The face that stared back at her was… different. Sharper cheekbones. A stronger jawline. Skin a touch more tanned than hers. Thick eyebrows that angled sharply instead of curving gently. Her eyes—still her eyes, she realized with a jolt—were framed by longer lashes, but set in a face that was undeniably male.
A boy.
She had woken up as a boy.
No.
She had woken up as someone else.
The paper screen door rustled open with a soft sliding sound, and a boy stepped inside. Her heart stopped.
He had bright, lively eyes and perpetually messy brown hair. The kind of guy who radiated warmth without trying. Familiar. Intimate. She knew him.
"Davey?" she breathed, the name foreign and impossible on her tongue.
He blinked, clearly surprised by her reaction. "Shan? Are you alright? You look… pale."
Shan.
He had called her Shan.
The name rang out like a bell inside her head, echoing with terrifying clarity.
Shan… the protagonist of the Omegaverse manga she had been reading last night.
Shan, the quiet, introspective Omega, best friend to Davey, the boisterous also a omega. Shan who had a tragic backstory, a complicated relationship with his body, and a world of secrets. Shane who she had thought was frustrating and beautiful and real on the page.
And now—she was him.
Slowly, mechanically, Hana turned back to the mirror. She stared at the reflected face and searched—desperately—for any trace of Hana Hyuga. The college student. The awkward introvert. The girl with the too-big forehead and the quiet dreams.
And she saw it.
Beneath the warped masculinity, in the set of the eyes and the curl of the lips, she saw echoes of herself. Twisted, reshaped, but familiar. It was like looking through a funhouse mirror where time and gender had distorted everything.
A wave of dizziness washed over her, and her knees buckled slightly.
Understanding crashed down like a tidal wave.
Last night.
Her final thought before sleep had been a bitter joke screamed into the silence of her lonely room.
"If my forehead is this bad, maybe I'd be better off born in the Omegaverse world…"
Had… had God heard her?
Had someone answered that desperate cry?
She gripped the edge of the mirror as if it could anchor her.
God, in his infinite and perhaps slightly literal wisdom, had taken her wish very, very seriously.
"Shan?" Davey asked again, stepping closer now, concern knitting his brow. "You're shaking. Are you having a reaction?"
Reaction.
Right. This was the Omegaverse. That meant scent triggers. Heats. Dynamics. The biology here was as much social law as it was physical.
"I'm fine," she said quickly, too quickly. Her voice—deeper than her own but still soft—wavered.
Davey didn't look convinced, but he didn't press. "Well, come eat. You're going to be late for morning assembly."
And then he was gone.
The door slid shut behind him, and silence fell once more.
Hana—no, Shane—stood there, staring at the space he'd occupied.
She was here.
She was in the manga.
She was Shane.
Her breath caught in her throat, and she sat heavily on the futon, staring at her hands. They were longer now. Broader. She turned them over slowly, the panic dulling into a strange, dissociative fog.
Was she dreaming? She slapped her face. Hard.
Nope.
Real.
She could still feel the echo of the sting.
Everything in this room was hyper-real—the creak of the wooden floor, the scent of ink and charcoal, the slight burn in her throat from the unfamiliar morning air.
And when she inhaled deeply, she caught a scent—hers, faint and sweet and cloying.
Omega pheromones.
Her stomach turned.
She was in a world where biology dictated your worth. Where power dynamics were built into your blood. Where Alphas, Betas, and Omegas all had roles and rules.
And she was on the bottom rung.
An Omega.
What was going to happen to her now?
Could she survive in this world, let alone navigate it? She didn't know the full rules—just enough from manga tropes and forum theories. Could she keep up the act? Could she pretend to be Shan until she found a way back? If there even was a way back?
She stood again, moving toward the neatly folded pile of clothes left beside the door. A school uniform, traditional but modernized. She dressed slowly, her hands clumsy with the buttons and ties, each article reminding her just how different this new body was.
Outside, the morning was in full bloom. Birds called softly. The courtyard echoed with faint conversation and the shuffle of sandals on wood.
And from the veranda, she saw him again—Davey—waving.
"Come on, Shan! You'll miss breakfast!"
Her heart thudded painfully.
Whatever was coming, she was going to face it.
As Shan.
In the Omegaverse.
God help her.
Because the real screaming.
The beeping of the heart monitor was maddening in its consistency, like a ticking clock counting down to something she couldn't yet name.too clean and house, fragrance like a lavender . The sheets beneath her fingers were too smooth, the room too quiet, too white, too unreal. But this wasn't a dream. That fact pressed on her chest like a weight.
"Shan?"
The voice was gentle but firm, threading through the fog of her thoughts. It pulled her back to the present with the jarring clarity of a slap.
She turned her head slowly to see him—Davey. Soft features, warm brown eyes narrowed in concern, mouth slightly parted like he'd been holding back a dozen more questions.
He hovered by the edge in his bed like a storm cloud ready to burst. His posture was tight, anxious, hands clenched at his sides. "Shan, are you having any problems? You seem… out of it. I'll call Doctor Zhao again if you need."
Her mind was chaos. Not just confusion—utter cognitive dissonance.
She wasn't Shan. Not really.
She was Hana. Twenty-two-year-old nursing student. Lover of trashy romance manga. And now?
Now, she was inside the world of one.
Omegaverse. Manga. Shan Luan. Pregnant. Kang Jin-ho.
Each name and term felt like a hammer blow against the fragile dam of her understanding, cracking it wide open.
This wasn't a hallucination.
This wasn't some lucid dream.
She remembered this manga. Not all of it, but enough. She'd clicked on it late one night, bored and curious about the hype. She remembered skimming the summary: a dramatic, angst-filled ride following Shan Luan, a delicate male Omega, and the cold, cruel Alpha, Kang Jin-ho. They'd had a brief, explosive encounter during a rut—non-consensual, or at least emotionally murky. Shan ended up pregnant. Jin-ho vanished. Six years later, they met again, and sparks flew—some romantic, some deadly.
She hadn't read it all. Just the beginning and the spicy parts. Who had time for plot in a genre like that?
But now she wished she had. Because she was in it.
And she was Shan Luan.
A desperate, illogical question bubbled to the surface before she could stop herself.
"Davey," she blurted out, voice hoarse, "what chapter is this?"
His eyebrows knitted together. "What chapter, Xiao Shan? What are you talking about?"
The nickname hit her like a slap. Xiao Shan. Little Shan. The name only used by close friends, family—people who knew him.
It was real.
It was all real.
She could feel her breath quickening, the walls starting to close in. Her chest felt tight, like a pressure ballooning inside. She forced a weak laugh, too late to pull back the words, too desperate to play it cool. "No, nothing," she said quickly. "Just… feeling a bit faint. Could you call Doctor Zhao again? Just to be sure everything's alright."
Anything to change the subject. Anything to stop him from staring at her like she'd lost her mind.
Davey didn't even hesitate. "Of course, Shan. Right away."
He gave her one more worried look, then turned and walked briskly out the door.
The moment it shut behind him, Hana let out a trembling breath.
Her hands were shaking. She brought one up to her chest, feeling the unfamiliar curve of it. Shan's body. Leaner, slightly narrower at the shoulders, and—she glanced down—no chest at all. Male. Flat. But still… there was a softness to this body. A delicacy. Typical of how manga portrayed male Omegas: beautiful, fragile, ethereal.
And possibly pregnant.
That was the next thought. And the one that terrified her most.
Doctor Zhao. Pregnancy check.
The pieces clicked too perfectly. In the story, Shan had gone to the hospital because he fainted. It was the first sign of the pregnancy. That was why she—he?—was here.
So then… the timeline was right at the start.
The moment that changed everything.
Which meant Kang Jin-ho hadn't returned yet. But he would. Soon. And with him would come the entire storm of the plot. The conflict. The heartbreak. The violence. And the twisted path to some kind of broken romance.
Hana's throat went dry. She knew the kind of Alpha Jin-ho was. She remembered enough to know he wasn't some kind-hearted tsundere with a soft underbelly. He was cruel, possessive, emotionally damaged. He hurt Shan—emotionally and physically. He didn't even know about the child for most of the story.
The child.
Her hand dropped to her belly. Flat. Nothing to feel yet. But inside?
Could it be true?
Was she really carrying Kang Jin-ho's child?
It was absurd. Ludicrous. She was a woman. Or had been. Now she was in the body of a male Omega—a body that could get pregnant.
Manga logic. Omegaverse rules. Biology rewritten by fiction.
The walls spun for a second.
She closed her eyes tightly, breathing slowly. In through the nose. Out through the mouth.
She had to think clearly. Had to figure this out.
Panic won't help, she told herself. You've read enough isekai stories to know how this goes. The rules may be strange, but they're consistent. If you're Shan, and this is the beginning…
Then she had a window. A chance.
She could prepare. Maybe even change things.
But first—confirmation.
Was she pregnant?
The answer would define everything.
She needed that information. And then she could plan.
Davey's footsteps sounded again in the hall. She quickly composed herself, tucking away her panic behind a carefully neutral expression. The door creaked open, and he stepped in, his face still drawn with concern.
"Doctor Zhao's on his way," Davey said gently, coming to stand beside her again. "He said he'd do a full checkup, just to be safe. You scared me, Shan."
Hana managed a small, grateful smile. "Sorry. Just… weird day, I guess."
"Weird week," Davey said with a dry laugh, brushing her bangs away from her forehead like an older brother. "Try not to stress too much, okay? You're not alone. I'm right here."
That warmth in his eyes—it was real. Genuine care. The kind of support Shan had in the story but Hana hadn't realized the depth of. Davey, the steadfast omega friend. Loyal, grounded. A rare constant in the volatile world of scent dynamics and Alpha-Omega drama.
"Thanks, Davey," she said softly.
He nodded and sat beside her, just holding space.
Minutes passed in silence until the sound of a knock broke the stillness.
Doctor Zhao had arrived..