If anyone's looking at this chapter and wondering why it looks familiar, may I kindly direct you to chapter 2, because I've just uploaded it. I didn't quite realise I missed it till I checked the comments today. I'm so sorry!

(The late uploading of chapter 2 isn't done intentionally. It has no hidden meaning behind it.)

4.

Jonghyun felt that he regretted his fourth life the most.

In his fourth life, Jonghyun was human again—or at least vaguely human. He met Jinki when he was five, and they became something resembling childhood friends. They grew up together, living just five miles away from each other. They attended the same institution together for a grand total of 32 years. They took the same placement test (well, they were in the same batch after all) and were assigned to the same department. Even then, they were living in the same building, albeit, if not the same unit.

Basically, you could say that Jonghyun and Jinki spent nearly all of their lives together.

-

Jonghyun really loved Jinki’s company. He felt the most at ease next to him. They understood each other almost completely and what they didn’t understand, they learnt to tolerate and accept. If Jonghyun were given a choice to write his life all over again, he would not change anything.

He led a fulfilling life, till he was aged 89 anyway.

-

When Jonghyun was 89, a new employee was transferred over. While the transfer was strange in nature (most people stuck to the same department for life), Jonghyun’s colleagues didn’t think too much about it and accepted her easily into their ranks. They didn’t probe her for a reason (she gave a reason on the official files, but it was hardly descriptive: family problems), and simply just welcomed her. Everyone in the department did so, including Jinki. Except Jonghyun.

For some inexplicable reason, when Jonghyun laid eyes on her, his eyes began twitching and a tight knot started forming imperceptibly in his stomach. A sudden ominous sense of foreboding overcame him, and Jonghyun knew at once that he wished the girl didn’t transfer over. His twitching eye and souring stomach told him so.

By then, Jonghyun had learnt to trust his instincts. His instincts were seldom wrong, if not, never.

But the rest of the department adored her, and no one got the same sort of feelings as he did from her. And so, Jonghyun wisely kept his thoughts to himself, only bothering to voice his concerns to Jinki once.

“Jinki, I don’t get a good feeling from that girl.” Jonghyun said, tearing open a sachet of tea.

“She seems nice enough,” Jinki answered, bringing over a box of sugar. He leaned over the counter and added a generous amount of sugar to both cups.

“Well, yea,” Jonghyun poured hot water in and dipped the sachets, “But my instincts tell me that something bad is going to happen. And she is going to be the catalyst.”

“Oh.” Jinki looked up at Jonghyun. He frowned and bit his lips, noting the genuine worry on Jonghyun’s face, “I will try and not get too close to her then.”

“Yea, do that.”

“But I am not going to ignore her, give her the cold shoulder or avoid her, ok?”

A sigh. “Why must you be so nice to everyone, Jinki?”

“Because being nice makes me feel happy.”

“If you are so nice to everyone, no one knows who you truly care for anymore.”

“And that’s why I treat the people whom I care for much, much, much nicer than anyone else.”

“I don’t see how you do so.”

“Like this,”Jinki grinned and pushed the cup of tea over to Jonghyun.

Jonghyun rolled his eyes, “I was the one who poured the water and put in the sachets.”

“Well, I can do this then,” Jinki blew on the steaming cup of tea, eyes smiling. He puffed up his cheeks, mouth forming a little ‘o’ as he tried to cool the hot beverage. All the while, Jinki was grinning at Jonghyun. He looked unbearably precious.

“Oh, just give it over,” Jonghyun laughed, taking the tea and drinking it. He could feel its warmth running down his throat, spreading throughout his insides. It felt incredibly comfortable.

Jonghyun’s instincts were never wrong. And that time round, it had proved itself to be right again.

Jonghyun wished it didn’t.

-

Throughout the next five years, Jonghyun could feel Jinki slipping through his fingers, slowly but certainly. As the girl made her way into Jinki’s heart, Jonghyun was gradually pushed out. There were only so many people Jinki could accommodate in his heart, and the girl had made clear her desires to monopolise him.

It was not that Jonghyun didn’t resist. He did. He tried. Initially, when the girl began her approaches, Jonghyun whispered caution into Jinki’s ears. He warned Jinki and repeatedly told him over and over about his increasingly hyperactive eyelids. Jinki listened to him at first, but slowly grew tired of Jonghyun ‘poisoning him against someone so innocent and pure’.

Jonghyun felt victimised. He only had Jinki’s best interests at heart, yet that was the treatment he got in return. So much for being worried. Jonghyun thus felt his anger justified and ignored Jinki for the next month. If there was one thing Jonghyun hated more than anything, it was being falsely accused.

How horribly young Jonghyun was. How horribly foolish. And what a terrible combination those two were – youth and folly.

-

In that month he ignored Jinki in a petty huff, Jonghyun left a crack behind for the girl to creep into. Hell, he left a hole behind, an abyss, an empty void (at least, that was what Jonghyun wanted to believe). And she made her way into it and soon started filling it up pretty quickly.

And before he knew it, when he finally calmed himself down sufficiently to see the futility of his ways, it was no longer Jonghyun and Jinki. It was Jonghyun, Jinki and the girl. Although you could probably say that in the trio, Jinki was the only happy one—Jonghyun and the girl were unwilling participants and wouldn’t want anything better than to spit poison at each other’s faces. Both of them would much rather be a duo with Jinki.

Things got to a head four months later.

“I am going to confess to Jinki later,” the girl said, “And you are not going to get in my way.”

“What?” Jonghyun snapped, “No, you aren’t.”

“I am going to do so, and no one can stop me. And no one is going to ruin the moment by causing a scene later on.”

“You are not going to do it.”

“I am. And you are not stopping me.”

“What the hell. Where in the freaking universe did you get the audacity to make dumb claims like that? I met him first, alright? I met him first! You don’t have the rights to do so. And there’s no way in hell I am going to sit still and watch you take him away. You are not going to –”

“I spent seventy-nine lives chasing after him. Seventy-nine. And you say I am audacious? And you say I don’t have the rights? I spent seventy-nine lives pining for him, looking for him, loving him, and you say I can’t do it? I have sailed the seven oceans, scaled the highest mountain and ventured into the depths of hell all for him, and you question my rights? This is my last life and I am going to make it count. There’s no way I am letting you stop me, you coward.”

The girl leaned forward and glared at Jonghyun, eyes blazing. She whispered in his ears, biting down on each word harshly, “Seventy-nine lives. You have nothing on me, you lily-pad coward who can never be true to your feelings.”

Jonghyun flinched and took a step back, blinking at the girl’s sudden intensity. His previous anger now laid in shreds and pieces around him, torn apart by the steel in the girl’s words, the sharp edge in her tone.

She took in a deep breath and unclenched her first slowly. Under a false veneer of calm, she stated, “I am going to confess later, and you are going to be unhappy with it. But you will not break off your friendship with Jinki. Not immediately. You will do it gradually, over time.”

“What?” Jonghyun said weakly, attempting to gain back lost ground, “You are crazy.”

The girl said nothing but simply fixed him with a stare, “You are going to do it. And you are going to fade into the background.” Her voice was empty of inflection, sounding as if she was reciting a simple fact she memorised.

The girl left the office a while later, steps strong and confident. Jonghyun left a few minutes after that, his steps grey and defeated.

-

After that, everything just went downhill. Jonghyun lost the battle, and he lost the war too.

Jonghyun’s fourth life ended without any major accomplishments. Or at least, that’s what his memories have him to believe. Jonghyun can’t really remember anything after he lost Jinki. The same thing happens for all of his other lives.

But there’s one thing Jonghyun clearly remembers. And that is the girl (whose soul has probably expired by now) truly loved Jinki. Jinki was in good hands. Jonghyun would have never surrendered if it was otherwise.

That’s what Jonghyun comforts himself with whenever he thinks back on this life.

Please don't hate the girl. She's just desperate.