The Eternal Love Comedy
They say the universe has a sense of humor.
Personally, I think it’s just a sadistic prick.
I just wanted to live a normal life.
You know, normal life. Seriously, was that too much to ask? A modest apartment, maybe a job that didn’t involve saving the multiverse, and a wife who wouldn’t try to murder me in my sleep. A woman who loved me enough to tolerate my terrible jokes.
Maybe two kids. One of them would cry too much, and the other would be suspiciously quiet kids who’d call me “dad” instead of “the prophesied one” or “Master of seventeen forbidden arts.”
But as fate, or perhaps a certain sadistic cosmic AI, would have it, my life trajectory was less normal and more cosmic ping-pong ball of unfortunate events.
My name? Oh, it's been a few. Let's just say I was once a perfectly unremarkable human male, innocently pursuing the noble art of procrastinating in my college, when – poof! – I ceased to be.
Died.
Before my 21st birthday, mind you.
Not from some heroic sacrifice or otherworldly truck, but because my existence, apparently, was causing a minor hiccup in the multi-dimensional balance.
It was a sparkly blue pop-up that appeared in my face mid-bathroom session and exploded me into glitter dust.
Apparently, I “disrupted the flow of fate.” Translation: I existed.
Then, just when I thought eternal oblivion was my permanent address, a glitch in the cosmic matrix, or perhaps a bored AI deity, offered me a second act.
A System materialized, bright like a digital mirage, promising me resurrection with a catch: save 6 doomed worlds.
Sounded straightforward enough, right?
HELL NAHHHHHH—
But then, it sweetened the pot. It promised that if I succeeded, I would be granted any wish.
So, at the end of my quest, I said “I want a normal life and love.”
I wasn’t granted the love or life I had wished for.
I got something else. Seriously though, don’t ever curse a cosmic system.
Words I wish I could take back..
Ever since that wish, there’s always at least one woman whose affection… misfires: If I can’t have you, nothing can.
Right now, three of them are in my seven‑tatami apartment.
The first one is sitting on my stomach. Bare feet, white dress, long hair spilling around us like a veil. She looked like a typical college student.
You wouldn't think that in the previous world, she was the Saintess who burned an entire religion to ash because they forbade her from marrying me.
“What are you thinking about?” she asks, her voice sugar‑sweet and trembling. Her fingers dig into my cheeks, squishing them.
“Mmff—nothfing,” I mumble.
I try to continue the thought in my head—Maybe in the next life I’ll—
“Liar.” Her smile twitches. “Your eyes always go distant when you’re thinking of running away.”
She lets go of my face only to wrap her arms around my neck, hugging me so hard my spine complains.
“If you disappear again,” she whispers, the Holy Light in her eyes darkening into obsession, “I’ll tear this whole city apart. Brick by brick. Body by body. Until you fall out of the rubble into my arms.”
Before I can answer, the apartment door clicks open.
“You’re clinging too hard again,” a cool voice says. “His breathing is uneven.”
The second one steps in.
She’s shaking off a wet umbrella, dressed in a sharp pencil skirt, blouse, and glasses.
She looks like the perfect Office Lady.
She kicks off her heels with grace. I catch a glimpse of the faint, magical scar on her ankle—a souvenir from when she was the Demon Queen of the Nether World.
She crosses the room and sets a plastic shopping bag on the table like it contains nothing more interesting than groceries.
The bottom of the bag is dark and wet. The metallic scent of fresh blood leaks out instantly.
She leans over us, one hand slipping possessively into my hair, nails scratching my scalp just enough to make my skin prickle.
“He’s not a toy you can break and tape back together,” she murmurs to the Saintess. Then her eyes cut to mine, softening in a way that makes my stomach knot. “You’re not hurt anywhere, are you? Did she squeeze too hard?”
“No, I—”
Her thumb grazes my throat, lingering on an old bruise. Her expression cools.
“…She did,” she decides. Her lips curve, but the smile doesn’t reach her eyes. “Next time she leaves bruises I don’t approve of, I’ll dislocate her fingers one by one. She can cling with her teeth instead.”
“Unnie, stop!” the Saintess whines, pouting. “Don’t threaten him while he’s standing right there—what if he kills himself again?”
“He should be scared~” the Demon Queen replies calmly. “It's the only way he'll listen.”
I open my mouth to say something—anything—and freeze.
There’s a cold sensation around my ankle...
I look down.
Thin arms are wrapped around my leg from under the coffee table, pale fingers locked over my sock, knuckles white.
A curtain of long black hair spills out across the floor, hiding most of her face except for one gleaming eye peeking through.
The third one. The Assassin.
I didn’t even hear her come in. I never do.
“Don’t fight,” she whispers from the shadows, her voice barely audible. “You’re shaking him.”
Her grip tightens around my ankle. It hurts. She nestles her forehead against my shin like a cat marking territory.
“I watched him all day,” the Assassin continues softly. “From the stairwell. From the train. From the convenience store window.” Her single visible eye rolls up to meet mine. “He was good. He didn’t talk to any girls for more than three seconds.”
The Saintess on my lap beams. “Of course he didn’t. He promised.”
The Demon Queen’s gaze sharpens behind her glasses. “Anyone look at you funny?” she asks me. “Manager? Coworker? Cashier?”
I swallow. I know I should keep my mouth shut, but they’ll extract the truth soon enough.
And when that happens...
“Just... a barista who wrote a heart on my cup—”
Three things happen at once.
The Saintess stiffens, her nails digging into my shoulders.
The Demon Queen’s polite smile snaps like ice.
Under the table, the grip on my ankle turns vicious.
“A heart?” the Saintess repeats, voice going flat.
“On your cup?” the Demon Queen echoes, tone dangerously light.
The Assassin starts giggling quietly under the table, the sound wrong in her throat.
“So that’s why the café’s cameras caught her staring at you…”
“You checked the cameras?” I blurt out.
Silence.
Then, three voices, overlapping:
“Of course.”
“Obviously.”
“Why wouldn’t we?”
The Saintess grabs my face and forces me to look only at her, her pupils blown wide. She smiles, too many emotions tangled in it.
“It’s okay,” she says. “We took care of it, right?”
The Demon Queen casually nudges the plastic bag further from my line of sight with a manicured toe.
“She won’t be drawing hearts for anyone for a while.”
Under the table, something metallic clinks as the Assassin shifts, clutching my ankle like a lifeline. “I brought her phone for you,” she murmurs. “You can block her yourself. I already deleted your pictures from her gallery. All ninety‑three.”
Ninety‑three.
Fuck. I close my eyes for a second. Inhale. Exhale.
Somewhere under all the perfume, blood, dust, and rain, there’s the faint smell of instant ramen. My "normal" life. My "normal" apartment.
I saved worlds, killed evil gods. I fixed the multiverse.
Yet, now I can’t even go to the corner café without risking a civilian casualty.
Warm lips crush against mine, cutting off my internal scream. The Saintess kisses me too deeply, desperate and clumsy, like she’s trying to drown the idea of leaving before it can fully form.
When she finally pulls back, breathless, there’s a thin trail of saliva between us. Her eyes shine with madness.
“Don’t think about stupid things,” she whispers. “Just think about us.”
Fingers stroke my hair. Nails caress my throat. Hands around my ankle refuse to let go.
Three different heartbeats press in on me from three different directions, all pounding the same insane rhythm:
Mine. Mine. Mine.
This isn’t love.
It’s a curse.
I feel the scream tear up my throat before I can stop it.
“FUCK WHY ME?!”
