily ever after.
No, that’s not it.
She might have walked a different path than any Ye Sara in the game.
She might have chosen not to self-destruct.
She might have desperately struggled to make friends.
She might have ended up getting close to everyone at school and somehow escaped the chairwoman’s grip.
She might have obtained that ordinary life she so desperately longed for.
Maybe, just maybe…
Yeah, it was all ‘maybe.’
Because, the Ye Sara of this world was already dead.
She simply lived her life in pain and ended it herself.
Now, there would be no opportunity for Ye Sara to go to school.
No chances to make friends, apologize for past incidents, or meet someone she loved to live happily.
None were left.
Ye Sara had consumed all those opportunities and attempted her final revenge.
In that sense, I was an unwelcome guest. I unexpectedly popped up right at the end of her plan, nullifying everything she had prepared.
“……”
I felt like someone was slowly, heavily pressing down on me while lying on the bed.
*
After thinking for a long time, I finally reached a conclusion.
I don’t want to die yet.
In my past life, I didn’t exactly live a life worth boasting about to others. I lived just like everyone else, lacking any presence. I got by, found a mediocre job, and just went through the motions of daily commutes.
But even so, there was never a moment where I thought I wanted to give up that life.
In the midst of that dull life, there were things I had never experienced before.
Family, friends, hobbies, places I wanted to go, food I wanted to eat, things I wanted to try.
I had far more reasons not to die than to die. Therefore, I didn’t give up my life.
It’s the same here.
I don’t really feel like giving up my life. Whether I go back to the original world or not, I quite liked my current life, at least partially.
Should I really die when I can eat such delicious things? No, I don’t think so.
I mean, I finally have female friends, and in a world where homosexuality isn’t rejected, should I just give up without even trying? No, absolutely not.
Should I really give up what could be a fortune equivalent to a conglomerate? Are you kidding me?
Right, I can’t let that happen.
I lifted myself from the bed. I still felt a weight in one corner of my mind. The life I was enjoying in this body wasn’t originally mine to enjoy. Knowing what had happened to the original owner, it was natural to feel heavy.
But, Ye Sara, I’m sorry, I can’t go along with your plan.
I’m going to live my life my way.
Perhaps like when I first came to this world, one day I might be inexplicably sent back to my original world. I might wake up in my house, the one I remember.
And maybe the soul of the dead Ye Sara could also return to this body. And she would think in confusion.
Why haven’t I died?
Why do I have friends?
Why is there no one interfering with me?
Well, that’s obvious, because I’ll make it that way.
While Ye Sara dreamed of revenge at the cost of her own life, I’m not her. If I’m going to take revenge, I’ll do it right. I’ll live happily while the others despair. That’s how it should be fair. Isn’t that the standard formula?
In any story or game, the person who possesses the body always ends up eliminating the villain they couldn’t defeat in the first place. Since I’ve entered Ye Sara’s body, it’s natural that I’ll have to drive out the chairwoman, who was probably the source of evil in that game. That’s just how it is. Isn’t it?
So… well, that’s that.
Ye Sara, you don’t need to worry at all.
One day, if you wake up, you’ll surely be able to spend that ordinary week you dreamed of.
You’ll be living a life so blissful that revenge won’t matter.
…And that life won’t just last for a week.
I’ll make it so.
