I stared at the rain hitting my apartment window, watching the droplets race down the glass like tears. My reflection looked back at me - messy black hair, tired eyes, and a face that screamed "loser" to anyone who bothered to look.
Kim Jinhyuk. That's me. The family disappointment. The bastard who couldn't do anything right.
My phone buzzed on the small wooden table next to my instant ramen. I didn't want to look at it. I already knew what it was going to be - another message from my dad's secretary telling me about some family meeting I wasn't invited to, or maybe another bill I couldn't pay.
But I looked anyway. Because I'm an idiot like that.
It was worse than I thought.
"Jinhyuk, your father has made his decision. You have 24 hours to pack your things and leave the apartment. Your credit cards will be canceled tomorrow morning. Don't try to contact the family again."
I read it three times before it really hit me. They were cutting me off. Completely.
My hands started shaking, and I could feel that familiar anger building up in my chest. The same anger that got me into this mess in the first place. The same anger that made everyone call me the "bastard" of the Kim family.
"FUCK!" I screamed, throwing my phone across the room. It hit the wall and cracked, but I didn't care. Nothing worked in this stupid apartment anyway. The heater was broken, the fridge made weird noises, and the neighbors upstairs sounded like they were moving furniture every single night.
I grabbed my jacket and headed for the door. I needed to get out of here before I punched a hole in the wall or something equally stupid.
The streets of Seoul were crowded even though it was raining. People walked past me with their umbrellas, going to their jobs, their families, their normal lives. None of them knew that Kim Jinhyuk was having the worst day of his pathetic existence.
I walked for about twenty minutes before I realized where I was going. Mina's apartment. My girlfriend of three years. The only person who still cared about me, or at least that's what I thought.
Maybe she could help me figure out what to do next. Maybe she'd let me stay at her place for a few days while I got my shit together. Maybe she'd tell me everything would be okay, like she always did.
I climbed the stairs to her apartment on the third floor. The building was nicer than mine - her parents had money, unlike me. I knocked on her door, but there was no answer. I could hear voices inside though, so I knocked harder.
"Mina! It's me, Jinhyuk!"
The voices stopped. I heard footsteps, and then Mina opened the door. But she only opened it a crack, like she was trying to hide something.
"Jinhyuk? What are you doing here?" She looked nervous, which was weird. Mina was never nervous around me.
"I need to talk to you. Something happened with my family and-"
"Now's not a good time," she said quickly. "Can we talk tomorrow?"
That's when I heard it. A man's voice from inside her apartment.
"Mina, who is it?"
My heart stopped. I knew that voice. It was Park Seunghoon, the guy from our university who always acted like he was better than everyone else because his dad owned some big company.
"Mina," I said slowly, "who's in there?"
Her face went pale. "Jinhyuk, I can explain-"
I pushed past her into the apartment. What I saw made my whole world collapse.
Seunghoon was sitting on her couch in just his underwear, drinking coffee from the mug I bought her for her birthday. On the coffee table, there were two plates with half-eaten breakfast. The whole scene looked... domestic. Like they'd been doing this for a while.
"Oh shit," Seunghoon said when he saw me. "This is awkward."
"How long?" I asked Mina. My voice sounded weird, like it was coming from somewhere far away.
"Jinhyuk, please, let me explain-"
"HOW LONG?" I screamed.
She started crying. "Two and a half years."
Two and a half years. That meant... that meant she'd been cheating on me almost from the beginning. Our whole relationship was a lie.
"We didn't want to hurt you," she sobbed. "You were going through so much with your family, and you have such a bad temper. I was scared to break up with you because I thought you might do something crazy."
"So you just... what? Felt sorry for me? This whole time you were just pitying me?"
Seunghoon stood up and put his arm around Mina. "Look, man, I know this sucks, but maybe it's for the best. You two weren't really compatible anyway."
That's when I completely lost it.
I don't remember exactly what happened next. I remember screaming. I remember throwing things. I remember Seunghoon yelling at me to calm down. I remember Mina begging me to stop.
When I finally came back to my senses, I was standing in the hallway outside her apartment. The door was locked, and I could hear them talking inside.
"I told you he was crazy," Seunghoon was saying. "You should have broken up with him years ago."
"I know, I know. I just felt so bad for him. He's such a loser."
Such a loser. The girl I loved for three years thought I was a loser. Just like everyone else.
I walked down the stairs like a zombie. My phone was buzzing in my pocket, but I didn't care anymore. What was the point? My family had disowned me. My girlfriend had been cheating on me. I had no money, no job, no future.
I was exactly what everyone said I was. A bastard who couldn't do anything right.
The rain was getting heavier as I wandered through the streets. I didn't have an umbrella, so I was soaked within minutes. But I didn't care. I just kept walking, not really going anywhere, just trying to figure out what the hell I was supposed to do with my life.
That's when I saw it. A convenience store across the street. They were hiring, according to the sign in the window. Maybe I could get a job there. Maybe I could start over, away from my family's reputation and Mina's pity.
I started crossing the street without really looking. I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn't notice the truck until it was too late.
The driver was probably texting or something because he didn't even try to brake. I had maybe two seconds to realize what was happening before the truck hit me.
The pain was incredible. I felt my bones breaking, my organs shifting, my whole body being destroyed. I flew through the air and hit the asphalt hard. Everything hurt so much that I couldn't even scream.
I could taste blood in my mouth. My vision was getting blurry, and I could hear people screaming around me. Someone was calling for an ambulance, but I already knew it was too late.
I was dying.
Twenty-seven years old, and this is how my story ends. No family, no girlfriend, no friends, no money, no future. Just a bastard bleeding to death on a Seoul street in the rain.
I closed my eyes and waited for it to be over.
But then something weird happened.
Just as everything was going dark, I saw a bright blue light. It was like a computer screen, but translucent, floating in the air above my face. Words started appearing on it, like someone was typing.
"SYSTEM INITIALIZING..."
"DETECTING SOUL COMPATIBILITY..."
"COMPATIBILITY CONFIRMED: 100%"
"REGRESSION PROTOCOL ACTIVATED"
"PREPARING TIME DISPLACEMENT..."
What the hell was this? Was I hallucinating? Was this what happened when you died?
More words appeared:
"SYSTEM ACQUIRED!"
"WELCOME TO THE LIFE RESET SYSTEM"
"ANALYZING PREVIOUS LIFE DATA..."
"ANALYSIS COMPLETE"
"GREATEST REGRETS IDENTIFIED:"
"1. DESTROYED FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS DUE TO ANGER ISSUES" "2. WASTED THREE YEARS WITH UNFAITHFUL PARTNER" "3. FAILED TO DEVELOP USEFUL SKILLS" "4. NEVER ACHIEVED FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE" "5. DIED WITHOUT MAKING ANY MEANINGFUL IMPACT"
"REGRESSION TARGET SELECTED: AGE 17"
"BEGINNING TRANSPORTATION..."
The blue screen was getting brighter and brighter. I tried to move, but my body wasn't responding. The pain was fading though, which was weird. Everything was getting warm and fuzzy.
"REGRESSION COMPLETE"
"WELCOME TO YOUR NEW LIFE, KIM JINHYUK"
"TUTORIAL WILL BEGIN SHORTLY"
And then everything went black.
When I opened my eyes again, I was staring at a ceiling I hadn't seen in ten years. My old bedroom ceiling, with the crack in the corner that looked like a lightning bolt. The same ceiling I used to stare at when I was a teenager, wondering what I was going to do with my life.
I sat up quickly, and immediately regretted it. My head was spinning, and I felt like I was going to throw up. But the weird thing was, I didn't hurt anywhere. No broken bones, no internal bleeding, nothing. Just a little dizzy.
I looked around the room. It was exactly like I remembered it from when I was seventeen. The same desk where I used to pretend to study. The same bookshelf full of books I never read. The same window overlooking the garden where my mom used to grow vegetables.
My mom. She'd been dead for five years in my previous life. But if I was really seventeen again...
I stumbled to the mirror on my dresser. The face looking back at me was definitely mine, but ten years younger. No stress lines, no tired eyes, no stubble. Just the baby face I used to hate when I was a teenager.
"This is impossible," I whispered to my reflection.
That's when the blue screen appeared again. It materialized right in front of me, floating in the air like a hologram.
"TUTORIAL BEGINNING"
"THE LIFE RESET SYSTEM HAS GIVEN YOU A SECOND CHANCE"
"YOU HAVE BEEN RETURNED TO AGE 17 WITH ALL YOUR MEMORIES INTACT"
"YOUR MISSION: LIVE A BETTER LIFE"
"SYSTEM FEATURES:"
"- QUEST SYSTEM: COMPLETE TASKS TO EARN REWARDS" "- STATS SYSTEM: TRACK YOUR PROGRESS IN ALL AREAS" "- SKILL SYSTEM: LEARN NEW ABILITIES FASTER" "- INVENTORY SYSTEM: STORE ITEMS IN DIMENSIONAL SPACE" "- SHOP SYSTEM: PURCHASE ITEMS AND ABILITIES WITH SYSTEM POINTS"
"WOULD YOU LIKE TO VIEW YOUR CURRENT STATS?"
I stared at the screen for a long time. This was insane. Systems like this only existed in web novels and video games. But I had died, I was sure of it. And now I was seventeen again, in my old room, with some kind of magical system giving me a second chance.
"Yes," I said out loud, feeling stupid for talking to a floating screen.
A new window appeared:
"CURRENT STATS - KIM JINHYUK (AGE 17)"
"STRENGTH: 12/100" "AGILITY: 15/100"
"INTELLIGENCE: 35/100" "CHARISMA: 8/100" "LUCK: 5/100" "ANGER CONTROL: 3/100"
"SPECIAL ABILITIES: FUTURE KNOWLEDGE"
"SYSTEM POINTS: 100"
"AVAILABLE QUESTS: 3"
My stats were horrible. Especially anger control - a 3 out of 100. No wonder everyone thought I was a crazy bastard. And charisma was even worse at 8. I couldn't even make people like me.
But I had future knowledge. I knew what stocks to buy, what companies would succeed, what disasters would happen. If this system was real, I could use that knowledge to change everything.
"Show me the quests," I said.
Three new windows popped up:
"QUEST 1: BREAK THE CYCLE" "DESCRIPTION: BREAK UP WITH LEE MINA BEFORE SHE CHEATS ON YOU" "REWARD: +5 CHARISMA, +10 ANGER CONTROL, 50 SYSTEM POINTS" "TIME LIMIT: 72 HOURS"
"QUEST 2: FAMILY FIRST" "DESCRIPTION: APOLOGIZE TO YOUR FATHER AND SHOW GENUINE CHANGE" "REWARD: +3 CHARISMA, FAMILY RELATIONSHIP IMPROVED, 30 SYSTEM POINTS" "TIME LIMIT: 1 WEEK"
"QUEST 3: STUDENT LIFE" "DESCRIPTION: ACHIEVE TOP 10 RANKING IN NEXT EXAM" "REWARD: +5 INTELLIGENCE, STUDY EFFICIENCY SKILL, 40 SYSTEM POINTS" "TIME LIMIT: 2 WEEKS"
I read through the quests twice. Break up with Mina before she cheats. That made sense - at seventeen, we had just started dating. She probably hadn't even met Seunghoon yet. And the other quests were about fixing my relationship with my family and actually trying in school.
These weren't just random tasks. The system was giving me specific steps to fix the biggest problems in my life.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand. It was an old flip phone - smartphones weren't really common yet in 2015. I had a text from Mina.
"Good morning! Want to walk to school together? ❤️"
I stared at the message for a long time. In my previous life, I would have been so happy to get a text like this. I would have run to meet her, probably bought her something expensive with my allowance, and spent the whole day following her around like a puppy.
But now I knew the truth. She was going to cheat on me for years, lie to my face, and then tell her real boyfriend that I was a loser.
The old me would have texted back immediately. The new me had different plans.
I typed back: "We need to talk. Meet me at the park after school."
Her response came quickly: "Is everything okay? You sound weird."
"Just meet me there."
I put the phone down and looked at myself in the mirror again. This was it. This was my chance to change everything. No more being the family disappointment. No more being the bastard who couldn't control his temper. No more being a loser.
I was going to rewrite my entire life, starting today.
The blue screen flickered and showed a new message:
"TUTORIAL COMPLETE"
"REMEMBER: THE SYSTEM WILL HELP YOU, BUT YOU MUST TAKE ACTION"
"GOOD LUCK, KIM JINHYUK"
"YOUR NEW LIFE BEGINS NOW"
I smiled at my reflection. For the first time in ten years, I actually felt hopeful.
Kim Jinhyuk, the bastard, was dead.
It was time to find out who I could become instead.