I Won't Be a Loser

"I'm back."

Staring at his youthful reflection in the mirror, Miyamizu Haruto's face showed a mix of surprise and, more profoundly, a sense of relieved relief.

"Since I've returned to my youth, I can make different choices now—change the things that have already happened. Perhaps I have regrets, but it's better than letting those events repeat themselves."

The boy standing before the mirror murmured softly.

Recalling the life he had lived—the moments he endured and those yet to come—he couldn't help but let out a deep sigh, his expression clouded with melancholy.

Despite a similar beginning to that of the male protagonist in a cool novel, but due to Haruto's choices his life was forcibly turned into a tragic and depressing ending.

If fate truly had an author, Haruto would have sought them out—not for a polite conversation, but to express his heartfelt "gratitude" with his fists.

"So, the 'Time Rewind' ability has been triggered, but instead of my childhood, I've returned to my teenage years—from a disillusioned, unsuccessful 27-year-old back to the beginning of it all."

Before stepping into his life as "Miyamizu Haruto," he had made a choice—It's a choice similar to the game 'Restart Your Life'.

It involved choosing different traits and distributing twenty attribute points among four categories.

Having played the game before, Haruto knew most of the randomly assigned traits would be odd or impractical. He opted for the more sensible ones:

Eldest Child: a trait that is to become the 'eldest child in the family'.

Blessed Birth: a rare trait adding an extra attribute point.

Time Rewind: which is completely a matter of luck and may be triggered, or may never be triggered until death.

When it came to allocating attribute points, Haruto hesitated for just a moment and refused to let his life become mediocre again. Leveraging the bonus from "Blessed Birth," he focused on boosting his Charisma.

After all, he reasoned, life could be challenging, but one must at least look good.

At first he had no memory of the past, until he was about five years old, he gradually recalled the memories of his previous life, looking at his sisters, Miyamizu Mitsuha and Miyamizu Yotsuha, he raised his head and looked at the sky with a wry smile.

The Miyamizu family, influential in the rural Itomori district due to their role as guardians of local religious traditions, also retained some authority as former lords of the area. However, no matter how much authority they have, it is just a backward small town in the countryside, which is inferior to Haruto's original life

Things took a turn when Haruto entered elementary school. His father suddenly declared a vision to modernize Itomori, leveraging the family's influence to enter local politics. Starting as a town mayor, he eventually rose to the position of city mayor, much to Haruto's amusement.

Haruto's mother, Miyamizu Futaba, who should have died to an immune disease after childbirth, was alive and healthy, defying his memories.

Blessed with his mother's delicate beauty and his father's youthful charm, Haruto grew into a striking figure. His looks captivated many, earning him confessions from classmates in Itomori and admirers during his studies in Tokyo, where his shoe locker overflowed with chocolates every Valentine's Day.

His academic performance as a teenager was good because of the knowledge he already had, so even if he had forgotten some of it, it was easy after he picked it up again. Even though he was not always the first in the class, he was always in the top ten in the grade. That was why he got permission from his parents to come to Tokyo to study alone.

This kind of life should be considered perfect...

Even if he did nothing, relying on his parents, he could already live a life that could be described as easy and affluent.

But fate likes to play jokes on people. During his high school years, Haruto fell for someone he shouldn't have... someone his father wouldn't approve of.

"Sawamura Sayuri… She probably doesn't remember anything now. Since time has rewind, those memories must have vanished. To her, I'm just a stranger."

As fragments of his past blurred, Haruto sighed deeply.

Falling in love with someone older wasn't shocking in a modern, progressive society. But a decade-plus age gap, especially when the other party was widowed with a child the same age as him, made the situation complicated.

For example, there is a more than ten-year age difference between him and Sawamura Sayuri , which may be a bit old, but for haruto's family, it is not something that is unacceptable. At the beginning, there was also a twelve-year age difference between Miyamizu Toshiki and Miyamizu Futaba.

For the sake of his wife, Miyamizu Toshiki gave up everything he had in the Mizoguchi family, including his position as a university professor. He even voluntarily married into the Miyamizu family in a society where women had a relatively low status. It was not that he was unable to accept this relationship with a large age gap.

But when there is such an age difference, and the other party is already a widow with a daughter as old as his son, that is beyond what Miyamizu Toshiki can accept. He firmly opposes the love between Haruto and Sayuri.

Similarly, as Sayuri's daughter, Eriri, who is the same age as haruto, could not understand her mother's choice and could not accept that he was the same age as her and she would need to call one of her former classmate 'father'.

The strong opposition from both sides' families became the biggest obstacle for haruto and Sayuri to be together, but they could not abandon their families simply for their own sake.

Therefore, as their relationship had never been acknowledged by their families, the two could only keep it secret and communicate secretly without their families noticing. This continued until the accident happened - when Sayuri's daughter, Eriri, discovered their relationship, everything spiraled out of control.

Originally, Eriri had already made an appointment to go out with her friends that day, leaving Sayuri alone at home, so she contacted haruto, who was also free at home, and made an appointment to meet at Sayuri's home.

There is no need to elaborate on the rest of the story. When Eriri suddenly returned home halfway, she saw a scene that she shouldn't have seen...

As a result, what happened next caused things to gradually get out of control and eventually become irreversible.

When things calmed down, haruto lost his lover, and Eriri lost her mother and hated him.

The aftermath left Haruto heartbroken, drowning in guilt for Sayuri's tragic end, and alienated by Eriri's hatred.

Hated by the girl and misunderstood by his own father, he began his downward spiral from that point on.

In the years that followed, Haruto became a shadow of his former self, staying alone in Tokyo, eating whatever he wanted, earning a tiny amount of money by contributing short stories to various magazines, while losing himself to alcohol and regret. His once-vivid dreams faded into a monotonous haze of self-loathing.

His mother and sister, who kept in touch with him, often came to Tokyo from Itomori to visit him because they were worried about him, trying to persuade him to move on. Mitsuha even stayed in Tokyo to take care of his daily life.

As for his father, who had always denied his relationship with Sayuri, his mother said that he seemed to feel a little regretful. But he would occasionally call him, either to scold him for his cowardice or to encourage him to stand up again and return to Itomori to start his life anew.

With a father who is the mayor, it might be a simple thing for him to go back to the well-established Itomori and start his life anew. However, he could not get out of the shadow of losing Sayuri. He attributed Sayuri's suicide to himself, which became an unsolvable knot in his heart and made him hang up his father's phone again and again.

The beautiful memories turned into a cage that he couldn't escape from. The smile that was as bright as fireworks and the hug that was as warm as spring were followed by those dark and painful scenes that he didn't want to remember...

Now I am back to my teenage years, and nothing has happened yet, Haruto resolved to rewrite his story.

Even though he felt a little sad, he didn't want Sayuri to suffer that kind of torture and pain again. His heart might ache.

"I won't let her suffer again. Even if it hurts, staying away from her is the right choice."

Glancing at the calendar on his desk, he exhaled slowly, lifting his gaze to the senary from his window.

"Let me start my life again, a life without pain and regret."

"This time, I won't end up like a depressed Loser"