Here Stands an Ordinary Forever-Single

Here stands a perfectly ordinary forever-single virgin.

Back in middle school, my teacher had put it plainly.

"What dating? You're a middle schooler. Do it when you get to high school."

So I became a high schooler, and then it was my mother's turn.

"If you don't study now, you won't even be able to date later. Relax. It'll happen once you're in college, so don't worry. Get into a good university and you'll land an even prettier girlfriend."

I believed her with absolute faith, studied until my eyes burned, and got into a top-tier university in Seoul.

And yet.

Even after I became the prestigious student I had longed to be, a girlfriend showed not the slightest sign of materializing.

One night I was drowning my sorrows with a friend at a bar in Daehangno, and midway through my lament the bastard—face flushed crimson—opened his mouth.

"Dude, it's 'cause you haven't done your military service. You know how girls are. They only date guys who've come back from the army."

"For real...?"

"Think about it from their side. How's a girl in her prime supposed to wait a year and a half without even seeing your face?"

The more I listened, the more reasonable it sounded. The moment I finished my sophomore year I applied to enlist, and since I was going anyway, I went all the way to the front line and did it the hard way. After my discharge, before I returned to campus, I spent the money I'd saved in the army on personal training, hunted down fashion YouTubers, and bought new clothes. I even took a personal color test. Surely this was enough to get a girlfriend. I went back to school brimming with expectation.

Junior, classmate, senior—it didn't matter. Every last one of them shot me down spectacularly. There is only one way to start dating. The ways to get rejected, I was learning, come in every variety imaginable.

Like now.

"Hey, Yeonjeong. Didn't you say you wanted to see that movie? I happened to get IMAX tickets. Want to go together?"

"Ah... oppa, I'm sorry. I already saw it."

"It opens the day after tomorrow, and you already saw it?"

"I got invited to a preview screening. By chance."

"Uh... I heard those preview tickets are really hard to get... how'd you manage...? Then maybe some other movie, later."

"Oppa, do you like me?"

"Huh? No, I just... I mean, I am interested. As a guy."

"I never got the chance to tell you, but I'm a lesbian. Sorry."

Fuck.

Yeonjeong, up until last month you were sobbing to me about breaking up with your boyfriend.

The sheer nonsense of the excuse left me dumbfounded for about one second. Then Yeonjeong pattered off at a brisk little trot.

"Life..."

Everyone kept saying we were in a historic birth-rate collapse and that nobody dated anymore, so why was everyone around me paired off? Where were those statistics even coming from?

I trudged home, and under the crash of exhaustion and self-loathing I decided to just boot up a game. But weren't games all the same in the end? The same titles, the same people, the same patterns. I was sick of it—sick of it the way my love life refused to untangle.

Then, all at once, a glittering special-discount line in the corner caught my eye.

"A dating sim."

I'd played plenty of them, once. Drawn in as if possessed, I skimmed the page, and the visuals weren't half bad. A modern-fantasy dating sim about pretty girls, dressed up with superpowers. Classic. And it gave off the rich, unmistakable scent of a god-tier game. A dating sim with over four thousand reviews—and overwhelmingly positive, at that? That was a certified ultra-god-tier title.

School was on break anyway, with only a semester left before graduation. Goddamn university. They'd called it prestigious, so I'd expected something, and even the festival had been boring as shit. Or maybe it was just that I was a born forever-single, shut-in, certified loser. Either way, what I had left was time.

Right. What romance was ever written into my fate? I'll just enjoy myself online.

On ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠impulse, I bought Love & Secrets IN Academy City.

"Oh, fuck."

And just like that, I was possessed straight into it.

It didn't take long to come to and face reality. As I've said, I was someone with a fair degree of mastery over subculture: an unfamiliar ceiling, an unfamiliar city, and a status window floating right in front of my eyes.

Wasn't this just announcing, right to my face, that I had been possessed into the game?

"Getting possessed the second I install it... what kind of bullshit move is that."

I let out a hollow laugh at the absurdity—but only for a moment.

Then—don't tell me—my face, too?!

I shot up and checked the mirror. Of course there was no twist. Only the environment had changed; my appearance hadn't shifted in the slightest. It had even dragged me over exactly as I'd been at the moment of purchase, stretched-out sleep shirt and all, looking thoroughly unkempt. This was why I had lived my life avoiding mirrors.

Then the status window flipped. A spectacularly cheap fanfare—ba-ba-bam—rang out, and golden letters glittered.

I was reading carefully, curious what it all said, when the last line turned ice-cold. Fail, and my soul would be bound? I'd fall into permanent incapacitation?

"Don't tell me that means I die?"

The status window, however, didn't so much as offer a proper answer. As my head cooled, reality came into focus. This was absurd. If I'd been someone with a long dating history, skilled at handling women, then maybe—but conquering six heroines at the same time? I knew all too well how hellish a harem ending was in a dating sim. The problem was that I had shown up with nothing but the body I was born in.

"Come on, not even a single blessing? At least hand me a handsome face! This is a superpower academy city, isn't it? Why don't I have a superpower?!"

I shouted into empty air, and as if the window had been waiting for my complaint, it chimed—ding—and sparkled.

"That's what I'm talking about!"

My chest swelled grandly. In a superpower-city story, teleportation or telekinesis ought to come standard, shouldn't they? And if this was a possession built for a dating sim, mind-reading wouldn't be bad either. If I could just read what the heroines were really thinking, managing affection would be child's play.

But as if sneering at my expectations, a red notification filled my vision.

"...Huh?"

In the blank moment that followed, the empty system window reassembled itself into a shape that was far too familiar.

The instant the notice rose, a ding reverberated through my skull. Messages flooded the space before my eyes.

Amid the barrage of unhinged messages, one oversized popup burst upward.

Jaw hanging open, I stared at the community's official name, planted bold and brazen at the very top.

"...Son of a bitch."