Prologue: I'm a Slice-of-Life Visual Novel Fan
I'm a total sucker for everyday visual novels. Sure, academy stories with a fantasy vibe are great, but modern-day ones pull me in even more.
Of course, even "everyday" doesn't mean they're grounded in total realism. The charm of modern slice-of-life VNs lies in spinning wildly unrealistic tales within that familiar framework. Like, for example, a cute girl your age transfers in, but she's already bumped into the protagonist by chance and takes the first interest in him. Or maybe she ends up in a rivalry with his beautiful childhood friend. And then more girls get drawn in too.
Yeah, straight up—harem stories are fun. It might be someone's blessed reality, but for most folks, it's pure fantasy detached from real life. Maybe I'm just dreaming of fantasy set against the backdrop of everyday life.
But the fun in slice-of-life VNs isn't just harems. Take the game I'm playing right now, for instance.
[Uh... why? You?]
Click.
[Haa~ Finally looking at me, huh.]
A click of the mouse, and the screen shifted. Late at night, a woman with long black straight hair pounced on the male protagonist as he woke up in bed.
[Ugh... I can't move.]
[Why? Planning to run again?]
[What the hell is wrong with you!!!]
The protagonist's wrists were already cuffed, and right in front of him, one woman—the transfer student heroine I'd mentioned earlier—was grinning.
[I really love you.]
[You're crazy...]
[Yeah, crazy for love. I thought I was going insane from missing you so much. You know... with over 7 billion people on Earth...]
[What?]
[The odds of us being pressed together like this, out of billions—it's gotta be fate, right? Hehe.]
[Let me go.]
[Don't resist!]
Soon, the yandere heroine gripped the protagonist's arm hard.
[Ngh... wait. Your arm's got blood...]
Yep. Her hands, and the pajamas she wore, were splattered with blood. Lightning flashed outside the dark window, making the horrific sight even clearer.
[Oh, this? It's nothing.]
[...Kim Hayan, how'd you even get here?]
[Some obstacles kept getting in the way when I tried to come to Seonwoo. You felt annoyed too, right?]
[No way!!...]
[Hehe, it's fine. I burned the house down—no evidence left.]
The protagonist's house was intact, so it had to be hers. Pretty shocking, huh? This heroine started out so domestic and warm to her family... She had a mom she adored and a little brother. The character bible even said they got along great.
Of course, as you saw, her personality shifts closer to the ending. Her obsession with the protagonist intensifies, and midway through, she fights with her cherished little brother and mom when they try to talk sense into her. But committing something this horrific?
[Now I'll only look at Seonwoo, so no more jealousy.]
[I was never jealous.]
[I love you❤️ We'll live together forever~ Forever~ my darling~❤️]
Rated 15 and up, so just the creaking bed and the protagonist's screams, then the screen went black as the ending credits rolled.
"Whoa, this hits different."
I'd cleared the game, and I was impressed. As expected from Innocent Love, the yandere game studio you can always trust—their new title delivered. Especially this transfer student heroine; no way she seemed like a yandere at first, but this ending...
The game I was playing, Love Chain, was your standard school-life VN starting in the second year of high school and ending a bit after graduation. The special twist? Every heroine turns progressively more yandere as you go.
Sure, yandere stories are everywhere these days. But Innocent Love nails yanderes like no one else—and they'd never made all heroines yandere before. Their slogan boasts happy pure-love romcom visual novels, after all.
Anyway, I got a bit long-winded there. Where was I? Oh yeah—modern slice-of-life VNs fulfill players' fantasies too. Surrounded by beautiful girls in a harem, or a pretty girl obsessively fixated on the protagonist alone, like a yandere.
In the latter case, meeting someone like that in real life would terrify you, guy or girl. But on screen? If a beauty like that obsessed over me, I'd be thrilled. 'Cause it'd never happen for real.
——That's what I thought in my previous life. And it happened to me too.
"Taeyang."
"……"
"Taeyang, how long you gonna sleep~?"
"……"
"What a kid. If you don't get up, sis is heading to school alone!"
I had a weird dream last night. A previous life. In that life, I'd stayed up late playing a VN I never touched in this one and collapsed. That's where the dream ended. Thanks to it, my memories from that life came flooding back.
Alright, time to look at the girl who woke me.
"Gonna be late on your first day as a transfer student?"
The girl with long black hair, cheeks puffed in cute annoyance. She looked familiar. Well, duh, she's my sister—but she felt familiar from my previous life too.
"Kim Hayan…"
"Huh? Why say sis's name like that?"
She tilted her head. I wanted to tilt mine.
"Why are you here?"
The yandere who murdered her family, burned her house, and went to pounce on the protagonist—why is she my sister?