Mom died.
It was a peaceful death. Mom, who had me as a late-in-life child, had already passed seventy by the time I turned twenty. She hadn’t been suffering from any illness either, so it was just old age. She passed away peacefully in her sleep without pain, so my older brothers and sisters all said it was a peaceful death.
“Huuuuung, so what if it was! I! I miss Mom!”
At Mom’s funeral, I burst into wailing sobs. I was well past twenty, but who cares? Mom was gone. I had never even thought about a world without Mom. Actually, I had thought about it, but I didn’t know it would become reality this quickly.
Because of me, the funeral hall quickly became a sea of tears. My older sisters scolded me, saying if I was going to cry, I should cry in a corner. As I huddled in the corner, my second older brother came over with a flushed face and handed me a USB drive.
“Seungyeon, if you miss Mom, watch this.”
The USB my brother handed me contained videos of Mom. Not just any videos—it had dramas from when Mom was an actress, from when she was younger than now. The drama, over 50 episodes long, had zero artistic merit and was full of ridiculous, nonsensical plot developments, as if pieced together with random script pages.
But Mom was there. Our real Mom, appearing as the mother of the female protagonist Baek Sehee.
In one corner of the funeral hall, I plugged the USB my brother gave me into my laptop and watched the drama over and over until I was worn out, crying and crying again. After falling asleep crying like that, when I opened my eyes again…
“Hey, you son of a bitch! Get up right noooow!”
“Ow! Ah, it hurts! Ah, Mooooom!”
Mom, who had been dead, was now smacking my back with her eyes wide open.
That’s right. I had opened my eyes as a character in the daily drama Mom appeared in—and not just any character, but a supporting role with massive screen time!
And I was the female protagonist’s one and only trash younger brother, who had a huge influence on making this drama into a total trainwreck!
*
“Baek Seungyeon?”
Seungyeon, seated neatly at his desk, muttered his own name while gnawing on the end of his pencil. It had been exactly one day since he’d possessed this body, and during that day, Seungyeon had realized several things.
First of all. The only thing that had changed from Seungyeon’s original name was his surname. He had gone from Kim Seungyeon to Baek Seungyeon. His face was also exactly as he remembered it. If he had to point out any difference, it was that he looked slightly younger? In any case, it definitely wasn’t the face of the actor he’d seen in the drama.
“Of course not, I never appeared in it.”
Seungyeon snorted with a “Hmph!” He was trying his best to somehow understand this bizarre and strange situation. Even though his efforts weren’t leading to any understanding whatsoever, the important thing was that he was at least trying.
Anyway, it had happened—he had possessed a character in a drama, and that character had his appearance. Is this a dream? Did I maybe cry so fucking hard at the funeral that I passed out or fainted?
He pinched his cheek hard, but it just hurt like hell. Rubbing his reddened cheek, Seungyeon muttered.
“Fine. Moving on.”
Let’s just say that’s the case. Possession or whatever—let’s say that happened. Then there’s another choice left. Should he escape from here, or stay in this place?
The problem was that even if he wanted to escape, he didn’t know how. But then, could staying here be the answer?
“Yeah, it’s the answer. Fucking absolutely the answer.”
Seungyeon nodded his head with conviction. Setting everything else aside, Mom was here. Healthy, robust, good at cursing, with about 100 percent more vitality than when she was alive—real Mom.
“Mom!”
While he was thinking about it, Seungyeon bolted out of his room, shouting for Mom. Mom, who was trimming bean sprouts in the kitchen, glared at him while waving a paring knife.
“What now! Why are you calling me again!”
“Mom, I love you.”
Ignoring Mom’s irritated response, Seungyeon dove into her arms. The paring knife was a bit threatening, but who cares? When he hugged her from behind, Mom cursed and barked at him to get lost.
“You little shit, go to your room and study!”
“Okay! I love you, Mom.”
He kissed Mom’s cheek with smacking sounds and ran away quickly before he could get cursed at. Closing the door to his room, Seungyeon’s eyes gleamed with renewed determination.
“Yeah, I’m staying here.”
Unrealistic? So what? Mom is here. Trainwreck drama? Doesn’t matter. Because Mom is here. The real world? Fuck that. The place where Mom is—that’s my real life from now on.
Having calmly decided to swap his life, Seungyeon sat back down at his desk. On the paper were carelessly scribbled notes about Baek Seungyeon. After confirming the door was firmly closed, Seungyeon looked around about five more times to make sure no one was there before cautiously opening his mouth.
“Status window?”
Ten seconds, twenty seconds, thirty seconds passed, but there was no response. Seungyeon scrawled “No status window” on the paper with his pencil.
“That’s actually fortunate. Like, when you read web novels and stuff, the status window gives all sorts of penalties. At least there isn’t one here, right?”
It seemed there was no terrifying status window here that would kill people for actions that went against the original content. It was disappointing that he couldn’t easily obtain information, but what could he do? Seungyeon tapped the end of his pencil on the paper.
“So, what I need to do from now on is…”
The protagonist of this drama was Baek Seungyeon’s older sister, Baek Sehee. The kind, sweet, and pretty older sister accepted a contract marriage to resolve the debts and loan shark debts her one and only younger brother had incurred, and married some crazy man. And while enduring all sorts of abuse in that household, she still managed to take control of the family, but just when things seemed to be resolved, her younger brother would cause another accident, and she’d clean that up too, and just when things seemed to be going well, another incident would erupt.
Seungyeon calmly listed out the incidents and accidents he had caused—or might cause—in chronological order. Because the impact had been so huge, they weren’t forgotten, so the writing flowed smoothly.
19 years old: Used older sister’s identity for loans + got expelled for illegal sports betting.
22 years old: Bought a supercar on full installment right after military discharge.
23 years old: Taken to police as romance scam fraud suspect. (Total of 3 people involved.)
24 years old: Took money extorted from older sister + family land deed, ran away from home and went all-in on shitcoins.
“Hah…”
Even after writing it down, it was hopeless, so he just sighed. Rubbing his face and catching his breath, Seungyeon looked at the paper again. Since what’s past can’t be helped, let’s move on—if he only considered what would happen in the future, where was he now?
After pondering for a moment, he whipped his head toward the bed. He grabbed the neatly placed phone and quickly touched the screen. He spent a long time examining the date and time, and the texts, messages, and call records he’d sent and received. The more he read the contents, the harder Seungyeon’s expression became.
[Yumi noona: Seungyeon baby❤️ I sent 300,000 won to your account❤️ Don’t get sick and make sure to eat your meals!]
[Yeonsu noona: I’m telling you in advance🥹 Don’t worry and contact me when it’s convenient for you, Seungyeon. My heart hurts so much hearing you’re sickㅠㅠ I sent a little spending money, so buy some porridge with it and cheer up💛 Love you💛]
[Mihee noona: Sent 600. Seungyeon, noona can support you, so don’t worry]
[Yeongbin hyung: (Photo) Baby, look at hyung’s dick and cheer up]
“Crazy bastard…”
Seungyeon trembled with disgust and blocked that Yeongbin guy first. Even though he’d only looked briefly, there were endless love calls from various noonas and hyungs. Money sent by noonas and hyungs overflowed, ranging from as little as 10,000 won to as much as several hundred thousand.
“This is fucking insane, really…”
So it didn’t matter whether they were men or women when it came to money? This kind of setting never appeared in the drama at all. His teeth ground at Baek Seungyeon’s private life, which was trashier than he’d thought.
“He just completely gave up on being human.”
With the time spent scamming all these hyungs and noonas, he could have studied more and gotten into Harvard. Seungyeon grumbled as he tapped out messages. After skimming through the contacts and conversation contents, he got a rough idea of what time period this was. Around age 23, when he was going around hitting on people and scamming them.
If things proceeded according to the original, he would scam this noona and that hyung here, get caught and taken to the police station, and then properly break Baek Sehee’s back trying to pay settlement money… but not anymore. Seungyeon had absolutely no intention of breaking his older sister’s back, and he didn’t want to become trash who defrauded noonas and hyungs of their money.
What he wanted was just to grow old and die as a kangaroo with Mom for a long, long time. Seungyeon checked the message he’d written and smiled with satisfaction.
“This should work.”
[Hello, this is Seungyeon. I am sincerely reflecting on taking money through lies and behaving immaturely. Without making excuses, it’s all my fault, and I think it’s something I need to take responsibility for. I don’t have the right to say this, but I felt I should at least apologize as the right thing to do, so I’m shamelessly sending this text. I will return all the money I received, even if it takes time. I think you must have been hurt and disappointed because of me. From now on, I won’t cause any more trouble, and I hope we can end our relationship here. Once again, I sincerely apologize.]
He sent the copied text to every chat window. He’d have to check the money in his bank account and return it one by one. Seungyeon fiddled with his phone, avoiding the ringing calls and texts.
And at that moment, a status window suddenly appeared before his eyes.
[Major rule violation detected! Due to actions inconsistent with the possessed body’s disposition, the balance of the world is collapsing. To restore this, a penalty corresponding to your body will be immediately imposed!]
“What? What do you mea—”
At that moment, blood dripped from his nose. The dripping became a gush, and blood also gushed from his mouth.
In front of the blinking status window, Seungyeon lost consciousness.
