Like Ha Yerin!
July 2024. I died at the age of twenty-five.
Cause of death: massive blood loss.
A random stabbing.
I had just been walking down the street like any other day when the lunatic in front of me suddenly pulled a kitchen knife from his pocket and started swinging it at everyone around him.
I was never the heroic type, but for some reason my body moved on its own that day…
Shunk.
"Gah… hhk…"
That madman's kitchen knife punched straight through my abdomen.
Clatter. Clang.
"Does it hurt? I hurt more! I suffered more!"
"G-grab that psycho!"
The moment he stabbed me, the lunatic completely lost it, babbling nonsense, then just collapsed where he stood. The burly men nearby saw him drop the knife and rushed in to pin him down, but…
"Ugh… hh…"
Blood was already fountaining out of my stomach.
"…Hey, kid. You okay…? Hang on just a little. We called 911."
"…Hh, I… I don't think I'm gonna make it…"
In my fading vision, I could feel some middle-aged man pressing hard on the wound, trying to stop the bleeding.
But…
Ah… I'm done for…
I could feel it with my whole body — my life was going out.
Damn it. So this is how I die.
This empty, pointless way.
Born an orphan with no parents, graduated college, made it this far. How hard had I worked… how hard had I held on…
"Hah… hah…"
As my consciousness slipped away, I reached a hand toward the sky.
If there was a next life, please let me meet good parents… and be happy…
Loved by many people… not alone…
Please, let me live like that.
Thud.
That was the last thing I knew before I blacked out.
And then…
"Waaaaaaah—!!"
…A miracle happened.
Amazingly enough, I got a second life.
In most web novels, this is the part where you wake up in some fantasy otherworld — but I was reborn as a baby in Korea.
There were a few differences from before, though.
First: my age.
Originally born in 1997, I came into this second life as a child of 2005.
And second…
"Haa…"
I scowled at my reflection in the mirror. The slightly cold-looking beautiful girl in the glass scowled right back.
That was it.
The second thing that was different from my previous life.
Unlike the man I had been before… this time, I had been born a girl.
And not just any girl — a stunning beauty no one could help falling for at first sight.
The sudden upheaval of my gender identity left me confused, and I ended up developing a blunt, withdrawn temperament. Even so, by now I had more or less adapted to being a woman.
And finally, the third difference from my previous life.
Unlike my orphaned first life, this time I actually had parents.
But…
Yerin! Just trust Dad this once—! I'll hit it big this time and pay off everything we owe—!
Yerin, is this one pretty, or is this one pretty? No, wait — I'll just buy them all.
My new mom and dad were spectacularly irresponsible people.
They were unemployed freeloaders, and on top of that Dad was addicted to sports gambling while Mom was a compulsive shopaholic with a taste for luxury.
"Yerin—! Clear table eight—!"
"Coming—!"
Because my parents never worked, even as a high school senior in 2023 I still couldn't stop taking part-time jobs.
Yerin, did your paycheck come in? …You trust Dad, right? I'll hit it big and pay you back.
Yerin, did your paycheck come in by any chance? Mom wants to buy a bag — mind depositing it real quick?
Of course… under the pretext of being my legal guardians, Mom and Dad siphoned off every last won of my wages.
"Good work today, Yerin. Check your account — your pay should be in. Don't let your parents take it this time either!"
"…Yes. Thank you, boss."
After school I hit the café first, then the family restaurant — a brutal double shift — and finally dragged myself home.
I'd been an orphan in my past life too, so part-time work was old hat. But this life felt harder than the last one.
"…Alright. This time, let's actually keep it."
The first time I got paid, I'd opened a crypto account — but Dad somehow found out and drained it. The day before the stocks I'd secretly bought jumped thirty percent, Mom closed the brokerage account and took the money to a department store.
The second they found out my wages had landed again, Mom and Dad would come after them. How was I supposed to protect the money this time?
I was walking along, turning it over in my head, when—
"E-excuse me!"
"…Yes?"
A decent-looking guy approached me, fidgeting with his hair.
It was such a familiar scene that I knew exactly what he wanted the moment I saw him.
This happened dozens of times a day. How could I not know?
"I don't usually do this kind of thing, but… could I maybe get your number? Or your Instagram…?"
"…I'm sorry."
"Ah… is there a reason, at least…?"
"It's not the time for me to be seeing anyone. I'm sorry."
"I-is that so. Alright…"
I kept my expression ice-cold, and he must have decided I was angry — he stood there awkwardly for a second, then fled.
"I wasn't angry, though…"
My resting face was so blank that people constantly got the wrong idea.
I watched his retreating back for a moment, then started walking home again.
A rundown villa complex a little ways off from downtown. The kind of place that might as well have the word poverty stamped right across the middle of it.
And yet…
"…Huh?"
A line of black sedans that did not belong in front of our shabby villa was parked outside.
…Cars that looked somehow familiar.
"N-no way…!"
The second I saw them, a bad feeling hit me. I hurried inside—
"Ye-Yerin—! Hwaaaaaah—!!"
"Y-you can talk to our daughter now…! As you know, she's the head of our household, so…"
…My instincts had been right. Inside our house, my sobbing parents and a crowd of black-suited thugs filled the room.
Hooo—!
"Been a while."
"…Yes. Long time no see, Mister."
The man chain-smoking in our house without so much as asking permission was named Kang Hyeongman.
He was a fairly well-known loan shark in our neighborhood… and since Mom and Dad borrowed from him all the time, we were already acquainted.
I asked him, half hoping I was wrong.
"Mister… did my parents borrow money from you again?"
"They did."
Fuck.
Half hoping, my ass. Of course they did.
A wave of dizziness hit me, and I stuck a finger out at Kang Hyeongman.
"…Mister. Just one cigarette for me."
"…What?"
The first ones to freak out at that were my parents.
"Whaaaaaat?! A cigarette?!"
"Yerin—!! What are you saying!! A cigarette!! Boys hate girls who smoke! And you're supposed to marry into a rich family someday — if you smoke…!!"
My parents' dream was to marry me off to a chaebol family and ride that gravy train for the rest of their lives.
Then for fuck's sake, maybe they could stop acting in ways that made me want a cigarette.
How many times was this now that they'd gone and racked up debt?!
Thud.
"……?"
I clutched my head, barely holding back the rage boiling up — and Kang Hyeongman, who'd been watching quietly, held something out in front of me.
"…It's your choice. I'll respect it. If you really want to smoke, go ahead."
A single cigarette and a lighter.
"Still, I don't recommend it. Smoking doesn't solve your problems."
"……."
I took them, almost lit up — then stopped.
I'd been reborn with a clean pair of lungs. Wasting that on something this stupid would have been too much of a shame.
"Good. You chose well."
When I lowered my head without lighting up, Kang Hyeongman took the cigarette back and set a different piece of paper in front of me.
"…What's this?"
"The promissory note for the money your parents borrowed."
Fuck.
I immediately checked how much Mom and Dad had taken this time.
200,000,000 won.
"Twenty million…? Haa… and when am I supposed to pay this back…"
"Twenty million? I think you misread it."
"…Excuse me?"
"Check the amount again."
I nearly had a heart attack. I picked the note back up and counted the zeros.
Zero… one, two… ……
Ah.
Not twenty million. Two hundred million.
Thud.
I dropped the promissory note at that unreal figure and turned toward my parents.
"…Which one of you was it? Who borrowed two hundred million…?"
"…Heh heh. It wasn't just one of us. Mom and Dad borrowed it together."
"You borrowed it together? …Why? There's still money left, right? Right? There's no way you spent all two hundred million already!"
I clung to that last scrap of hope and shouted. Mom and Dad gave me sheepish little smiles, then pulled out a phone and showed me the screen.
"Well, you see…"
Swoosh—.
A crypto account. Completely empty. Not a single won left.
Mom pointed at the zeroed-out balance with an awkward little grin.
"Your uncle said it was a sure thing, so we put it all in — and then it got delisted."
"So we lost everything. Ahaha, can you believe it? Still, don't hate your uncle too much."
"……."
I decided to take that advice and not hate my uncle.
I hated Mom and Dad instead. A whole fucking lot.
Two hundred million… how the hell am I supposed to pay that back in this lifetime…
My face went pale. My hands started shaking.
Swoosh—.
Mom and Dad came over and clamped both of my shoulders in a firm hug.
"Don't worry, Yerin. No matter what trials come our way, our family will always get back on its feet."
"Family covers for each other's faults — you know that, right? So about that…"
Mom grabbed my trembling hand and whispered low in my ear.
"Today's payday, isn't it? Your wages came in, right? Let's use that first to chip away at the debt."
"Mister, just give me the cigarette. I— I can't take this without one…!"
"Absolutely no cigarettes—!!"
High school girl or not, clean lungs or not — I felt like I was going to lose my mind without a smoke. But Mom and Dad fought tooth and nail to stop their one and only daughter from lighting up.
"If you smoke, you'll never marry into a chaebol family—!!"
"You know that, right? We're only saying this for your own good—!!"
No sane parent would let their underage daughter touch a cigarette.
In that one respect, Mom and Dad were parents of the most goddamn, hellish kind.