Episode 1

One day, I opened my eyes to see a white ceiling.

Beside me, a middle-aged couple, strangers to me, were holding my hand and sobbing. When our eyes met, they were startled and went out to call a doctor.

Right after waking up, I was disoriented, but after the doctor came and conducted some tests, I was left alone in the hospital room, which gave me time to think calmly.

‘What’s going on here?’

It seemed like I was experiencing possession, something you’d only find in novels or manga.

There was no other explanation for the situation I was in.

From the context of the conversations I’ve had so far, the body I possessed was named ‘Kim Yu-Seong,’ a high school student living in Japan.

Apparently, he left home two days ago to meet a friend and was hit by a car at a nearby crosswalk, falling into a coma.

If my soul had taken the place of this boy’s, Kim Yu-Seong’s soul, it was truly a sad thing to say.

Especially since he was at an age to be actively enjoying life.

I recalled my last memory before the possession.

Due to a wrong decision, I became a graduate student in science and engineering and had been living in the university lab for several days, unable to go home.

However, due to someone’s mistake, a fire broke out in the lab. I was there and inhaled a lot of toxic gases while trying to save a hard disk containing two years of research data, failing to escape from the building, and losing consciousness.

Perhaps I died in the lab, and that was why I possessed the body of this boy named Kim Yu-Seong.

I was momentarily happy to escape the dreary grad school life, but that elation quickly faded.

After all, I am like a cuckoo that suddenly intruded into the body of this boy named Kim Yu-Seong.

I wondered if I could adapt to life going forward.

Staring blankly at the ceiling, I picked up a small hand mirror from the bedside drawer.

The face of a boy I had never seen before was looking back at me from the mirror.

When I awkwardly smiled, the boy with notably long bangs on one side also smiled back.

Honestly, it felt unreal.

Could all of this just be a dream?

I harbored that vague hope, but when I pinched my cheek, I felt vivid pain.

“Haah. What is this all about?”

Sighing deeply at this perplexing situation, I decided to sleep on it and think more when I woke up.

—*

Two days later.

I was safely discharged from the hospital.

Of course, there was no such thing as the possession being undone as I had hoped.

Rather, the memories of the boy named Kim Yu-Seong naturally flowed into my mind as I dreamed.

Kim Yu-seong, a 15-year-old boy, was an ordinary middle school student preparing for high school entrance exams.

Born to Korean parents who immigrated to Japan, he was a second-generation Korean-Japanese. Due to his background, he faced subtle discrimination at school, leading to an introverted personality.

Still, he had two or three friends in class he got along with. It seemed he left home early on a weekend morning to hang out with them and met with an accident.

The middle-aged couple, Kim Yu-seong’s parents, drove me home in their car. I was told to go rest upstairs because I must be tired. I agreed and went up to the second floor.

Although it was my first time here, I acted very naturally, as if I had always known the place.

This must be due to the memories of Kim Yu-Seong, the original owner of this body.

Quietly closing the door and entering the room, I felt dizzy at the sight before me.

Wherever I looked, manga, manga, manga, manga.

On the wall hung bromides of scantily clad 2D characters, and the shelves were lined with animation DVDs and figures.

I wasn’t sure where a 3rd-year junior high school student like him got the money for all this, but one thing was clear—Kim Yu-Seong was what people call an ‘otaku.’

I also occasionally watched manga or anime that people found interesting, but I was never this immersed, so I was just bewildered.

For now, since this was going to be my room, I tidied up a bit and sat down on the bed instead of a chair.

‘What do I do now?’

Since I hadn’t received all of Kim Yu-Seong’s memories yet, it was hard to act rashly.

Especially with Kim Yu-Seong’s parents, they would feel a tremendous sense of incongruity if their son of 15 years suddenly acted like a different person.

Thus, I needed a proper reason to act according to my original personality.

Fortunately, there was one excuse that suited Kim Yu-Seong perfectly.

‘Chuunibyou.’

It was a ‘disease’ everyone supposedly goes through during the stormy period of adolescence.

Luckily, the original Kim Yu-Seong before my possession was deeply immersed in ‘Chuunibyou’, to the extent of growing one side of his bangs long to mimic a favorite manga character.

Of course, due to his introverted nature, he didn’t show it off outside, but his parents probably already knew about their son’s ‘Chuunibyou’.

Now it’s August.

In terms of the school year, it was the time when final exams had just ended and summer vacation had begun.

But there wasn’t much time left.

Checking the calendar on the smartphone, school reopened in two weeks.

If I attempted a change of image in such a short time, not only his parents but also those who knew the boy, Kim Yu-Seong would inevitably feel a sense of incongruity.

‘Then, for the time being, I’ll have to pretend to have ‘Chuunibyou.’’

That was the conclusion I reached after much thought.

I would reveal my true personality only after entering high school.

For now, as I needed to understand the original Kim Yu-Seong’s tastes and hobbies, I turned my attention to the neatly arranged manga on the bookshelf.

Looking at the titles, it seemed he read a variety of genres, from fighting mangas to fantasy, cooking stories, and love comedies.

Gulp.

At a glance, there seemed to be well over 100 volumes.

If I had an assignment this summer vacation, it was to become a perfect ‘Chuunibyou’ otaku.

It seemed like it would be quite a challenge.

Time passed incredibly fast while I was possessed in Kim Yu-Seong’s body, living as a third-year junior high student.

First of all, it was physically short.

August, September, October, November, and December.

Excluding the third term and spring vacation, it was less than half a year at best.

I passed the high school entrance exams easily without much studying.

Being originally a graduate student in science and engineering, middle school-level mathematics and science were a breeze. Korean and history were easier than expected, perhaps because they were the original Kim Yu-seong’s favorite subjects.

With the soul of a science student and the body of a humanities student, the scores I got were unbelievably high for the amount of study.

Anyway, because I thoroughly prepared and reviewed during the summer vacation, neither his parents nor those around me noticed the change in the person inside Kim Yu-Seong.

Pretending to have ‘Chuunibyou’ was hard at first, but it became natural with time.

After devouring all the manga and novels Kim Yu-Seong had in his room, and memorizing the common behavior patterns of ‘Chuunibyou’ from the internet, they naturally appeared in my daily life.

I was so impressed with myself when I bumped my head on a convenience store door while looking at my phone and muttered,

“Tsk, there must be a barrier.”

“Here! Give me some flank and hormone!”

“Yes~!”

Lost in thought, I called out to my father, who was working in the kitchen, with the additional order from Table 3.

“One flank and hormone for Table 3!”

“Coming right up!”

Kim Yu-Seong’s parents ran a small meat restaurant in Tokyo.

To be precise, it was a Korean restaurant, but they mainly sold yakiniku.

The store was small, but it had a fair number of regular customers.

Despite being a young middle school student, Kim Yu-Seong could afford all sorts of merchandise thanks to the pocket money he earned by helping out in his parents’ shop whenever he had spare time.

Busy with the heavy workload during the lunch rush, I noticed a young man and woman seated at a table.

The boy, tall and handsome like a celebrity, seemed about my age.

The girl sitting next to him, seemingly a year or two younger, was also strikingly beautiful.

“Brother! Say ‘Ahh~’.”

“Yuika, there are people around watching.”

“Oh, come on~ What’s wrong with a little sister feeding her brother~?”

Staring blankly at the two familiar-looking individuals, I realized something.

If my memory serves me right, that boy’s name was Sakamoto Ryuji.

The protagonist of the popular love comedy ‘Scramble Love’, which I had encountered online before possessing this body.

He looked slightly younger than I remembered, but his natural shaggy hair, as if he just stepped out of a host club, was unforgettable.

And because of this, I naturally came to realize something.

This boy, ‘Kim Yu-Seong’, whom I had possessed, was living in a world inside a manga.