Prologue — Such Is Life…
I realized on a winter's day at twenty-seven that life rarely goes the way you want it to.
I enrolled at the elementary school chosen because it was close to the apartment we'd always lived in — and on the walk home from my first day, the car carrying my whole family was struck by a taxi driven by a drunk.
My father and I escaped unharmed, but my mother was left with a permanent disability in one leg for the rest of her life.
In middle school, the first friend I ever made ran into the neighborhood delinquents in an alley, who shook my pocket for the paltry coins inside — and just like that, our friendship fell apart.
Looking back, it was nothing worth mentioning. But I was young and foolish, and I buried myself in the library like some kind of protest, graduating from middle school without a single friend.
In high school, I earned respectable mock exam scores and dreamed of getting into a top university — and for the first time in ages, I saw my father and mother smile.
The very next day, I learned that a serious illness had been found inside my father's body.
It was my father who roused our family — my mother and I sitting in silence for so long after the hospital visit — and lifted us back to our feet.
"It's fine. Everything's going to be fine."
We believed those words and got back up. And just as he'd promised, happiness seemed to find its way back to our family as it rose and began to walk again.
"The surgery went well, and the CT scan came back completely clean. We'll keep monitoring it closely from here."
"Thank you so much, Doctor!"
My father made it safely through the surgery.
"Your mother's apples are the best in the market, ho ho."
"Oh, thank you! Please come again!"
Her fruit stall became a fixture in the neighborhood, known for its generous spirit and its meticulous care of every piece of produce.
"Hey, Hyunwoo, you remember that club senior? He started his own company, and they need someone for an office job — so I put your name in."
"Really? Thank you so much!"
Bouncing between cram school for my retakes and part-time jobs, I somehow graduated from a decent university, got an introduction from that senior who'd graduated before me, and set up an interview at an office in town.
And the following month, my father passed away.
Because the illness had been caught so late, it had taken multiple surgeries over a long stretch of time to barely beat it back — but his heart, worn down by all those operations and the brutal regimen of drugs, simply wasn't strong enough to endure.
"……"
The sight of my mother's hunched, weeping back at the funeral was more desolate than anything I had ever seen.
The coarse roughness of the black suit pants borrowed from the funeral hall.
The smell of grease drifting from the yukgaejang pot in the kitchen.
The buzz of the message from my senior, confirming that I was withdrawing from my interview.
Eyes too dry to produce even one more tear.
Not a single one of my five senses could register anything as real.
Everything floated free of the world, like a dream. That was what despair felt like.
"Father…"
And a few months after my father's funeral—
Screech—!
A flash of light, rushing up from an alley as I pulled out into the street.
Pain coursing through my whole body.
Limbs going numb, one by one.
Lying on the cold pavement, gasping out each breath.
The driver's breathing as he leaned over to check on me.
The faint smell of alcohol on that breath.
And as the sound of the car faded into the distance and my consciousness dimmed, screen by screen, to black—
The only thing on my mind was my mother.
"Mom…"
On that freezing winter day, my first life ended just like that.
And then, on one scorching summer day with rain pouring down—
I awoke in a shabby little room as the silver-haired girl from a light novel I'd read as a child.
Honestly, life… rarely goes the way you want it to.