Chapter Text
Jaehyun is in deep shit
He woke up this morning in a bed that’s not his, in a room that’s also not his, surrounded by things that he does not own.
What the hell is going on?
Jaehyun frantically scrambled for his phone, which stated that the time was 08:00 am. He realised that the phone is clearly not his but there was a message displayed on the lock screen that piqued his interest.
The message read: “Welcome! You have been chosen to replace the character “Myung Jaehyun” in this world as the original character unfortunately met his demise, which was not supposed to happen. In order for us to be able to continue this story, you have been taken from your world. Please adjust quickly and make any decisions you believe are necessary! Have fun!”
Jaehyun sat there, unmoving and unblinking, staring at his screen for what felt like an hour.
Shaking out of his stupor, he began to try to make sense of the situation. He recalled that only one drama contains the name Myung Jaehyun, he knows this only because the character shares the same name as him. He gathers that this is the character he was chosen to play.
Stepping off the bed, he began to recall everything about the character and the drama.
The drama's name is Nerdy Love and the character Myung Jaehyun is a real bitch.
Great. Just what he needed.
Groaning, Jaehyun puts his head in his hands in confusion and frustration. How is he supposed to play such a bitchy character? He is the nicest person he knows. Sure, he’s a little biased, but he has heard plenty of other people say those exact words from their own mouths.
The character Jaehyun is, in short terms, a “mean girl”. The typical popular, mean girl who enjoys other people's suffering. The only difference here is that he’s a boy.
In the drama, Jaehyun very openly has a huge crush on Han Taesan, the mmc. Many of his friends’ tease Taesan whenever Jaehyun is near and ship them together. However, due to Taesan failing a test, he must be tutored by Kim Leehan, the other mmc - who is kind of a loser, in order to remain in the ice hockey team. They eventually get together after months of tutoring.
Jaehyun recalls that his character did not take this news well. So much so that “taking it bad” would be an understatement.
He begrudgingly lifts his head up to check the date in order to pinpoint how far into the story he is in.
21st January, Jaehyun read. His eyes widened as he cursed loudly.
He recollected that this deep into the story would mean that Jaehyun has become a social pariah due to the fact that he spread a nasty rumour about Leehans’ home life. The rumour was eventually shut down by Taesan in his attempts to track down the culprit who started this rumour.
After every student in the university found out it was Jaehyun who spread the rumour, everyone treated him differently and turned their backs to him.
Jaehyun sighed deeply and flopped back down onto his bed. He ran his fingers through his hair and closed his eyes as the familiar feelings of anxiety began to crawl in him.
🏒🏒🏒
At 8:30 Jaehyun woke up again to his alarm. Scratching his head, he looked around tirelessly in confusion. His face scrunched up as he tries to figure out where he is once again. His body froze up once realisation dawned upon him.
Upon looking around, he found his timetable and university ID in one of the drawers next to his bed. He discovered that his first class starts at 9, thankfully the drama stated that Jaehyun’s flat is about a 5-minute walk to campus.
As he was getting changed, Jaehyun felt his anxiety start to press down on his chest. He knew that as soon as he stepped foot onto campus he would be judged by hateful eyes.
He soon found that he was correct, as soon as he stepped into his building every head swivelled towards him with eyes burning of hatred and disgust.
Jaehyun gulped, his pulse racing. He kept his head low as he passed through the sea of people all watching him.
Thankfully, or maybe not, the crowd parted just enough for him to reach a locker that had been vandalised. His eyes widened slightly as he gaped at the word. Painted across the locker, big and red, was the word “bitch”. Naturally, under the unusual circumstances, he assumed it was his. A few snickers were heard to his right as he openly gaped at the text.
Eyes darting and jaw tensing briefly, he slowly walked toward the locker with his face flushed red with embarrassment. “I must’ve died and gone straight to hell” he thought bitterly, “this is torture”.
Just then he heard a ping coming from his phone. Glancing down he saw a message that came from the same number as before, Jaehyun briefly thought to himself that it would be beneficial to save it. The message contained only 4 numbers: 3005. He ogled at the message not knowing what it meant.
Pocketing his phone for now, his eyes flit across the locker to try and figure out how to open it. He briefly caught sight of the lock which needed 4 numbers to unlock it. His face momentarily lit up in realisation that those four numbers must be his locker password.
Aware of all the burning eyes on him, Jaehyun grew tense. If he put in the four numbers and it's wrong then everyone will see, but if he stays here staring at his locker for a suspicious amount of time then people will start to whisper.
Feeling like he had no choice, he took a deep breath and began to enter the four numbers with shaking hands. Before he entered the last digit, he mentally prayed to whatever god that was here that this would work.
The sound of a click was heard as soon as the locker opened. Jaehyun let out the huge breath of air he was holding, and his shoulders slumped in relief. His short-lived victory ended as soon as it began, as he grew self-conscious again. The back of his neck began to burn with the weight of gazes, so he hurriedly grabbed whatever books he needed for his first lecture, stumbling a little as he did so. He glanced at his timetable for what felt like the tenth time today which states that his first lecture is astrology.
🏒🏒🏒
As soon as he opened the door to the lecture hall, the room fell silent, all eyes now directed towards him. Steady whispers began to creep up as Jaehyun moved his way to the back of the room with his head down. As he sat down, he realised with a jolt that Leehans best friend, Riwoo, was glaring at him from a few seats in front. He never realised that Riwoo and Jaehyun shared a lecture together as the drama shows limited interactions between these two characters. But there he is, much as to Jaehyun's disappointment, clear as day.
As soon as the lecturer walked in, the whispers began to die down as the class shifted their focus onto her. Jaehyun tried to make himself as small as possible in order to not attract too much attention. He cursed bitterly to whatever god caused him this suffering.
At the end of the lecture, Jaehyun thought it would be best to leave after everyone else in order to avoid any more harsh words. As he slumped back in his chair, he began to mull about the last hour with his head gazing up towards the ceiling. Surprisingly, he quite enjoyed that lecture, who knew that stars were actually interesting. That's not all he thought about though, he began to ponder the unfairness of this whole situation. How could someone think it's ok to take someone from their old life and then dump them into a random world, how is that even possible?
Jaehyun had too many questions and not enough answers. He covered his eyes with his arm and released a frustrating groan. His jaw tensed as he thought about this morning. He never had a chance to sit down and actually process this whole situation, everything happened too fast, and he was only running on one cup of coffee and a donut he grabbed from a nearby cafe. Jaehyun was rapidly blinking the tears out of his eyes as he thought about his friends and family, will he ever see them again? He did not know, and that frankly scared him.
He was also dredging up meeting Taesan and Leehan for the first time, which sucked because they were both his favourite characters, with Taesan slightly beating Leehan.
“Thinking of ways to sabotage Leehan and Taesan’s relationship?” A voice snarled above him in contempt.
Jaehyun's head lifted up in shock, eyes widening. He thought everyone had left. Blinking away the dizziness, his vision became clearer, and he saw Riwoo looking down at him in disgust. Seeing his hateful gaze, Jaehyun made himself small in his chair. He was not used to people looking at him like that. In his world people looked at him with love and adoration not with disgust.
He gaped at the small man standing before him, “Huh?”
The man's eyes narrowed behind his round glasses as his upper lip curled in disgust, “Don't pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about, I'm not dumb”, his eyes, full of loathing, gave Jaehyun a once over which made the latter divert his gaze to the ground.
“You're mad that your plan didn’t work and instead backfired on you, and instead of reflecting on yourself, your narcissistic little self somehow blames Leehan for all that is happening to you”. Riwoo’s head leaned a little closer to Jaehyun as he bent down slightly towards him, which caused the latter to frown a little and lean back. Riwoo briefly reminded Jaehyun of a chihuahua, small but violent.
“I’ll give you one piece of helpful information: stay away from him”, he ordered, narrowing his eyes. “If you so much as harm a hair on his head, or cause even the tiniest little frown to form, I will dismember you piece by piece and that's only a fraction of what Taesan will do to you. He will destroy you.” He spat out, leaving Jaehyun speechless with his mouth slightly agape.
After giving him one last glare and then finally, finally, walking away, Jaehyun felt like he could breathe again. If he felt nervous about meeting Taesan before, now he was absolutely terrified.
Shaking his hair in frustration he began to finally pack his stuff away - now that he was the last one in the room. As he walked down the stairs past the lecture tables, he began to think back on Riwoo’s words. To Jaehyun it seemed really obvious that Riwoo has a major crush on Leehan, though this may only be because Jaehyun had watched the drama and has seen the yearning with his own two eyes. Despite him threatening to kill him, Jaehyun couldn’t help but feel bad for him. He, himself, had a first-hand account on how heartbreaking it is to love someone only for them to feel differently.
Opening the door, he was still thinking over Riwoo’s unfortunate situation when he bumped into a rather hard chest. Waving his arms out, he just barely saved himself from falling backwards, he realised, bitterly but unsurprised, that the person ahead of him did nothing to help. He let out a little breath of release before he steeled himself to look up. His eyes turned into saucers, his mouth parted slightly and his whole body turned to ice as he gawked at the culprit. His hands started to shake slightly at his sides as he processed who was in front of him.
In front of him was the one and only Han Taesan–captain of the ice hockey team.