After weeks of effort, Peter, the brooding second lead, agreed to be my deskmate. But as I moved my desk, the female lead Seraphina rushed over and hugged him. "It's good to see you! This time I’ll protect you!" she cried.

Popup comments flashed: [FL was reborn!

Time to pursue the one who truly loves her!] [One smile from her and Peter would lay down his life.] [Chloe is a joke compared to her.] Peter’s face darkened, but he didn’t push her away. "What do you want this time?" he asked bitterly. "Love letters?

Or my competition spot?" She shook her head, tears streaming. "I just want to be with you!" Stunned, Peter turned to me. "Let’s not move the desks yet." My past three years felt like a joke. I called the system: "You see?

I was never the one who could save him. Just let me go home."

1 As I moved my desk to the back of the classroom, Seraphina was in the middle of a grand confession. She had cornered Adrian Pierce, the male lead, with a massive bouquet of roses. She was radiant, bold, and utterly unapologetic—just like always.

But before she could speak, Adrian cut her off, his voice cool and detached. "Whatever you're about to do, don't. I'm not interested in you." Seraphina stopped, her face paling. For a few seconds, she just stood there, stunned.

Then, as if waking from a dream, her eyes darted around the room. They landed on the digital clock on the wall, and her pupils widened in shock. The next second, she shoved through the crowd of onlookers.

A cloud of rosescented perfume followed her as she crashed into Peter's arms, clinging to him with the desperate joy of someone who had found something precious they thought they’d lost forever. "Thank god I can see you again!" she sobbed. "This time I won't let you...

It's my turn to protect you!" Peter stared at her, bewildered, his hands hovering awkwardly in the air. The entire classroom was silent.

The popups in my vision went wild: [In her last life, Adrian married Seraphina but cheated on her, causing her to have a miscarriage and die of a broken heart.] [But she never looked back at Peter, the insecure boy who loved her from the shadows.

He ran into a burning building to save her without a second's hesitation, getting his face scarred in the process. He hid from her after that, but always watched over her from afar.] [The car crash was the worst!

After a fight with Adrian, Seraphina ran into traffic. Peter sprinted across the road to push her out of the way and was hit by a truck. She just held him, begging him not to die.] [It hurts just thinking about it!

He never once said 'I love you,' but he gave her everything. EVERYTHING.] [So glad she was reborn! This time she's going to get her man! As for Adrian, he can go to hell!] [Wait, Adrian's reaction to her confession wasn't right.

Did he get reborn too?] The other students started to snicker. "Seraphina, you got the wrong guy? Weren't you just confessing to Adrian?" "Yeah, rejected by one, so you just move on to the next?" "Doesn't Chloe like Peter?

Ooh, a love square!" Their mocking gazes shifted between the four of us. Peter's expression grew darker. I knew why.

He felt bad that Seraphina was being humiliated, and he was jealous that Adrian was the one who received her bright, fearless affection. Seraphina and Adrian came from the same world of wealth and privilege.

Peter was the son of her family's maid and driver. After his parents died, her family had taken pity on him, giving him a small monthly allowance. To Seraphina, Peter had always been someone to command.

Command him to give his only umbrella to Adrian in a storm, while he walked home soaked. Command him to give his meticulously prepared study notes to Adrian, only to tear them up when Adrian refused them.

Command him to skip an exam so Adrian could be first in their year. So he didn't believe her now. He just pressed his lips into a thin, selfmocking line. "What do you need me to do this time? Write your love letters for him?

Give up my spot in the competition for him?" Seraphina's voice, though thick with tears, was startlingly clear and firm. "I need you—to be with me!" "It's okay if you don't believe me now," she declared. "We have all the time in the world!

I'll make you believe me!" Then, she whirled around and glared at me. "Get out of the way!" She shoved me aside and grabbed the desk I had just moved, dragging it across the floor with a deafening screech.

She pushed it into the corner, next to the trash can.

Then she went and got her own desk, slamming it down next to Peter's. "From now on, I'm the only one who gets to sit next to you!" she announced, lifting her chin proudly, her eyes sparkling as she gazed at him. Peter was frozen, completely stunned.

He turned his head, avoiding her intense gaze, and his eyes met mine. After a long pause, he finally spoke. "The desk... let's just leave it for now."

2 I called up the system. "You see? The one who could save him was never me. So can you please just let me go home?" I had a perfectly good life in my own world before I was yanked into this one and bound to a system.

It told me I was the only one who could "redeem" the devoted second male lead. My only way home was to help him avoid his tragic fate of disfigurement and death. Peter was a cold, solitary person who sat in the back of the class and spoke to no one.

All the warmth he possessed was reserved for Seraphina. He despised my attempts to get close to him, always telling me to get lost. Until last week. He was cornered by a group of bullies, and one of them swung an iron pipe at the back of his head.

Without thinking, I threw myself in front of him. That was the first time I ever saw Peter's expression change. He knelt on the ground, trembling, his voice breaking. "Who told you to interfere?!" The pipe had hit my back.

Thankfully, the system mitigated the damage, so the injury wasn't too severe. While Peter was taking care of me in the hospital, I seized the opportunity to ask to be his deskmate. He had looked reluctant, but he'd agreed.

A position I had to bleed for, Seraphina got with just a few tears. "Now that Seraphina is reborn, she won't let Peter get hurt," I argued with the system. "There's no need for me here." The system’s cold, mechanical voice replied: [ERROR.

UNFORESEEN VARIABLE DETECTED. YOUR PRESENCE IS NO LONGER REQUIRED. AS PER PROTOCOL, YOU MAY CHOOSE A DEATH NODE TO RETURN TO YOUR ORIGINAL WORLD.] I’d been here for nearly three years. I had teachers and friends who cared about me.

Our final exams were less than a week away. If I just died, it would affect them. I didn't want that. "After the finals," I said. [Acknowledged.]

3 The shove from Seraphina had slammed me against the wall, and a dull ache from my old wound started to spread across my back. I winced. Suddenly, a bottle of painkillers appeared in front of me. It was Adrian.

He gestured toward my back. "Looks like you reopened your wound. Need to go to the nurse's office?" Even a complete stranger could see something was wrong. Peter hadn't noticed a thing.

In the span of a few minutes, Peter's desk had been colonized with pink stickers and a matching thermos that weren't his. A pink hair tie was looped around his pale wrist, a stark contrast to his dark, gloomy aura.

Seraphina was wearing his school blazer over her shoulders. And in her hands was the bento box I had made for Peter.

She took one bite, gagged, and threw the entire container into the trash. "My dog wouldn't eat this garbage," she declared. "No wonder you're so skinny. From now on, you're eating with me!" Peter stared at the discarded bento box in the trash can.

He said nothing. I left the classroom and went to the nurse's office to get rebandaged. By the time I returned, school was over, and the only person left was Adrian.

My desk had been moved next to his. "My old deskmate was Seraphina," he explained simply. "Since she moved, I brought your desk over." Since my mission was over, it didn't matter where I sat. "It's getting dark," Adrian said. "Want me to walk you home?" I didn't want to get involved with the original male lead.

I was about to refuse when a cold voice cut in from the doorway. "That won't be necessary," Peter said. "I'll take her home."

4 Peter lived in a rundown neighborhood on the other side of town. To complete my mission, I had moved in next door, forcing myself into his life by following him to and from school, chattering relentlessly.

When he got too annoyed, he'd pointedly put in his earbuds. I was undeterred. I told him about the white cat in the schoolyard who'd had six kittens. About how the sweet and sour pork in the cafeteria was too salty.

About the university I wanted to get into, the teddy bear I wanted for my birthday, and even how many times I'd gone to the bathroom that day.

At that, he would always turn and glare at me, his usually pale face flushed with pink. "Why are you telling me this?" "I thought you were wearing earbuds," I'd say innocently. "How can you still hear me?" He would just stomp ahead, trying to put distance between us. "Am I really that annoying?" I'd call after him.

Before he could answer, I'd sigh and say to myself, "You know, people only talk a lot when they're happy. And I like you, I really, really like you. Being near you makes me happy. That's why I want to talk.

I hope one day you'll want to talk to me, too." He would always turn his head away, as if burned by my earnest gaze, but he would take out his earbuds. He still wouldn't wait for me, and he still wouldn't speak.

Back then, the idea of him waiting for me after school, of him being the one chattering away, seemed like an impossible dream. I never thought it would come true today.

The sound of summer cicadas filled the air, but it couldn't drown out Peter's constant stream of words. "I didn't expect Seraphina to move her desk next to mine. It's probably just another one of her whims.

She'll get bored in a few days and move back, and then you and I can be deskmates." "She's not as fragile as she looks. Her hands were all red from moving the desk, but she just insisted she was fine." "She said some weird things today.

She said she had a dream that I died saving her. I think it's hilarious. Does she really think I'm that stupid?" ... It was strange. This was the most Peter had ever spoken to me, and it was all because of another girl.

He talked and talked, and every single word was about Seraphina. As we neared the entrance to my alley, he suddenly stopped. "Why are you so quiet today?" What can I say? What am I supposed to say? I wanted to ask.

Instead, the words that came out were: "Are you happy right now?" Peter froze. Before he could answer, the sound of a car door opening came from the end of the street.

Seraphina bounced out and linked her arm through his. "I'll be walking him home from now on," she announced brightly. "We won't need to trouble an outsider like you anymore!" But Peter cut her off. "She's not an outsider." We were all stunned.

Peter himself seemed shocked by his own words. He pressed his lips together as if in regret. "You should go home now," he said to me. The hot summer wind felt suffocating.

From behind me, I heard his nervous voice. "This neighborhood isn't safe at night. You should go." He was carefully escorting Seraphina back to her car, leaving me alone in the dark. Seraphina was right. He was devoted to his female lead.

The system was wrong to send me. In this story, in this world, I was, and always would be, an outsider.