The first thing he noticed was the ceiling.
It was painted in soft ivory with delicate molding around the edges—roses carved into the wood like the floral trim of some antique box. A crystal chandelier hung overhead, its crimson teardrop gems catching the light from unseen candles. The scent of something rich and floral hung in the air, faint but unmistakable—fresh roses mixed with sweet powder and old perfume.
Lollipop blinked.
Pain flared up his spine like lightning. Not sharp—but full, throbbing, aching as if his bones had been rearranged, or stitched together too tightly.
He groaned, shifting slowly under the heavy covers. The sheets beneath his skin were cool satin, the comforter thick, embroidered in red-gold threads that formed twisting vines and blossoms. Too fancy. Too soft.
'Where the fuck am I?'
He sat up slowly, every joint creaking in protest. His arms trembled slightly with the effort. It felt like he'd been asleep for days—weeks, even—and now his body was trying to remember how to exist.
His head spun.
The room came into focus.
Victorian.
Everything looked like it had been stolen from a noblewoman's dressing chamber: damask wallpaper in a deep wine red, gold-gilded furniture with lion-clawed feet, thick velvet drapes covering tall windows that let in a slant of soft, rose-colored light. A vanity stood in the corner with rows of ornate perfume bottles. A wardrobe armoire loomed in another corner like a silent guard. There were roses everywhere—in vases, painted into the walls, even stitched into the carpets.
It was lavish, suffocating, and deeply unfamiliar.
Panic bloomed in his chest.
What the hell happened?
The last thing he remembered was… trash.
A dumpster. Rain.
Then that disgusting bastard. Adam.
His lip curled.
"Fucking creep, tch!"
He muttered hoarsely, his voice raw from disuse.
He remembered Adam's face—sunken, twitching, desperate.
He remembered turning away. And then—pain. The stab. The knife sinking into his lower back.
And then…
"Mark…"
He said, blinking.
"That bastard."
He remembered Mark's face rushing in—terrified, begging. But the gratitude didn't come. Only bitterness.
"Great timing, CEO Williams…"
Lollipop muttered.
"What, did you come running just to watch me get stabbed? Real knight in shining fucking armor."
He groaned again and rubbed the back of his neck, his fingers brushing over skin that felt… strange. Too smooth. Too soft.
His brows furrowed. That pain in his back—it was gone. The wound. He remembered bleeding. Remembered the awful cold, the feeling of drowning in his own blood.
He should've had stitches. A bandage. A scar, Gods forbid.
Lollipop ripped the blanket off and pulled the hem of his silk nightshirt—when had he even been dressed in this?—to check his lower back.
Nothing.
Not a mark. Not a bruise. Not even a faint pink line.
His skin was perfect. Poreless. Pale.
His heart dropped.
This wasn't right.
Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he stood, shaky but determined. His bare feet sank into the thick carpet. He scanned the room, slowly, his breath catching as he walked toward the tall mirror on the far wall.
A full-length looking glass in an ornate gold frame waited for him, angled just slightly away from him as he approached.
He reached for it with one trembling hand and turned it toward himself.
And what he saw made the breath punch out of his lungs.
"No…"
He whispered.
"What the fuck—what the actual fuck—is this?"
Staring back at him was not the boy he knew.
The person in the mirror had skin like porcelain—soft and luminous, so pale it looked translucent in the light. Their eyes were no longer pitch black but a vivid, glassy red, glowing faintly with an inner light like ruby caught in sunlight.
Their hair was long—waist-length—and fell in glossy waves of crimson silk down a curvier, far more feminine frame. Their face was heart-shaped, framed with fluttering lashes, and lightly dusted with freckles across the cheekbones and the corners of his phoenix-shaped eyes. The lips were poutier. The waist narrower. The thighs wider.
Their body was hourglass perfection.
And completely unfamiliar.
Lollipop stared.
Then he screamed.
"WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?!"
He touched his face, his waist, his hips—fingers tracing the new lines, the unfamiliar softness. His skin felt hypersensitive, like his nerves had been polished raw. The hair was real. The curves were real.
He looked like a woman.
No.
He looked like the idea of a woman—sculpted from a fever dream of beauty, like a goddess drawn by someone who had never met a real person.
"No no no no no—"
He stumbled back from the mirror, shaking his head.
"This isn't real. This is a hallucination. This is wrong! I'm not—I'm not a woman!"
His breath caught in his throat as dread clawed up his spine.
Was this some kind of punishment?
Was this the afterlife?
Had someone done this to him?
The panic hit like a tidal wave. Lollipop began pacing the room, hands clutching the sides of his head. The curls of bright red hair bounced around him with every step.
"No—I hate women. I hate women. I don't want to be one—I never asked for this!"
He stumbled to the edge of the vanity, gripping it tightly.
He stared into the smaller mirror there, trembling.
The reflection didn't change.
It was still him.
It was not him.
"Oh gods…"
He whispered.
"If this is my second life, don't let me be this."
He squeezed his eyes shut, hoping to wake up, to blink and see black hair, black eyes, toned body, no freckles.
But when he opened them—
She stared back.
No. He. It was still him in there. He had to believe that.
Still… the longer he looked, the less sure he was.
What had happened to him?
Where was he?
Why had he come back in this body?
And who had done it?
Lollipop pressed both palms flat against the vanity, trying to slow his breathing. The scent of roses filled his nose again—cloying, inescapable.
His mind raced.
Mark.
Adam.
The knife.
The blood.
Had he died?
And if so, who had brought him back?
His eyes flicked toward the wardrobe across the room.
Someone had dressed him. Placed him in this room.
He was alive, yes.
But now the question was: for how long?
And what was he now?
Lollipop tore himself away from the vanity, panting, heart pounding like a bass drum against his ribs. Every beat echoed between his ears like it was trying to escape. He needed answers. He needed air.
His eyes scanned the room wildly until they landed on a door, half-concealed by heavy velvet drapes. It stood slightly ajar, a sliver of light visible between the gap.
A way out.
He rushed for it, bare feet silent against the carpet, and shoved the door open fully.
The scent of rosewater and fine soap greeted him.
It was a bathroom—lavish, massive, and dressed in the same Victorian flair as the bedroom. The marble floor was veined with wine-red streaks. A claw-footed bathtub sat beneath a gilded window, and a vanity with twin basins was topped with porcelain and gold fixtures. Bottles of oil and glass jars of powder lined the counter like elegant soldiers.
But he didn't care about the décor.
He slammed the door shut behind him and locked it.
Without hesitation, he stripped off the filmy nightshirt and shorts—both obscenely delicate things in pale rose silk that barely clung to his frame—and stepped in front of the mirror again. This one was even larger than the one in the bedroom, extending from floor to ceiling.
His breath caught.
The figure before him was a paradox.
He looked—no, he was—a girl at first glance. The body curved in all the wrong ways for him: hips soft, thighs full, legs smooth and hairless. His waist tapered into the kind of silhouette that corsets usually faked. His collarbones were dainty, elegant. His shoulders sloped inward like they'd never known tension. And his skin—Gods, his skin—was like alabaster dipped in moonlight.
But then his eyes dipped lower.
And there—beneath the soft line of his belly—was his manhood.
Still intact.
Still not impressive.
Unchanged… though more delicate in appearance. Slimmer. Paler. The tip, a delicious shade of pink. As if adapted to match the rest of the aesthetic.
"What the fuck."
He whispered.
His eyes darted upward. His chest—
He cupped it experimentally.
There was definite softness there. Barely enough to fill his palm, but undeniably present. His nipples were slightly swollen, tinged pink, the skin flushed with sensitivity. Possibly an A cup. Maybe even smaller. Feminine… but not quite fully developed.
"I'm… still a guy?"
He breathed.
"But not really?"
His voice trembled, and he staggered back from the mirror, bracing himself against the bathrooms vanity. He was shaking now. Confused. Horrified. This wasn't just some freaky spa treatment. This was something deeper. Altered. Engineered.
'What is this body? Who the hell did I wake up as?'
Then—
Pain.
It hit like a needle to the brain—sharp, slicing, and cold.
Lollipop screamed, doubling over as the mirror swam in his vision.
His hands clutched his temples, nails digging into his scalp.
Memories.
But not his.
Foreign, vivid, flooding him like a broken dam.
Names.
Faces.
Voices.
"Rosalee."
A woman's voice, cold and refined. Distantly maternal. Tinted with disdain.
"Fix your hair properly. If the prince is going to notice you, you'll need to smile more sweetly than that."
"You are a tool, Rosalee. Use your beauty for the family's sake."
Another voice—sharper. Male. Older.
"Do not forget: you are worth nothing to us unless we see progress. Thornwood carries the Florenzia name. You carry our ambitions."
Thornwood.
His older brother.
The golden child. Perfect. The favored heir.
And him—Rosalee—painted in rouge and dressed in layers of lace and corsets since childhood. Forced to act docile. Feminine. A flawless puppet for the family's power play.
Lollipop clutched the edge of the basin, hyperventilating.
Rosalee Florenzia. That was the name this body answered to.
He remembered being brought to balls and parties with downcast eyes. Remembered biting his tongue until it bled every time a noble whispered about his "unusual tastes" in fashion. Remembered sitting still for hours while servants braided his hair and pinned pearls to his scalp.
But he also remembered playing this story.
That name.
That world.
Thornwood. Florenzia. The Crown Prince. The Noble Academy.
His blood ran cold.
He'd seen this before.
The dresses. The etiquette. The roses.
It was the game. The otome game.
"Otome: Holy Saintess Must Find Her Match."
He'd finished it. Just days ago.
No—just hours ago. Right before that creep Adam stabbed him.
He'd been curled in his chair, controller in hand, screen glowing as the Saintess ended up with the mysterious fourth suitor in the secret route.
Now he was in it.
Not as the heroine. Not even as a rival.
But as a side character.
A minor tool.
Rosalee Florenzia. The tragic pawn of the villainess's entourage.
A disposable background ornament.
Lollipop stumbled backward and sank to the bathroom floor. He leans against the bathtub, heart galloping in his chest.
"No. No no no. This can't be happening."
He stared at his hands. They trembled.
"I died…"
He whispered.
"I really fucking died."
And somehow… he had awakened in this world, inside a body built for manipulation. A body paraded for its beauty but erased for its soul. A body not even allowed to be itself.
A life of wigs, corsets, and forced charm.
A puppet.
A trap.
Lollipop's breath hitched.
He hated it.
He hated the oppression. The falseness. The submission.
Lollipop sat motionless on the marble floor, back pressed against the porcelain of the bathtub, knees drawn up. The thoughts spun like gold-threaded spiderwebs in his mind—fragile, dizzying, sticky with realization.
Rosalee Florenzia.
A side character from Otome: Holy Saintess Must Find Her Match, barely mentioned except in three scenes. A background beauty. A pawn. A tool in the villainess's arsenal for manipulating male leads—painted delicate and tragic, but ultimately forgettable.
He'd always skimmed past Rosalee's dialogue.
Hadn't even bothered reading their character description.
But now…
Now he was them.
He closed his eyes, tried to remember everything—the menus, the footnotes, even the fan wiki articles he skimmed while grinding routes.
And then it hit him.
'The genders in this game aren't the same.'
They never had been.
The world had been full of terms that once seemed like localization quirks: "Firsts," "True-borns," "Secondborns." The court physicians' dialogue had mentioned dual-bloodlines. In the Crown Prince's route, there had even been a subplot about noble inheritance favoring dual pairings for political reasons.
He'd ignored it.
Thought it was just world-building fluff.
But now…
His eyes widened.
"Seconds…"
He whispered aloud.
That's what they called them. Dual pairs. Seconds. A third gender—not male or female, but both and neither. Capable of presenting as either, and always fertile by choice. Fully functional in both ways. A social class revered in theory and exploited in practice. Extremely rare to come by one.
And yet…Rosalee was one of them.
He remembered now—there had been one line, just one, in a throwaway conversation between two gossiping noblewomen during a ball.
"—such a shame the Florenzia family's Second was born with so little spine."
He hadn't thought anything of it.
But now it clicked.
'Rosalee is a Second…and I'm Rosalee.'
He let his head fall back against the cool marble with a heavy thunk.
A strange sensation coiled inside him. Not fear. Not even frustration.
Relief.
Deep. Bone-melting relief.
He wasn't a woman.
Not technically.
This body was soft and feminine, yes. It bled elegance. It curved like it was sculpted to be stared at. But underneath it all, the core—the wiring—it was still male enough. It still held what mattered to him.
He didn't have to become a woman.
He didn't have to pretend.
This new biology… it was bizarre. Foreign. Alien.
But it was still his now.
And suddenly—curiosity bloomed in his chest.
He let his eyes trail down his body again. The skin was unblemished. Impossibly smooth. The red waves of hair spilled over his shoulder like ink bleeding across paper.
His fingers brushed over his thigh. Then slowly up his hip, tracing the curve that sloped toward the waist.
It felt… different.
Not wrong.
Not bad.
Just more.
More sensation.
More response.
His breath slowed, lips parting slightly as he brought his hand to his waist and rested it there—light, tentative. Then slid higher. Up his ribs. Beneath the under-curve of the modest swell of his chest.
He cupped it.
Just one side.
Soft. Small. Just enough to fill the hollow of his palm.
His thumb dragged gently across the nipple.
He gasped.
It was sensitive. Sharply so. Not like before.
He brushed over it again, slower.
A spark crawled up his spine.
'So this is what Rosalee felt every day? This was just... their body? It's a wonder how the bastard prince hadn't fallen for this premium honeytrap.'
He stared at himself in the mirror, chest rising and falling with each shallow breath.
He pinched the nipple lightly between two fingers, watching it stiffen under his touch.
His other hand slipped down, fingers grazing along his waist, over the flare of his hip. It was hypnotic, how every inch of this body reacted like it was tuned for pleasure. The skin practically drank in touch.
"This is insane."
He murmured, but didn't stop.
He tilted his head slightly, examining the angle of his neck in the mirror, the way the red hair spilled across his pale shoulder, the faint freckles that dotted the curve of his upper cheekbone. He looked like a courtesan painted by candlelight. Like temptation sculpted in rose cream and perfume.
His hips rolled forward unconsciously, seeking pressure.
This body wasn't just beautiful.
It was dangerous.
And responsive.
A small, wicked smile pulled at his lips.
"Well…"
He breathed.
"If I'm stuck here… I might as well know what I'm working with. Hah."
The breath that escaped Lollipop's lips was light, shaky. Not quite a moan—yet still colored with confusion, frustration, and something embarrassingly close to delight.
This wasn't just curiosity anymore.
It was possession.
A reclaiming.
His body still felt like someone else's—a costume tailored too well, worn too long—but it was responding to him. Not an audience. Not a client. Just him.
And that made something inside him spark like flint to steel.
His fingers moved again, slower this time, more deliberate. He circled his palm over the gentle swell of his chest, teasing the pink nub until it peaked under his touch. It was sensitive in a way he'd never experienced—raw, electric, like his whole body was wired to respond.
He cursed under his breath.
"Shit…"
Heat crawled down his abdomen as his other hand slipped along the curve of his waist. The bones there jutted more delicately now, his torso narrower. His thighs brushed together when he shifted on the cool marble floor, pressing in closer than he was used to. Even the friction of his own skin against itself felt obscene.
His thumb brushed once more over his nipple, and this time his hips bucked.
"Oh, fuck—!"
The sound that escaped his mouth startled even him—higher-pitched, breathy, undeniably sensual. It was his voice, but tuned to a frequency he'd never dared use without intention.
But now it poured out naturally, unfiltered, like a sound meant for this body alone.
His hand drifted down, fingers sliding over the flatness of his stomach—softer than before, smooth and silken beneath his touch. He traced the dip of his navel, down the gentle ridge between his hips until he found the warm, semi-hard proof of his lingering masculinity.
It was there. Still his.
But even that felt different—slimmer, more sensitive, twitching eagerly with the slightest touch. His fingers wrapped around it, careful, curious.
A sharp gasp tore through him.
It wasn't like before.
It was like the nerves had been multiplied, every stroke lighting up his brain in flashes of color and warmth.
"Gods…"
He panted, forehead pressing to the cool marble of the tub.
"This body's… too much."
He rolled his hips against his palm, testing the angle, testing the limits.
Every breath he took fogged the marble surrounding him.
Every shift in pressure, every graze of his palm or flick of his thumb, had his thighs trembling and his toes curling against the stone. His other hand slipped back up, rolling his nipple between his fingers again just as he squeezed himself below, and his whole body spasmed.
He cried out, sharp and high and foreign.
"Fuck—!"
He dropped to his knees, one hand bracing against the side of the tub, the other working in tandem with ragged breath and greedy instinct. His red hair stuck to his back in wet coils of sweat. His spine arched, his head thrown back, mouth parted and gasping.
It was overwhelming.
And addicting.
Each movement fed into the next—stroke, twist, touch, tease.
And then—
It crashed over him.
Heat exploded low in his belly, curling through him like velvet fire. His vision whited out. His fingers gripped the tub so hard it hurt. His legs shook.
His moan echoed softly against the marble walls, a breathy, helpless sound that belonged to neither man nor woman, but something in between.
Something entirely new.
He slumped forward, panting, sweat beading at his temples.
The aftershocks rolled through him slowly, teasingly, like his body wasn't quite ready to let him go.
Eventually, the trembling stopped.
He stayed there, crumpled on the floor, arms limp, hair clinging to his bare back like red silk ribbons.
"I…"
He whispered hoarsely.
"I need to figure out who designed this body and either sue them or thank them."
He sat up slowly, pressing his back to the side of the tub, heart still fluttering like a startled bird.
His fingers brushed over his chest again, feather-light. The skin there remained flushed, his nipples still stiff and sensitive.
He smirked to himself, the absurdity of it all finally settling in.
Somehow, he'd died.
Somehow, he'd ended up in a video game.
Somehow, he'd woken up in the body of a tragic side character bred for courtly seduction.
And somehow… he was okay with that.
Sort of.
Because now—he had power. Over his body. Over his fate.
And most importantly…
He had secrets.
No one in this world would expect Rosalee Florenzia—the soft-voiced, demure flower of the villainess's court—to be anything more than what the world told them.
But Lollipop had lived an entire life weaponizing his charm.
He knew what it meant to manipulate a room.
To be watched. Desired. Obeyed.
And now, in this new form, in this hyper-sensitized body sculpted for attraction and wielded like a blade—
He had a second chance.
And oh, he planned to enjoy every fucking minute of it.