Chapter 1: Kim Yoo-Sung
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 1: Kim Yoo-Sung
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 and rushed 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 could finally find 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 body I now inhabited belonged to a high school student living in Japan named 'Kim Yoo-Sung'.
From what I'd heard, he had left home two days ago 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, Kim Yoo-Sung's, then it was truly a tragedy.
He had died young, at an age when he should have been out playing.
I recalled my last memory before this happened.
After a poor life choice led me to become a STEM graduate student, I hadn't been home in days, eating and sleeping in the university lab.
But for reasons unknown, a fire broke out in the lab. I happened to be there and tried to save a hard drive containing two years of research data. I never made it out of the building, passing out after inhaling a lungful of toxic fumes.
I must have died right there in the lab. Is that why I ended up in the body of this boy, Kim Yoo-Sung?
For a moment, I was happy to be free from that hellish graduate student life, but the elation quickly faded.
After all, I was just a cuckoo who had suddenly taken over the nest that was Kim Yoo-Sung's body.
I wondered if I could ever adapt to this new life.
Staring blankly at the ceiling, I picked up a small hand mirror that was on the bedside cabinet.
A boy's face I had never seen before stared back at me from the other side of the mirror.
When I gave an awkward smile, the boy with the unusually long bangs on one side smiled back.
Honestly, it didn't feel real.
Maybe this whole situation was just a dream.
I clung to that vague hope, but pinching my cheek brought a sharp, vivid pain.
"Haa... What a mess."
Sighing deeply at the impossible situation, I decided to just sleep on it for now.
*
Two days later, I was discharged from the hospital without any issues.
Of course, the transmigration didn't magically reverse itself as I had hoped.
Instead, the memories of the boy named Kim Yoo-Sung began to flow naturally into my mind as I slept, like dreams.
Kim Yoo-Sung was a normal 15-year-old middle school student preparing for his high school entrance exams.
Born to a Korean father and mother who had immigrated to Japan, he was a second-generation Zainichi Korean. Because of this, he was subtly discriminated against at school and grew up to be introverted.
Still, he had two or three close friends in his class. It seems he was on his way to hang out with them early on a weekend morning when the accident happened.
The middle-aged couple—Kim Yoo-Sung's parents—drove me home. When they told me to go upstairs and rest since I must be tired, I agreed and went up to the second floor.
Even though I'd never been here before in my life, I moved with a natural ease, as if I had always known the place.
It was probably because of the memories of this body's original owner, Kim Yoo-Sung.
Quietly closing the door, I stepped into the room and felt my mind go blank at the sight before me.
Everywhere I looked, there were manga, manga, manga, and more manga.
A bromide of a scantily clad 2D character was proudly displayed on the wall, and the display cases were packed with anime DVDs and figurines.
I had no idea how a mere third-year middle schooler got the money to buy all this, but one thing was certain: Kim Yoo-Sung was what you'd call a hardcore otaku.
I also watched popular manga and anime from time to time, but I was never this deep into it, so I was just bewildered.
Since this was going to be my room from now on, I tidied up a bit and perched on the edge of the bed instead of a chair.
'Now what do I do?'
I hadn't inherited all of Kim Yoo-Sung's memories yet, so I couldn't act carelessly.
His parents were the main problem. If the son they had known for fifteen years suddenly started acting like a different person, they would feel a tremendous sense of unease.
In other words, I needed a good reason to start acting like my true self.
Fortunately, Kim Yoo-Sung had the perfect excuse ready for me.
'Chūnibyō.'
The so-called disease that everyone catches at least once during the turbulent years of adolescence.
Luckily, the Kim Yoo-Sung before me had been deep in the throes of chūnibyō—so deep that he had even grown out one side of his bangs to imitate the protagonist of his favorite manga.
Of course, due to his introverted nature, he probably didn't show it off outside, but his parents must have already known their son had chūnibyō.
It was August. In terms of the school year, final exams had just ended, and summer vacation had begun.
But there wasn't much time left.
Checking the schedule on his smartphone, I saw that school would start in two weeks.
If I tried to change my image in such a short period, not only his parents but everyone who knew Kim Yoo-Sung would find it strange.
'Then I guess I'll have to act like I have chūnibyō 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 Yoo-Sung'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 everything, from fighting manga to fantasy, cooking stories, and romantic comedies.
Gulp—
Just by eyeballing it, there looked to be well over a hundred volumes.
If I had any homework for this summer vacation, it was to become the perfect chūnibyō otaku.
It seemed like it was going to be quite an ordeal.
*
The time I spent as a third-year middle schooler in Kim Yoo-Sung's body passed by in a flash.
For one, it was physically a short period.
August, September, October, November, December.
Excluding the third semester and spring break, it was barely half a year.
As for the high school entrance exam, I passed it easily without much studying.
Since I was originally a STEM graduate student, middle school level math and science were a breeze. As for language and history, they were the original Kim Yoo-Sung's favorite subjects, so they weren't as difficult as I'd worried.
With the soul of a science major and the body of a humanities enthusiast combined, I honestly think I got an absurdly high score for the amount I studied.
Anyway, thanks to my thorough preparation and review during summer vacation, neither his parents nor anyone else found out that the person inside Kim Yoo-Sung had changed.
That chūnibyō thing... it's only hard at first. Once you get used to it, it's nothing.
After devouring all the manga and novels Kim Yoo-Sung had collected in his room and memorizing common chūnibyō behavior patterns from the internet, it started coming out naturally in my daily life.
I was even impressed with myself when I was looking at my phone, bumped my head on a convenience store door, and muttered, "Tch, a barrier, is it?"
"Over here! Can we get some skirt steak and horumon!"
"Coming right up!"
Lost in thought, I was snapped back to reality by an additional order from table three and shouted to my father working in the kitchen.
"One skirt steak and one horumon for table three!"
"Coming right out!"
Kim Yoo-Sung's parents ran a small BBQ restaurant in Tokyo.
To be precise, it was a Korean restaurant that sold Yakiniku as its main dish.
The place was small, but it had a decent number of regular customers.
The reason Kim Yoo-Sung, despite being just a middle schooler, could afford all sorts of merchandise was because of the allowance he earned helping out at his parents' restaurant whenever he had free time.
While suffering through the hard labor of serving the endless stream of customers during lunchtime, I noticed a boy and a girl sitting at one of the tables.
The boy was tall and handsome like a celebrity, probably around my age. The girl next to him looked a year or two younger, but she was also a beauty with striking features.
"Oppa! Say 'ahhh~'"
"Yuika, people are watching."
"Aww, what's wrong with a little sister feeding her big brother?~"
I stared blankly at the two of them, who looked vaguely familiar, and then it hit me.
If my memory served me right, that boy's name was Sakamoto Ryuji.
The protagonist of the hit romantic comedy 'Scramble Love,' which I'd come across in some internet memes before I was transmigrated into this body.
He looked a little younger than I remembered, but that natural shaggy haircut, like he'd just stepped out of a host club, was unforgettable.
And with that, I naturally came to a realization.
This boy, 'Kim Yoo-Sung,' whose body I now inhabited... was living inside the world of a manga.