This Time, I'll Do Better
The words had taken me far too long to say.
“Let's end this. You and me.”
The woman sitting across from me said nothing at all.
Soft music drifted through the café. Late-afternoon sunlight slanted in through the window, and at the tables around us, people laughed and chatted over their drinks. Only our corner sat in a silence so heavy it felt wrong.
“…What did you say?”
It took her a long moment to ask.
“I said let's break up.”
Her eyes widened slowly.
“Why?”
“You know why.”
“I don't.”
The answer came instantly. “I really don't know what you're talking about.”
I let out a long, slow breath.
“You read my phone behind my back.”
“I was worried about you.”
“You tracked my location.”
“I needed to know where you were to feel safe.”
“You asked my friends who I was meeting.”
She fell silent at that.
“And you contacted my female coworkers on your own. Separately.”
“Those women were strange.”
“Strange how?”
“They were too close to you.”
“We're just coworkers.”
“There's no such thing as 'just friends' between a man and a woman.”
There it was. The same as always. In her world, every action had a reason — checking up on me, meddling in my relationships, cutting off my conversations with other women. All of it. Every single thing she did was because she loved me.
“I'm exhausted,” I said.
For the first time, her expression cracked.
“…Because of me?”
“Yes.”
“Then I'll change.”
“You've said that a dozen times already.”
“This time it's real.”
She leaned forward across the table, words tumbling faster and faster.
“I won't look at your phone. I won't check your location. I won't contact your friends. I'll hold back even when you talk to other women. I won't get angry if you reply late. I'll wait up for you no matter how late you come home. So please—”
“Stop.”
“I can do all of it.”
“I said stop.”
Only then did the tears fall. She bit her lip.
“I can't live without you.”
If this had been the past, I probably would have felt sorry for her. I would have comforted her. And then everything would have repeated itself, over and over, the same cycle wearing a new face.
But I was done being tired.
“I can live without you.”
She froze.
“And that's exactly how I want to live.”
That day, we broke up. Or to be precise — I ran. I changed my number. I moved to a new place. I even planned to change jobs. I didn't tell anyone my new address, not even a handful of my closest friends. Only after going that far could I finally breathe again.
For the first month, my heart lurched every time my phone rang. If I saw anyone on the street with hair like hers, my feet stopped dead.
But nothing happened. One month. Two. Three.
She never appeared. No calls. No visits to my door. And only then did I let myself think it: Was it really over? Could I finally live a normal life?
And then, that day — I died.
The light changed. I stepped onto the crosswalk. Someone shouted. I turned my head, saw a blinding glare of light, and then there was nothing. No memory after that at all.
When I opened my eyes, I was a baby.
At first I thought it was a dream. But the dream refused to end. An unfamiliar ceiling. Unfamiliar faces. An unfamiliar language. As time passed, I pieced the truth together one fragment at a time: I had been reincarnated — into a completely different world. A world where magic existed, where nobles and knights walked the land, where a king and a princess actually ruled a kingdom.
And the family I'd been born into was hardly some ordinary house of minor lords. It was the Valterion Ducal House — a famed noble line that had guarded the kingdom's northern frontier for hundreds of years. My father, the reigning duke, was counted among the greatest magnates in all of Arcadia, and I was his heir.
Leon Valterion. That was my name in this life.
The first few years were a blur of adjusting to my new existence. But as time went on, I slowly began to relax. She wasn't here. Nowhere I looked, not once, did I see her. No familiar face. No familiar voice. Nothing.
Five years old. Six. Seven. Time kept flowing. I learned the sword. I learned magic. I began the education required of an heir. My days were packed, but I had no complaints — if anything, I was grateful. It was ordinary. The ordinary, everyday life I had wanted so desperately.
This time, I'm going to live it right, I would sometimes think. Study moderately, inherit the dukedom, marry a decent woman, have children, and die of old age. This time — chased by no one.
And so I turned ten. And I entered the royal palace for the first time.
“There's no need to be nervous,” my father said. “Today is not a formal council but a banquet hosted by the crown.”
“Yes, Father.”
“Just don't forget that you are the heir of Valterion.”
“I understand.”
The royal palace was even more magnificent than I'd imagined — soaring ceilings, gilded ornamentation, chandeliers vast as falling stars. Nobles clustered in glittering groups throughout the hall, and even at my young age I drew my share of stares. The heir to the Valterion Duchy. Entirely to be expected.
I was in the middle of exchanging greetings with a few noble children when the crowd's attention swung as one toward a single point.
“It's Her Highness the Princess,” someone whispered.
My gaze followed the rest. A girl was descending the grand staircase, and for an instant the room seemed to fall silent around her. Hair so pale it was nearly silver. Skin like porcelain. Eyes of blue. A gown ornate but never excessive, and a poise in every movement that made it hard to believe she was my own age.
The First Princess of the Kingdom of Arcadia — Serena Arcadia. She was famous enough that even I, who took little interest in the royal family, knew of her. Clever from childhood, accomplished in both etiquette and scholarship, and endlessly kind to those of low birth, so the stories went. Her reputation among the nobility was flawless.
The moment she reached the bottom of the stairs, the King smiled and beckoned me forward.
“Leon.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
I stepped ahead. “You two have never properly met. This is my daughter, Serena.”
“It is an honor to meet you.” I bowed as I had been taught. “I am Leon Valterion, son of the Valterion Ducal House.”
Serena looked at me. Our eyes met.
And in that instant — something was wrong. For a mere sliver of a second, her eyes flew wide open. It was so brief that no one else could possibly have noticed, and in the next breath a gentle smile had returned to her face.
“It's a pleasure to meet you, Young Lord Leon.”
Her voice was one I'd never heard. Her face was different. Her hair, her eyes — all of it, different. And so, at first, I didn't understand.
Serena extended her hand. It was a greeting from a princess, so naturally I took it.
And in that moment, her fingertips moved.
Serena's fingers brushed across the back of my hand. Once. Then again — as if confirming the shape of it. Her thumb began to stroke slowly over my knuckles, and I went rigid on the spot.
…No. No way.
Serena just kept smiling. To anyone watching, it was nothing more than a princess politely shaking hands with a noble boy her own age. But she didn't let go. She pressed the very tips of her fingers to each of mine, one by one — my index finger, my middle finger, then a slow sweep across my palm — like someone checking, again and again, on a thing she had lost for a very long time.
My heart began to pound. This habit. I remember it. In my past life, too — whenever she held my hand, she did exactly this. Stroked my fingers. Rubbed the back of my hand. Pressed into my palm for no reason at all. She simply loved touching my hand.
“…”
I stared at Serena's face. She was still smiling — a face of pure, unguarded happiness — and while she fiddled with my hand, her lips moved, barely at all.
“Found you.”
The blood drained from my whole body.
“…What?”
Serena's grip tightened, just a little. Her thumb traced the back of my hand once more, unhurried.
“I really did find you.”
Again — a voice pitched just low enough for me alone to hear.
I tried to pull my hand free. The instant I did, her fingers tightened — not hard enough that anyone would notice, not enough to hurt — but she did not let go. And through all of it, Serena simply kept smiling.
“Young Lord Leon?” The King regarded me with puzzlement.
“Ah…”
What was I supposed to say? I should tell him. Tell everyone who this girl really was. But how? Point at the First Princess and announce that she had been my girlfriend in a past life? That she had surveilled me, tracked my every step, dismantled every relationship around me? If I said all that with the body of a ten-year-old — who on earth would believe me?
Before I could find the words, Serena spoke first.
“I think His Lordship is nervous.”
Her voice was full of tender concern. And even as she said it, she was still holding my hand — pressing lightly on my palm with her fingertips, stroking it, touching my fingers again — looking for all the world as if this alone satisfied her tremendously.
“Did I make you uncomfortable?”
Before the crowd, she wore the gentlest expression in the world.
“No… not at all.”
There was no other answer I could give.
“I'm glad.” Serena beamed. Then she leaned in, just slightly.
“This time,” her lips breathed, as her fingers slipped between mine — interlacing, naturally, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world — “I'll do better.”
My breath stopped.
She didn't release my hand. If anything, she squeezed it once more, slowly, and then simply looked at me. Smiling. Her eyes never wavering from mine, as though she had been waiting for this moment for a very, very long time.
“Let's be good friends from now on.”
Around us, laughter rippled through the crowd.
“It seems Her Highness has taken a liking to young Lord Leon.”
“They're close in age — they'll make fine friends indeed.”
“How lovely to see.”
No one thought it strange. Of course they didn't. All they saw was the kind-hearted First Princess smiling as she held the hand of a little duke's heir.
Only I knew. Who this woman really was — and what that smile of hers truly meant.
I looked down at my own hand. Serena was still at it: stroking the back of it, toying with my fingers, pressing softly into my palm, over and over, without the slightest hint of tiring. Then our eyes met again, and her smile grew brighter still.
And in that moment, I was certain of one thing. If a god did exist, that bastard had to absolutely, irredeemably hate me.
That night, in the First Princess's palace, Serena lay in her bed.
It was the same room as always. The same bed as always. Yet tonight, somehow, everything looked different. She lifted both hands in front of her face and gazed at them, utterly still. The hands that, today, had held his.
“…”
The corners of her mouth curled upward. She could still almost feel it — the touch. His fingers. The back of his hand. His palm. It had been a little different from her past life; small, still a child's hand. But it was his hand all the same.
Serena slowly traced her own fingers over one another, the way she had touched Leon's hand today. “Found you,” she murmured. A strange feeling filled her — her heart wouldn't stop racing, her laughter wouldn't stop spilling out.
For years, she had wondered. What if he was in this world too? What if she wasn't the only one reborn with her memories intact? What if the two of them would never, ever meet again? She had thought that, too. But today, she had found him. And he had been reborn as the heir of the Valterion Ducal House, no less.
Serena hugged a pillow to her chest and laid her hands upon it, fingertips pressing gently into the fabric — exactly as she had pressed them into Leon's hand a few hours before. Memories of her past life drifted up. The face he'd made when he told her they should break up. The way he'd avoided her, changed his number, moved his home. Back then she hadn't understood any of it. If you loved someone, why run? If you liked someone, why was checking on them forbidden? Why should you have to stand by while he talked to other women?
She had been too impatient then. Too foolish. She had believed she had to hold on — that if he ran, she only needed to grip him tighter. And the tighter she gripped, the farther away he slipped.
“Not this time,” Serena whispered.
No need to read his phone. No need to force his location into view. No need to interrogate the people around him. No need to drive out the women he disliked, right in front of him. This time, she would simply become a good person. Loved by Leon's parents. By his friends. By the nobles, the knights, the common people. Loved by everyone. So that one day, even if Leon stood up and declared that he hated her — no one in the world would understand what he meant.
Serena considered that for a moment, then smiled again.
She pressed her hands together, remembering the hand she had held today, wiggling her fingers one by one. “Your hand was exactly the same.” In truth it was different, of course — his body had changed, so naturally it would be. And yet, strangely, it had felt identical. It was wonderful. She wanted to keep touching it. For one hour. Two. She felt as though she could do nothing at all and simply hold Leon's hand, forever, and be perfectly content.
No — if she could have her way, they would be somewhere no one else could come. A place where no one entered and no one called for them, where Leon went nowhere at all. There, every day, they would hold hands, and talk, and eat together, and fall asleep together, and—
Serena blinked, and gave a small laugh. “Not yet.”
This time she would not rush. She would not repeat the mistakes of her past life. Slowly — truly slowly — she would make him trust her. Make him like her. Make him feel just a little lost when she wasn't there. And someday, so thoroughly that he would want to do nothing at all without her.
When that day came—
Serena recalled the way Leon had stood today, the moment he recognized her and the color drained from his face. Even that was adorable.
“This time, I'll do better.” She laughed — genuinely, radiantly happy — and wiggled her fingers once more, adding in a whisper:
“So don't run away this time, Leon.”