The Protagonist Is Me
Do you know how I feel right now? Like my entire life just got spoiled. And what kind of feeling is that? …It feels like shit.
I stare into the mirror. Floating above my head, as if to remind me of my role, are the words. I’d lived my whole life thinking I was the protagonist. Of course a role like this wouldn’t sit well with me.
I don’t know why the hell it’s showing me this, but there’s no way I’m just going to follow along.
I was pissed. It felt like someone else was puppeteering my character however they pleased. In reality, my parents had been comparing me to my younger brother more and more with each passing day. Lately I’d started thinking he was getting in the way, and seeing it written out like this only made me angrier.
“Fuck. Who the hell are you to decide my life and talk shit like this?!”
Unable to hold back my temper, I swept everything off my desk. The fact that even this outburst was probably scripted into my role made me even more furious.
Thud! Crash!
The noise from my room must have carried all the way to the living room. It wasn’t exactly quiet. But my parents, who were out there, didn’t come to my door.
—Haah… That kid’s at it again.
—Shouldn’t we seriously consider sending Ijin to a boarding school or something?
—Let’s just wait and see. He’s still young; it might just be a phase.
—If only he were even half like Suho…
I could hear their voices.
Fuck. Being told to be even half like my little brother was a direct hit to my pride. But what could I do? This was the karma I’d earned by acting like the protagonist and running wild. Still, it’s a good thing I found out now.
I realized that if I kept going like this, I was screwed. I needed some kind of change that could twist this “role” of mine. I’d rather die than go to prison. So from now on, I was going to fix myself. I’d try to control my temper a little, actually study for once, and stop hanging out with those shady friends.
Should I start with studying?
I sat down at my desk and immediately opened a book.
“Fuck it, I give up.”
Five minutes later, I slammed it shut again. After thirteen years of avoiding studying like the plague, there was no way I could suddenly get into it now. I just didn’t have the brain for it.
No. I was going to try again. To flip off the world that had assigned me this bullshit role. I kept opening the book, closing it, opening it, closing it—over and over—trying to force myself to study when someone knocked.
Knock knock knock.
The sound completely shattered my focus.
“Who is it?! I’m studying.”
—H-Hyung is studying?!
It was Kang Suho’s voice, sounding genuinely shocked. Like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
This little shit…
Hearing his voice made me so annoyed I almost went out to smack him, but I stopped myself. Calm down. Calm down… The more I lost it, the more I’d be playing into my role. I steadied myself. Don’t get angry easily. Don’t swing at Suho… Okay.
After taking a deep breath in front of the door, I finally opened it.
“What do you want?”
“Well… I brought a friend over.”
Behind Suho stood a cute girl who politely bowed her head.
“Hello. I’m Jeong Sua, Suho’s classmate.”
“Oh, right. Come on in.”
Damn, she’s really cute. Long black hair, a small face with sharp, pretty features, and that fresh, girlish charm. Her voice was adorable too. She was on a completely different level from the ugly girls in my class. If she was Suho’s friend, she was probably in fifth grade. Her looks already promised a bright future.
And of course, I looked at the text floating above her head.
[Name - Jeong Sua]
[Role - Heroine]
[A childhood friend who lives in the same neighborhood as Kang Suho and has known him since they were little. She takes care of the increasingly timid protagonist and always cheers him up. She’s had a crush on the kind, caring protagonist since childhood, but she’s too embarrassed to confess. Because the protagonist is so dense and frustrating, it’s hard for her to even attempt confessing.]
So she’s a heroine. I hadn’t paid much attention to my little brother, so I never knew he had such a pretty friend. If I had, I would’ve gotten close to her ages ago.
Anyway, this girl likes Suho, huh? Even though she greeted me, she only gave me a quick glance. Her body and her eyes were both completely turned toward Suho.
Lucky bastard.
Still, as expected of a rom-com protagonist, his lack of awareness was kind of endearing. I hoped he’d stay that oblivious for the rest of his life and die alone without ever getting a girlfriend.
Yeah, that’s not gonna happen.
A rom-com protagonist was literally created so the main character could pick a girl, date her, fuck her, and get her pregnant. Suho sent Sua upstairs first. Ah… I wanted to look at that pretty face a little longer.
Hey, pretty girl. Instead of hanging out with that tasteless loser, why don’t you play with this oppa instead? Let’s play baseball. Of course, you’re still young, so I’ll keep things strictly above the belt.
“Don’t look at my friend like that, Hyung.”
I turned my eyes away from Sua’s retreating figure at the voice in front of me. Suho was frowning slightly, his gaze hostile. He probably didn’t like me staring at his friend with that kind of look.
Bang.
I slammed my fist against the door.
“Huh? What did you just say to me?”
He flinched, eyes wide with fear. He must’ve remembered all the times I’d hit him before.
No. I said I wasn’t going to get angry. Calm down. Kill the temper.
I took a deep breath and forced myself to relax. I didn’t go any further.
“What did you want to say? You should just quietly play with your friend in your room.”
Did you come here to brag about your future girlfriend to me? If that’s the case, I’m not letting it slide.
“I-I just… wanted to ask if you could stay quiet in your room while I play with my friend…”
He was scared of me, but he still said what he wanted to say. Yeah, that was just the kind of guy he was. That’s why I hated him. He acted like his own older brother was some kind of obstacle. Look at him now—he came all the way here just to tell me to stay quiet in case I tried something with his friend.
Ah, I shouldn’t be thinking like this. But I keep… I keep wanting to crush Suho under my foot.
If things had gone according to the world’s predetermined flow, I probably would’ve done exactly what I first thought of. When you’re part of a delinquent group, you end up with juniors who listen to you. I could’ve had them beat Suho up in front of everyone. Maybe that would’ve been what made him turn introverted and timid. After getting that kind of treatment from his own brother, he probably wouldn’t have the guts to talk back to me anymore.
But if I did that, I’d just be following the script. And I might end up in prison someday too. So for now, I held back.
“So what you’re saying is, you want your hyung to just sit quietly in his room like a good boy?”
“I didn’t say it like that, Hyung…”
Yeah you did, you little shit. You were born the protagonist, so even if you do nothing, pretty girls like that just flock to you, huh? The more I looked at him, the more I hated the guy—even if he was my little brother.
“Go upstairs and play. I’ll stay quietly in my room like you said.”
“R-Really?”
“Yeah. I’m gonna study, so don’t be too loud. Now get lost. If I catch you two doing anything weird, you’re dead. This house doesn’t have soundproofing, so I can hear everything.”
“Anything weird? What do you mean?”
Oh right, he’s still in fifth grade. But kids these days know everything by fifth grade anyway. Whatever.
“Just go.”
After closing the door, I sat back down at my desk and opened my book again. I could hear Suho and Sua rushing up the stairs to play in his room.
“What’s rounding up and what’s rounding down? There’s also truncation. Why do they make numbers so annoying by rounding them up or down? Fuck it, just throw them all away.”
Screw it.
I wrote zero for every answer and slammed my hand on the desk. No matter how I looked at it, I was jealous. I couldn’t focus on studying at all. I’d really thought I was the protagonist. There was even text floating above my head. And now, in a single moment, I’d been demoted from protagonist to some nobody villain. It was infuriating, frustrating, and I was so jealous of Suho I could go insane.
And on top of that, a pretty heroine like her? There were probably tons of girls that level swarming around Suho. I grabbed my head and screamed.
“Aaaagh! I want one too! I want an SS-rank ultra-cool-beauty-kawaii-pure-sexy-bold-lively girl—wait…”
That’s when it hit me. A good idea. I froze, dazed.
I want one? Then why not just take one?
Yeah. I could just take them. I expanded the thought. I’d already decided I wasn’t going to follow what was written above my head. But that wasn’t enough. I couldn’t give up. Give up what? Becoming the protagonist of this world.
It was a rom-com, right? Then I was going to twist it completely. A fate set as a villain? Go fuck yourself. There was nothing Suho was entitled to just because he was the protagonist. The protagonist of my life was me. I was going to carve my own path. Everything that tasteless bastard was going to get without even trying—I was going to take it all. Everything… The protagonist’s position… The heroines he was supposed to get…
To do that…
“Mom! I want to go to a study academy!”
I was going to succeed no matter what.