The year I turned eight, my brother Leo fell from the scaffolding of an abandoned construction site. I’d sprinted over and become his human cushion. He walked away without a scratch. I ended up with a brain injury, a vegetable. The year I turned eighteen, I finally woke up. But for the inheritance of a girl who wasn't even family, my brother pushed me from that same rooftop, leaving me to splatter on the concrete below. But I was reborn. And this time, I could see the live comments floating in mid-air: [THE MALE LEAD IS REBORN AT AGE EIGHT! LAST TIME, HE FELL FROM THE FIFTH FLOOR AND PUT THE SIDE CHARACTER IN A COMA. THIS TIME, HE'S TRYING THE SIXTH. LET'S SEE IF HE CAN KILL HER OUTRIGHT!] [ONCE THE SIDE CHARACTER IS DEAD, THE MALE LEAD CAN BRING THE HEROINE HOME FROM THE ORPHANAGE TO TAKE HER PLACE! THIS TIME, NO ONE CAN STOP THEIR TWISTED STEP-SIBLING ROMANCE AS THEY INHERIT THE BILLIONAIRE'S FORTUNE AND LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER!] Is that so? I tilted my head, a slow smile spreading across my face as I mouthed a silent message to my brother, who was now plummeting through the air. "Brother, if you die, I'll find someone to replace you, too." 1 I had just rounded the street corner when a frantic scream ripped through the quiet air, slamming into my eardrums. “Faye! Help me!” I looked up. There, on the skeletal frame of the derelict building, was Leo, teetering on the edge of the sixth-floor scaffolding with half his body hanging over the abyss. His face was ghostly pale. One hand gripped a rusted steel pipe behind him, his knuckles white and twisted from the strain. With his other hand, he waved at me, a desperate, flailing gesture. If I hadn't been reborn… If I hadn't seen the comments flickering beside him… I would have stupidly run to save him all over again. In my last life, I took the full impact of his fall. A spike of searing pain, followed by a decade of limitless, suffocating darkness. When I finally woke up at eighteen, I wasn't greeted by a new beginning, but by Leo's monstrous grin and the sweetly poisonous whispers of Mia, the girl he’d brought home. “Push her, Leo,” she’d urged. “Then the family fortune is all yours!” And now, here he was. Leo seemed a little too confident in his “protagonist plot armor.” But hey, the stage was set. Who was I, the lowly side character, to refuse my part? I cleared my throat and pitched my voice high with panic. “Leo! Don’t move!” I threw myself forward, deliberately stumbling toward the patch of ground directly beneath him. As my foot caught on uneven ground, I sent a loose rock skittering right into the center of his landing zone. I scrambled back up, my movements clumsy and frantic, every step feeling like I was wading through cotton, as if my legs could give out at any moment. A babble of panicked cries spilled from my lips. “Leo… just hold on… I’m coming… don’t be scared…” As I lurched forward, another comment scrolled across my vision: [THE MALE LEAD'S ACTING IS TOP-TIER! THE SIDE CHARACTER TOTALLY FELL FOR IT!] [LMAO, JUMP ALREADY! KILL HER SO WE CAN BRING OUR HEROINE HOME! MIA IS WAY MORE LIKEABLE. SHE'LL REPLACE FAYE IN HER PARENTS' HEARTS IN NO TIME!] [PLUS, THEY'LL SAVE A DECADE OF MEDICAL BILLS. THEY CAN BUY OUR HEROINE A NEW PURSE WITH THAT CASH!] A smirk played on my lips. My eyes locked onto a spot about two feet away from Leo’s direct fall line—an old, open drainage ditch. It was filled with construction debris, but it would make a perfect cushion. It was also the stage for the most important performance of my new life. I’m not heading to the afterlife today. Let’s give that ticket to their precious male lead. I just hope they don’t cry too hard when it happens. Leo, however, clearly hadn't expected me to be so slow; I still hadn't reached the spot directly beneath him. His composure was cracking, the carefully crafted terror on his face melting into raw impatience. He even had the energy to scream at me. “Faye, what the hell are you doing? Hurry up!” And in the next instant… CRACK. The rotted plank beneath his feet gave way without warning. “AHHH!” This time, his scream was gut-wrenchingly real. As he plunged downward, his hands scrabbled instinctively, catching hold of another rusty pipe. The sharp, flaking metal tore a long gash in his sleeve, and blood began to well up immediately. Pure panic finally took him. His eyes, sharp and venomous, shot toward me. “Hurry! One more step! Right there! Don’t move! I’m jumping now!” I instantly obeyed, planting my feet on the ground and nodding frantically, tears streaming down my face. “I’m here, Leo! I’m ready!” He let go. The moment he leaped, I threw myself sideways, rolling hard. My back slammed into the pile of broken concrete and rubble in the ditch. A split second after the resounding THUD of his body hitting the ground, I heard the distinct, sickening snap of bone. Ignoring the shooting pains across my own body, I pushed myself up and looked at Leo. He’d gotten lucky. His head had met a small, sharp stone on the concrete, and a dark stain of blood was already blooming around him. He stared at me, his eyes wide with horror and utter disbelief. The live comments had gone silent, then erupted in confusion: [WHAT HAPPENED? HOW DID SHE DODGE?!] [WHAT ABOUT THE MALE LEAD?? HE CAN’T DIE!] I stared into Leo’s unfocused eyes until his eyelids fluttered and closed, then slowly uncurled my fists. I let out a long breath. As the sound of distant shouts reached my ears, I closed my eyes. Oh, brother. Even if you die. I’ll find someone to replace you. 2 Once again, I found myself in a hospital bed. This time, however, I wouldn't be slipping into a ten-year coma. When my mother saw my eyes flutter open, she jolted upright, her voice thick with unshed tears. “Faye, your brother… he hasn’t woken up… The doctor said the pressure in his skull keeps rising. He might… he might never wake up.” My father was crouched by the doorway, crushing a pack of cigarettes in his hand, his knuckles white. When he looked at me, his gaze was a complex storm of fear and exhaustion, but mostly, it was the familiar sting of blame. “If you hadn’t insisted on going to that abandoned building with him…” Of course. Just like last time. No matter the outcome, I would always be the one at fault. In my past life, when I woke up, all I heard were my parents’ complaints about the sky-high medical bills from the past decade, followed by their relieved thanks that their precious son was unharmed. If it weren't for keeping up appearances, they probably would have pulled the plug on me years ago. But having died once already, I could finally accept the cold truth: they just didn't love me. Still, Leo was tougher than I thought. A fall from the sixth floor, and he wasn't even dead. A new game, a new life, I guess. I clutched the corner of my blanket and shrank back, letting tears well up in my eyes. My voice trembled. “I’m sorry, Mom, Dad… When Leo started climbing the scaffolding, I told him not to. I said the wood was rotten and he would fall. But he yelled at me… told me a stupid little girl doesn’t know anything… He just pushed me away…” I lifted my tear-filled eyes to my father. “Daddy… you called me a pest last time for always following Leo around… If I hadn’t been there… would he still have fallen?” My father’s Adam’s apple bobbed violently. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. I turned to my mother. “And Mommy, just yesterday you said that Leo would be the man of the house one day, and I needed to be more sensible…” My voice cracked. “Does that mean… that whatever I do is wrong if it makes him unhappy?” The only sound in the quiet room was my own choked sobbing. “I wanted to save him, I really did, but then I fell and everything went black… Mom, Dad, are you blaming me, too…?” A nurse walked past the open door, and her conversation drifted in. “Yeah, that’s the room. Can you believe that kid? The planks on the third level were practically dust, and he still kept climbing!” “Well, at least they still have the…” My mother pulled me into a tight, trembling hug, her body shaking. Her voice was a broken, choked whisper, heavy with a long-overdue remorse. “I’m so sorry, Faye… Mom and Dad… we didn’t raise your brother right…” My father remained frozen in the doorway, but his fingers were digging into the cool metal of the frame, the knuckles turning a stark, bloodless white. The comments were still railing against me. It was giving me a headache, so I buried my face in my mother’s neck and shut my eyes. Let them scream. It wouldn’t change the fact that my parents’ favoritism was about to shift. For an eight-year-old, there is no weapon more powerful than an innocent question and a flood of tears. And the crushing weight of medical bills doesn’t change just because the person lying in the bed is now Leo. 3 I was discharged on a gray, overcast day. It was the same day Leo was officially diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state. The doctors said there was still a chance he could wake up. For the first two weeks, Mom and Dad were diligent. They brought his favorite strawberry shortcake to the hospital every day and took turns reading stories by his bedside. By the third week, the atmosphere began to shift. The puffiness around my mother’s eyes faded, replaced by a deep, weary exhaustion and a silent, creeping despair. My father, using his busy schedule at the company as an excuse, didn’t set foot in the hospital for a solid month. One evening at dinner, my mother finally broke her silence. “He wet the bed again today,” she said in a low, muffled voice. “I was lucky to be there to clean it up.” She sighed. “I’ve had to cancel so many lunches with my friends, running back and forth to that hospital.” My father’s chopsticks paused mid-air. He was quiet for a long moment. “Let’s hire a 24-hour nurse,” he said finally. “You can’t keep this up, you’ll wear yourself out.” I kept my head down, gnawing on a pork rib, saying nothing. Another two weeks passed. Leo’s name was rarely mentioned in the house anymore. The nurse would call once a week with a robotic update, always the same: “No change.” They would just nod numbly, not even bothering to sigh. My father even took down the only award certificate Leo had ever won and stuffed it in a storage closet. Naturally, this behavior infuriated the commenters. [WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PARENTS? LEO IS THEIR SON! HE HAS PLOT ARMOR, HE'S GOING TO WAKE UP!] [THIS IS ALL FAYE'S FAULT! IF IT WASN'T FOR HER, HE WOULDN'T BE LYING IN THAT BED, HELPLESS! AT THIS RATE, WHEN WILL OUR HEROINE EVER GET ADOPTED?!] They had a point. Leo couldn't do anything lying in that bed. But I could. A few days ago, to protect their own reputation and avoid a flood of pitying inquiries from their social circle, my parents had transferred me to a public elementary school. Now, it was time for the next step. I took the long way home from school, first tossing my backpack into a bush to cover it with dirt and leaves. Then, I found a rough patch of concrete and took a deliberate dive, scraping my knee just enough to draw a few beads of blood. I quickly smeared the blood across my cheek. Once my masterpiece was complete, I ran the rest of the way home. I burst through the door with a wail and threw myself into my mother’s arms. “Mommy! They were picking on me!” She gasped, her hands fluttering nervously as she tried to wipe the "blood" from my face. “What is it, Faye? Who hurt you?” “The boys at school!” I sobbed, my words coming out in hiccupping gasps. “They… they said Leo’s a vegetable… and that I’m just a burden nobody wants… They threw… threw all my books in the mud…” My father, seeing my disheveled state, turned livid. “Which class? What are their names? I’m going to the school tomorrow and talking to your principal! This is outrageous!” I grabbed onto his pant leg, my wails growing louder. “But… but it’s true, isn’t it?” “Daddy, I’m so scared. Why… why can’t my brother be like Amelia’s brother from the other class? He protects her… he chases away all the mean kids…” My mother’s eyes instantly reddened again. She hugged me tight, her voice full of pain. “Oh, Faye, I’m so sorry. We’ve been so focused on… we’ve neglected you. You must have been terrified.” “Mom, Dad, can you… can you adopt a brother for me? One who can protect me?”
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