episode_0001

July 2024. I died at the age of 28.

The cause of death was excessive bleeding.

Don’t ask, it was a stabbing.

I was just walking down the street like normal… when suddenly, a crazy person in front of me took out a pocket knife and started swinging it at people around him.

I’m not normally a righteous person, but for some reason, my body moved on its own at that moment…

Stabbing sound.

“Ugh… cough….”

The crazy person’s knife stabbed me in the abdomen.

Thud, clang.

“Ah, does it hurt? I hurt more! It was agonizing!”

“Hey, catch that crazy guy!”

After stabbing me, the crazy person whimpered and made incomprehensible sounds before slumping to the ground.

Although the people around rushed to restrain him after he dropped the knife…

“Ugh… huu….”

Blood was gushing out of my stomach like a fountain.

“Hey, young man. Are you okay…? Hang in there. I called 911.”

“Huu, I don’t think I’ll make it….”

In my fading vision, I felt an old man pressing on my wound to stop the bleeding.

But…

‘Ah… I’m dying….’

I could feel my life slipping away.

Damn, is this how I die?

So anticlimactically.

Born an orphan, graduated from college, and made it this far.

How hard did I live… how hard did I try.

“Huu, huu….”

As I lost consciousness, I reached out towards the sky.

If there’s a next life, please let me meet good parents… and live happily….

With that, I lost consciousness.

And then…

“Waaaah-!!”

…a miracle happened.

**

Surprisingly, I was given a second life.

In typical web novels, this is where you’d be reborn in a fantasy world, but I was reborn as a baby in Korea.

However, there were a few differences.

First, my age.

Originally born in 1997, in my second life, I was born in 2005.

And second…

“Phew….”

I frowned at my reflection in the mirror. The slightly cold-looking pretty girl in the mirror frowned back at me.

Yes.

The second difference from my previous life.

Unlike being a man in my past life, this time, I was born as a girl.

And not just any girl, but a girl that anyone would fall for at first sight.

Confused by the sudden change in gender identity, I became awkward and timid, but I had somewhat adapted to being a girl now.

And lastly, the third difference from my past life.

Unlike being an orphan in my previous life, I finally had parents in this life.

But…

“Yerin! Just trust me once! I’ll pay off all the debts I’ve accumulated!”

“Yerin, is this pretty, or is this pretty? No, I’ll just buy them all.”

My new parents were incredibly irresponsible people.

Dad was a sports gambling addict, and Mom was addicted to luxury and extravagance, on top of being unemployed.

“Yerin! Clear table 8!”

“Yes!”

Since my parents didn’t work, even though I was in my senior year of high school in 2023, I couldn’t stop working part-time jobs.

“Yerin, did you get your paycheck? Trust Dad, I’ll pay it back.”

“Yerin, did you get your paycheck? Mom wants to buy a bag, can you deposit it quickly?”

Of course… under the guise of legal guardianship, my parents took all my paycheck.

“Good job today, Yerin. Check your account, your salary should be in. Don’t let your parents take it this time!”

“Yes, thank you. Boss.”

After finishing school, I first went to a cafe, then endured the forced march of working at a family restaurant, and finally made my way home feeling exhausted.

Being an orphan in my past life, working part-time jobs felt like a challenge. However, the difficulty of this life felt even more overwhelming than in my previous one.

“…Yes, this time, I’ll make sure not to get robbed.”

On the day I received my first paycheck, I opened a coin account, but my dad somehow found out and withdrew the money.

The day before the stocks I secretly bought skyrocketed by 300%, my mom closed the stock account and went shopping at the department store with that money.

Now that I knew my paycheck had been deposited, I wondered how I could prevent my mom and dad from taking it away.

It was while I was pondering this that it happened.

“Excuse me!”

“…Yes?”

A man with a decent appearance approached me, tilting his head.

It was so familiar to me that I could tell his intentions just by looking at him.

With incidents like this happening dozens of times a day, how could I not know?

“I’m not usually the type to ask for this, but… could I have your number or personal ID…?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Ah… Is there a reason…?”

“It’s not the time to meet someone romantically. I’m sorry.”

“Is that so? I understand…”

Thinking I was angry because of my usual expressionless face, the man seemed confused and quickly left.

“I wasn’t even angry…”

Due to my perpetually blank expression, I often faced misunderstandings like this.

Watching the man leave, I soon turned back towards home.

A run-down villa village a little away from the city center.

Among them, a place that seemed to be labeled with the word ‘poverty’ right in the middle.

But…

“…Huh?”

Unsuitable black sedans were lined up in front of our shabby villa.

They seemed strangely familiar.

“W-wait…!”

As soon as I saw them, I had a foreboding feeling and hurriedly entered the house.

“Ye-Yerin! Ohhh-!”

“You can talk to our daughter now…! As you know, she’s the eldest in our house….”

As I had expected, our house was filled with crying parents and men in black suits.

**

Whooosh-!

“Long time no see.”

“…Yes, it’s been a while. Sir.”

This man, Kang Hyeong-man, who was smoking a cigarette in our house without permission, was quite famous as a loan shark in our neighborhood. My mom and dad often borrowed money from him, so they had a good relationship.

Curious, I asked Kang Hyeong-man.

“Sir, did our parents borrow money again?”

“Yeah.”

Damn it.

I was hoping it wasn’t true. But as expected.

Feeling dizzy for a moment, I reached out to Kang Hyeong-man.

“…Sir, can I have a cigarette too?”

“…What?”

The first to panic upon hearing this were my parents.

“What?! Cigarette?!”

“Yerin! What are you saying?! Cigarettes! Men don’t like women who smoke! And you have to marry into a wealthy family later, but if you smoke…!”

My parents’ dream was to marry me off to a chaebol family and live a luxurious life.

But damn, then shouldn’t they act in a way that doesn’t make me want to smoke?

How many times have I been in debt like this!

Toss.

“…?”

Unable to contain my boiling anger, I grabbed my head, and Kang Hyeong-man, who had been watching silently, handed me something.

“It’s your choice to make. If you really want to smoke, go ahead.”

It was a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

“Still, I don’t recommend it. Smoking won’t solve your problems.”

“….”

I hesitated to light it up, but eventually gave up.

Having been reborn with pristine lungs, it felt like a waste to start smoking again over something like this.

“Well, you made the right choice.”

As I declined the cigarette and lowered my head, Kang Hyeong-man took the cigarette back and placed another piece of paper in front of me.

“…What’s this?”

“It’s the loan agreement your parents took out.”

Damn.

I immediately checked how much my mom and dad had borrowed this time.

200,000,000 won.

“20 million won…? Ah… When will I ever repay this….”

“It seems like you misread it.”

“…Excuse me?”

“Check the amount again.”

I heard his words and, in a panic, I picked up the loan agreement and read the amount again.

‘Zero… One… Two….’

Oh.

It wasn’t 20 million won, it was 2 billion.

Thud.

Feeling the weight of that unrealistic amount, I dropped the loan agreement and turned to my parents.

“…Which one of you borrowed 2 billion…?”

“…Hehe, it wasn’t just one person who borrowed it, your mom and dad borrowed it together.”

“They borrowed money together? …Why? There’s still money left, right? 2 billion won isn’t all spent yet!”

Desperately shouting with a sense of urgency, I grabbed my parents’ sleeves, but they just smiled awkwardly and showed me their phone screen.

“That’s right….”

Swipe-.

It was a cryptocurrency account. And there was not a single penny left in it….

Pointing to the empty cryptocurrency account, my mom chuckled awkwardly.

“Your uncle said it was a sure thing, but it got delisted.”

“So we lost it all. Ahaha, there are things like this in the world. But don’t hate your uncle too much.”

“….”

I decided not to hate my uncle as they said.

Instead, I hated my dad and mom a lot.

‘2 billion…. When on earth will we repay….’

Shivering.

My face turned pale, and my hands trembled.

Swipe-.

As I was like that, my parents came over and hugged me tightly.

“Don’t worry, Yerin. No matter what trials come our way, our family will rise again.”

“Family covers each other’s mistakes, you know? That’s why….”

Grabbing my trembling hand, my mom whispered softly in my ear.

“It’s payday today, did you get your part-time pay? Let’s use that to pay off the debt first.”

“Mister, just give me the cigarette. Ah, I can’t stand it, I can’t bear it…!”

“You absolutely can’t have the cigarette-!!”

Whether she was a high school student or whatever, feeling like she couldn’t bear it without a cigarette, but my parents, being the only daughter, desperately prevented her from smoking.

“If you smoke cigarettes, you won’t be able to marry into a chaebol family-!!”

“You know? This is all for your own good-!!”

There wouldn’t be any insane parents who would let their underage daughter touch cigarettes.

In that sense, my mom and dad were truly damn good parents.