The Echo of Opening Gambit

This work is set in a fictional nation and bears no relation to actual history.

“I understand a formal proposal of marriage has been delivered. I ask that you accept.”

Major Lee Yi-tan, Second Lieutenant Lee Yi-tan, Cadet Lee Yi-tan, my young trainee Lee Yi-tan.

And before returning across time,
Lee Yi-tan, the ‘brother-in-law’ toward whom I had dared to harbor such sordid feelings.

Though neither his courteous demeanor nor his formal speech had changed in the slightest, the man before him was speaking words entirely foreign to the past Myeong-joo knew.

When he crossed the threshold of death and opened his eyes once more, Myeong-joo made a vow:
He would dedicate this lifetime to his sister, who had thrown away her youth on his account and lived a life of nothing but hardship before passing away.
He would never, under any circumstances, become entangled with Lee Yi-tan—the man who had been his sister’s husband in their past life—or with his family, the Seoksan Lee clan.

Yet what variable had intervened?

“I understand you have no prospective match to speak of.”
“But that’s……”
“I am saying that if you have no Aberrant partner, you might consider me.”

For reasons unknown, Yi-tan proposes not to his sister, but to Myeong-joo,
and this reclaimed life begins to flow in a direction entirely divergent from every memory of the past……