Feel-Good Story Rebirth 단편 소설 & Independence 소설

After receiving the news that her husband had died during a mission, my sister-in-law collapsed from the shock. When she woke up, she'd lost her memory. She clung to my husband and refused to let go. Our husbands were twin brothers. The doctor said she couldn't be triggered, so my husband and mother-in-law sat me down and begged me to play along until she got over this. Every time I brought it up again, they shut me down. "This is only until she gets her memory back!" So I watched as my husband and his widowed sister-in-law eat, sleep, and live under the same roof. Even our daughter could only stand by and watch her cousin call him "Daddy". One day, my daughter spiked a high fever and wouldn't wake up. I begged my husband to take us to the hospital. Unexpectedly, his sister-in-law went berserk over it and threatened to kill herself. In the chaos, I was stabbed in the heart by the scissors she swung around. When I opened my eyes again, I found myself back to the day my husband agreed to play the role of a substitute husband.

After being reborn, I decide to stay far, far away from Jasper Swanson. I resign from his company. I sell our future wedding house. I go overseas to expand our family's business. In my previous life, I used a pregnancy to force him to marry me. But on our wedding day, his beloved first love jumped off a rooftop. Jasper acted like nothing had happened. He smiled and went through with the ceremony. On our wedding anniversary, he took me and our daughter to go bungee jumping. Then, he cut the cords himself, making us fall to our deaths. Afterward, he stood over my body and laughed manically. "If it weren't for you, Coco wouldn't have killed herself! Now, go to hell and atone for it!" When I open my eyes again, I'm back on the night I used the baby to force his hand.

After being reborn, I make up my mind to stop chasing after my childhood crush, Emil McLaren. When he puts up a sign banning my presence at his birthday party, I pack my bags and decide to go to Wanoki Island. When he says my scent makes his house feel nauseating, I quietly move out without complaint. When he says he doesn't want to breathe the same city air as me after our graduation, I leave and never look back. Then he tells me my existence might make his beloved first love uncomfortable. I nod and soon go public with someone else. In this life, I do the opposite of everything I did before. Because in my past life, I got what I wanted—I married Emil. But then his first love jumped off a cliff. He called me her murderer and tormented me. In the end, I jumped into the sea in a state of mental confusion and died. This time, all I want is to live. So, I find myself someone new. However, Emil blocks my path, his eyes bloodshot as he glares at me. "Penelope, I'll forgive this little joke of yours if you come with me right now."

Albert Roosevelt was the crush I was never meant to have. Like an idiot, I believed loving someone meant giving them everything, even if they didn't care about you. So, I trailed after him like a desperate puppy, bending over backward to meet his every whim. When he couldn't afford tuition, I begged Dad to fund him, sending him to the best schools. When his worn-out clothes made him a laughingstock, I pitied him and showered him with designer labels. And what did he do? He used what I gave him to chase after a gold-digging campus belle. To keep up appearances, he blew through money like it grew on trees. He even spread rumors that he was the real heir to the Roosevelts. To him, I was just an ATM. "Your family's loaded. It's not like you'll miss a few hundred grand. If you're gonna be stingy, maybe you should stop following me around," he said when his wallet ran dry. And like a fool, I believed that if I kept paying, someday, he'd love me back. After graduation, I funded his startup. The second it took off, he married the campus belle. He had the nerve to claim he earned everything through nothing but hard work. So, I crashed his wedding, and he buried a knife in my chest. "Only when you're dead, Eve Roosevelt. Only then will my pathetic past stay buried." When I opened my eyes again, I was face-to-face with a scowling Albert. "You can't scrape together a few hundred thousand dollars? It's Bianca's birthday. Are you trying to humiliate me?" I looked around the room and rolled my eyes. "Sure, I'll pay. But first? Kneel. You look pretty enough. Consider it charity, peasant."

When my sister, Amelia, and I are waiting to be adopted at the orphanage, a man and a woman come to visit. Ambitious as ever, Amelia instantly sets her sights on the elegantly dressed woman named Charlotte Evans, while I end up being chosen by the man in plain, unremarkable clothes. But to my surprise, the man turns out to be a discreet billionaire. After adopting me, he publicly announces my identity for everyone to see. Meanwhile, Amelia is taken in by Charlotte, who's so harsh it borders on cruel. She constantly scolds and punishes her. Moreover, Amelia is bullied at school and even gets doused in dirty water by her classmates. While she stands there trembling and humiliated, I walk away with friends crowding around me. Consumed by jealousy and resentment, Amelia waits for the perfect moment and pushes me off a tall building when I least expect it. The next time I open my eyes, I find myself back on the day we are supposed to be adopted. I watch as Amelia chooses the man without the slightest hesitation. It's obvious she's come back to this day, just like I have. On the day we part ways, Amelia gives me a knowing smile. "From now on, I'm going to live the high life. If you ever go hungry, maybe I'll spare you a bite or two." Outwardly, I look angry, but inside I am over the moon. In this life, Amelia can enjoy her luxurious life, even if it means living comfortably in a gilded cage.

In my past life, I used the little one in my womb to force Richard Reynold into marrying me. On the day of our wedding, his beloved, Elise Brie, leaped into the sea, taking her own life. She left behind a letter saying: "True love is no match for power and money. It is my loss." Richard, after learning the news of her death, was unaffected. In fact, he went through our wedding with a smile on his face. However, on the day of our son's third birthday, Richard took us to a diving trip. While 300-feet underwater, he ripped off the tube of our oxygen tanks, drowning me and my son. After my death, my consciousness remained as a spirit. I watched on as he placed my corpse in front of Elise's grave as an offering. He said, "Ellie, I've finally avenged you. I hope this will bring you some peace in your afterlife." Soon after, my vision darkened. When I opened my eyes once more, I realized I was back at the night when I was trying to use our son to force Richard into marriage…

I was reborn. The universe spat me back to the year of my SATs, eighteen again, right when Noah Ritchie confessed his love for me. Turned out, it was the last year he'd ever love me. That was the year he met her… the one who'd actually own his heart. For Carla Davidson, he didn't hesitate to confess his love to me, not out of sincerity, but to distract me from my studies. Because of him, I missed my shot at a top university and barely got into a second-tier one. He even staged a car accident to keep me from attending an academic competition, just so Carla could win first place. When Carla suffered from severe blood loss in an accident, he convinced me to donate so much blood that it permanently damaged my health and left me unable to bear children. Later, Noah was forced to marry me, but he spent every day brooding over a photo of Carla. And when he learned she was getting married, he abandoned me without a second thought, choosing to die for love. But in this lifetime, I'm wide awake. I won't love him again. I'll be selfish. I'll live for myself and no one else. So when Noah looked at me with his usual arrogance and asked, "Tiffany, will you be my girlfriend?" I met his gaze calmly and shook my head. "No."

The moment my best friend, Patrick York, rushed ahead of me into the convenience store and asked for a lottery ticket with that specific string of numbers, I knew he was in the same boat as me. We were reborn. In the past life, Patrick and I were shortlisted for an interview at a Fortune 500 company, but there was only one opening. The day before the interview, I had a sudden urge to buy a lottery ticket. However, because of that, I missed the interview and Patrick got hired. Surprisingly, I got the winning ticket and won 50 million dollars. After my graduation, I enjoyed an easy life by living off interest from the bank. Meanwhile, despite getting hired, Patrick was paid a low wage and suffered daily abuse from his colleagues. In the end, he took out his frustrations on me by pushing me off the rooftop, killing me on the spot. After my death, my girlfriend, Emily Hayward, committed perjury for his sake. She claimed that after a prolonged period of staying home with nothing to do, I was in a bad mental state and leaped off on my own. The two of them profited off my death and became trending influencers, making it big. When I opened my eyes once more, I realized I was back to the day I purchased the lottery ticket.

The new colleague at my company is a stingy mother. On her first day, she shows up with a huge pile of expired snacks that her son refused to eat and hands them out to everyone. Once we're done, she pulls out her PayPal and says, "These are all imported snacks for my son. I'll need 50 dollars from each of you." During a company team-building event, she refuses to participate, saying she has to go home to take care of her child. The day after, she comes over holding her phone and asks me for money. "I didn't eat with everyone yesterday. Since the company is footing the bill, just hand me the cash equivalent for my meal." Furious, I rejected her request immediately. What I fail to realize is that she would bear a grudge against me over it. One night, her son comes down with a high fever, so she calls me and requests a ride to the hospital using the company car. Once again, I refuse without a second thought. Because of the delay, her son suffers severe cognitive damage. She blames me for everything that happened. In a fit of rage, she ends up running me over with her car. As I open my eyes again, I find myself transported to her first day on the job.

I'm back to that night I was drugged with an aphrodisiac. My sister, Rosa Spencer, drags the most aggressive guy in the village, Theo Dawson, into the woods without hesitation. In my previous life, both Rosa and I had been drugged at the same time. She jumped at the chance to be with the promising young intellectual, Dexter Newman, and I was stuck with Theo. After what happened, Dexter took responsibility without a second thought. He threw a huge wedding in the village and married Rosa. Meanwhile, I ended up marrying Theo in a rush, with nothing but a tattered quilt. Seeing this, Rosa burst into laughter. "You were born unlucky, and you'll never beat me! My husband's going to college. His future's limitless!" Yet, to my surprise, Theo changed completely after we married. He spoiled me endlessly and even became the richest man in the state. Dexter, on the other hand, failed his college entrance exam due to cheating and could only make a living by doing odd jobs. After seeing me become the wife of the richest man in the state, Rosa suddenly ran to my house in tears. "My husband's a total loser. Years have gone by, and we can't even afford a decent apartment!" Out of sisterly sympathy, I landed her a well-paying job. But when she came to thank me, she smashed a whiskey bottle over my head. "We're sisters! How come you get to live better than me?" When I opened my eyes again, I was back to that very night Rosa and I were both drugged with an aphrodisiac.

When my best friend and I realized we had been reborn and traveled back several decades, we locked eyes, collapsed into each other's arms, and sobbed, shouting that we wanted to break off our engagements. The entire neighborhood whispered that we had lost our minds. But only we knew the truth. In our past lives, this was the day everything was sealed: she married a battalion commander, Ned Stark, and I became the wife of a high school teacher, Robbie Stark. My husband betrayed me. For the sake of that pretentious whore, Scarlett Wheaton, he stole my university admission letter and let her take my place on campus. The world mocked me as a failure, and Robbie stood by in silence. After we married, every time he touched me, he would immediately write another love letter to Scarlett—atoning for his supposed guilt. "Scarlett, even if I can't be with you in this life, my soul will always belong to you alone." Even my own child despised me, calling me an ignorant village woman, urging me again and again to divorce so that his father could be with his "true love," Scarlett. And my best friend, Rachel Croft—born the daughter of a factory director—was tricked by her husband, Ned, under the pretense of buying a house. He drained her savings and her wages for twenty long years. It wasn't until she fell gravely ill and went to sell the house that she discovered the deed he had given her was a forgery. The real house—the one paid in full—was in Scarlett's name. One of Scarlett's dresses cost more than my friend's entire monthly salary. When Rachel begged to reclaim what rightfully belonged to her, she was met only with contempt from Ned and her child. "All you ever care about is money. You're nothing like Scarlett, who isn't materialistic at all. Your illness is retribution," Ned had said. "Exactly. Only someone as noble and kind as Scarlett deserves to be my mother!" her child had said. Rachel and I both spent our lives working ourselves to the bone, only to end with nothing—dying bitter and broken from the injustice. But this time, fate has given us another chance. I will go to university. Rachel will become a wealthy woman. This time, without us paving the way, those shameless men and that wretched woman think they can still live happily ever after? Dream on.

My boyfriend and I set out on a graduation trip, but in the remote wilderness, we were kidnapped. The abductors had cruel intentions toward me, and to protect my boyfriend, I played along, buying time for him to escape and get help. After our rescue, though, a video of my assault spread online, turning me into a target of vicious gossip. "She's the woman who got it on with two guys in the wild!" "Kidnapped but so into it? What a freak!" "How does she even show her face? Shameless!" When I confronted my boyfriend about the video, he dodged the question and broke up with me. "I'm about to start at a top company. I can't be with someone so tainted." Heartbroken, I was pushed off a rooftop to my death. But when I opened my eyes, I was back on the day of the kidnapping, given a second chance to rewrite my fate.

On my birthday, my boyfriend ditched his childhood friend's desperate call to be with me. Devastated by his rejection, she spiraled into depression and ended her life. Heartbroken, he proposed to me beside her body. "I've already lost Giselle. I can't lose you, too." I said yes, moved by his grief and sincerity. But on our wedding night, he turned on me, hacking me with a knife. "You vile woman! Giselle died because of you. Time to feel her pain!" As I bled out, the girl waltzed back, saying she'd faked her death to spook him. Overjoyed, he pointed at my corpse. "Thank God, you're alive. This wretched woman is gone, and we're free to be together." They looted my wealth for their lavish wedding and happy life. When my eyes snapped open again, I was back on that fateful birthday.

Right before graduation, my roommate waved around a job offer from some overseas company. It had a three-day workweek, with a starting salary of $50,000 a month. It sounded too good to be true, so I warned her it might be a scam. When she struck out on other job leads, I asked my dad to get her a position at his company. She scoffed at the eight-hour days and $6,000 monthly salary, calling it slave labor. Then she went live online, falsely accusing my dad of inappropriate advances and pressuring her to bear him a son. When skeptics questioned her, she swore no woman would lie about her honor. The internet erupted, branding my dad a predator. Our company collapsed under the backlash, leaving us drowning in debt. To spare me, my dad jumped from a rooftop to his death. Devastated, I wandered into traffic and was struck by a truck. When I opened my eyes again, I was back to the day Amber got that shady offer.

The powerful Will Hudson, Bardou City's untouchable kingmaker, was set to marry my sister. Everyone said he was a monster, a man broken in body and mind, that marrying him was no different from stepping into hell itself. My sister, Carrie Wheaton, wept as if her heart would break. I pulled her aside and said, "I'll marry him for you. But in return, you'll stay in the countryside and guard the safe buried beneath Mom's grave. For three years, you mustn't open it." She thought it held a fortune—billions, perhaps—and joy lit up her face. She agreed without hesitation. I watched her greedy expression twist with excitement and couldn't help the cold smile that rose within me. 'Carrie, guard it well. Let's see if you can handle the kind of fortune that can destroy you.'

I sponsored Emily Fagan from an underprivileged background just to help her get through school. She was good-looking but wasn't exactly the brightest. Despite my warning not to tamper with my things, she slipped stimulants into my water bottle. Thanks to her, I was accused of cheating in the swimming competition. Our team's score was nullified. As for me, I was banned from competing for life and kicked out of college. When I confronted her, she cried pitifully, "Julie, I just wanted you to win. I didn't know that'd happen." My boyfriend, Elijah Strauss, held her and comforted her. He even snapped at me, claiming, "Em had good intentions. Why are you giving her a hard time?" Crushed, I shut myself in at home. Feeling sorry, she and Elijah visited me and brought along some vodka as an apology. After I took ten shots, I asked her to buy some over-the-counter pain relievers for my splitting headache. Little did I know that she'd make me take a dangerous dose of Ibuprofen mixed with alcohol. The bleeding in my stomach was what killed me. Emily looked pitifully remorseful at the hospital. "I'm so sorry. I couldn't even tell what I shouldn't have given her…" During the police interrogation, my boyfriend gave false testimony to protect her. He accused me of taking my own life by mixing Ibuprofen and alcohol because I couldn't handle the mental stress from cheating in the competition. When I reopened my eyes, I found out that I was transported to the day before the competition.

My husband's protégé boasted she could disarm bombs blindfolded, relying on her so-called intuition. Her reckless misjudgment triggered a bomb's secondary detonation sequence, endangering an entire building. I intervened, using the dangerous liquid nitrogen condensation method to save the day. As a result, Rita Smith was removed from frontline duties and placed under investigation. Patrick Munoz tried to defend her, but I stopped him cold. "If you back her now, you won't just fail to save her. You'll be dragged down with her." Crushed by the pressure, Rita staged an accident that killed her, leaving a letter blaming him for abandoning her in her hour of need. He said nothing, only preserving her letter in his study. Years later, he became a nationally renowned bomb disposal expert. During a terrorist attack, I was strapped to a timed explosive. He arrived to defuse it but repeated Rita's fatal mistake. As the timer ticked down, he gave a bitter laugh. "Rita was just nervous back then. If I'd supported her, she'd be a hero today." The bomb detonated, leaving nothing of me behind. When I opened my eyes again, I was back to the point when he tried to defend Rita. He didn't know that the building housed the nation's top-secret core server.

My husband, Julian Harlow, has died, leaving behind a five-million-dollar debt. I decide to inherit his debt right away. However, my best friend, Evangeline Frost, goes crazy from worry because of my decision. In my previous life, Evangeline had advised me to not inherit Julian's debt because he didn't have any assets. So, I signed the agreement to give up on inheriting his assets and declare that I had nothing to do with Julian in order to escape from the debt. But the debtors kept haunting me. They even kidnapped my son, Shawn Harlow, just to force me to pay the debt. The debtors were extremely violent and ruthless. On top of that, they kept using Shawn's safety as leverage over me. Every time they forced me to pay the debt, I felt as though I was being tormented slowly yet painfully. In just 24 hours, I asked all of my relatives for help, but I was only able to gather 100 thousand dollars. In the end, Shawn never escaped from his fate. I was sold to Northreach by the cruel debtors in order for the debt to be cleared. But that was when Evangeline claimed that her own son had finally returned to his roots, thus successfully inheriting the assets of a billionaire. I finally found out that said billionaire was actually my dead husband when I watched the news on the TV. Only then did realization dawn on me. Julian was pretending to be poor this whole time. It turned out that Evangeline's son was actually his illegitimate child. The assets that I had given up all went to Evangeline and her son in the end. Filled with resentment, I tried to escape back to the country in order to settle the score with Evangeline, only to die to the electric fence surrounding the slave camp in Northreach. When I open my eyes again, I've returned to the day Evangeline tells me to give up on the assets.

Before the SATs, everyone had filled in their dream colleges they'd like to apply to. Now that the results were out, my boyfriend, Sheldon Miller, and many of my classmates had successfully gotten into Astraeus University, which happens to be their dream university. In order to celebrate the success, Sheldon's childhood friend, Winnie Frost, decided to invite Sheldon and the classmates over to the tattoo parlor her family ran for celebratory tattoos. I grabbed Sheldon's hand and reminded him that students in aviation majors weren't allowed to have tattoos of their own, only to get slapped by him instead. The classmates around me even started mocking me relentlessly. "Just how shameless are you, Cassandra? Sheldon and Winnie are the actual childhood friends here! You don't want him to get a tattoo at her family's parlor out of jealousy, right?" I was so pissed that I could feel a headache coming. For the sake of Sheldon's future, I forcibly dragged him away. But what I didn't expect was that Winnie would secretly carry two barrels of gas to my residence. Just like that, she set my residence ablaze. That fire ended up killing my parents and me. Sheldon and our classmates even forged Winnie's alibi just so they could wash her off the police's suspicion. When I open my eyes again, I've returned to the day Sheldon is about to walk into Winnie's tattoo parlor. Sheldon shakes my hand off ruthlessly and begins berating me angrily. "Aren't you just being jealous because Winnie and I are close to each other? I'll have you know that not only do I want to get a tattoo with Winnie, but I also want to have her name tattooed on my body!" This time, I just flash a wide smile at him. "Go on, then. You'd better have her name tattooed on an obvious spot."

After my parents get divorced, my twin brother, Archer Sullivan, chooses one parent to live with. I choose to be with Mom. After the divorce, Mom's mood is at an all-time low. She gambles away all of the money we have, and she begins bringing various men home the moment she runs out of money. I have to move into a dark and damp apartment with Mom afterward. Lewd sounds keep drifting from her room every now and then. Every day, I have to secretly take on part-time work in order to earn my living expenses, on top of going to school. Life is very harsh and bitter for me. That is, until Archer, whom I haven't kept in touch with for a very long time, sends me a link to a streaming website. "Tap on the link, Adam. It's a surprise for you." I tap on the link, only to realize that the livestream that's on top of the trending list features… me? It's a livestream with a split-screen function. One screen shows me finishing my homework under the dim light in a cheap apartment. The other screen shows my parents cuddling with Archer happily while seated on a luxurious couch in a villa. "Let's see what sort of differences there will be between a pair of twins that are raised differently till they're 18 years old!" "I suppose the older twin doesn't realize that his parents never got divorced, and that his family is actually very rich! Both parents are still living happily together. Even his younger brother is living a great life." "That poor twin, though! He's living a very difficult life without three hot meals a day! Isn't this considered abuse?" "Well, that older twin is more understanding and obedient, isn't he? That's why his parents chose to make him suffer in life."