Chapter 1: The Loser's Comeback (1)
The sharp tang of antiseptic and a stark white ceiling.
The moment I opened my eyes, the very first thing I heard was an unfamiliar woman’s voice.
"Oh my, you’re awake!"
My eyelids felt unreasonably heavy, and my entire body ached with a dull, rigid stiffness. A call button clicked nearby, followed by the faint thud of footsteps hurrying down the hall.
I lay there for a long time, blinking owlishly as the reality of the situation slowly pieced itself together. I was in a hospital. I was the patient. And judging by the woman sitting beside my bed, I had a caregiver.
I didn’t have a single family member or guardian who could afford to hire one for me, so I had no idea what the hell was going on. But that was a problem for later.
Clearing my hoarse throat, I winced at the dryness. Looking around, the caregiver wasn’t the only anomaly. Massive fruit baskets and extravagant floral arrangements filled the space. The room, a plush VIP suite by the looks of it, screamed wealth.
Staring at the sheer luxury of it all, I drew a complete blank on what had happened after I blacked out. My last memory was crystal clear: the blinding glare of headlights barreling toward me at terrifying speed. I was absolutely certain I was going to die. In that split second, my entire life had flashed before my eyes. The memory was so visceral I could still feel the phantom pain radiating through my bones.
Ugh, just thinking about it hurts like a bitch.
I hadn’t seen the driver’s face, but whether they were piss-drunk or high out of their mind, they were definitely compromised. No ordinary psycho barrels through a crosswalk on a green light with that kind of violence.
But seriously, what is going on? Was the bastard who hit me a billionaire heir or something? Are they treating me like royalty, hoping to butter me up for a favorable settlement?
Now that I think about it, the blurry shape of the vehicle did look like a sports car. I don’t know much about cars, but it was probably insanely expensive. In that case, I just need to play coy and negotiate a massive payout.
I was right in the middle of these pathetic, calculating thoughts when the door swung open and a procession of doctors in white coats filed into the room.
"Mr. Lee Kanghyun, you’re awake," the lead doctor said, checking a chart. "Are you feeling a bit more coherent?"
Lee Kanghyun?
"We’ll be taking you down for tests shortly," the doctor continued, oblivious to my shock. "But if you are in pain, please let us know immediately."
As he kept talking, his words faded into a dull buzz. My train of thought had come to a screeching halt at that name: Lee Kanghyun.
"My name is Lee Kanghyun?" I blurted out.
The doctor paused, furrowing his brow. "Are you having trouble remembering?"
Realizing my mistake, I swallowed back the frantic questions burning on my tongue. If I sounded too crazy, they’d wheel me straight into the psychiatric ward instead of radiology. I needed to tread carefully.
"Temporary amnesia can occur as an aftereffect of the trauma," the doctor said smoothly, mistaking my silence for confusion. "We’ll know more once we run a few scans, so try not to worry prematurely. Keeping your stress levels down is our top priority right now."
He went on with his earnest explanation, doing his best to soothe a startled patient, but nothing he said registered. Not that I wanted to dismiss a medical professional’s expert opinion, but no matter how I looked at it, this wasn’t just some simple aftereffect.
I knew exactly who I was. The memories of my life were perfectly intact.
Name: Park Seowoon. Age: Twenty-six. Occupation: Vocal trainer. Hobbies: Listening to music. Skills: Singing.
Current residence: Sillim-dong. It had been about a year since I finally escaped the cramped, closet-sized boarding house I’d been stuck in for years and upgraded to a proper studio apartment. I had no family to speak of, having lived completely on my own since aging out of the orphanage.
On my days off, I was just your average guy. I’d stay up until the early hours binge-watching shows, crash without setting an alarm, and spend half the morning lounging in bed. I’d mindlessly scroll through news articles, occasionally scoffing at the headlines, and get a tiny hit of dopamine from saving cute animal pictures on social media.
Every single detail of my life was distinct and undeniable. Yet here these people were, casually calling me Lee Kanghyun. I couldn’t wrap my head around what the hell was happening.
"Could I get a mirror, please?" I asked the caregiver once the medical team had cleared out.
She readily rummaged through her tote bag and handed me a compact mirror. It was a cute little thing with an ornate, antique pattern around the rim.
Did the Evil Queen in Snow White shake this much when she looked into her magic mirror? Gripping the handle tight, I squeezed my eyes shut and brought the glass right up to my nose. I took a deep, shuddering breath and slowly peeled my eyelids open.
"This is crazy…" Staring back at me was exactly who they said I was. Lee Kanghyun, the main rapper of the wildly popular idol boyband, P.KISS.
The thin double eyelids and the sharp, horizontally elongated shape of his eyes were actually quite similar to my own. But it was a much more obvious change that stole my breath. The long, jagged scar that used to run near my cheekbone was completely gone. In its place was flawless, poreless, unblemished skin.
Unless I had used the accident as an excuse to undergo a massive, miraculous plastic surgery, the burn scar I had lived with for over a decade couldn’t have just vanished into thin air. Instead, my face was adorned with entirely different marks: piercing holes, a sharp slit shaved through the eyebrow, and all sorts of unfamiliar, rebellious stylistic choices scattered across my features.
There was no denying it. This was not my body. I had no earthly idea why my mind was suddenly occupying this flesh, but I had genuinely become Lee Kanghyun.
"Do you really not remember anything, young man?" the caregiver asked, her expression laced with genuine worry.
I offered her an awkward, tight smile in lieu of an answer.
"Oh my, how sad. But you’ll be fine soon enough," she cooed soothingly. "Your mother is on her way, so try not to stress yourself out."
To suddenly gain a mother I never had, all thanks to one traffic accident? Talk about a profitable trade. Harboring those morbidly awkward thoughts, I handed the mirror back. She was clearly a warm-hearted woman, offering a few more comforting platitudes while I nodded along and forced polite smiles. Of course, beneath the calm facade, my mind was an absolute, chaotic mess.
I’m Lee Kanghyun? Then where the hell did the real Lee Kanghyun go? Did his soul get shoved into my original, battered body?
Now that I think about it, I’ve seen a show with this exact premise before. What was the plot again? Something about two people swapping bodies whenever there was thunder and lightning. But I didn’t even get struck by lightning, so what the fuck is this? I’d be more willing to accept this if I were just in a coma, hallucinating a wild dream.
"You look deeply troubled, sweetheart. You’ve gone entirely pale," the caregiver noted softly.
"No, I’m alright," I managed to say. "The doctor said it’s just a temporary aftereffect from the shock. I’m sure I’ll bounce back soon."
I threw out the half-hearted reassurance, but I didn’t believe a word of it. My memories of being Park Seowoon were far too vivid and grounded for this to be some simple delusion. As crazy as it seemed, this was reality. I was seriously fucked.
Or am I? Wait. Maybe I’m not entirely screwed here.
"Do you know if I have my cell phone with me?" I asked, blinking at her innocently.
She stood up with a nod and headed over to the built-in locker on the wall. After rummaging through it for a moment, she retrieved Lee Kanghyun’s phone and handed it over.
This punk is loaded. Why the hell is he using such an outdated model?
The question flickered through my mind, but then again, celebrities often owned multiple devices. Assuming it was just a random burner phone, I held it up. Thanks to the facial recognition feature, the padlock icon clicked open instantly, saving me the hassle of guessing a passcode.
"Wow, okay. So that’s how it is."
His ego wasn’t just big; it was astronomically inflated. Who sets their own selfie as their lock screen?
Shaking my head in mild amusement, I swiped over to his banking app. Unlike me, a guy who had barely survived by desperately scraping together a meager monthly income of less than two thousand dollars, Lee Kanghyun was bound to be absolutely loaded. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to take a little peek.
The number staring back at me, however, was far more staggering than I could have ever anticipated.
[Available Balance: 357,864 USD]
Holy shit… Three hundred and fifty-seven thousand dollars?
To have well over a quarter of a million dollars just sitting there in liquid cash… For Park Seowoon to earn this kind of money, I’d have to let myself get hit by a sports car at least twenty times over. Turns out, I wasn’t fucked, I was fucking wealthy.
Sure, this is probably his primary checking account, which explains the high balance, but there’s no way he keeps all his assets in one place. Factoring in stocks, mutual funds, and whatever else he has going on, what the hell is his total net worth? Don’t tell me he owns real estate, too? I still don’t know the mechanics of how I got here, but if my soul really did hijack Lee Kanghyun’s body, I pray to God this arrangement lasts for the rest of my life…
I was just barely getting my wildly racing heart under control, mindlessly stroking the edge of the phone screen, when something bizarre caught my eye.
"What the…" Overcome with a sudden wave of disbelief, I scrambled for the remote and flicked on the wall-mounted TV. As if on cue, a news broadcast flashed onto the screen.
"President Kim Jaeyeol repeatedly emphasized the importance of harmony between North and South Korea, and stated that through this upcoming summit…"
No way. That man is the former president. His term ended years ago.
"Moving on to our next story. With less than a month remaining until the enforcement of the new anti-graft law, some critics are…"
This is old news, too… This happened ages ago.
The pieces belatedly clicked into place. I had wondered why a filthy rich idol like Lee Kanghyun would bother using such an outdated smartphone, but the answer was terrifyingly simple. To him, this was the newest model.
The banking app wasn’t glitching and displaying the wrong transaction years. The broadcasting station hadn’t suffered a synchronized meltdown to air back-to-back news segments from the past. The anomaly was me.
Which meant, as completely and utterly absurd as it was…
"Excuse me," I said, looking up at the caregiver. "Do you happen to know how old I am?"
"Hmm? I believe I heard you were twenty or twenty-one? Something like that, but I can’t recall exactly."
Transmigrating into another man’s body apparently hadn’t been enough for whatever cosmic force was pulling the strings. I had also regressed into the past. By a whopping five years, no less.
I was well aware that tropes like regression and body-swapping were insanely popular lately. They dominated web novels and were constantly being adapted into high-budget K-dramas. It was impossible to avoid them even if you tried. But those were just fun, fictional fantasies you consumed and forgot about. Who in their right mind would ever imagine something like that happening in real life?
Sure, I wasn’t entirely immune to the appeal. I had daydreamed about going back in time to fix my mistakes and start over, just like anyone else. But even so, this was way too sudden. To return to the past inside someone else’s body instead of my own was beyond absurd.
I’m just another guy. I’m not some chosen hero destined to save the world, nor do I have a tragic, grandiose backstory moving enough to bring the gods to tears. I’ve never been anything close to a main character. I’ve lived my entire existence firmly planted in the background as a supporting extra. I am absolutely not the type of person to become the epicenter of a supernatural phenomenon.
Hell, I was just starting to accept my harsh reality and make peace with it. Why the hell was I, of all people, given this miracle? Out of the billions of people on this planet, why me? Wait… is this even a miracle to begin with? Maybe this really is just one massive, elaborate delusion, and my brain is simply misfiring as I bleed out on the pavement.
