The Day I Woke Up in the Past I Hated Most

“Ugh……”

As soon as he woke up, Haejin let out a faint moan and pressed his hand to his forehead.

His head throbbed as if it would split from the headache.

Tightly closing his eyes against the pain, a flash of memory from before he lost consciousness surfaced.

A car speeding toward him as he crossed the street, the impact.

The pain of his whole body shattering, his fading consciousness, thinking he was dying—apparently, he had survived.

Come to think of it, his body felt surprisingly intact for having been in such a major accident.

Had he received treatment?

Even if his condition had improved, the severe headache made it hard to get up just the same.

Struggling, unable to even open his eyes properly, he shifted, trying to get comfortable, but for some reason, the bed felt as hard as the floor.

“Ugh… why is it so hard…”

Even a hospital bed shouldn’t be this hard…

Had his standards for beds become too high from always sleeping on good ones?

Groaning from the hard surface, he forced his eyes open with difficulty.

The sight that met his eyes instantly banished all sleepiness.

“Wh-what? Why am I here?”

Opening his eyes, teleportation aside, he was in a place he shouldn’t be.

This is… my old house?

Why have I returned to this hellish place?

The moment he recognized it as the house where his aunt took him to live after losing his parents, his heart pounded.

Sweat beaded on his palms like in a horror movie scene.

Then, a sense of something being off struck him.

After marrying Beomwoo, his aunt had demanded payment for raising him and moved to a large, nice house long ago.

So, is this a dream?

Or… since he was hit by a car, is he experiencing the life flashback one sees before death?

Unable to grasp the situation, he looked around.

At that moment, his reflection caught in a mirror on one side of the room.

It wasn’t drastically different from his recent self, but the slightly fuller face and poorly cut, messy hair resembled his former appearance.

It felt so vivid.

Is this what a life flashback is like?

He had no way of knowing.

But if this is a life flashback, shouldn’t it be showing him times when his parents were alive or when he was happy?

All the memories from this time were horrific, things he never wanted to recall.

As Haejin stared at his reflection in the mirror, feeling strange, the door suddenly flew open.

“If you’re awake, you should be setting the table already.”

“What are you staring at the mirror for? Are you crazy?”

Startled by the sound, he turned his head.

His aunt was looking down at him with a contemptuous expression.

He had intentionally avoided his aunt’s family after marrying Beomwoo and barely seen her face, but she too had her younger face from back then.

The face twisted as if she couldn’t stand the sight of him, the sharpening glare.

It was a face he hadn’t faced since marrying Beomwoo, but even now, years later, he couldn’t forget it.

Memories of living in this house came flooding back, suffocating him.

‘If I’m dead, just let me die.’

‘Why make me remember this?’

As Haejin simply stared at her, feeling suffocated, his aunt furrowed one brow, tilting her head as if puzzled.

“Has this kid turned into a dumbstruck fool… Ha, whatever.”

“I’ve set the table today, so get out here quickly.”

“……”

Strangely, she would usually have slapped him out of frustration by now, but his aunt retreated compliantly, telling him to get up.

In this house, he did all the housework alone.

Occasionally, they ate by themselves, but they never called him to eat together…

Could a life flashback differ slightly from his memory?

Thinking it odd, Haejin got up and went to the living room.

His meal was set on the low table, not too poorly either.

This is really weird.

Is it showing him a hopeful ‘what if’ scenario of how his life in this house could have been?

But for that, his aunt’s attitude wasn’t exactly kind…

Feeling uncertain, Haejin sat on the bare floor opposite the table.

“…Thank you for the food.”

Though the atmosphere was slightly more lenient than his usual memories of this house, the mere act of sharing a meal was suffocating.

As Haejin picked at his rice grain by grain, his aunt, who had been eating silently across from him, glanced at him and broke the silence.

“Hey, remember your dad used to say he’d marry you off to one of the chairman’s sons? Like it was a habit?”

“……”

Haejin looked up at her.

Instantly, her words gave him an overwhelming sense of déjà vu.

It was eerily similar to that unforgettable day from his memory.

Startled by the feeling, Haejin just blinked without answering.

But she continued.

“They say they’ll honor that promise and have you marry one of the sons.”

“Marry…?”

“You know, right? That’s an incredibly wealthy chaebol family.”

“Even if it’s a loss, it’s their loss. You’re not in a position to refuse.”

“……”

Even if slightly different, this situation, pushing him toward marriage, was chillingly identical to that time.

Back then… she had tried to persuade him with words when he was reluctant.

“You’re an adult now, you need to be independent.”

“And you don’t know this, but this is a really great opportunity.”

“If you just marry the chairman’s son, we can all turn our lives around at once.”

“You have debts to us too, living under our roof with no parents, right? You can pay those off too.”

As soon as he recalled the script from that day, his aunt began persuading him with various reasons.

Hearing it again, the words were absurd.

Telling him to be independent with no income, talking about burdensome debts that didn’t exist.

They were desperate attempts to sell him off, words he hadn’t deeply pondered back then.

Perhaps because he was older now?

Or because he had experienced it once?

Her words only left him dumbfounded.

As Haejin sat facing her with an uncomfortable, if not outright refusing, expression, the aunt, who had been persuading him, frowned and changed her tactic.

“And think about yourself.”

“Someone like you, with no parents, no college degree, nothing to your name—do you think you can find someone who will love you?”

“……”

The words that attacked his insecurities, cutting him down so deeply he never forgot them, even at the moment of death.

As if proving her words true to the very end, Haejin had never met someone who loved him.

Maybe it was true.

Someone with nothing, like him, might never find someone to love him.

So maybe it was better to at least marry and meet *him* that way.

But…

“…I won’t do it.”

“What?”

“I said I won’t. That marriage.”

Haejin met his aunt’s eyes directly and refused firmly.

He didn’t know if he had truly returned to the past or was experiencing an unbearably vivid life flashback…

But he didn’t want a loveless marriage.

He didn’t want to experience that soul-crushing loneliness again, where not even his own home was on his side.

He wanted to meet someone who would like him for him.

Whether this was a dream or a life flashback, if he had returned to that day, he wanted to live his life again, differently.