Kim Yu-seong
One day, I opened my eyes to a white ceiling.
Beside me, a middle-aged couple I didn't recognize was holding my hand and sobbing. When our eyes met, they jumped in surprise before rushing out to call a doctor.
Things were chaotic right after I woke up, but a doctor came and ran a few tests. It was only after all that was done and I was left alone in the hospital room that I finally had a moment to think calmly.
'What is going on?'
It seemed I had experienced something you'd only see in novels or manga: transmigration.
There was no other way to explain my current situation.
From the context of the conversations I'd had so far, the name of the body I now inhabited was 'Kim Yu-seong,' a high school student living in Japan.
Apparently, he had left home two days ago, saying he was going 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 named Kim Yu-seong's, then it was truly a tragedy.
He had died young, at an age when he should have been out playing.
I tried to recall my last memory before I was transmigrated.
Having made the poor choice to become an engineering grad student, I hadn't been home in days, eating and sleeping in the university lab.
But for reasons I didn't know, a fire broke out in the lab. I happened to be there and tried to save the hard drive containing two years of my research data, but I failed to escape the building and passed out after inhaling a lungful of toxic fumes.
Could it be that because I died in that lab, I was transmigrated into the body of this boy, Kim Yu-seong?
For a moment, I was happy to be free from that hellish graduate student life, but my excitement quickly faded.
In the end, I was nothing more than a cuckoo that had suddenly taken over the nest of a boy named Kim Yu-seong.
I even wondered if I could adapt to this new life.
Staring blankly at the ceiling, I picked up a small hand mirror that was on the nightstand.
A boy's face I had never seen before stared back at me from beyond the glass.
When I gave an awkward smile, the boy with the unusually long bangs smiled back.
Honestly, it didn't feel real.
Could this all just be a dream?
I held onto that vague hope, but when I pinched my cheek, I felt a sharp, vivid pain.
"Hah. What am I even doing?"
Letting out a deep sigh at this impossible situation, I decided to sleep on it for now.
***
Two days later.
I was safely discharged from the hospital.
Of course, the transmigration wasn't undone as I had hoped.
Instead, the memories of the boy named Kim Yu-seong began to flow naturally into my mind as I slept.
Kim Yu-seong, a fifteen-year-old boy, was an ordinary middle schooler preparing for his high school entrance exams.
Born to a Korean father and Korean mother who had immigrated to Japan, he was a second-generation Korean-Japanese. Because of his background, he was subtly discriminated against at school and grew up to be introverted.
Still, he had two or three close friends in his class, and it seemed he had met his fate after leaving home early on a weekend morning to play with them.
Riding in the car driven by the middle-aged couple—Kim Yu-seong's parents—I returned home. When they told me I must be tired and should go up and rest, I nodded and went upstairs.
Although it was my first time here, I moved as if I had always known the way.
It was probably because of the memories of this body's original owner, Kim Yu-seong.
Quietly closing the door behind me, I entered the room and felt my mind go blank at the scene before me.
Everywhere I looked, there were manga, manga, manga, and more manga.
A poster of a scantily clad 2D character was proudly displayed on the wall, and the shelves were lined with anime DVDs and figures.
I had no idea where a mere third-year middle schooler got the money to buy all this, but one thing was certain: Kim Yu-seong was what you would call a hardcore otaku.
I myself would occasionally watch popular manga or anime, but I was never this obsessed, so I was simply bewildered.
For now, since this was the room I'd be living in, I tidied up what I could and sat on the edge of the bed instead of the chair.
'What now?'
I hadn't inherited all of Kim Yu-seong's memories yet, so I couldn't act rashly.
Kim Yu-seong's parents were a particular problem. If the son they had known for fifteen years suddenly started acting like a different person, they would feel an immense sense of unease.
In other words, I needed a good reason to act like my true self.
Fortunately, Kim Yu-seong had the perfect excuse.
'Chunibyo.'
The so-called eighth-grade syndrome that everyone supposedly goes through during their turbulent years.
Luckily, the Kim Yu-seong before me was already deep into his chunibyo phase—so deep, in fact, that he had grown out one of his bangs to imitate the protagonist of his favorite manga.
Of course, due to his introverted nature, he didn't show it off outside, but his parents probably already knew their son was going through that phase.
It was August.
In terms of the school year, final exams had just ended, and summer vacation had begun.
But I didn't have much time left.
Checking the calendar on my smartphone, I saw that school would start in two weeks.
If I attempted a complete image change in such a short time, not only my parents but also everyone who knew the boy named Kim Yu-seong would find it strange.
'Then I'll have to act like a chunibyo for a while.'
After much deliberation, that was the conclusion I reached.
I would reveal my true personality after I started high school.
First, I needed to learn about the original Kim Yu-seong's tastes and hobbies, so I turned my gaze to the manga neatly arranged on the bookshelf.
Looking at the titles, it seemed he read a wide range of genres, from fighting manga to fantasy, cooking, and romantic comedies.
Gulp—
A rough estimate put the number of volumes at well over a hundred.
If I had any homework for this summer vacation, it was to become the perfect chunibyo otaku.
It seemed like it was going to be a considerable challenge.
***
The time I spent in Kim Yu-seong's body as a third-year middle schooler flew by incredibly fast.
For one, it was physically short.
August, September, October, November, December.
Excluding the third semester and spring break, it was less than half a year.
As for the high school entrance exams, I passed them easily without much studying.
As a former engineering grad student, middle school level math and science were a breeze. As for Japanese and history, they were the original Kim Yu-seong's favorite subjects, so they weren't as difficult as I had worried.
With the soul of a science major and the body of a humanities enthusiast combined, I honestly think I got an unbelievably high score for the amount I studied.
In any case, thanks to my thorough review and prep during the summer vacation, I managed to keep my parents and others from finding out that the person inside Kim Yu-seong had changed.
That chunibyo thing is only hard at first; once you get used to it, it becomes second nature.
After devouring all the manga and novels Kim Yu-seong had collected in his room and memorizing common behavioral patterns of a chunibyo online, it started to come out naturally in my daily life.
I even impressed myself when I was looking at my phone, bumped my head on the convenience store door, and muttered, "Tch, a barrier."
"Over here! Can we get some skirt steak and horumon!"
"Coming!"
Pulled from my thoughts by an additional order from table three, I shouted to my father, who was working in the kitchen.
"Skirt steak and horumon for table three!"
"Coming right up!"
Kim Yu-seong's parents ran a small barbecue restaurant in Tokyo.
To be precise, it was a Korean restaurant, but its main menu item was yakiniku.
The place was small, but it had a decent number of regular customers.
The reason Kim Yu-seong, at such a young age, could afford all sorts of merchandise was thanks to the part-time wages he earned helping out at his parents' restaurant whenever he had free time.
As I was dealing with the relentless rush of customers during lunch hour, I noticed a young man and woman sitting at one of the tables.
The boy was tall and handsome, looking like a celebrity, and was probably around my age.
The girl sitting next to him seemed a year or two younger, but she was also a beauty with striking features.
"Onii-chan! Say ahh~"
"Yuika, people are watching."
"Come on~ What's wrong with a little sister feeding her big brother~"
I stared blankly at the two, who looked vaguely familiar, and then it hit me.
If my memory served me right, that boy's name was Sakamoto Ryuji.
He was the protagonist of the hit romantic comedy, 'Scramble Love,' which I had come across in an internet meme before I was transmigrated.
He looked a little younger than I remembered, but there was no mistaking that natural shag cut that looked like it came straight out of a host club.
And with that, I naturally came to a realization.
This boy, 'Kim Yu-seong,' whom I had transmigrated into, was living in the world of a manga.