The Main Character is Obsessed With a Foreign Substance

How long had it been since he’d been outside? Suhwan couldn’t quite believe it at first. As they moved in Heeyoung’s car, the scenery passed by quickly. Everything felt unfamiliar.

“We’re here.”

“Ah.”

The place they arrived at was a neighborhood of studio apartments near a university. The building Heeyoung entered seemed particularly clean compared to others. Suhwan quickly followed her.

Heeyoung lived alone in a studio apartment. Suhwan had followed her without thinking, but now that they were alone in the small studio, he felt awkward.

“Would you like something to drink?”

“I’m fine…”

“You must have a lot of questions for me.”

Unable to refuse, Suhwan nodded, and Heeyoung prepared green tea. She handed it to him with a comment:

“Since you can’t drink coffee, I made green tea.”

“…!”

Suhwan looked up at Heeyoung from the sofa as she spoke naturally, as if it were obvious. With trembling eyes, he asked:

“How do you know that…”

“…”

“Just who… are you?”

Heeyoung placed the green tea in front of Suhwan without answering. For a while, she stared at the cup, then let out a long sigh. Soon after, she raised her head with a resolved expression.

“I’ll tell you everything. I am…”

Heeyoung’s lips moved slightly, and she frowned. After hesitating briefly, she continued:

“I am the author who wrote this novel.”

Her deliberately calm words spread throughout the small studio.

“What… did you say?”

Heeyoung’s words didn’t immediately register with Suhwan. Then two words stuck in his mind.

‘Author.’ The ‘author’ of this novel.

Yes. Since it was a novel, there must be an author who wrote it. But to think that the author was Heeyoung, who stood before him.

After staring at Heeyoung with wavering eyes for a moment, Suhwan carefully opened his mouth.

“Really, you’re the… author?”

As if confirming her kill, Heeyoung nodded slightly. Suhwan was speechless and blankly opened his mouth.

But thinking about it, there were many suspicious things about Heeyoung that made her seem more than just a manifested person. Just reading the novel wouldn’t have allowed her to guess the relationship between Jin Suhwan and Hwalyeon, and the same went for Ju Geonyul. Since Ju Geonyul’s evil deeds weren’t revealed in the novel, despite him being the main character. So the advice to be careful of Ju Geonyul wasn’t something an ordinary reader would give. Unless she was the author who wrote the novel herself.

“So… author-nim.”

“Just speak comfortably.”

“Still…”

“I don’t deserve the respect.”

“Deserve?”

Heeyoung couldn’t continue and lowered her head. It seemed there was some circumstance. Suhwan calmed his surprised heart and waited for her to speak. After hesitating for quite a while, Heeyoung slowly raised her head and looked at Suhwan.

“If I hadn’t regretted… then this wouldn’t have happened. You wouldn’t have manifested into this novel.”

“So you knew I was a manifested person.”

“Of course. I knew from the first time I saw you.”

Suhwan felt a bit awkward under her gaze, which seemed to say, “How could I not know?” Had he behaved that differently from Jin Suhwan?

…It seemed like he had. While Suhwan was nodding inwardly, Heeyoung calmly continued:

“I’ve constantly regretted writing this novel. Then one day when I opened my eyes, I found myself manifested in the body of an extra character with the same name as me.”

Surprisingly, Heeyoung had manifested around the same time as Suhwan. It was a month before the second semester began, during summer vacation.

But what about regret? What could the author of the novel have regretted? Pondering this, Suhwan tried to comfort her:

“Well, this novel… though it’s a bit difficult for me as a man to understand, it still seems really well-written.”

A 19+ explicit BL novel had a high barrier for the wholesome Suhwan, but it wasn’t so poorly written that the author should regret it. Looking at Suhwan, who was thinking rather simply, Heeyoung shook her head.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Then?”

“The reason I regretted is…”

Heeyoung’s gaze lingered on Suhwan’s face for a moment. Suhwan didn’t know what the strangely wavering light in her eyes meant. In some ways, it seemed like she pitied him, and in others, like she felt sorry toward him. Either way, it was an extremely complex look. For some reason, seeing those eyes made his heart flutter.

“This novel… wasn’t actually something I wanted to write.”

“What?”

“I needed money urgently. I had another novel I was originally writing, but it wasn’t commercially viable.”

Heeyoung calmly explained the situation at that time.

The first novel she wrote wasn’t really a novel per se, but just a story she was writing on her own. She started writing a story about a boy and another boy that she had only imagined, and as she wrote, she felt the urge to show it to others. So she began posting one or two chapters on a free serialization site.

Of course, the response wasn’t good. At that time, she didn’t know about keywords or top/bottom dynamics, so she wrote the introduction carelessly. She didn’t expect anything when posting the novel. It was just a slight impulse and self-satisfaction. Nothing more, nothing less.

What Heeyoung hadn’t expected was that a publisher would send her an email after reading that novel. It was a well-known publisher that frequently published popular novels on the platform, even Heeyoung, who didn’t know much about publishers, knew about it.

The publisher sent an email encouraging Heeyoung to write a different novel. The novel she was currently posting was clearly unpublishable, but the publisher’s representative, who recognized Heeyoung’s talent in writing, suggested working together on the next novel.

Heeyoung rejected the offer without hesitation. For her, novel writing was just a hobby. She had her main job and didn’t have much time to write novels under contract with a publisher.

But by some twist of fate, misfortune began to strike Heeyoung from that moment. Her parents had an accident while traveling, and she was fired from her job for a ridiculous reason. They say that good and bad things come all at once. Heeyoung was plunged into darkness.

She needed money. That was the only reason. That’s when Heeyoung read the email from the publisher again.

When she belatedly accepted the offer, the publisher’s representative sent her a proposal for the novel she needed to write, as if they had been waiting. It seemed like the proposal had been offered to other writers and eventually came to Heeyoung.

19+, Omegaverse, angst. It was a festival of all kinds of provocative keywords. After reading through similar novels, Heeyoung devoted all her time to writing.

But perhaps because she still had lingering attachments to her first novel that she had stopped writing, Heeyoung impulsively named the characters the same as the protagonists of her first novel. But she made their relationship different. She felt like she needed to protest to herself that this novel was completely different from that one.

In any case, the second novel she wrote became immensely popular as soon as it was published. She was able to earn as much money as she wanted. Everything went according to Heeyoung’s wishes.

But despite that, she couldn’t shake the empty feeling. Was it because of the first novel that she had to bury in her heart, since she had already used the protagonists’ names? Heeyoung increasingly felt regret rather than relief.

And after long, inexplicable anguish, the day after she drank alcohol and fell asleep, Heeyoung woke up in a completely different place. She had opened her eyes in the body of an extra character that she had carelessly named after herself because she was too lazy to come up with a name.

Kim Heeyoung, who was a BL novel author before manifesting. And now, as Kwon Heeyoung, she gazed steadily at Suhwan.

“…That’s how it happened.”

“Ah.”

Suhwan just exclaimed in surprise. He hadn’t known that Heeyoung, the author of the novel, had such circumstances. Giving up the novel she wanted to write for money and writing a different one. He didn’t know how to react to the story that she regretted it and then found herself manifested when she woke up.

Comfort? His inadequate comfort would be of no help to someone who hadn’t even created his character. After pondering, Suhwan asked:

“What about now? Do you… still regret it?”

“…”

Heeyoung kept her mouth shut at Suhwan’s question. After thinking deeply, she tilted her head slightly.

“I’m not sure.”

Surely she regretted it before manifesting. But after manifesting, the situation changed significantly. Remembering the time that had passed, Heeyoung answered in a calm tone.

“I think we’ll only know when this novel reaches its ending.”

“I see.”

Suhwan nodded in agreement. Many things had changed because Heeyoung and he had manifested in the novel.

And above all, the ending hadn’t come yet. Especially regarding Seunghyun… he needed to know why things had changed so much from the original work. Whether Seunghyun had truly switched roles with Jin Suhwan.

“But Seunghyun imprisoned me.”

“……”

“That’s what Jin Suhwan did in the novel, so perhaps Seunghyun…”

He was going to ask Heeyoung if Seunghyun had become a foreign element in the main plot, but couldn’t finish his sentence. If Heeyoung, the author, confirmed it, it would make his heart even more troubled. However, Heeyoung understood Suhwan’s unfinished words. She quietly shook her head.

“That’s a bit different.”

“Different?”

“Yes.”

It was a hopeful answer. Suhwan lifted his head quickly to look at Heeyoung. Did that mean there was a way to bring Seunghyun back? Facing the expectant Suhwan, Heeyoung moved her lips.

“Senior…”

“Yes?”

“You don’t remember anything from before you manifested, right?”

“…!”

Suhwan’s eyes widened at the confident statement. Unlike Heeyoung, Suhwan didn’t know who he was. He had no memories all along. It was surprising that Heeyoung knew his memory was missing, even though she might have noticed from his awkward behavior that he wasn’t Jin Suhwan.

“Yes, how did you know?”

As he nodded and asked, Heeyoung’s face became somewhat complicated. For some reason, she seemed reluctant to speak. Not understanding why, Suhwan tilted his head, and Heeyoung reluctantly answered.

“I think I know who you were before manifesting.”

“What? Really?”

Suhwan was shocked by Heeyoung’s answer. That Heeyoung knew something he couldn’t remember himself. Perhaps he had been someone from Heeyoung’s circle? Surely not family?

Imagining clichéd developments like in melodramatic morning dramas, Suhwan speculated intensely for a brief moment. However, what came out of Heeyoung’s mouth was completely different from his expectations.

“Senior, no… Suhwan.”

Heeyoung’s voice lowered. But it wasn’t just lowered. She spoke with a tight, choked voice, as if her throat was constricted. It was the first time Suhwan had seen Heeyoung so agitated. Eventually, Heeyoung continued in a trembling voice.

“You… you’re the Suhwan from the first novel I wrote.”

“…!”

What… what does that mean?

Again, Suhwan found Heeyoung’s words difficult to understand. Heeyoung’s first novel. She had said the world’s background novel and the protagonist’s name were the same. So Suhwan naturally assumed that in that first novel too, the two protagonists were named Seunghyun and Geonyul.

“I’m the Jin Suhwan from that novel…?”

Then, was there a foreign element in that novel too? A foreign element from one novel manifesting in another novel by the same author. That seemed bizarre. But Heeyoung shook her head.

“In that novel, you and Seunghyun were the protagonists.”

“What?”

“The only names I borrowed were you two. Not Ju Geonyul.”

“…!”

Ah. A low groan escaped Suhwan’s lips. At that moment, something in his mind cracked with a crisp sound, like an eggshell breaking. And all sorts of memories swirled in Suhwan’s head.

“Ugh…!”

“Suhwan!”

Heeyoung’s voice sounded distant. He felt as if Heeyoung was embracing him as he collapsed. But soon everything turned pitch black, and Suhwan lost consciousness.

And the black darkness soon changed into something else.