#3. Is This Life Ruined Too?

“Hah! Hah······!”

Even the bedsheets held a clammy moisture, as if soaked in damp rain. At the cool sensation brushing against his skin, Jang Haneul swallowed a groan-laced scream, biting his lip ruthlessly.

Slowly, his wavering vision opened. The familiar, monotonous pattern of his studio apartment's ceiling struck his retinas, and only then did he realize he had returned alive to a agonizing reality.

Cold sweat trickled stickily down his spine.

The fierce aura Yuhwan radiated in the dream and his chilly words of rejection lingered like a residual image, freezing Haneul’s spine with a taut tremor. That fleeting moment when his rain-chilled face had closed in, breath hot enough to burn.

[I loathe guys like you.]

The cold language of disgust Yuhwan threw in the dream ground against his ears. The residual image of the boundary between dream and reality crumbling catastrophically thoroughly tore through his mind.

Clearly, he had been in the bullpen amidst a torrential downpour, engaged in a perilous confrontation with Yuhwan—the object of an affection he hadn't been able to sever across three lifetimes.

Looking around, it was indeed a terrible dream punctuated by bitter desire and humiliation.

‘Even in a dream, it hurts. Damn it.’

Was it because he had harbored a desire bordering on the forbidden all by himself? Even after waking, his entirely stiffened body wouldn't let go of the dream’s cruel lingering warmth.

The fact that his heart had pounded wildly even while taking in that guy’s disgust-filled gaze made him feel so pathetic and ashamed that he couldn't lift his head.

“Achoo!”

As a sudden sneeze burst out, he felt the strange illusion that the cold rainwater from the dream was still lodged deep in his throat.

It sounded absurd, but even this bizarre phenomenon where the rain hit in a dream returned as real-world chills could not be brushed off lightly. This world had already forced countless absurdities upon Jang Haneul.

The memory flashed through his mind of yesterday, when they began catching in the bullpen and a drizzle started to fall—Yuhwan had left early, leaving behind a cold air. Possessing a naturally fragile body, it seemed that merely brushing past that guy’s shadow brought his pathetic stamina to light.

Either way, once the notification of passing the MaguMagu club tryouts arrived soon, he would have to face him again.

The hero engraved deep in his heart, and the object of an obsession he couldn't let go of for even a single moment: Yuhwan.

He who reigned with overwhelming charisma in reality bore the face of a hopelessly cold, fatally alluring tempter even in his dreams.

“Achoo!”

However, a chill ran through his heart, feeling that his relationship with Yuhwan in this life would not follow a smooth trajectory either.

Was this a prophetic dream warning of an impending catastrophe? Or was it a divine warning to completely slash and discard this twisted affection toward him?

Even as he hurriedly prepared for school, his mind boiled with ominous hypotheses. Perhaps due to the restless dream, an encroaching premonition kept pushing him into a dark corner.

***

The next day.

In the afternoon, when brilliant sunlight shattered outside the classroom windows, Jang Haneul held back endless sneezes, staring at his trembling phone screen.

Fragments of the dream seemed to crawl up his spine from his feet, a repulsive sensation that drained all energy from his body. His head was filled entirely with yesterday’s strange, sharp dream, paralyzing his reason.

A short vibration sounded.

The moment the second hand pointed precisely at 4:45, news of his acceptance surfaced clearly over the cold liquid crystal screen.

[S University Baseball Club 'MaguMagu' Tryout Passed. Assemble at the College of Education Ground by 18:00 today.]

A procedure following the exact trajectory of his past life. With a calm resignation that what was bound to come had arrived, he closed his phone.

As the three letters of Yuhwan’s name brushed past his brain, his temples twitched faintly. Just imagining his rough protest, growling like a beast over his wounded pride regarding his pitch calls, made him breathless.

Perhaps because of the dream’s lingering effect, his steps toward the field today felt exceptionally heavy.

Knowing the past, and witnessing the present submerge into that sense of deja vu.

Others might call it a blessing from God and envy it, but to Jang Haneul, it was a cruel punishment. What was most terrifying was the fact that he clearly knew the exact date his life would end prematurely once again.

Currently, Jang Haneul was a first-year in the Department of Business Administration, and Yuhwan was a first-year in the Department of Physical Education at the College of Education. Both had gone through a gap year, sharing the common ground of being twenty-year-olds of the same age.

The professor’s monotonous lecture was now nothing more than noise brushing past Haneul's ears.

The sole purpose of stepping foot into this prestigious S University was for an inevitable encounter with Yuhwan. Life beyond that—radiant words like graduation or future—did not exist on his timetable.

Because he was fated to die this year. And on December 24th, on the exact same day and at the exact same hour as Yuhwan.

Why did God bestow such a malicious fate upon him? Across all three previous lives, a tragic destiny of unrequited love for Yuhwan, burning his heart out from afar only to crumble at a tender age.

Even resenting that God was already on its third iteration in this life. It was enough to wear his soul down to exhaustion.

Across four lives, an asylum called parents had never existed for him. The memory of his first life was cold abuse in an orphanage, and ever since, he was always thrown into the world as a lonely solitary figure.

Being alone was rather peaceful. Thanks to the wealth he had cleverly amassed using memories of his past lives as a guidepost, there was no financial poverty. Repeatedly learned knowledge lightly guided him to the ivory tower of S University.

Yuhwan, too, was born a twisted illegitimate son of a chaebol family, a man who had built his own rigid, lonely fortress amidst cold neglect in the name of family across all four lives.

In high school, his life as a brilliant baseball genius was dotted with a stained past: an unexpected shoulder injury and a grueling year of rehabilitation.

In the end, the density of deep loneliness was similar for both of them. That was why there was a point of contact to recognize each other in past lives, yet this life had tangled together far too coldly and roughly from the start, leaving the future utterly bleak.

‘In this life, no matter what it takes, I want to save him······.’

Only that desperate wish barely supported his worn soul as he faced reality.