
Here's my crazy crack theory: ml (white hair) was probably some aristocratic kid and mc was his servant, yooyoung (dark hair) or his family took over politically or forcefully and mc sent ml away for his safety, then gave himself over to yooyoung, who maybe loved him at some point but was ultimately abusive. Ml comes back and tries to get together with mc, but something happens that leads to yooyoung's death, perhaps caused by ml with a curse or a spell, and mc takes the blame for it and bears the karmic debt into his next life (alternatively ml could've cast a spell to "ensure they'd end up together", and that'd be the curse that brings folly to anyone close to mc besides ml himself, mc dies shorty after yooyoung and carries the curse into his next life. Mc could've killed himself before he can fulfill the purpose of the curse which is to be together with ml, which left ml stuck with unfinished business and lingering as a ghost). Present yooyoung might've actually been trying smth with mc and if succeeded he might've ended up abusive like his past self, but regardless he got into the accident, died, or at least his soul was weakened enough to leave his body vacant, then ml's soul that hadn't reincarnated took his corpse and pretended to be him, but since I assume the reason he lingered was due to unfinished business, he's wacky and weird and has some memories of yooyoung's body but hasn't fully assimilated, his soul is also only focused on his business (being with mc forever) so when they're not together he starts to fall apart

This grovel better fucking last!! I know there's no hope for a separation so at least let him suffer, I know mc is gonna forgive his uncommitted ass in the end but for at least a few chapters I wanna see mc not being the bigger person and not taking ml's bs. Mc had to take ml being an ass for so long but now ml gets a single rejection and is all rundown and sad? I feel no sympathy!

Everything is fine. Everything is fine and I fucking hate it THEY SEEM SO HAPPY EVERYTHING IS GOING WELL WHERE IS THE NUKE?? WHERE DOES IT GO WRONG?? EVERYTIME THEY OVERCOME A HURDLE I JUST GET MORE ANXIOUS this messes with my peace of mind dude, I think it's gonna be like the LAST DAY before mc goes to college, plsplspls don't be the friend that saw them PLEASEEEEEEE DON'T MAKE HIM TELL THE DAD the ugly dude is a decoy the real snitch is much closer
Btw did ml join a gang? Or become a loan shark?? I hope he's just wearing the suit to look nice for his date and not bc he actually got into smth illegal am I overthinking this??

I think everyone knows this, but the Li guy is fishy as hell. He finds things conveniently, survives perfectly fine when he's supposedly been in a hospital for 6 months, he's the perfect witness to all the old events. I think the doc is being framed, that's why he's constantly being pulled into this place, but the Li guy is the real culprit, that's how he managed to come along. I wonder if the nurse was killing/mistreating patients and the doc was trying to stop her, and the Li guy is the most likely candidate for killing her out of revenge or even jealousy if you think the doc and nurse were lovers, and every zombie is a patient she killed or at least attended to. Not sure what's so important abt scar dude, but maybe he bonded with Li and his death is what motivated him to kill with the nurse, or he killed both of them. Maybe the scar dude was delusional and thought he and the nurse were in love or smth, and HE is the actual host of the domain that kept the dead nurse walking around and bringing the doc in bc he thought he was the culprit for his death, when really it was Li.
Crack theory Li is actually into the doc and killed the nurse to get to him lmaoo

So Akane didn't send Nene to the 4th bday. This looks like the summer Hanako kills Tsukasa? What I'm not computing is if that's the case, how did he manage to send her to the old version of the past? If the change occurred as Nene stated, in the 4th bday, likely by the clock keepers making a contract with Tsukasa (turning him into the cat) before the Entity could take him, then Hanako would've been taken by the red house eventually, that leads to the new present where he murders people. That's where we are right now, in this altered version where Hanako is taken instead of Tsukasa. Then... in order for Akane to access the original version of events (where Nene seems to be rn) in which Hanako kills Tsukasa and becomes a mystery, Tsukasa NEEDS to be taken by the Entity in the 4th bday, have the Entity come back looking like him, then be killed by Hanako, aka the version where the clock keepers do nothing. But right now we're in the version where they DID do something, so how did Akane circumvent the change?? Nene was sent to the past PRECISELY to make it so the clock keepers don't interfere with the 4th bday, so why send her to a point in time AFTER the change?? She can't stop the clock keepers if she's not at the same point in time as them! If the change really occurred in the 4th bday as Nene reasoned, THAT DATE already sealed the fate of the entire timeline, making it meaningless to send Nene anywhere else.
This suggests that either Akane made a mistake and sent Nene to the wrong date, and she ended up in the new present version of middle school and is somehow gonna have to find a way outta there, or it's a plot hole where Akane SOMEHOW managed to ignore the changes done to the 4th bday and access the original past (the murder), even tho that shouldn't be possible, since the alteration in the 4th bday would've changed everything that came after, INCLUDING the murder (which wouldn't have even happened, as Hanako lived to adulthood).
The other possibly is that the change happened during the MURDER, NOT the birthday as Nene had thought. Sadly, that raises another question: how tf the clock keepers contracted Tsukasa. The only point he would've been available to go with the clock keepers is during the 4th bday, before he gives himself to the Entity. If he stays, he's taken, and by middle school he's already become one with it, the clock keepers wouldn't be able to do anything, and so there's no point in going there either way. That is to say, sending Nene to any time other than the 4th bday makes absolutely so sense and I if might be a plot hole the author forgot to address.
This all works under the assumption the change was turning Tsukasa into the cat during the 4th bday, therefore "erasing him" from the timeline. If the cat was just some throwaway character and not Tsukasa, and the change was not related to Tsukasa being contracted by the clock keepers before giving himself to the Entity in the 4th bday, then the change still could've been something else and happened during the murder summer instead.
This likely did not make any sense. Oh well.
I'm still hella confused about Akane's knowledge tho. He's the product of one of Nene's attempts at changing the future?? I THINK the future where she stays in the red house (and thus where Akane is coming from) is the future she was about to create that very day, but was interrupted when Akane traveled back to the beginning of the festival before Nene could enact her plan. This is very confusing dude.
Also, minor note, it's really cool when Akane puts the yorishiro up to his mouth. I have no idea what the symbolism is, but it's cool.

I don't think so. Akane came from the future where Nene figured out when the disturbance is that caused all this. She then told Akane about it and he sent Nene to where the disturbance through the clock keepers accused, aka Hanako s 4th Birthday. So she can now fix all this mess??? At least that was how I understood it...

I know lol but if it really is a plot hole I'm gonna be really upset cuz the right path was so clear and they messed it up just like that. It's gonna bother me for a long time.... Sending Nene directly to the summer of the murder is like missing a whole arc where Nene stopped the clock keepers and fixed the timeline, as she could still go to the murder time to fix the timeline there AFTER returning to the old present, possibly with the cooperation of the clock keepers after she stopped them from making alterations in the 4th bday and they became allies. Idk it just feels like unnecessary sequence breaking to me

a theory I've heard of recently is that since Amane used to work on the big clock a bunch, he likely fixed it and then went back in time to his and Tsukasa's 4th birthday to find out what happened to Tsukasa. Which would also explain why Amane ended up killing Tsukasa, despite the fact he becomes Hanako's yorishiro, and a wonder could never ever harm their precious yorishiro.
So I saw someone saying ml is a combination of the two brothers? Which I get but don't quite agree with. I think the body is yooyoung (black hair), and after the accident the soul is yooyeon (white hair) whom I theorized previously to have remained on earth as a lingering spirit and didn't reincarnate, since he retained all of his memories and can see dead spirits (likely because he's not fully integrated into yooyoung's body and is still partially ghost), I believe he was something akin to the creepy guy's dead son who also didn't reincarnate and instead lingered and retained the memories of his father, or at least the hatred he felt, whereas mc who DID reincarnate lost them all till the curse took hold and cannot see spirits. He probably followed mc/yooyoung as a spirit and took yooyoung's corpse after the accident, but ml is not a mixture of their souls, rather yooyeon substituted yooyoung, as ml had major personality changes and lacks several of yooyoung's memories like his friends and ID, he also acknowledges they're not the same person when confronted. I think yooyeon could eventually take over the body completely and retrieve yooyoung's memories, but yooyoung's soul is probably gone gone.
Man, I hope Yooyoung's soul is long gone. I'm gonna roll over if I see him fighting back just to hurt MC.
There's a possibility it'll be a plot device later on when ml and mc get together for real. Cuz one thing I thought is that yooyoung's soul might've been not gone, but severely weakened after the accident which let yooyeon either suppress it within the body or exchange places with it meaning yooyoung's soul is now the lingering spirit, and when they get together for real yooyoung will try taking his body back and mc and ml will have to fight against it somehow. I'm not sure if yooyoung has his old memories bc if that's the case he might actually just be a victim as he's not yet the abusive guy he once was, although I suspect for the sake of the main couple he'll be a villain who was trying to get close to mc to hurt him even without his previous life's memories