Chapter 5: The World She Chose

I had already verified it. No one remembered Cheryl or Jasper.

There was no record of them in the system. In the eyes of the world, I had always lived here alone, single, and had never left.

Realizing this left me with a swirl of emotions I couldn't quite put into words.

The wife and son I once cherished had been nothing more than a house of cards, a fever dream that vanished the moment I woke up. I honestly didn't know whether these nine years had been a blessing or a curse.

But right now,

I only knew one thing. I didn't want them back.

Cheryl stared at me as though she had misheard. The anger on her face slowly gave way to disbelief.

"Kevin, stop joking around." She stepped toward me. "I know you're angry because we left, but Jasper is your son. How can you pretend you don't know him?"

Jasper's small hands reached for me again. "Daddy..."

I stepped back before he could touch me.

His arms froze in midair.

For the first time in his life, Jasper looked at me with the same wounded confusion I had seen in my own reflection countless times.

There had been mornings when I had tried to hug him before work and he had wriggled away, complaining that only his real daddy was allowed to hug him.

There had been nights when I sat beside his bed after he had a nightmare, only for him to turn his face toward the wall and mumble that he wished Gavin were there instead.

Back then, I had always told myself he was only a child.

I had never blamed him.

But not blaming him didn't mean I had to keep offering him a place in my heart.

Beatrix glanced between us. "Kevin, do you know them?"

Before I could answer, Cheryl snapped, "Of course he knows us! I'm his wife! That's our son!"

Beatrix frowned. "His wife?"

"Yes!"

"Then do you have a marriage certificate?"

Cheryl opened her mouth confidently, but no words came out.

Her face suddenly went pale.

She must have remembered what the System had done when she completed her mission.

Everything connecting her and Jasper to this world had been erased.

Our marriage certificate, Jasper's birth records, the family photographs, the neighbors' memories—everything was gone.

To everyone except the three of us, those nine years had never happened.

Beatrix looked at Cheryl more cautiously. "If you're really his wife, you should be able to prove it."

"I..." Cheryl faltered.

Then her eyes snapped back to me.

"Kevin knows the truth."

"I don't," I said.

Her expression cracked.

"Kevin!"

"Please stop shouting outside my house."

I unlocked the gate and turned to Beatrix. "Let's go inside."

Jasper suddenly burst into tears.

"Daddy, don't leave me!"

His crying stopped me for half a second.

Five years of instinct told me to turn around.

Whenever Jasper cried, I had always been the first person to kneel in front of him, wipe his tears, and ask what was wrong.

But then I remembered his excited voice on his fifth birthday.

"Mommy, are we going back to find my real daddy now?"

I kept walking.

Behind me, Cheryl hurriedly comforted him.

"Don't cry, Jasper. Daddy's just angry."

I stopped.

Slowly, I looked back at her.

"Don't call me that."

Cheryl froze.

"What?"

"You spent five years teaching him that I wasn't his real father. Don't change the story just because things didn't work out the way you expected."

Her face drained of color.

Jasper stared at her through his tears.

"Mommy..."

Cheryl's lips trembled.

I had never told her I could hear the System.

Not once in nine years.

She had always believed her conversations with it were completely private.

My words had clearly frightened her.

"What are you talking about?" she asked carefully.

I smiled.

"You know exactly what I'm talking about."

For several seconds, neither of us spoke.

Then a familiar mechanical voice suddenly rang in my ears.

"Warning. Abnormal target awareness detected."

My fingers tightened around the gate.

So the System was still here.

Cheryl's eyes widened.

"System? What does that mean?"

"The target appears to possess knowledge exceeding the world's permitted parameters."

Cheryl stared at me as if she were seeing me for the first time.

"Kevin... can you hear it?"

I didn't answer.

I didn't need to.

The horror spreading across her face was answer enough.

"You could hear us?"

Her voice was barely a whisper.

"All this time?"

I looked at her calmly.

"From the day we met."

Cheryl staggered backward.

For nine years, she had lied to my face while discussing the truth right beside me.

She had mocked me with the System after our dates.

She had complained about kissing me.

She had celebrated every increase in my affection level.

She had called me pathetic, desperate, abnormal, and heartless.

At our wedding, she had promised to stay beside me forever while silently begging the System to send her home.

And after giving birth to my son, she had spent five years teaching him to love a man he had never met more than the father who raised him.

Now she finally understood that I had heard every word.

"Kevin, I can explain."

"There's nothing to explain."

"There is!" Cheryl cried. "Things weren't exactly what you think."

I almost laughed.

"Which part did I misunderstand? The part where you said you were sick of me at our wedding? Or the part where you told Jasper that Gavin was his real father?"

She went silent.

Beatrix stood beside me, completely confused, but she seemed to understand that whatever had happened between Cheryl and me was far more complicated than a normal marriage dispute.

Jasper tugged at Cheryl's sleeve.

"Mommy, who's Gavin?"

The question made Cheryl stiffen.

I looked at Jasper.

His face was thinner than I remembered. There were faint bruises on one arm, and the expensive clothes Cheryl had always loved dressing him in were gone.

He looked exhausted.

Only then did I remember what he had shouted when he first saw me.

They bullied me.

Apparently, the wonderful life Cheryl had dreamed about hadn't been quite so wonderful.

Jasper sniffled. "Mommy said Gavin was my real daddy. But he said I'm not his son."

Cheryl immediately crouched beside him. "Jasper, don't talk about that now."

"He doesn't like me," Jasper continued through his tears. "He said I was someone else's kid."

I felt something tighten faintly in my chest.

Not jealousy.

Not satisfaction either.

Just an old ache stirring where love had once lived.

Cheryl finally looked defeated.

"When we returned, things were different."

She swallowed hard.

"Nine years passed for us here, Kevin, but almost no time had passed in my original world. I thought Gavin would be waiting for me."

"Wasn't he?"

Her eyes reddened.

"He was."

That answer surprised me.

Cheryl lowered her gaze.

"At first, everything was exactly as I imagined. The fortune I earned through the mission transferred to him. His failing company recovered almost overnight. Investments that should have collapsed suddenly multiplied in value. Opportunities kept falling into his lap."

A bitter smile crossed her face.

"The System hadn't lied. I really did win him a lifetime of good fortune."

"Congratulations."

She flinched at my tone.

"But Gavin had changed."

"People don't usually change overnight."

I paused.

"Sometimes we just finally see who they always were."

Cheryl's face tightened.

Perhaps she understood that I wasn't only talking about Gavin.

"He was happy to see me," she continued. "Until he saw Jasper."

Jasper lowered his head.

"Gavin asked whose child he was. I told him everything. I told him Jasper was born because the mission wouldn't complete, that I had no choice but to stay here longer than expected."

My jaw tightened.

No choice.

Even now, that was how she described our son.

A consequence of a mission that had taken too long.

"Gavin couldn't accept him," Cheryl whispered. "His family couldn't either. They said Jasper had no place in their family because he wasn't Gavin's blood."

"And the bullying?" I asked.

Cheryl looked away.

Jasper answered instead.

"Gavin's nephew pushed me into the swimming pool."

His voice shook.

"He said Mommy brought home a bastard."

Cheryl quickly covered Jasper's ears, but it was already too late.

My hands curled into fists.

For years, I had worked at a boxing gym. Violence was something I understood very well.

But I also understood something else.

None of this changed what Cheryl had done.

"So you came back," I said.

Cheryl looked at me desperately.

"I realized I made a mistake."

"No."

She blinked.

"You realized Gavin wasn't the man you imagined."

I pointed toward the house.

"If Gavin had welcomed Jasper, treated you like a queen, and given you the wonderful life you expected, would you be standing outside my gate right now?"

Silence.

That silence was the most truthful answer Cheryl had ever given me.

I nodded.

"That's what I thought."

"Kevin, please."

"You didn't come back because you chose me."

I looked at Jasper, then back at her.

"You came back because the world you chose rejected you."

Cheryl's tears finally spilled over.

"Maybe that's how it started, but being there made me understand what we had here."

"What did we have?"

"A family."

For the first time that evening, I laughed.

It wasn't loud.

It wasn't bitter.

It was simply empty.

"You erased our family the moment your mission ended."

Cheryl shook her head frantically.

"I can fix it."

"How?"

"The System brought us back. There has to be a way to restore everything. Our marriage, Jasper's identity, everyone's memories—"

"I don't want them restored."

She stopped.

Even the System fell silent.

I looked toward the cherry tree behind the gate.

Its branches were heavy with fruit, glowing deep red beneath the evening light.

For nine years, that patch of soil had remained empty because Cheryl had said there was no point planting something that required patience.

Only after she left had I finally planted it.

And without her, it had flourished.

"Cheryl, when you disappeared, I thought my life was over."

My voice was calm.

"Then I woke up the next morning. I went to work. I came home. I cooked dinner. I planted a tree."

I glanced at Beatrix.

"I met someone who didn't need a System to remind her to care whether I was alive."

Beatrix's expression softened, but she said nothing.

Cheryl followed my gaze, and jealousy flashed across her face.

"You love her?"

"That's none of your business."

"I'm your wife!"

"Not in this world."

Her face went white again.

I opened the gate just wide enough for Beatrix and me to enter.

Jasper suddenly ran forward.

"Daddy!"

This time, I didn't let him grab me.

I crouched so we were eye level.

His tear-filled eyes looked exactly like mine.

For five years, I had loved those eyes more than anything in the world.

"Jasper," I said quietly, "I'm sorry those people hurt you. You didn't deserve that."

His lower lip trembled.

"Can I come home?"

Home.

Six months ago, hearing him call this place home would have made me happier than anything.

Now, I only felt tired.

I gently removed his hand from my sleeve.

"Your mother chose where your home would be a long time ago."

His tears fell harder.

Behind him, Cheryl looked devastated.

But I stood up anyway.

For nine years, they had been preparing themselves to leave me.

They had succeeded.

The only thing they hadn't prepared for was discovering that once they came back, the man they abandoned would no longer be waiting.