"My Javien! No!"
Olivia's scream tore through the silent room as her phone slipped from her trembling hands, crashing onto the floor.
Her chest tightened painfully, her fingers clutching her hair as tears streamed uncontrollably down her face.
"What kind of ending is this?!"
Her voice broke, raw and desperate.
"Why does the Second Male Lead have to die just to satisfy the Main Leads? I won't accept this… I won't!"
Her vision blurred as she scrambled to grab her phone again, her hands shaking so badly she almost dropped it a second time. The screen flickered faintly as she opened the comment section with uneven breaths.
Please, Author... bring Javien back. Let him be happy!!
Her breathing grew heavier.
"I would give anything… just to be by his side… no matter what role I play…"
For a moment, everything fell silent. She cried like a child and slowly drifted into sleep. Then, the screen of her phone suddenly flickered. A strange message appeared.
[System Notification: Wish accepted.]
________
Before Her Life Fell Apart...
The clock read 10 PM. Outside, the sounds of cars, motorcycles, and buses hummed through the still-bright city streets.
"RINGGGG! RINGGGG!"
Olivia rubbed her eyes. She scrambled around searching for her phone, squinting at the wall clock right in front of her, and answered the call while shuffling toward the living room.
"Hello..."
"Dear, Mom and Dad can't come home tonight. The rain is too heavy,"
her mother's voice came through the line.
Still half-asleep, Olivia replied briefly.
"Okay, Mama. Be careful."
The line went dead. Olivia opened her phone, smiling as she replied to her boyfriend Kile's messages. She decided to just call him.
"Kile, are you free tomorrow? If not, let's go out. I'm on a one-week break from uni,"
she said in her sweetest voice.
"Sorry, Via. I'm really busy tomorrow. Family gathering," Kile replied, sounding tired
.
"The day after?" Olivia's voice dropped with disappointment.
"Busy then too. Sorry, Via. My schedule is just really packed this week," he said quietly.
There was a brief silence, and for a split second, Olivia thought she heard the muffled giggle of a girl in the background before Kile cleared his throat.
"Look, I have to go. Don't call me again tonight, okay? I'm exhausted."
Click.
Olivia stared at her screen. He didn't even say 'I love you' back.
"Maybe he's just really tired," she whispered to the empty room, trying to convince herself. But the cold hollow in her chest told a different story.
In that silence, Olivia felt a terrifying shift... as if the last thread holding her world together was starting to fray.
The rain outside grew louder, drumming against the window like an urgent warning she couldn't yet understand. She hugged her knees, feeling smaller than usual, unaware that in just a few hours, being "busy" would be the least of her heartbreaks.
To distract herself, she opened her phone again. A notification popped up on her screen:
[My Beloved Ophlia: Chapter 49 has been released]
For a moment, her sadness was pushed aside. She dived into the world of Javien and Ophlia, letting the fictional drama drown out her own uneasy thoughts. She smiled, even squealed a little into her pillow, finding a temporary escape in the lines of text.
The next morning crept up without her noticing. Olivia enjoyed her alone time, sprawled on the couch watching K-dramas.
"This is the life. I can eat as much as I want without Mama lecturing me,"
she mused, laughing to herself as she remembered one of her mother's legendary scoldings from when she was ten.
She wandered over to the corridor, watching the apartment block below. Children were shrieking with laughter as they ran from their parents.
Olivia let out a quiet, wistful sigh.
"When are Mama and Daddy coming home?"
she whispered to herself. She grabbed her phone and dialed.
"Tuuut... tuuutt... The number you have dialed cannot be reached..."
Olivia frowned.
"Mama and Daddy never turn off their phones. Especially not when I'm calling," she muttered, trying again and again.
No luck. She finally called her uncle, who told her that her parents had already left her grandmother's house hours ago.
The night grew later. The rain outside turned savage, as if carrying news of something terrible on its way.
Olivia paced restlessly around the kitchen, clutching a glass of water. The clock hit 10 PM. Over five hours had passed, and there was still no sign of their car.
"When are they going to get here?" she whimpered.
THUD. THUD.
Footsteps sounded outside the door. Olivia's heart lifted until she opened it. It wasn't her parents. It was the police.
Olivia's world went dark. Her parents had been involved in a horrific accident. Neither survived
And that was only the beginning.
Her boyfriend Kile, it turned out, had been cheating on her with her own best friend the girl she had loved like an older sister. His excuse? That Olivia gave up too easily and had nothing worth staying for.
Then came the relatives, arriving not to grieve, but to take.
"Everything in this house belongs to us! Your parents owed us debts... consider this payment. HAHAHAHA. This is what you call karma."
"…what?" Her voice came out small, almost like it didn't belong to her. She took a step forward.
"No… this is my house…"
No one answered her. They were already moving, opening drawers, taking things as if she weren't even there.
"Stop…" Her fingers trembled.
"Please… stop…"
No one listened.
"This was your parents' fault. They brought this on themselves," her aunt sneered, snatching a gold necklace from Olivia's dresser the one her father bought for her 18th birthday.
"Please... not that one," Olivia whispered, her voice trembling. Her aunt didn't even look at her.
"Consider this interest for the money they owed us. You're lucky we're even leaving you that photo."
Each word cut deeper than it should. Olivia dropped to her knees. Silence. She stared at that photo for a moment. Her parents. Smiling. Alive.
Her hands slowly reached out, but her fingers trembled too much to hold it properly.
"…Mama…" Her voice cracked.
But still, no one cared. And just like that, she lost everything.
Five years of waking up in a room that smelled like instant noodles and loneliness. Five years of working a job she hated just to pay for a ceiling she barely looked at.
Olivia didn't cry anymore—not because she was strong, but because she was empty. The world had moved on, her relatives had disappeared with her inheritance, and Kile was just a bitter scar she chose to ignore.
The only thing that kept her tethered to reality was the glow of her phone screen at 2 AM. From that day on, Olivia grew into a woman who needed no one, because the world had already taught her not to expect anything from it.
_______________
Years passed. Olivia was now 24.
In her modest apartment, she collapsed onto her bed and stared up at the ceiling fan spinning above her.
TING!
[My Beloved Ophlia: Chapter 53 has been released]
"Huh? Five years have passed and we're only at Chapter 53?"
she muttered, baffled. She had been too busy surviving to touch her favorite novel. But quietly, in the background of all her hardest days, it had always been there her one comfort.
She started reading. The apartment was pitch black, save for the harsh, blue light of her phone reflecting off her hollow cheeks. Olivia hadn't eaten since yesterday, her stomach a dull ache that she ignored in favor of the words on her screen.
Then, she reached the end.
[Javien died alone. In the dark. In the cold.]
It felt like someone had reached into her chest and squeezed her heart until it stopped.
Suddenly...
THWACK.
Her phone hit the floor.
"MY JAVIENNN!! NO!!" she screamed, grabbing her own head.
"What kind of story is this! Why does the second male lead have to die just to make the main leads happy? I refuse to accept this!"
Her breathing went ragged.
"ARRRGHHHHHHHHH!!"
TOK! TOK! TOK!
"Miss!! Stop screaming at night!! You're keeping me awake!!" came the gruff voice of her elderly neighbor next door.
Olivia startled and sprinted to the door.
"..sorry, uncle," she said, shrinking with embarrassment.
The moment the door clicked shut, she crept back to bed. She reread the chapter with tears streaming silently down her face.
Is someone's fate really impossible to change? If I were in this story, I'd choose Javien. He's handsome, strong, he can fight... why does he have to die?
Her fingers trembled as she typed out a comment.
[Please, Author... bring Javien back. Let him be happy. His death was too tragic. His sacrifices for the female lead meant nothing in the end. Because of them, he killed himself, alone, in that dark and cold house. He needed someone. Someone to be his person..."]
Olivia lay back and closed her eyes. In that hazy space between awake and asleep, she whispered one last desperate wish.
"I'd be willing to be by his side... no matter what role I play..."
As Olivia drifted into sleep, the screen of her phone suddenly flickered. A strange message appeared.
[System Notification: Wish accepted.]
She drifted off, unaware that the next morning, her wish would become her reality.