Scratch, scratch.
Half-listening to the boring lecture with one ear, I idly doodled in the corner of my textbook.
The model was a prim girl with a tidy appearance, sitting diagonally in front of me and diligently focusing on the lesson.
She was a beautiful girl, striking with her soft-looking light brown hair that just barely brushed her shoulders.
The quick sketch of her side profile had deformed into a cute character, claiming a corner of my textbook.
Now, let me clear up any potential misunderstandings right here.
I'm not crushing on this girl or anything like that, sneaking lecherous peeks while I draw her.
I'm just propping my chin up, pretending to stare at the blackboard, and she happens to be the best model in my line of sight—so I sketched her without a second thought.
I've long since given up on developing any romantic feelings anyway,
and more importantly, that girl already has someone she likes.
The seat right next to her—which means the guy sitting directly in front of me.
The protagonist of this world's original story... the love comedy novel, that is.
Knowing all this, I'm a tragic soul who got possessed into an extra-level nobody who doesn't even exist in the original novel—after only reading the early parts of it, no less.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
I started becoming aware of my thoughts around the age of six.
They say that when people die and reincarnate, they forget everything from their past lives. But for some reason, I remember mine.
The memories are spotty, full of holes here and there, but I can recall the big stuff—like my name, where I lived, family relations—and even smaller details, like my favorite foods and the hobbies I enjoyed.
The only thing is, no matter how hard I try to remember how I died, my head just starts throbbing, so I gave up on that one.
Anyway, I didn't notice anything strange until kindergarten.
I just figured I'd been lucky enough to be born in the same country, in a similar era, and after checking the year,
I even had silly thoughts like, Great, no need to worry about making a living in the future. Wonder how cryptocurrency wallets work in this time?
The weirdness hit me after starting elementary school, once the entrance ceremony was over and I'd entered my assigned class.
I'd plopped down in a back-row seat, musing about spending the next decade or so back in school,
when I caught sight of two kids, and a buried memory suddenly bubbled up from my subconscious.
A pint-sized elementary schooler with baby fat still clinging to his cheeks, oozing an annoyingly handsome vibe, walking in side by side with a cute little girl who had chubby cheeks and light brown hair.
I stared blankly at them for a few seconds. Then it hit me—a single thread of memory flashing from the depths of my mind.
Wait... is that Lee Sea? And next to her, Yoon Jiu...?
The memory turned out to be a novel I'd read sometime in the past.
They looked exactly like the childhood illustration from that book.
A standard school rom-com, the kind with a Korean backdrop—though school love comedy fits better, I guess.
Just one of the countless webnovels I'd read as a hobby in my previous life.