"Do you know of a genius who has been stuffed and mounted?"
A famous line by Yi Sang, the brilliant writer who defined modern Korean literature.
And a phrase that perfectly describes my life up until now.
An exceptional mind.
A being born with a special ability no one else possessed.
"Oh my, honey! Our child must be a genius!"
"Ha ha ha! Must take after us, I suppose."
My parents beamed with joy at the sight of me, their genius-born child.
Exactly ten years and nine months later.
They left me buried under a mountain of debt and took their own lives together.
That's why I despise being told I take after them.
Comparing me to those two, who couldn't find a shred of responsibility between them.
Not even remotely funny.
"Hey, kid… we're going to be seeing a lot of each other from now on. Don't go dying on us like your parents did, you hear me?"
Anyway.
The moment my parents disappeared and rough-looking men started showing up at the house — that was when I understood.
That any chance to let my dreams bloom would never come to me again.
I thrashed and struggled to find some way to survive.
But the administrative machinery of a world already half-collapsed from past wars had no bandwidth to extend a hand to one powerless child.
I had no adults to help me, and the people I was up against were devils who knew all too well how to drive a person into a corner with fear.
Impersonation, deception, threats, violence.
No one came to save me.
And I learned far too early the truth that fists speak louder than laws.
All I'd ever wanted was to study.
Just filling my head with knowledge I didn't yet have was enough to make me happy.
But the only time I could devote myself purely to studying was during school hours.
Every other hour had to be spent scrounging for ways to make money.
[ Jeong Seo-gyeol — 1st Year Overall Ranking: 9th ]
[ Jeong Seo-gyeol — 2nd Year Overall Ranking: 5th ]
[ Jeong Seo-gyeol — 3rd Year Overall Ranking: 2nd ]
If I'd had even a little time for self-study, first place in the whole school wouldn't have been a dream.
I'd carried that regret my entire life — but none of it meant anything anymore.
—Beeeeep……
A ringing in my ears. A crushing pain in my chest.
"…Ah."
On the way home, I collapsed to the ground without a fight.
A splitting headache. Dizziness.
Trapped in pain too severe to even scream, I felt the end coming.
Why only me?
Everyone else gets to live smiling — why has happiness never once found its way into my life?
My body trembled with rage at the world, and tears spilled out on their own.
But gradually, my consciousness began to drift, and even that resentment grew hazy.
At least let me take the college entrance exam first…
"……"
Ah, I don't want to die.
I don't want… to die…
Don't… want…
Die…
—Beep… beep… beep…
The sound of an EKG machine — the kind you'd only hear in a hospital — struck my ears.
What.
So I didn't die?
The sound was too vivid and clear to be a hallucination on the edge of death, and the question rose in me on its own.
Could it be that the debt collector found me and handed me off to a hospital?
That was about the only scenario I could think of.
Just then, my eyes slowly opened, and the blurry field of vision gradually sharpened.
An unmistakably lavish hospital room greeted me.
What's going on?
There's no way those guys would put me up in a room this nice.
I tilted my head and let my eyes wander — there was a button that looked like a nurse call bell.
No reason not to press it, so I did.
—Slide!
Before long, someone who appeared to be a doctor and a nurse came rushing in and spoke to me.
But something was off.
"Patient?! Can you hear me right now? Can you see my fingers?"
Why was Japanese coming out of the doctor's mouth.
And why was I understanding that Japanese so naturally?
'…Wait. Could it be?'
In the middle of the confusion, one absurd hypothesis struck me like lightning.
In my past life, I had tried to serialize a web novel — and actually did.
The reason was simple.
If I could make just one proper work succeed, I'd earn enough to live without envy.
To that end, I'd looked into all sorts of subculture works.
Among the countless titles I'd come across that way, there was one device many of them employed.
'I think I've possessed someone.'
If that were true, every bewildering question I was facing right now would be neatly resolved.
Of course, the odds of something like possession happening to someone like me — who'd lived in a world with not a single drop of magic or fantasy — were anyone's guess…
But honestly, nothing else was coming to mind.
It's not like people were pulling some elaborate prank on me.
"Patient, do you remember your name?"
The doctor, seemingly calmed down, asked me.
My name.
My name is obviously…
"…Ryuzaki Ren."
My mouth moved on its own.
Along with it, memories of unknown origin seeped into my mind.
Ryuzaki Ren.
A boy who had just entered his first year of high school.
Attending Asahi High School, one of the more ordinary schools within Tsukuyomi Academy City…
Damn it, this really is a possession.
*Youth in Academy City Seems Anything But Ordinary.*
An action rom-com about a protagonist who navigates various incidents and accidents in Academy City alongside his heroines.
The high school the protagonist attends in that story is none other than Asahi High School.
I had possessed the protagonist of a rom-com I'd once read for research purposes.
'Does God actually exist?'
A new life arriving at the tail end of a tragic one.
I couldn't help it.
Laughter spilled out — from disbelief, and from joy.
There were so many things I'd wanted to do.
I hadn't wanted it to end like that.
'Thank goodness.'
Maybe it was because I'd spent my whole life chasing after time and money.
Letting my guard down like this, without a single worry — it had been so, so long.
I exhaled a long breath of relief and ran both hands down my face.
—Slide!
At that moment, the hospital room door swung open with force.
A deep scar carved into his face.
Harsh, severe features.
A vicious tattoo etched below his jaw.
A crisp suit that stood in stark contrast to all of it.
A man who looked like a yakuza at a single glance came barging into the room.
What's this?
Was this body also drowning in debt—
"G-guardian?! You can't! The patient's condition hasn't stabilized yet—"
"Step aside, please."
"The patient has only just barely regained consciousness — we have no idea when shock could set in again!"
"My son is not the kind of boy who'd be brought down by something like that."
…So.
A yakuza is my dad?
First debt collectors, now yakuza.
Why are all my parents cut from the same cloth.
***
Ryuzaki Ren.
A first-year student at Asahi High School in Tsukuyomi Academy City.
The notable detail: his father is the boss of the yakuza organization, the Ryuzaki-kai.
'I know who this is.'
The Ryuzaki Ren in my memory was no simple side character or extra.
He covets the protagonist's heroines, sends his underlings to pick fights with the protagonist at every turn, and stirs up trouble at every opportunity.
He's essentially the instigator behind every incident that unfolds at Asahi High School.
True to the action rom-com genre, the protagonist is born with extraordinary combat talent — and Ren is formidable enough to stand against him head-on. That said, he's a bit thick-skulled, and eventually falls into a trap of his own making and self-destructs. A mid-boss type of character.
'Figures. Lately there've been a lot of stories where you possess a supporting character or villain instead of the protagonist.'
Having analyzed web novels as study material, actually finding myself in that position felt strangely unsettling.
It would've been nice to possess the protagonist's body, all things considered.
Regardless, I had possessed the body of Ryuzaki Ren.
And now, about a week after waking up, I was heading to school.
—…This is truly a remarkable recovery. A normal person would need at least another month of hospitalization, but at this rate, you could be discharged as early as next week.
It was only possible because this body's recovery ability was on a level that defied common sense.
Was it because he was a yakuza's son?
In the original story, Ren always showed up perfectly fine by the next chapter no matter how badly he got hurt — maybe this was why.
'So this is Asahi High School.'
I'd been taking in the mysterious scenery of Academy City, and before I knew it, I'd arrived at school.
The route to school was hazy at best, making it practically a first-time walk, so it had taken quite a while.
But there was still time — 8:47.
The school start time of 8:50 hadn't passed yet, so I wasn't late.
But still…
"…Why is it so quiet?"
The hallway was strangely, unnervingly silent.
A high school hallway outside of class hours couldn't possibly be this quiet.
Tilting my head, I made my way toward Ryuzaki's homeroom — Class 1-2.
—Slide!
I opened the back door and stepped in, and the fear-filled gazes of every student in the room converged on me at once.
This must have been an everyday sight for Ryuzaki.
"R-Ryuzaki? Are you okay?!"
"I'm fine. Thank you for your concern."
The homeroom teacher — ah, I don't have the name in my memory.
Anyway, I answered the homeroom teacher's worried question politely.
Then I carefully settled into what I remembered as my seat.
Attendance was taken, and about five minutes passed.
"Alright. Everyone put everything except writing utensils in your bags."
The homeroom teacher began distributing what was unmistakably a stack of test papers to the students.
Ah, so the reason it was so quiet was because today was an exam day.
A test taken from a blank slate, and it's the very first one.
'I'd like to score as high as possible if I can.'
I still didn't know what to aim for in this new life.
Up until now, my only goal had been to pay off the debt.
Having broken free from the shackles of money in an instant, I was at a loss for what to do next.
But one thing was clear.
'I want to get into a good university.'
I love studying.
The process of learning new knowledge and applying it to acquire even more — it's genuinely enjoyable.
I hadn't yet decided which field to dive into.
But as time passed, that direction would naturally take shape.
So that when that time came, I could pursue my ambitions to the fullest.
I wanted to get into the best university I possibly could.
To do that, I needed good grades in high school.
But here I was, sitting a midterm exam with zero preparation — which was giving me a bit of a headache.
'Academy City students are described as being at a higher level than students from other countries by default.'
Well, what could I do about it.
I'd just have to do my best with what I had.
Say what you will, I grew up being called a genius.
I'd managed to hold my own near the very top of the notoriously brutal Korean college entrance grind.
And on top of that, I had a special ability.
At the very least, I wouldn't fail.
With any luck, I might even land somewhere in the middle.
Let's give it everything.
With that thought, I reached into my pencil case—
'…Why are all the pencils broken.'
I was genuinely starting to question whether this guy was actually a student.
I let out a quiet sigh and leaned toward the nameless girl sitting next to me, whispering softly.
"Could I borrow a pencil?"
"…S-sorry! H-here! Take them all!"
The girl held out ten pencils with both trembling hands, offering them up like a tribute.
No.
I really didn't need that many.
I tried to return some, but since the test papers had already been handed out, continuing the exchange any further seemed like it could cause problems in more ways than one, so I let it go.
I'd return them politely once I was done.
The test paper filled my entire field of vision.
A full spread of problems to work through and unravel.
Gazing at those beautiful, unknown quantities—
—Click!
A shutter click echoed in my mind, heard by no one but me.
***
The day after the exams ended.
Every student's scores and rankings were posted on a bulletin board for all to see.
"Wow… these scores are brutal. I used to be in the top tier back in middle school."
"You're still mid-range though. Me… ugh, I got failing marks in math and science."
The bulletin board in the main building hallway was packed wall-to-wall with students.
Some lamenting, some relieved, some flaunting their superiority — a swirling chaos of it all.
Then, the moment one girl appeared, the murmuring crowd fell silent.
Like the parting of the Red Sea, the crowd split open and a path to the bulletin board cleared before her.
Hiragi Arisu.
The top-ranked incoming student at Asahi High School.
And a genius who ranked among the top five freshmen across all of Tsukuyomi Academy City.
Her striking beauty, befitting that reputation, captured everyone's attention in an instant and erected a wall that made it hard for anyone to approach her casually.
They were all the same human beings.
Did people really find it that entertaining to deify someone just for being a little unusual.
Not particularly pleasant — but regrettably, Arisu was used to being treated that way.
"Arisu~ how many firsts did you get?"
"All of them, obviously. Oh, but maybe she left one out on purpose, for the sake of being relatable?"
"D-don't say that~ she might not have!"
The few friends who had drifted over to her were already building her up, and Arisu gave a wry smile in return.
Their admiring gazes were a burden, but even Arisu herself had quietly assumed she'd taken first place in every subject.
Aside from the Five Genius Freshmen of Academy City who stood shoulder to shoulder with her, there was no one who could match Arisu.
"…?"
Surely.
That should have been the case.
—Mathematics
[ 1st Place: Ryuzaki Ren (100) ]
[ 2nd Place: Hiragi Arisu (98) ]
………
—Science
[ 1st Place: Ryuzaki Ren (100) ]
[ 2nd Place: Hiragi Arisu (99) ]
………
—Japanese Language
[ 1st Place: Hiragi Arisu (100) ]
.
.
.
[ 132nd Place: Ryuzaki Ren (51) ]
………
—English
[ Tied 1st Place: Ryuzaki Ren (100) ]
[ Tied 1st Place: Hiragi Arisu (100) ]
………
—Information Technology
[ 1st Place: Ryuzaki Ren (100) ]
[ 2nd Place: Hiragi Arisu (98) ]
…………
………
……
…
Ryuzaki… Ren?