The First Character
The First Character
A game character pops out into reality.
To be honest, this is a very outdated trope that even manga and web novels don't use much these days.
So naturally, I couldn't help but be suspicious first.
'Am I dreaming right now?'
In fact, maybe the real me passed out from hitting the back of my head on the floor when my chair tipped over.
Looking at my favorite character standing before me, I pinched my own thigh to check whether this was a dream or reality.
"Kkeuak!"
It hurts.
It hurts enough to make me cry.
The pain from my thigh was short and intense enough to instantly blow away the slight tipsiness that remained.
Tachibana Saori, who had been watching me make a fool of myself the whole time, crouched down in front of me and asked.
"Are you okay? Teacher? You didn't hit your head when you fell, did you?"
At first she laughed, saying I was still being weird, but it seemed she got worried seeing me keep acting strangely.
"Uh, yeah. I'm fine."
Having said I was fine out of shock, I realized that even though this was clearly our first meeting, I was talking to her as comfortably as if we'd known each other for a very long time.
'She called me Teacher.'
Maybe in her eyes, I looked like the protagonist of Red Asterisk, 'Teacher.'
"Good, that's a relief."
Hearing my answer, she gave a small relieved smile, then with an "Eotcha-" stood up, looked around my 24-pyeong apartment that I was renting, and asked.
"This is where you're living now, Teacher? Not much different from the teacher's dorm you used before. Are you eating properly?"
Like a mom visiting her son's bachelor pad after a long time, she suddenly asked if I was eating well.
I was about to say of course, but then the convenience store lunchbox sitting on my computer desk caught my eye, and I shut my mouth.
Following my gaze naturally, Saori's eyes landed on the convenience store lunchbox. She made an exasperated expression, then rolled up her sleeves and said.
"First, I'll make you a meal. Let's talk about what we want to say after that."
What? She's suddenly going to cook for me at this timing?
Faced with a series of completely unexpected developments, I couldn't help but be bewildered.
What she made after confidently entering the kitchen and scrounging up ingredients from the fridge was soybean paste soup.
And of course, being Japanese, a Japanese-style soybean paste soup with the paste smoothly dissolved.
Taking a sip of the warm soup with steam rising from it, an exclamation slipped out of my mouth without realizing.
"Wow."
Though it couldn't compare to my mother's kimchi jjigae, it had been a very long time since someone had cooked for me personally.
The only ingredients were a bit of tofu and seaweed, but I devoured her soybean paste soup with rice as if it were a delicacy. Watching me eat with her chin resting on her hand, Saori asked casually.
"How is it? Good?"
"Yeah. Good enough that I'd want to eat it every day."
I answered with my face buried in my rice bowl.
"Hehe."
A satisfied smile spread across her face at that answer. After I polished off a bowl of rice like a whirlwind, she even peeled an apple we'd received as a Chuseok gift for dessert.
With my stomach comfortably full, I finally had some breathing room. I ate the rabbit-shaped apple she'd peeled with a fork and thought.
'What should I say now?'
Honestly, it still didn't feel real.
Working at the company like usual, dragging my tired body home, watching YouTube, seeing an ad appear, installing a game, and then my favorite character suddenly pops out of the monitor.
If I explained this story to someone else, they'd ask if I was dreaming in my sleep—it was that absurd.
At that moment, Saori, who was sitting across from me, spoke up first in a playful tone.
"Teacher, you look like you have a lot you want to ask me, huh?"
"Uh, yeah. Does it show that much?"
When I scratched my cheek in embarrassment, Saori shrugged and said, "I understand. If you have questions, ask them all."
Anyway, since she seemed cooperative, I cut straight to the point.
"So... you're Tachibana Saori, right?"
At that, she placed a hand on her chest and said.
"That's right. I am Tachibana Saori. Or does Teacher see me as an alien or a monster instead of a pure and lovely beauty?"
"Of course not."
Long hair with a slight purple tint, red eyes you couldn't see in reality.
Her ever-confident attitude and the aura of a ruler that matched it.
She looked a bit more mature, but there was no doubt that the person standing before me was Tachibana Saori, one of the students from the game 'Red Asterisk.'
Student council president of the Ubermensch Alliance School, one of the three prestigious schools in Academy City, and a special-grade ability user, one of only twelve in the entire Academy City.
Although I already knew this information, hearing it directly from her mouth was different, so I swallowed hard and asked the next question.
"How did you come to this world?"
At that, Tachibana Saori placed a hand on her chest and said proudly.
"I don't know either."
"...What?"
When I made a dumbfounded expression at this completely unexpected answer, she calmly explained.
"I was handling work as usual, then suddenly a white window-like thing appeared before me. And beyond it, I saw Teacher's face. As if possessed, I tried putting my hand into the window, and I was pulled in. That's it."
"Then the way back...?"
"I don't know."
It was truly one obstacle after another.
At that moment, after finishing her explanation, Saori seemed to realize something belatedly and asked me in return.
"But what do you mean, 'this world'?"
Ah, so she didn't even know that part.
After hesitating for a moment, I decided to tell her only part of the uncomfortable truth.
No matter what, learning that she was a game character would be hard to accept.
"This is not the world you lived in, Saori. There are no mega-corporations with power rivaling nations, no superpowered individuals, no Academy City. To put it more simply, it's an isekai."
"Isekai?"
Just as I had been earlier, it seemed it was now her turn to be shocked.
Fortunately, true to her character as a prodigy counted among the top in all of Academy City, it didn't take her long to accept the cold reality.
After some time passed, Saori asked with a calm expression.
"So this is a different world from the one I lived in, and Teacher was actually someone who came from another world?"
"That's right."
"No wonder. I mobilized every method I could, but I couldn't find even a trace."
Muttering that, she pulled a smartphone from her pocket.
Seeing it was a model I had never seen in my life, it was probably an electronic product made in Academy City.
"The data really doesn't work here... then where exactly is this place? More importantly, is this still Japan?"
I explained to the confused Saori.
"It's Korea, the neighboring country. Of course, Japan also still exists normally."
"Dimensional travel... I really can't believe it."
With a resigned expression, Saori turned off her smartphone screen.
She must have tried various experiments in that brief moment, but since it wasn't a product made in this world, there was no way it would work properly.
Watching her like that, a question suddenly occurred to me.
"But when did you learn Korean? You seem very fluent."
Since I had never detected any foreign accent while we were talking, it was no exaggeration to say she was almost at a native level.
"What are you talking about? I've been speaking Japanese the whole time."
But Saori looked as if she had no idea what I meant.
"Huh?"
Realizing something wasn't connecting in our conversation, I asked her to say it again to confirm.
"Dakara, watashi wa zutto nihongo de hanashiteita nda yo?"
Listening consciously this time, I could definitely hear Japanese.
'Why was I able to understand the meaning so naturally?'
I didn't know the principle, but it seemed some unknown force, like an automatic translator, was working between us.
And it seemed I wasn't the only one experiencing this phenomenon—Saori also reacted with wonder.
After the two of us chatted about various things, the clock hands were pointing to 12, so I stood up first.
"Sorry, but it's getting really late. I think I should go to sleep."
Tomorrow wasn't a holiday but a weekday. Unless I took a day off, I absolutely had to go to work.
When I explained this, Saori readily agreed.
"Okay. Then let's stop here for today."
With that, the conversation ended, but I realized there was another problem.
Until she found a way back to her original world, she'd need a place to stay for a while, and chances were that place would be my house.
'At least it's fortunate I have a spare room.'
I could clean out the small room I'd been using half as storage and give it to her, but that was something I could only do on the weekend.
I didn't have enough time to clean it right now.
'Can't be helped.'
Clicking my tongue, I said to Saori.
"Tonight, you sleep in my room. I'll lay out bedding in the living room."
"But won't that be too uncomfortable for Teacher? I'll sleep in the living room."
"There's a saying: 'The guest is king,' you know."
"I don't think that's the phrase to use in this situation..."
Saori seemed unconvinced, but eventually gave in to my insistence.
"Then see you tomorrow, Teacher."
Waving her hand, she went into the master bedroom where my bed was.
After confirming she had entered the room, I lay down on the bedding I had already laid out to end this chaotic day.
I had to be at work by 9 a.m. tomorrow, after all.
'A salaryman's life is tough.'
Something that could happen in a manga or novel had happened in reality, and yet I had to worry about going to work tomorrow.
Lamenting my fate, I closed my heavy eyes.