So far my theory is that MC and ML were indeed lovers in some timelines of the story but they had to regress to the beginning and both of them lost their memories. In this current timeline ML haven't regained his awareness+memories yet and MC already got awareness but not his memories..? Something like that. I also think that Daphne dying in every timeline of the novel is because she escaped/returned to the real world?? Since when she dies it's always after the novel "ends" and she got married to ML.
I have no idea if any of what I said is true but I'm gonna find out soon by reading the novel!
Wait no, you're cooking, I like that theory of yours
This story is everything I could ever dream of tbh I've read way too many of the typical transmigration romance fantasy that this is such a breath of fresh air to me. Like yesss 2nd ML became self aware that they're in a novel and lost his mind finally deciding to seduce the main ML of the story just so he could save the FL??? Sign me up I'm already loving this the MC is crazy asf