Chapter 1

The day I decided to leave, I met a girl. She looked at me with open curiosity.

“Hey, handsome, you look so much like my boyfriend.”

My heart ached with a complicated mix of emotions as I gazed at nineteen-year-old Luna.

“I *am* him. And I was just about to leave your thirty-five-year-old self.”

Luna froze, a rare flicker of panic crossing her youthful, radiant face.

I watched her silently, offering no explanation, no accusations.

The mistakes thirty-five-year-old Chloe made shouldn't be laid at Luna's feet.

“No, why are you leaving, Alex?!”

“I love you so much!!”

A sharp pang seized my chest, an overwhelming bitterness spreading through me, suffocating me.

I’d just been walking along today when I found her – Luna, nineteen years old.

She had arrived from sixteen years in the past.

“Is it because I’m not pretty anymore? Or your family won’t let us be together? Are you terminally ill?”

Luna paced anxiously, her face etched with worry.

“It can’t be that you have another woman, right?!”

I… had no words.

Taking a deep breath, I forced a smile, unsure how to face Luna.

Our relationship, Chloe’s and mine, had long since decayed into nothingness, but nineteen-year-old Luna had no idea.

She was still lost in the throes of our passionate love.

“Say something! Alex!”

The young girl was practically bursting with anxiety, all because she’d seen the divorce papers I’d drafted in my study.

“Had I truly not made up my mind about the divorce yet?”

My gaze lingered on Luna, a touch of longing in my eyes.

It had been so long since I’d seen Chloe so vibrant and bright.

“Luna, do you love me?”

The words were barely out before a self-deprecating laugh escaped me. A man in his thirties, still asking such childish questions.

“Yes! Of course, I do!”

“I love you more than my own life.”

Luna looked up, meeting my eyes.

The nineteen-year-old’s gaze was eager, and a sweet, fresh scent enveloped me as she leaned closer.

Luna’s face was filled with earnest affection, and my heart softened.

But… I touched the phone in my pocket, gazing deeply at her, my chest aching.

“Chloe’s on a business trip these days. You can stay here for a couple of days first.”

Luna blinked, then suddenly reached out, her fingers brushing the corner of my eye.

Wrinkles had formed there over the years, from time and hardships, and I didn’t care for myself. Standing next to nineteen-year-old Luna, I looked utterly mismatched.

I turned my face away, embarrassed, a mocking tone in my voice.

“I’ve gotten old, haven’t I?”

Luna chuckled softly, a note of tender affection in her voice that I hadn’t heard in years.

“You look good even when you’re old, incredibly charming.”

Luna cupped my face, utterly serious.

“I’ll love you even if you turn into a grumpy old man, Alex.”

A long-forgotten stir of emotion rippled through my heart.

At the same time, I felt a touch of irony.

A beautiful start, a bitter end – that’s pretty much what it meant, I guessed.

…

I was getting medicine for Luna when I received the photos from the private investigator.

They were high-quality pain relievers for dull bone aches, brought back from abroad by a friend.

When Luna was eighteen, she'd shielded me from a baseball bat swing ordered by Brandon, and that’s how she’d developed this ailment.

It hadn’t healed in over a decade, and her shoulders and back would ache with any exertion.

The ointment tube slipped from my grasp, clattering to the floor. I stared at the photos, a suffocating sense of powerlessness and desolation washing over me.

Chloe’s affair partner was none other than Brandon, our high school classmate.

I’d known Chloe’s feelings had changed, and I’d thought I could accept it, no matter who the other person was—a powerful figure or a charming young man.

But Brandon, the famous celebrity, even though I knew he’d had a crush on Chloe for over a decade, I’d never imagined it would be him.

Because once, Brandon had bullied me relentlessly in high school.

I still remembered seventeen-year-old Chloe, her slender shoulders shielding me, trembling with fear, yet still protecting my bruised and battered body.

“Brandon, if you bully Alex again, I’ll make you pay with your life.”

I closed my eyes, a single tear tracing a path down my cheek.

Opening them, I felt a dizzying sense of disorientation.

Luna came running, her face filled with concern.

“What’s wrong, Alex?”

My voice was hoarse, but I tried to keep it calm as I answered her.

“Chloe, you’ve fallen for someone else.”

Luna exploded.

She refused to believe it.

“How could that be?! I swore I’d die if I ever stopped loving you!”

“Alex, this must be a misunderstanding!”

In our youth, we refuse to believe in goodbyes.

Nineteen-year-old Luna firmly believed her love would last until she was thirty-five.

But the world changes, and hearts are fickle. She didn’t know that the girl’s love had long since died during our many years together.

I looked up at Luna, remembering the photos of Chloe and Brandon, and a tiny, damnable spark of hope ignited in my chest, completely out of place.

What if it really was a misunderstanding?!

Luna saw the dazed look on my face and squeezed my shoulders, her eyes firm.

“Alex, it must be a misunderstanding!”

“Please don’t decide to divorce so easily, okay?!”

“Give me another chance, please?”

I took a deep breath. My worn-out body felt a surge of courage from her.

“Okay.”

This nineteen-year-old girl deserved every chance I could give her.