I Take Back the Light I Gave Him

I remember when the system first appeared, it gave me two choices: return home after completing the mission, or stay and keep accompanying the target. Back then, I chose the latter. I thought I had plenty of time. Now the system has placed the choice before me again. I didn't hesitate. The rewind doesn't create disasters out of thin air. The system only cancels the changes I once bought with points and resources from my original world. Part of Adrian's success came from his own ability. The other part came from doors I opened for him. Once those doors close, he'll have to survive on his own. Grayhaven's winters always carry the smell of the sea. I stood outside The Gilded Room, watching silhouettes sway through the glass. Under the crystal chandelier, champagne glasses clinked. The white roses I'd ordered ran down the length of the table to the far end. And at the far end stood my fiancé, Adrian Cross. He wore the black suit I'd picked for him. Shoulders straight. Expression cold. Those eyes had once been gray and empty, like a window that would never open. Now they reflected the light, bright enough to look almost gentle. Tomorrow, he would announce to every guest that the bride had been changed to Sophie Miller. Three days ago, I heard his plan with my own ears. I was still holding the suit I'd pressed for him, standing outside his office, listening to him laugh. "She's been with me six years. She'll figure it out eventually. Let her be happy a few more days. Call it compensation." I didn't burst in. I didn't cry or beg him to take it back. I just walked out to the street and woke the system that had been silent for years. "Start the rewind now," I said. "Set the endpoint at midnight tomorrow. Take back the eyes I gave him. Return the storyline I altered to its original state." 【Confirmed. During the rewind, resources the host secured for the target will be gradually withdrawn. The target retains his memories.】 Tonight, the first partnership contract would void. Tomorrow, funding and connections would follow. By midnight, Adrian would be back in that harbor alley eight years ago—blind, starving, with no one beside him. I pressed a hand to my chest. Six years ago, in another alley, I saw a blind boy kneeling by a drain, clutching a cracked bowl like his life depended on it. I took him out of there. I stayed with him for six years. I thought I'd given him light. Now I was taking the light back. The banquet hall doors opened. Adrian's deputy Marcus hurried out, face pale, phone still pressed to his ear. "The contract was canceled?" he whispered. "Impossible. Adrian signed it himself..." I looked away and walked into the night. 【Rewind progress: three percent.】 Adrian didn't know yet. But his world had already started moving backward. When the counter hit three percent, I received a voice message from my mother. She was asking when I'd come home. I could hear the range hood humming in the kitchen. I didn't play it a second time. I was afraid if I listened again, I'd change my mind before the rewind finished. I set my phone to silent and walked along the shore toward the hotel, letting the cold wind dry my tears. When I reached the sea, the tide was hitting the breakwater. I thought about my parents in my original world. I thought about how I once believed I could go home just by finishing the mission. Now I finally understood. Going home wasn't a reward the system gave me. It was a choice I had to make myself. I set my phone to silent but still felt it vibrate. Every buzz felt like someone reminding me that my old life was still waiting. I kept walking. When the sea wind hit my face, I realized my hands had been shaking the whole time. I walked into a twenty-four-hour café on the corner, ordered a black coffee, and sat by the window. The clerk asked if I was waiting for someone. I said no. Headlights passed one after another outside. I remembered the night I first entered the book. It was a night like this. I used to push my wish to go home to the very end, because Adrian needed me. Now I didn't have to put anyone's needs before my own. I sat in the café until dawn, listening to a cleaner drag chairs across the floor. The system notified me the rewind had entered the next phase. I didn't open the panel. I finished my coffee and told myself the night was over. I didn't tell anyone where the café was. After dawn, I walked along the street for a while, confirming I could decide my own direction. I no longer needed Adrian to hold my hand, and I no longer needed to prove I could save anyone. I dropped my cup in the recycling bin and walked back to the hotel along the shore. Dawn came. I still didn't look back. I wrote my mother an email I never sent. I got as far as "I'll be home soon" and stopped. Until the rewind finished, I didn't want anyone deciding for me whether I could leave. I wiped the sweat from my palms, gripped my phone, and kept walking.

I unwound my scarf and wrapped it around him. The cold wind immediately cut into my collar. The restaurant owner saw Adrian soaked and freezing and wanted to throw him out. I left my student ID and bank card at the counter and promised to clean tables before leaving. I sat across from him. I didn't ask how he'd ended up like this. I just pushed a napkin toward his hand. Adrian ate slowly, pausing now and then to listen for footsteps outside. I realized he was used to being ready to run. Six years ago, I was a sophomore at Grayhaven University. I'd just left the library, snowmelt soaking my boots, my mother's text on my phone asking me to come home for dinner. I was going to take the main road, but I heard an argument behind the old harbor warehouses. A few vagrants surrounded a drainage ditch, laughing coarsely. A young man crouched by the ditch, around twenty, so thin his cheekbones stood out. He couldn't see. His eyes were clouded gray. But he still held a cracked bowl against his chest. "Put the bowl down, blind man." Someone kicked him. The man's knee hit a stone. Blood seeped through his pant leg. He didn't cry out. He just pulled the bowl tighter to his chest. Inside were mud-stained breadcrumbs and cold soup. I stopped. A mechanical chime sounded in my head. 【Main mission: Approach Ethan Cole. Prevent his death at the hands of Adrian Cross.】 But my eyes were on the man on the ground. Adrian's fingers were purple with cold, still groping along the ground inch by inch, as if finding a dropped piece of food meant one more day alive. "Don't go over there," the system warned. "He's the villain in the original storyline." "Right now he's just a man freezing to death," I said. I ran over, blocked Adrian, and held up my phone. "I've already called the police. The cameras got your faces too." The men cursed and scattered. I crouched and wrapped my scarf around Adrian's neck. He grabbed my wrist immediately, hard enough to hurt. "Who are you?" he asked. "Claire." "Why help me?" I looked at the blood on his face and the cracked bowl in his arms, and softened my voice. "Because you need someone to help you." He didn't thank me. He just let go, like he didn't believe kindness could be free. I brought him to the corner restaurant and bought hot soup and a grilled cheese sandwich. Adrian found the paper bowl, checked that the lid hadn't been opened, then swallowed it bite by bite. I didn't know that meal would be something he remembered for years. I also didn't know I was pushing Ethan's original fate onto a new path. The restaurant owner brought hot water and urged me to call the police. When Adrian heard the word "police," his body went rigid. Not because he'd done anything wrong, but because he was afraid someone would send him back to the shelter that had held him before. I didn't drag him. I just told him he could decide where to go. In the end, he chose to come with me, hand still gripping the paper bowl. After eating, Adrian folded the bowl neatly and tucked it into his coat pocket. I asked why he kept it. He said, "To prove I didn't starve today." I didn't laugh. I just zipped his coat up to his chin. The restaurant owner poured Adrian hot water. He held the cup but first felt for the rim. I didn't rush him. I just waited until he was ready. After the clinic treated his wounds, Adrian refused the wheelchair. He said he could walk. The nurse reminded him the wound on his foot would split open. I didn't decide for him. I only asked if he wanted advice. He was silent for a moment, then got in the wheelchair. In that moment I saw he didn't lack the need for help. He was afraid that accepting it would cost him the last of his dignity. I began to understand. Companionship isn't carrying everything for someone. It's letting them choose. Adrian signed up for temporary job training at the community center. The staff asked if he needed accessible materials. He said yes. For the first time, he didn't pretend he could do everything alone. Adrian learned to use a cane. Walking to the door, he bumped into a chair. He stopped and felt for the position again. He didn't kick the chair away. That was the first time he faced his limitations with patience. Adrian gave his name at the service desk. The staff registered a temporary pass for him. The clinic nurse wrote Adrian's name on a wristband. He touched the letters and, for the first time, didn't introduce himself as "that blind guy." He asked if the clinic still had rehabilitation courses. The nurse noted the time for him.

To give Adrian a stable place to live, I applied for a temporary leave from school and used my savings to rent an apartment. My father called when he found out, asking if I was in trouble. I only said a friend was hurt and needed some time. My mother didn't press. She just told me to come home for dinner every week. I didn't know then that I was setting aside the protected life of my original world, piece by piece. The system warned that my mission points would decrease. I still confirmed. I rented a small apartment near the harbor and let Adrian stay there temporarily. I contacted a community clinic to treat his wounds, then found legal aid to help him replace his documents and apply for temporary relief. Adrian trusted no one. He hid food under the bed, wedged a chair against the door, and gripped a fruit knife on the table whenever he heard footsteps at night. "You can leave," he told me. "I didn't ask you to save me." "I know." I set the medicine on the table. "You can throw me out whenever you want. But today, let's clean the wound first." He was silent. In the end, he rolled up his sleeve. The system kept reminding me the main target was Ethan. Ethan was an outstanding law student who would become a prosecutor. In the original storyline, he would expose the harbor's criminal network—and die at Adrian's hands. If I kept pursuing Adrian, the plot could spiral out of control. I understood the risk. I still pressed "change target" on the system panel. 【Warning: This choice will alter the original plot. The intended male lead, Ethan Cole, may lose his predetermined life.】 "I know." I chose Adrian not because he deserved love, and not because I couldn't see the danger in him. In that moment, I just couldn't leave an injured person in the snow to die. Adrian gradually learned to go out on his own. He memorized every piece of furniture in the apartment, distinguished visitors by their footsteps, and learned to walk to the street corner with an old cane. One night, I found he had a fever and stayed up with him. When I woke at dawn, I'd fallen asleep by the bed. Adrian's hand found my hair. His fingers stopped for a long time, then gently withdrew. "Why aren't you afraid of me?" he asked quietly. I didn't wake. He pulled the blanket over my shoulders. For the first time, he didn't bar the door. I bought Adrian a second cane and taught him the sounds of the intersections: the bakery doorbell rings twice, the bus brakes screech, seagulls cry near the old warehouses. He practiced walking from the apartment to the corner every day. After falling a few times, he stopped letting me support him. I thought this was the beginning of him standing up again. But Adrian quietly recorded every act of help in the ledger between us. The system told me that after changing targets, my initial points would decrease. I watched the number hit zero without regret. What I didn't understand then was that kindness doesn't mean sacrificing everything. I only knew that person needed to survive right now. I didn't ask the system for extra points, and I didn't let it alter Ethan's choices for me. I'd already decided someone else's fate once. I didn't want to repeat it. I emailed my advisor and asked for a month's leave. The advisor asked if I was having family problems. I only said a friend was in danger and needed temporary help. The advisor reminded me that school could pause, but I shouldn't pause my own safety along with it. After reading the email, I wrote that sentence down for the first time. I still visited Adrian, but I began arranging my own courses, savings, and housing. I no longer let my life revolve entirely around him. When I rearranged my courses, the advisor allowed me to extend my assignment deadlines. I wrote the deadlines in my calendar and marked beside them: "At your own pace." It was the first time in a long while I'd made a plan for myself. I replied to my advisor confirming I'd submit my paper on time. I no longer postponed my life with "wait until this is over." The calendar filled with classes again. My world slowly returned to normal. I put my textbooks back in my bag and confirmed the new deadline with my advisor. I missed an introductory psychology class. The advisor left the notes in his office. I made up the class later and remembered I still had an original path. When I organized my schedule, I marked my rest days too.