Prologue: The First Timeline Shift
Past midnight, the smartphone on my nightstand started ringing.
I'd been scrolling through Reels late into the night and had just resolved to finally go to sleep when the call came in. The name on the screen was Han Ijin.
The girl I'd fallen for at first sight in college — the one I'd deliberately sat near, desperately trying to manufacture any excuse to be close to her. I'd never managed a confession. Hell, I'd barely managed a proper conversation. And then, a week ago, that hopeless lingering attachment of mine had sent me a wedding invitation. She was marrying the perfect guy, the top student in our department…
So why was she calling at this hour? Had she sent the invitation by mistake or something?
I swallowed hard and hit the answer button.
"Uh, hey, what's going o—"
"Seonwoo~ Why'd you take so long to pick up? Have you been drinking?"
……? Wait, what?
Ijin's voice was impossibly sweet, impossibly soft. And she'd said my name — my actual name, clear as day. Was I hearing things in my half-asleep haze?
"Haaah… Didn't I tell you not to drink so much? Anyway, I really want to see you tonight, Seonwoo. I'm heading to our usual playground, okay? You've got ten minutes!"
Ijin wanted to see me? And "our usual playground"? I couldn't make sense of a single thing that was happening.
"Ijin, hold on, what are you—"
"If you're late, I'm gonna be really mean to you later."
Click. The call ended.
Huh? Had I somehow become friends with Ijin? We'd barely had any connection at all.
I was about to spring off the bed like a coil, drowning in confusion, when an unidentified mechanical chime stabbed straight through my eardrums.
Beep—
Timeline alteration has successfully settled into the future.
The results of the changes you made in the past are now reflected in the present.
"……What the hell is this supposed to mean?"
As if answering the dumb question I'd thrown at empty air, a translucent blue status window began to bloom into existence before my eyes.
Current Status: Han Ijin's Close Friend
Past Alteration Log: You successfully performed at the MT talent show and captured everyone's attention. You spent a great deal of time with Han Ijin and became very close.
Timeline Alteration Rate:1.2%
Favorability toward me:55%
A skull-splitting headache hit me as foreign memories — ones that had never existed in my head — came crashing in like a flood.
Memories of singing a trendy song at the MT, winning people over with sheer charisma. Memories of hanging out with Ijin constantly afterward. They painted themselves ruthlessly over the pathetic originals I'd been living with.
"Ah…"
I groaned and sank down onto the edge of the bed.
My mid-twenties despair — sitting in the corner of my room, drinking myself stupid after receiving a wedding invitation from the girl I'd been hopelessly in love with — must have tripped some kind of magical trigger.
The soul left behind in the future was still me. But another version of myself, forged from pure obsession, was rewriting history on the past timeline.
And that butterfly effect was landing on me, here in the present, in real time — a direct hit.
"I need to hurry."
The thought that I could actually meet Ijin filled me with a brief rush of joy, but I shoved it aside and scrambled to get ready.
The creams and cologne my mom had bought me for blind dates, and the one halfway decent outfit buried among my garbage clothes. I threw myself together in a frantic clatter, trying to hide my wreck of a body.
Probably because the Timeline Alteration Rate was still so low, nothing in the apartment itself seemed to have changed.
Click—
The moment I opened the door, the lingering cold hit me.
In a night when everyone else was asleep, I ran blindly toward the playground my instincts were pointing me to.
"Hah… hah… huuh…"
"You're late. A whole eight minutes late. You made me wait out here in the middle of the night — you'd better take your punishment."
There she was, standing in front of me. More mature than she'd been in the past, and more beautiful. I'd caught glimpses of her on Instagram now and then, but the real thing was something else entirely.
"Why are you just standing there staring? Come push me on the swing first."
Ijin shot me a playful sidelong glance. As I stepped closer, her sweet scent melted straight through my nose.
Floating above her head, visible only to me, glowing red letters read — [Favorability 55%]. Every time my hands touched her back as I pushed the swing, the reality of it all sank in a little deeper.
My mind still couldn't make sense of her. But her heart was already open toward me.
I had no way of knowing what my past self would change next. But one thing was certain.
This sweet hell that had never been mine to begin with — I would never let anyone take it from me.
After all, this was only the first timeline that had changed.