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Iju Han
Our Protagonist
The heiress and adopted daughter to the head of the WJ Retail Company, who traveled back in time after hearing of her husband’s plans to divorce her.- Grey-and-Gray Morality: Iju coldly rejects her fiancé Sehyeok and cancels their wedding in public, humiliating him, and steals the man that her stepsister Yura wanted to marry to spite her. However, this is because she just came from the future where Sehyeok marries her, then reveals that he plans to divorce her for Yura, whom Iju suspects of deliberately upstaging her and stealing her inheritance.
- Lethal Chef: Her cooking is just awful. She takes a cooking class to get closer to Doguk's mother but it's clear that she needs it. She is dedicated and is very slowly getting better.
- Took a Level in Cheerfulness: Her relationship with Doguk slowly but surely brings her out of her shell and helps heal her lifetime of trauma.
- Trauma Button: Has trouble trusting to eat food she hasn’t seen prepared because of her Wicked Stepmother feeding her poisoned macarons as a child.
- The Unfavorite: Adopted at a young age, Iju became this trope after her adopted mother died and her father remarried Yura’s mother. Despite being adopted by him, Iju’s father treats her as second to her stepsister and all but states that he values Yura’s happiness more than Iju’s.
- Woman Scorned: Iju witnesses her husband Sehyeok reveal plans to divorce her for Yura. After traveling back in time, Iju brutally rejects Sehyeok at the bridal store and cancels their wedding, before seducing the man Yura wants to get back at her.
Doguk Seo
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The second son of the head of Seogang Group, who Iju plans to marry as revenge against her stepsister.- Hidden Depths: Despite knowing she’s marrying for convenience, Doguk is genuinely in love with Iju, showing tender sides of himself to her and aiming to make her fall for him for real.
- Smug Snake: To Yura when he realizes she’s trying to seduce him away from his fiancé. When she tries to convince him that Iju is using him for revenge, he gives her a cold stare and darkly replies:
- Tall, Dark, and Handsome: It’s no wonder Yura wants him.
- Trauma Button: The ocean, due to nearly drowning thanks to his brother as a child.
Yura Han
Iju’s stepsister, who stole her husband and her inheritance, who Iju punishes by getting engaged to the man she wants to marry herself.
- Abhorrent Admirer: Doguk is in no way interested in Yura, dumping her after one date. Yet despite this, Yura still pursues him after he gets engaged to her stepsister.
- Always Someone Better: Everything that Iju works tirelessly to achieve comes easily to Yura, from awards to the love of others.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: It turns out, Iju is right about her—her lovable face is a facade. All of Yura’s upstaging of her was deliberate, and she intentionally stole Iju’s inheritance, making sure there was nothing left for her stepsister.
- Character Development: After her mother winds up in jail and still insists on pushing Yura to hurt Iju Yura cuts her off and accepts that her mother's plight isn't Iju's fault.
- "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: If she hadn't gone out of her way to make Iju's life miserable, Mr. Han would have continued supporting her as his daughter.
- Entitled Bitch: She feels like every aspect of the WJ Retail family belongs to her, especially the inheritance meant for Iju.
- Entitled to Have You: Doguk is the man of her dreams, and she will stop at nothing to make him hers, even though he’s engaged to her stepsister. She actually sees Iju as the only obstacle between her and Doguk, even though Doguk rejected her after one date before even meeting Iju.
- Freudian Excuse: A lot of Yura's worst traits come back to her mother (who, let's face it, is far worse).
- Generation Xerox: She adopts many of her mother's underhanded tactics, including going out of her way to make Iju miserable at a point when she represented no real threat to her and lying about her child's parentage in order to worm her way into a wealthy family. It's ultimately subverted when she accepts that her horrible plight isn't Iju's fault and decides to go no contact with her mother.
- Hoist by Their Own Petard: Yura is furious that Iju is marrying Doguk knowing Yura wants to marry him. What Yura can’t seem to understand, or at least admit, is that Iju wouldn’t be doing any of this if Yura hadn’t tried to ruin her life by pushing her towards Sehyeok knowing he loved Yura and not Iju.
- Humiliation Conga: The story is much one for Yura. First, her sister hooks up with the man she wanted to get with, and nothing she tries makes her budge. Then she learns that the man who raised her isn't her biological father, but the father of her "adopted" sister. Her mother is exposed as a criminal and imprisoned. By the end of the story, she has lost everything, and is trapped in a loveless home with an abusive mother-in-law.
- I Love You Because I Can't Control You: A deconstruction, Yura is so used to men falling at her feet that she instantly falls in love with Doguk because he’s so disinterested. Unfortunately for her, far from being enticed by her pursuit, he’s disgusted and annoyed by her attempts to seduce him after firmly rejecting her.
- Irony: Yura tried to trick Iju into a loveless marriage, but her efforts land her in one, with the added humiliation of constantly being distrusted and belittled by her in-laws in an even more hostile fashion than what Iju faced growing up.
- Never My Fault:
- Yura is mad at Iju for seducing the man she wants, even though Iju tells her flat-out why — because Yura tried to ruin her life first by getting her to marry Sehyeok while knowing he loved Yura and not Iju.
- After Iju and Doguk set a wedding date, Yura drunkenly blames Sehyeok for not being able to hold onto Iju, even though she asked him to get engaged to Iju because Yura knew he had no romantic feelings for Iju and wanted her to suffer in a loveless marriage.
- Not Good with Rejection: Doguk rejected Yura after one blind date, stating outright that he had no intention of entering marriage with her. This does not stop her from trying to sabotage his engagement to Iju. Somehow, Yura seems to think that Doguk will change his mind about marrying her if he and Iju break up. She is infuriated when Doguk himself points out how stupid that idea is.
- Secretly Selfish: Yura pretends to care for her family’s stability by marrying the rich Doguk, but in reality, she does genuinely want Doguk for herself.
- Strong Family Resemblance: She has the same eyes and hair of her actual biological father.
Sehyeok Jeong
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Iju’s unfaithful ex-fiancé. In the original timeline, he was her husband, who planned to divorce her for her stepsister.- Be Careful What You Wish For: He's been in love with Yura for years, and the story begins with him preparing to divorce Iju and get with her. He quickly realizes how despicable she really is, but after he gets her pregnant, there's no way out.
- Hopeless Suitor: He is hopelessly in love with Yura, so much so she can get him to do anything she wants. Unfortunately for him, she has her eyes set firmly on the Tall, Dark, and Handsome Doguk.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: A particularly twisted variation of this tropes appears with him. He is so in love with Yura, he is willing to pretend to love Iju because Yura asks him to.
Mr. Han
Iju’s adopted actually biological father.
- Abusive Parents: Downplayed, especially compared to Jeonghye. He never showed Iju any type of paternal love, giving it instead to Yura and ostracizing her further. Having said that, that's about as far as it goes, and once he learns Iju is his biological daughter, he is horrified and humbled.
- Irony: One of the main reasons that he mistreats Iju is because she adopted and not biologically his while Yuri is the favorite because she is biologically his....So he thinks. Due to a Daddy DNA Test, it turns out the Iju is his biological daughter from a previous girlfriend and Yuri is the biological daughter of Jeonghye's ex-boyfriend.
- My God, What Have I Done?: He comes to deeply regret the way that he neglected Iju after finding out the truth of her past. While by then it's far too late to undo the damage he's done, he nevertheless tries to be better.
Jeonghye Han
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Yura’s mother and Iju’s stepmother.- Abusive Parents: She's not above hitting her own biological daughter when she calls her out on her behavior.
- "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: As is the case for many villains, she wouldn't have Iju as a mortal enemy working towards her downfall if she'd just quit while she was ahead and hadn't gone out of her way to make her miserable.
- Insane Troll Logic: After she's jailed for her crimes, she still thinks that everything is Iju's fault.
- Laser-Guided Karma: In the end Iju finds proof that she's a fraudster and a murderer and she winds up in jail. Her behavior proves to be too much for her daughter, who cuts her out of her life for good.
- Smug Snake: She takes pleasures in her husband scolding Iju after lying to get her in trouble.
- Wicked Stepmother: She lashes out at Iju for "stealing" Doguk from Yura, and even tried to poison Iju as a child.
- Would Hurt a Child: She is not above setting buildings with babies in them on fire and poisoning children if it means getting what she wants.
