A boy running from behind crashed into his shoulder, sending him stumbling. The boy shouted an apology but didn’t stop running. What’s the rush? he wondered — then spotted a bus stopped at a bus stop in the distance.
The boy ran until his face was burning red and managed to catch the bus just as it was pulling away. As it passed by, the boy, who had been standing near the window, spotted him and pressed his hands together in an apologetic gesture. He waved back at the moving bus to signal it was fine, then burst out laughing at how cute the whole thing was.
“That kid was something.”
Of everything in this world, what he was struggling to get used to more than the buildings or street names was the people.
More than the boy’s young face or his adorable reaction, what stuck with him most was the brilliant blonde hair. He probably saw my uniform and called me “hyung” because he figured I was a high schooler — but a middle schooler with hair bleached clearly enough to have gone through the process at least five times just doesn’t compute.
And it wasn’t just that boy — the hair of every person walking by was a different color. Red, blue, pink, even silver. It was less like a street and more like a paint palette squeezed out onto a canvas; he couldn’t even begin to imagine how colorful it would look from a bird’s-eye view.
And yet there he was — black hair, the very definition of unremarkable. Even for an Extra, it was obvious no thought had been put into it. He didn’t particularly want to stand out, but seeing the developer’s blatant favoritism on full display like this rubbed him the wrong way, and he muttered a string of silent curses under his breath.
Honestly, I didn’t feel it much at home, but now that I’m outside, it really hits me that I’m inside a game. The world, modeled after Seoul, had famous landmarks like the N Tower and road names he’d heard of scattered throughout — but that was about it. The areas near the house and around the school were a world constructed straight out of the developer’s head, and bore little resemblance to the real Seoul.
The outfits of the students he saw on the way to school were even more casual than what he’d seen yesterday. Some didn’t even have bags. The end-of-year ceremony today means no disciplinary prefects, which probably has a lot to do with it — but still, these kids really do whatever they want.
He’d found out today was the end-of-year ceremony thanks to Yang Inho. A message had come in asking him to text as soon as the class assignments were announced, and that had jogged his memory — the day after the tutorial ends is the end-of-year ceremony.
Even inside the game, the ceremony wasn’t much different from real life. They watched the whole broadcast relayed from the announcement room on the TV, exchanged a quick greeting with the homeroom teacher, and finally the class assignment announcements began.
“Yeon Juwoo, Class 8.”
“Yes.”
Assigned to Class 8, he immediately closed his eyes, clasped his hands together under his desk, and prayed fervently. Notifications from Yang Inho kept popping up on his locked phone screen asking which class he got, but this wasn’t the time to check.
This was more nerve-wracking than the moment before a job interview, after passing the first round of document screening. His heart was pounding so hard it felt like it was beating right next to his ear.
Please, please — just don’t let Choi Woosu be in Class 8.
He prayed they wouldn’t be in the same class. If he had to see that guy every single day for a year — the one who glared at him the moment he laid eyes on him — he’d rather reset the game every morning.
Class 3, Class 1, Class 5 — voices around him erupted in excitement or disappointment as people found out whether they’d been sorted together or apart. The room was buzzing in every direction, but none of it reached his ears. The only thing he wanted to hear was Choi Woosu’s name and his class number.
But why does Class 8 feel so strangely familiar when I’ve never been in it before? That’s unsettling.
“Choi Woosu.”
Please, please, please!
“Class 8.”
No wonder Class 8 felt oddly familiar even though he’d never been in it — because Choi Woosu was in Class 8. And not just him — Lee Yura and Han Bohyeon too.
……Should I reset?
The one saving grace was that Yang Inho was in the same class, so at least there was somewhere to breathe.
When he moved to the assigned classroom, Yang Inho, who had already arrived, spotted him the moment he walked in and came running over. He messed up his hair and pulled him into a hug. To Yang Inho it was probably a hug — to him it felt like his body was about to be crushed, so he smacked Yang Inho’s arm.
“Hey, I can’t breathe. Let go.”
“Is that why you didn’t text me? You wanted to surprise me!”
“Oh? Ha. Yeah, that’s right. Surprise.”
In reality, he’d been so blindsided by the news that he was in the same class as Choi Woosu that he’d seen the messages and ignored them. But saying that honestly would just invite a whole scene, so he played along and pushed Yang Inho away. The guy was easily 180cm and was leaning his full weight on him — he thought his already-short frame was going to shrink even further.
“You know this is the first time we’ve ever been in the same class, right?”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah, we were never in the same class in elementary school either.”
“Is that so? It was so long ago I can’t really remember.”
“Always saying you can’t remember. Getting dementia already?”
“Shut up.”
Well, Yeon Juwoo back then and Yeon Juwoo now are two different people — of course he wouldn’t know. He sat in the seat behind Yang Inho, while Choi Woosu and Han Bohyeon sat side by side across the room with Lee Yura between them. Yang Inho stared over and let out an impressed whistle.
“This class is wild. How are all three of them in the same class?”
“Right. It’s never going to be a dull moment.”
“That’s what makes it fun, though. I’m more curious about who the homeroom teacher is. Who do you think it’ll be?”
“Hmm, I don’t kno—”
He stopped mid-sentence. The name of the homeroom teacher in the game had just come to him, and the words died in his throat.
“……Hakju.”
“Hakju? Come on, don’t mess with me. That’s the worst lu—”
“Everyone here?”
“……”
“……It’s actually Hakju…?”
The moment homeroom teacher Hakju walked in, the noisy classroom fell silent in an instant. Students found their seats as if under a spell, every face going dark.
Hakju, notorious for being the worst personality in the school, Choi Woosu who was still glaring at him right now, his rival Han Bohyeon, and Lee Yura who both of them were hopelessly in love with — all these walking time bombs crammed into one class. A hollow laugh escaped him.
I thought living in this world might not be so bad? No.
This world is the absolute worst.
2. I’ll Try to Survive in the Worst Game Ever
Entrance ceremony day. The school auditorium, packed with no room to spare, was filled with new students and their parents, as well as current students and teachers. New students sat in the center of the first floor with their parents behind them, while the second and third years sat facing them up on the second floor.
As always, Yang Inho was in the seat next to him, but Han Bohyeon was seated alone at the far end of the very front row for some reason. It was because Choi Woosu, the school’s junior vice president, and Lee Yura had been paired up to deliver the current students’ congratulatory speech and had left their seats. Han Bohyeon seemed to have chosen the seat closest to the stage for that reason, and had been bouncing his leg nonstop since a while ago. It was a habit of his that came out when he was in a bad mood.
“Wow, look how packed it is. Were we like that too?”
“Probably.”
“So chaotic.”
Yang Inho was too busy gawking at the new students to pay much attention, but he had someone he was looking for and answered absently without even glancing down. He scanned the third-year seating across the way, but that distinctive red hair was nowhere to be seen. The setting has him rarely showing up to school, sure, but cutting class on the very first day of the new semester — Go Jin really has some nerve.
After the end-of-year ceremony came two weeks of spring break, and during that time he’d been going around with Yang Inho under the guise of making plans — really, it was an exploration of this world. What he found: this world only extended roughly within a 1km radius of the school, and beyond that, it was impossible to go.
There’s probably no reason to have built anything outside of school and the residential area anyway — but thanks to that, I’m stuck living this suffocating life in a world barely 2km across, doing nothing but helping someone else’s love story along.
He’d been progressing through quests in the meantime, but the pacing was slow since there was still a capture target who hadn’t been unlocked yet. Of the targets revealed so far, he’d only managed to complete two quests each, including the tutorial.
Throughout all of this, his choices had been blatantly lopsided. He’d deliberately chosen options that lowered Choi Woosu’s affection and raised Han Bohyeon’s as much as possible.
Today’s congratulatory speech was also connected to a quest, of course. Choi Woosu was used to giving speeches, but Lee Yura was doing this for the first time and was absolutely overwhelmed with nerves and pressure. He’d seized on this as an opportunity — about a week before the entrance ceremony, he’d started calling Lee Yura out under the pretense of practice, using it as an excuse to go on dates.
The oblivious Lee Yura had ruined everything by showing up with Han Bohyeon in tow, calling him an “audience” to make it feel more like the real thing. That said, the quest with Han Bohyeon that unlocked at that point was one of my personal favorites.
[ System ]
[“What about my feedback?”]
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