I was Thrown into an Unfamiliar Manga

One day, I opened my eyes and found myself staring at a white ceiling.

Next to me, a middle-aged couple I didn’t recognize were gripping my hand and sobbing. When our eyes met, they gasped and hurried out of the room to get a doctor.
Right after waking up, everything was chaotic, but once the doctor came and ran a few tests, and I was finally left alone in the hospital room, I had time to think calmly.
What the hell is going on.

The only possible explanation was that I had transmigrated—just like the kind of thing you’d only ever read about in novels or manga.
There was no other way to explain the situation I was in.
From the context of what little conversation I’d overheard so far, it seemed I had taken over the body of a boy named Kim Yu-seong, a high school student living in Japan.

Apparently, two days ago he had left the house saying he was going to meet a friend, only to get hit by a car near a crosswalk and fall into a coma.
If my soul had taken over after his departed, all I could really say was… that’s just incredibly tragic.
He died far too young—an age when he should’ve been running around carefree.

I tried to recall my own final memory before ending up here.
Because of one bad decision, I had ended up in a science graduate program. I hadn’t been home in days, crashing at the university lab to sleep and eat.
Then, due to someone’s mistake—no idea whose—the lab caught fire. I happened to be inside at the time and tried to save a hard drive that held two years’ worth of research. I didn’t make it out in time and ended up breathing in a ton of toxic smoke before losing consciousness.

Maybe I really did die in that fire. And now I’ve ended up in the body of this boy named Kim Yu-seong.
At first, I felt kind of happy to be free of that miserable grad school life.
But the thrill faded quickly.

In the end, I was just a cuckoo chick that’d shoved its way into someone else’s nest—an outsider squatting in a teenage boy’s body.
Whether I could even adjust to this new life was still up in the air.
Still lying there, staring blankly at the ceiling, I reached for the small handheld mirror sitting on the bedside table.

The unfamiliar face of a boy stared back at me from beyond the glass.
When I gave him an awkward smile, the boy—whose bangs were oddly long on one side—smiled back.
Honestly, it didn’t feel real.
Part of me hoped this was all just a dream.

But when I pinched my cheek, the pain was vivid and undeniable.
“Haaah. What the hell is this.”
I let out a long sigh. Since no answers were coming, I decided to sleep on it and figure things out later.

***
Two days later—
I was discharged from the hospital without issue.

Of course, the possession hadn’t magically ended or anything.
In fact, the boy’s memories—Kim Yu-seong’s memories—had started to flow into my mind, as if I were dreaming.
He was a perfectly ordinary fifteen-year-old, about to take high school entrance exams.

Born to a Korean father and mother who had immigrated to Japan, he was a second-generation Zainichi Korean. Because of that, he’d grown up facing subtle discrimination at school and had developed a shy, reserved personality.
Still, he had two or three close friends in class, and it seemed he’d left home that day to meet up with them when the accident happened.
After riding home in the car driven by the middle-aged couple—who were, in fact, Kim Yu-seong’s parents—I was told I should go rest upstairs since I must be tired. I just nodded and headed up to the second floor.

It was my first time in this house, but I moved like I’d lived there all my life. That must’ve been thanks to the original Yu-seong’s memories.
Quietly closing the door behind me, I entered the bedroom… and nearly lost my mind at the sight in front of me.
Manga. Manga. Manga. Manga. No matter where I looked, manga.

Posters of scantily clad 2D characters boldly decorated the walls. The shelves were packed with anime DVDs and figures.
I had no idea how a middle schooler managed to afford all this, but one thing was obvious: Kim Yu-seong was a full-blown otaku.
I mean, I read manga and watched anime occasionally when people recommended something good, but I’d never been this far down the rabbit hole.

Since this was now my room, I did a quick sweep to tidy things up a bit and sat on the bed, avoiding the chair.
Now what.
I didn’t have access to all of Kim Yu-seong’s memories yet, so I couldn’t act too recklessly.

The biggest problem was his parents. If their son of fifteen years suddenly started acting completely differently, it would feel way too off.
If I wanted to behave like myself, I’d need a plausible excuse.
Luckily, Kim Yu-seong already had the perfect cover.

Eighth-grade syndrome.
That delusional “middle school syndrome” everyone supposedly goes through during puberty.
As luck would have it, Kim Yu-seong had been neck-deep in eighth-grade syndrome even before I showed up. It was so bad he’d even grown out his bangs to mimic his favorite manga character.

Granted, because of his shy personality, he didn’t really flaunt it outside. But I was sure his parents were already aware their son was “going through a phase.”
Right now, it was August.
School-wise, that meant summer break had just begun after finals.

But there wasn’t much time left.
When I checked the calendar on my phone, I saw that school started again in just two weeks.
Trying to pull off a complete image change in that short a window would definitely raise red flags—not just for his parents, but also anyone who’d known Kim Yu-seong before.

Guess I’ll have to play along and act like I have eighth-grade syndrome for now.
That was the conclusion I reached after thinking it over.
I’d only start showing my real personality once I got to high school.

First, though, I needed to figure out the kind of stuff Kim Yu-seong liked.
I turned toward the bookshelf lined with neatly arranged manga.
Judging by the titles, he read everything—starting with action series, then fantasy, cooking, love comedies, and more.

Gulp.
Even eyeballing it, there were easily over 100 volumes.
If I had any homework for this summer break, it was this: to become a perfect eighth-grade syndrome otaku.

And that was going to be a serious challenge.
***
The time I spent as Kim Yu-seong, living out the remainder of his third year of middle school, flew by in a flash.

It was short in every sense.
August, September, October, November, December.
Cutting out the third trimester and spring break, it was barely even half a year.

As for the high school entrance exam—I passed it easily, even without much studying.
I’d been a science grad student, so middle school-level math and science were no issue. And since Kim Yu-seong had apparently liked subjects like literature and history, even those turned out easier than I expected.
The soul of a science student combined with the body of a liberal arts kid… Honestly, the results I pulled off didn’t make any sense given how little I studied.

Anyway, I spent summer break doing thorough prep and review, so no one—not his parents or friends—suspected that someone else had taken over Kim Yu-seong’s body.
Eighth-grade syndrome was only hard at first. Once I got used to it, it came naturally.
After reading through every manga and light novel in Yu-seong’s room, and memorizing the typical eighth-grade syndrome behavior patterns from the internet, I found myself acting it out unconsciously in real life.

Once, I banged my head on a convenience store door while checking my phone and muttered, “Tch. A barrier spell?” under my breath.
Even I was impressed with myself.
“Here! One skirt steak and one plate of hormone, please!”

“Got it~!”
While I was lost ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) in thought, an order came in from Table 3, so I shouted to the kitchen where Yu-seong’s dad was working.
“One skirt steak and hormone for Table 3!”

“Coming right up!”
Yu-seong’s parents ran a small Korean barbecue restaurant in Tokyo.
Technically, it was a Korean-style restaurant, with yakiniku as the main draw.

The shop was small, but they had a decent base of regulars.
Even though he was just a middle schooler, Yu-seong had managed to buy all sorts of merch thanks to the part-time money he earned helping out whenever he could.
As I was running around during the busy lunch rush, exhausted from the nonstop flow of customers, I noticed a boy and girl sitting together at a table.

The boy was tall and ridiculously good-looking, like some teenage celebrity. Probably around my age.
The girl next to him looked a year or two younger, but she had equally sharp features—a real beauty.
“Come on, open wide~ Aaaahn~”

“Yuika, people are watching.”
“Oh come on~ I’m your little sister feeding you, what’s the big deal~?”
I found myself staring at the two of them, feeling a strange sense of familiarity—until it hit me.

If my memory wasn’t playing tricks on me, that boy’s name was Sakamoto Ryuji.
The protagonist of Scramble Love—the rom-com that had made waves online before I got isekai’d into this world.
He looked a bit younger than I remembered, but that signature host-club shaggy cut? Unmistakable.

And that’s when I realized, without any doubt—
The boy I was now, Kim Yu-seong, was living inside the world of a manga.