The relationship between lovers was a tug of war in the end. It was a fight to see who pulls the rope stronger, and who gets pulled. A relationship where one side is one-sidedly pulling, while the other side is being one-sidedly being dragged will make the involved parties fed up eventually. Only when a change of power happens regularly, so that neither side knows who was in the lead, can a relationship between lovers continue without both sides losing interest. This is why many people think about making changes to their relationship when they find out that they’re scheduling the next date out of habit. They say love will eventually turn into an agreement and a duty, but anyone would want to maintain the ‘love’ in their relationship while they were still lovers. A relationship that’s stimulating and new every time they meet - in order to maintain such a fresh relationship, Maru knew that there needed to be a tug of war with a balance of power, but he couldn’t do that.

He bought a cup of coffee from the cafeteria before walking a lap around the school field. He could hear vocal exercises from the 5th floor of the main building from where he was.

“I am afraid.”

Maru looked down at the half-filled coffee. Daemyung was very adept at observing others. What was surprising was that he didn’t just see the surface; he noticed the underlying meaning behind each of those actions. He might have been born with it, but he probably learned to notice what other people were thinking when he was being bullied, so that he could avoid getting injured, which improved his talents even further.

Daemyung’s words were true. He hit right on the bullseye, rendering Maru unable to retort with a joke like he usually would. When someone got hit on a part that really hurt, that person would not have the leisure to counterattack and would lose strength before avoiding that place altogether.

I am afraid - Maru smiled bitterly as he looked at his eyes reflected in the deep brown surface of the coffee. A relationship always had to be fresh, otherwise, both sides would get fed up. Time did not consolidate relationships. It wasn’t that there was a special reason for long-time lovers turning their backs on each other. Maru listened to his long-time friends whining about breaking up. He couldn’t remember their names, faces, or the specific details of their situation, but he could remember their words to a certain extent.

They… just didn’t have a reason to keep meeting.

There was no grand reason for breaking up. This was especially true in a romantic relationship.

A partner bound by business is generally continuous unless the monetary agreement is broken. For an employer and an employee, as long as there’s a clear employment contract, neither side can break it one-sidedly. However, friendship and romantic relationships didn’t have such clear-cut contracts. Friendship would sometimes mature on its own even if left alone sometimes, but for lovers, that definitely wasn’t the case.

Love, it was such a vague word. No literature anywhere in the world had a clear definition of love. Some called sacrifice the essence of love, while some called devotion the essence of love. Some called overcoming hardships together love, and some called mercy and forgiveness love.

Perhaps the reason why the reasons for lovers breaking up were so bland was precisely because of the vagueness of love.

That was why Maru decided to fit himself into that context. Maru was playing tug of war with Gaeul. However, he never pulled too strongly. He always readied himself to be dragged, and sometimes he would pick up the rope and walk over to her side on his own accord. He knew that the exciting tug of war of love was the route for their relationship to not become worn out, but Maru knew the downsides of that tug of war too well.

A tug of war could only occur when both sides are grabbing the rope. If either side lets go of the rope, it’s no longer a tug of war. It’s just playing with the rope by oneself in a lonely manner.

The reason he showed her a side of him that he did not show others was a way for him to show his struggles. Yes, he was revealing his honest feelings, but at the same time, he was acting cute in front of her. Don’t abandon me - that might be his honest feeling.

Maru emptied the rest of the coffee in one go before crumpling up the paper cup.

Sometimes he thought - why does it have to be her? Rationally speaking, it was definitely strange for him to be so hung up over Gaeul. Indeed, Gaeul was definitely a charming woman. She was lovely, and he thought that he could give her his everything. However, it wasn’t that people were matched 1 to 1 like a puzzle piece. Even if it wasn’t Gaeul, if he looked closely enough, he might find another woman who’s more lovely and would make him want to endear more.

However, from the moment he came back to life, he only thought about Gaeul and wanted her.

Thinking about it closely, it was definitely something strange. Why did he try to regain Gaeul? Was it because he hadn’t given her enough things in his previous life? If he had to come up with a reason, that was the most plausible one. After all, his wife quit doing the plays that she so loved in order to take care of the housework. It wasn’t that he couldn’t understand the compensating mindset, but was that really all? Was that the only reason he did all the things he did in order to meet the woman who was his wife in his previous life and became lovers with her?

“If that’s the case, I guess this is more like redemption, not love, huh.”

It became vague. The thoughts that never came to mind when he pursued blind love and wanted a return of the same love, gained weight with Daemyung’s words and dug into his mind.

Of course, it wasn’t like he was dissatisfied that she was the only woman in his life. It was just that he found it strange, now that he thought about it. What made him want Gaeul so much? Strictly speaking, it was all a matter of the past, so why was he so hung up on her?

Why would there be any reason to like someone? - he tried to think that way and start walking, but the iffyness in his mind still haunted his thoughts. As he climbed up the stairs from the 1st floor, the 2nd floor, and then the 3rd floor, his thoughts ended up taking root in a completely unexpected place.

“Is it fine as it is now?”

He thought about it carefully. For Gaeul, this was her first romantic relationship. Until now, they had met up with each other without anything bad happening, but there was a possibility that it might go wrong in the future. No, that moment would definitely arrive. After all, he had multiple quarrels with her in his previous life before they got married.

The problem was his actions. Weren’t his actions driving her emotions one-sidedly into one corner? A person matured as they loved and had their heart broken by others. This was the same for both men and women. That was why many people asked the question: Is it really a happy thing to get married to your first love?

Gaeul dated others before she met him in his previous life. The same thing could be said for him as well. They met each other while looking for their lovers, and happened to have found a partner that matched their styles in each other.

In his previous life, his wife was a woman in society who worked in a theater troupe, and was over 20 years old. The man known as Han Maru liked the Han Gaeul who had walked her own path in life. They shared their own ups and downs that they’ve experienced, cherished the different parts about each other, and sometimes quarreled but held on with the love they’ve experienced before to heal themselves with it to give rise to new love.

It was because there was a Han Gaeul that he didn’t know of; that he couldn’t understand, that he could love her existence.

“I look unstable.”

Was he perhaps making a tailor-made doll?

He had that thought. Wasn’t he perhaps blocking Gaeul’s own path forward and changing it to his own tastes by imitating a destined meeting?

His actions of giving up on the tug of war and matching her every wish might also be quite pressuring in her perspective. She didn’t feel it now, but the moment she realized the ordinariness of their romantic relationship, she might begin to doubt their current relationship.

‘Am I really an idiot?’

Writing the period in a novel that was still unwritten in order to reform the ending of a novel that he already once saw should be wrong. Perhaps him asking her to get married might be a net that shackled her.

Maru leaned against the wall.

Wasn’t that too irresponsible? - he was at the epitome of ignorance to the point that it made him wonder if it was really his own doing. What right did he have to approach her and force her to take action? What right did he have to make her like and love him?

At that moment, Maru felt as though something very important escaped him. He felt like there was a magical word that made this messed up formula make sense, but he couldn’t think of it. The reason he was so blindly faithful to Gaeul, the reason it couldn’t be anyone but her - he had a strange feeling that the reason lay apart from her.

But, that was only just a feeling. Maru shook off those emotions by shaking his head. He had to base his thoughts on facts. There was a possibility that he might have lost something he absolutely must not, but such an assumption would only leave behind meaningless results.

If he endlessly dug into the ‘what ifs’, he might as well come to this conclusion -

That his memories were manipulated.

However, that shouldn’t be the case. That was why he had to think based on clear facts.

“What do I have to do now?”

He wished to continue the current relationship where he matched her. He would reform himself into the ideal man that Gaeul wanted. They would be able to continue their relationship as long as he changed himself to freshen things up whenever their relationship hit a habitual routine.

It was fine as long as he acted like he was doing now.

Maru was reminded of a well-crafted doll walking. That doll’s face looked similar to Gaeul’s.

Was he in love with the current her? Or was he in love with her of the previous life?

There was one thing that was clear.

His actions will continue to restrict her options, and as a result of that, she might become a completely different person from the her of the previous life, in a sense.

When he looked at her, who coexisted between two different memories, he honestly couldn’t give a clear answer to which one of her he would eventually end up liking.

‘I’m a total coward.’

He was afraid of being abandoned; he was afraid of losing her, so he approached her first and planned out everything from A to Z. Perhaps he should not have done that. Perhaps he should have let her live her own life and stand in front of her with confidence once she matured.

Perhaps the fear that she would be taken away, and that meager confidence of his have ruined her life? Perhaps she was destined to meet a man incomparably better than Han Maru in this life and live the rest of her life in happiness, but a dude who got a second chance at life might have ruined her future out of his own greed.

“It had to be ordinary love.”

Maru put his forehead against the wall and sighed.

Perhaps the reason he was thinking like this was an influence from his change. Now that his thought process changed, he felt like his own philosophy had been twisted as well.

‘But I still don’t want to give her up.’

Perhaps the god might think of him as an underhanded man.

At that moment, he heard some voices from above. It seemed that the door to the hall was opened. They were probably taking a break from practice.

“Maru-seonbae?”

“Yeah. You guys finished?”

“Yeah. We got a 10-minute break.”

“Would you like to drink something? I’ll treat you.”

“Really? Guys! Maru-seonbae’s treating us!”

Maru looked at everyone rushing down. You’re really good at deceiving your own emotions - he felt like someone was saying to him from within.