Life, Once Again!

uring his high school days and end when he died, but that the cause was different every time.
In the dozens of lives that were repeated, there was a time when he died in his late twenties.
The possibility of coming across granny Yoo Bokja when he had a short life? Infinitely near zero.
After all, he met the elderly woman when he moved houses when he was forty.

“Was it a story to make me accept it?”

That seemed very plausible.
There was no way Han Maru did deeds of kindness every single time.
It was likely that the woman in the white suit had used that ‘good deed’ story in order to lessen his rejection towards revival.

Maru then had another question.
It was the most important question as well.

Why was his life being repeated?

Was he repeating his life because he could not escape the cycle of Samsara in the Buddhist sense? Or was he repeating his life in paradise until the arrival of heaven in the Catholic/Christian sense? Or was this how life worked in general?

He lacked information.
At the same time, he could finally understand why people fell for occultist religions.
There was nothing that felt more uneasy than being thrown into the middle of uncertainty.

-A branch forms in the timeline immediately after reviving.
In this case, there are many worlds where my family has lost me.
However, the possibility of this is low.
It was something that woman showed me after all.

-A repeating life.
There are two possibilities: one, whether it’s a reward or a punishment, I’m repeating life by myself, and two, all of the people in this world are experiencing the same thing as me, and it’s just that they don’t remember.

While reading his notepad, Maru decided to exclude the possibility of the second one.
If the world was fixed and the people in it were repeating their lives over and over again, nothing he did would help.
Perhaps this world would rewind once he reached forty-five.
In that case, he would be greeted by the world of nihility once he escapes the cycle of revival.
This would be something beyond his cognitive abilities, so if this was true, losing memories would be a blessing.

Maru focused on the fact that only he was repeatedly coming back to life.

“Why did the repetition begin… well, fine, I don’t care why it did.
But why insert a bothersome event like Yoo Bokja?”

He tapped on the notepad with the back of his pen.
If the human known as Han Maru started repeating his life due to a certain trigger, why was there a need to procure the plausibility of reviving every single time? When the masked man talked about the dead Han Marus, he also said that he met the woman in white.

If repetition of life was predestined, there was no need to explain the trigger for the revival through the use of the Yoo Bokja episode.
It would be fine if the woman in white told him ‘you got another chance at life thanks to god’s blessing’.

His suspicion started storming.
Maru thought about what happened after he died.
It was the question he had before he opened his eyes.
Had he regretted anything in life? Why did that question suddenly come to his mind at that specific time? It felt like a setup to make him possess regret towards his life.

After opening his eyes, he walked on the sandy beach before listening to the circumstances from the woman in the white suit.
You have died, but you have gained another chance at life.
It was then that Yoo Bokja appeared.
The elderly woman who had lived her whole life helping other people despite leading a poor life herself said that it was okay and yielded the chance of revival to him.
Wasn’t that like a fairy tale? It could even be called a myth.

This put more weight on the fact that Yoo Bokja was an imaginary figure.
Then why was there a need to go through such lengths to create a character and set up the mood?

“What if I refused?”

At first, he definitely refused.
He told her not to waste such a precious opportunity on a person like him.
What was the result? He was persuaded after a long time and received the opportunity himself.

No matter how much he thought about it, repeating one’s life meaninglessly could not be called a reward.
This meant that ultimately, his life was being repeated as punishment.

There was no need to ask a criminal for his opinion.
Telling him to do what he is supposed to do should be fine.

“I could choose.”

Maru could feel the heat rising in his head.
It was wrong from the beginning.
It must be a natural thing for the dead to long for life.
The woman in the white suit paved a path for him to choose life.
Who would choose death when they were urged to choose life?

What if he did not choose to revive?

“If that’s the key to ending this cycle… do I need to die first or what?”

Maru called for the masked man.

-You must feel complicated right now.

“I feel like my head is going to burst.
Let me ask you one thing.
The woman in the white suit.
Is she simply a guide? Or is she the judge?”

-I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you that.

“Fine.
Then what about this? You said this to me before I lost my memories; that you know why this all started.”

-Yes.
I know the circumstances behind all this.
Including how and why it all began.

“Fine.
Back then, you said something as you looked at that white rabbit on your shoulder.
You called the rabbit ‘her’.
Right before that, I asked you this question: what is the identity of the woman who led me to revive? And whether or not she was god,” Maru said as he probed his memories.

“Is the woman that guided me the rabbit?”

-I’m sorry.

“Then you told me this: Don’t hate her too much; she has spent a much longer time in despair.
That’s when I asked: Who is this ‘she’?”

-The woman you’ll love forever.

“Yes, that’s how you replied.
There’s only one woman I can think of that I will love forever.
She’s the only woman Han Maru has loved over numerous lives.
She must be Gaeul.”

-I’m sorry.

“What did you mean when you told me not to hate her? Is my life repeating because I loved her? Or are you saying that the reason this all began is because of her?”

-You must know the answer to that already, right? I’m sorry.
As much as I want to tell you, my mouth won’t open.

“Gosh, this is driving me crazy.”

Maru then asked one last question.
He knew that the answer would be yet another ‘I’m sorry’, but he had to ask anyway.
It was the question he was the most afraid to ask as well as the question that assumed the worst.

“The woman who guided me, the rabbit that was on your shoulder, and Gaeul.
What is the possibility that those three are the same person?”

The masked man once again replied ‘I’m sorry’.