I'm Pretty Sure My Boyfriend Reincarnated

I think my boyfriend might have reincarnated.

He seems to have realized Im a toxic woman who was just playing with his feelings.

And hes started treating my sweet, pure-as-an-angel little sister exceptionally well.

The other day, I saw him pin my sister against the wall.

With red eyes, he gently pushed a strand of hair behind her ear, holding back his emotions.

"I was so stupid," he whispered.

"It turns out you were the one I was looking for all along."

"In my last life, I missed my chance with you."

"In this life, Ill use everything I have to make it up to you, okay?"

This was the fifth time Carter hadn't picked me up after class.

In the past, this would have been absolutely impossible.

I sat by the window, staring at the endless rain outside.

I made sure my makeup would get ruined by the rain just the right amount.

And then I dashed out into the downpour.

Carter and Lily were sitting in a coffee shop.

He raised his hand and gently brushed her bangs aside. She shrank back shyly.

I pushed the door open and burst into the shop.

The chime of the bell sliced through the quiet atmosphere.

My little sister turned pale with fright, while Carter dropped his hand and looked up at me.

"What are you doing here?"

I offered a weak, fragile smile.

When I first walked in, I caught my reflection in the glass door.

My makeup wasn't totally ruined, but just smudged enough to invoke pity.

So when I sat down next to Carter, he ultimately didn't push me away.

"You promised to pick me up. Did you forget again?"

I leaned in close, almost bumping the tip of his nose.

I had complete confidence in my looks, especially when I stared at him this pitifully.

The man hesitated for a long moment before lowering his eyes and apologizing.

"I'm sorry."

"Lily had some homework she didn't understand and asked for my help. I lost track of time..."

"I didn't mean to leave you waiting."

"..."

I smiled and magnanimously told him it was fine.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of my dear sister.

Her fists were clenched tight under the table.

Her heartbroken expression was almost impossible to hide.

Back in middle school, when those kids shoved my head into a toilet, I made a vow.

I would do whatever it took to live the life I wanted.

I would absolutely never let anyone see me in a pathetic state again.

So, Im not a good person. I never have been.

I studied hard, worked on my posture, figured out how to present my best side to others, and expanded my social circle.

I ruthlessly molded myself into someone outstandingso outstanding that whenever people mentioned my name, they would say:

"Harper? How can a girl that perfect even exist?"

I had finally earned the approval of my strict, unsmiling father.

My teachers loved me, and my friends supported me.

I thought my life could just maintain this delicate balance forever.

Until Lily showed up.

She was my dad's illegitimate daughter from an affair.

Lily had sought us out herself.

The moment she appeared, the balance of our family shattered.

I cried and interrogated my dad about why he had another woman on the side. He stayed silent.

Meanwhile, Lily huddled in the corner of the room, acting as if absolutely nothing was her fault.

Moreover, Lily seemed to possess a natural magic.

Her magic was an effortless, genuine pitifulnesscompletely different from my calculated acting.

It was as if everyone around her felt an overwhelming urge to protect her.

Before long, my dad started defending her.

All my friends told me to be nicer to her, saying it wasn't my sister's fault, and begging me not to act like the evil stepsister from a soap opera.

Once again, I felt a deep sense of crisis.

Because I suddenly realized that everyone around me was being drawn away by her.

I needed to protect my territory.

So, I stole Carter.

But rather than saying I stole him, it was more like Lily handed him to me on a silver platter.

Lily, being the kind-hearted Samaritan she is, participated in a hurricane disaster relief effort.

While she was there, she saved Carter, the heir of the wealthy Hayes family, who had been vacationing near the mountains.

Unfortunately, Carter's vision was damaged at the time, and his consciousness was blurry.

He couldn't remember her face clearly.

So, I swooped in and claimed her rightful place.

Carter went to great lengths trying to find the girl who saved him in the disaster zone.

But Lily adamantly refused to come forward.

I said, "Sister, if you really don't want him to recognize you, why don't you introduce him to me?"

Lily bit her lip and agreed.

But I figured.

She was probably regretting it right about now.

Carter, oh Carter.

Carter was a gentle, righteous guy.

When he was good to me...

He never missed a single meal for the two of us, and he tracked my cycle better than I did.

Every green grape he fed me was carefully peeled.

But overnight.

His attitude toward me just changed.

His former passion turned into resistance, and he even stopped answering my calls.

On a Saturday morning, I went to Carter's art studio.

He was an oil painting major, a graduate of a top-tier European art academy.

The studio smelled of sunlight and pine resin.

Stepping into the spacious room, I saw him sleeping against his easel from afar.

He seemed to have pulled an all-nighter; his breathing was steady.

I leaned in to look at his canvas.

The person on it looked about thirty or forty percent like me, smiling at the painter. It hadn't been colored yet.

It took me a long moment to realize.

It really wasn't me.

It was Lily.

I was staring at the painting so intensely that I didn't even notice the man waking up behind me.

I was crouching. When I turned around, I caught him silently watching me.

"What's wrong? Why are you painting my sister?"

"Paint me next time, won't you?"

I simply climbed into his lap. He sighed and wrapped his arms around me.

"I don't have time."

His actions were gentle, but his words were ruthless.

I thought the phrase "ulterior motives" perfectly described our current dynamic.

But, I really was a master of disguise.

I blinked and looked back at him.

"Carter, hey. If I ever do something you don't like, you have to tell me, okay?"

"Don't keep it bottled up, dummy..."

I reached out and pinched his nose.

It wasn't just to show my vulnerable side.

It was more to find a way to ease the tension in our relationship.

Sometimes, not talking to each other is the real culprit behind a broken relationship.

And right now, I still needed Carter.

His brown eyes stared at me for a long time.

He looked so serious that I got the sinking feeling I was digging my own grave.

A moment later, I heard him ask:

"That day, was the person who saved me really you?"

"..."

That was a very hard question to answer.

Carter graduated from a prestigious school, and his family's business covered half the city. He was an ideal and suitable marriage prospect on my path to a perfect life.

At first, I really was just dating him with the goal of marriage in mind.

But after we got together, I realized that when it came to real feelings, I was just a naive kid.

Simply put, I fell for him.

So lying to him started to feel incredibly tricky.

But he didn't wait for my answer.

He pushed me off his lap. For the first time, I saw disappointment in his eyes.

"You don't have to answer."

"..."

Yeah.

My silence seemed to have answered everything.

It was just that my heart felt a little empty.

It was as if the fortress I had so painstakingly built.

Had been effortlessly reduced to rubble by someone else.

"So? Did you and Carter break up?"

On the campus rooftop, I was drinking coffee with another guy.

His name was Mason, an underclassman.

Even though he was younger, he was one of the few genuine friends I had made.

We had known each other since middle school, so he had seen what I looked like when I was being bullied.

He even helped me take revenge on the girls who tormented me.

I lowered my head and rubbed the edge of the soda can.

Given the situation, even if Carter hadn't explicitly dumped me yet, it probably wasn't far off.

"Oh right, your sister has been coming to see me a lot lately."

Mason stretched lazily and grinned at me.

...

If you asked me to look back on it now.

I definitely should have been on high alert the moment Mason said those words.

"Oh right, your sister has been coming to see me a lot lately."

Because gradually.

Lilys name started creeping into my conversations with Mason more and more.

After Carter stopped contacting me.

The person I talked to the most was Mason.

My life was still incredibly busy. I had a lot of competitions to enter.

Because it wasn't just my love life; I needed to be perfect in every single aspect to maintain my carefully crafted persona.

Living like this was exhausting, but it was all I knew.

I never complained, until one day, during a speech competition.

Something happened backstage that made me feel like my entire life.

Was just one big joke.

10

I was the last one to go on stage for the speech.

The grand finale, you could say.

So eventually, I was the only one left in the dressing room.

When the door was violently pushed open.

I was just pinning my last hair clip.

The person who walked in was my boyfriend, whom I hadn't seen in a very long time: Carter.

Oh, and he was holding another girl's hand.

My sister, Lily.

He was furious, and Lily was crying buckets.

He dragged the girl over to me and shoved her sleeve up for me to see.

"You did this, didn't you?"

On the girl's pale arm were several raw, red welts.

They looked like lash marks. I raised an eyebrow.

My reaction seemed to make him even angrier.

"What is that look on your face?"

"Heh, Harper, you won't even spare your own sister, will you?"

My good sister was still sobbing uncontrollably, clutching Carter's sleeve.

"Please, Carter, stop asking."

"It has nothing... nothing to do with my sister..."

Carter.

How intimate.

I lowered my eyes to stare at the wounds on her arm. I had no idea where they came from.

But Carter seemed utterly convinced that I was the vicious mastermind behind it all.

Just as I opened my mouth to explain.

Someone else walked through the door.

Mason walked in with his hands in his pockets. Seeing him, I breathed a sigh of relief.

I tried to force a calm smile.

"Carter, think about it rationally. Why would I do something like this to my own flesh and blood?"

"Mason, perfect timing. You know me, I was bullied before, how could I ever..."

I stopped mid-sentence.

Because I saw the look on Mason's face.

He had never looked at me with such absolute disgust before.

My mind uncontrollably replayed his recent words.

Over the past few days, Mason had constantly brought up Lily.

"Your sister is so shy, man."

"Your sister really sucks at Calculus."

"Bumped into your sister in the cafeteria today."

"Your sister..."

In the dead silence of the dressing room, his voice was the last thing to echo.

I listened as he said, word by word:

"Harper, I was so wrong about you."

"Just because you were bullied, does that give you the right to bully someone else?"