Wind brushed past an open window, making the banner on the wall flutter.
It wasn't the street outside the convenience store anymore. He wasn't standing at the crosswalk, either. This was a room made of stone walls and polished wooden floors.
Seojin's vision was blurry.
"H-huh? Where… am I?" he blinked. "Am I… hallucinating from hunger?"
But after he blinked, the scene reverted back outside the convenience store.
Across the road, his phone lay below a fire hydrant. It still looked normal as if it didn't explode a second ago. In fact, he could see from that distance that the screen was totally fine even after getting flung with this distance.
Hesitant, he looked around first. After confirming that this was reality, he walked forward to cross the road.
"Did I… perhaps, doze off?" he muttered. "But that room… it felt too real to simply be a hallucination."
He took another cautious step, then bumped into something. He stumbled and fell onto the road, blinking rapidly.
"O-Ouch! Hey, watch your… st-step—?"
As much as he wanted to complain about a person not looking their way and bumping into him, he trailed off. His words caught in his throat.
The street had once again vanished, and he was back in that room.
The one who had bumped into him or maybe he was the one who bumped into her, was a woman. She was beautiful and cute at the same time. Breathtaking even: brown twin ponytails, and a pair of soft eyes that could be mistaken to be that of the highest quality of emeralds.
"Ah. Young Lord," she said, bowing slightly with her hand outstretched. "You didn't answer my knocking, so I thought I'd come in. Please take my hand."
He didn't respond. He scrambled his mind to process everything.
"Umm… Young Lord?" the maid sounded genuinely worried.
He could only stare.
She was around his age, wearing a black-and-white maid outfit, along with her expression genuinely concerned. She was even calling him 'Young Lord'.
"You're sweating a lot, Young Lord," she said, gently taking his hand to help him up. "Are you alright? Did the fall hurt your arms? By any chance, are you unwell?"
"Don't touch me!"
Jerking his hand away from her touch, he crawled backward with wide eyes.
"Who… who are you?! What do you want?!"
"Young Lord…?"
Her face shifted. The concern melted into solemnity with a quiet sadness in her eyes.
"My apologies, Young Lord," she said, bowing slightly. "I know my presence may trouble you, but I only intended to help. If I've caused offense, I didn't mean it."
Carefully, she lifted the tray she had set down, placing the cup and plate neatly on the desk.
"I will take my leave," she said, bowing again. "Please call for me if you require anything. I hope I have not inconvenienced you."
The door shut tight.
Seojin remained on the floor, frozen, like a fish dropped into a new aquarium.
Of course, he was completely baffled.
"Don't joke with me… what the hell is going on?!" he muttered, pacing a few steps as his mind raced. "I'm standing on the street, my phone exploded, or maybe it didn't, and now… where the hell am I?!"
He rubbed his temples, trying to make sense of the impossible. The last thing he remembered was bumping into something as he crossed the pedestrian, reaching for his phone.
"Was it the legendary Truck-kun?" he shook his head. "No way. Trucks don't cross those damn pedestrians."
His eyes scanned the room frantically.
The stone walls, the wooden floors, the banner fluttering by the bed, it all felt familiar. It felt like he had read about what they looked like before over and over, in… the novel he'd obsessed over for seven years!
"No way!"
He stumbled toward a mirror, half expecting to see a stranger's reflection.
"Huh… I'm still me?"
His reflection stared back, unchanged. He had the same appearance from head to toe.
"Transmigration?!" he blurted, blinking rapidly. "No way. No way. I mean… what are the odds of that?"
He rushed for the window, throwing the fluttering curtains aside.
Outside, mountains stacked one after another, dusted with falling snowflakes. Winter had arrived, even though just this morning it had been scorching hot.
"Impossible," he muttered under his breath, a shaky laugh escaping. "This… this can't be real. Can it?"
But deep down, he knew. There was no denying it.
Still, he needed confirmation. There was no way this kind of thing just happened. He couldn't have been randomly dropped into another world without reason. He had to know where he was… and who he had become.
He took in the vast yard below, neatly contained by tall stone walls, supporting the ideology that this character belonged to the bloodline of someone wealthy.
"A noble… at least," he muttered, closing his eyes for a brief moment.
His gaze wandered around the room again until it landed on a single banner fluttering above the head of the bed. Blue and white. A sword strangled by a snake beneath a crown. It was the typical symbol of a noble family.
But the embroidered name beneath the crown made him want to throw up.
"House Hart…?" he whispered.
One of the seven great families of the continent from the novel he had been reading for seven years whose chapters he had splurged his weekly allowance on.
Truth is, it was also the first family to fall into ruins midway the story.
"This is bad—"
Before he could finish, [pain shot through his temples as memories flooded in. The memories of the character whose life he had seemingly taken over.
In pain, he made his way to the bed and sank onto the soft mattress. He clutched the wooden frame and closed his eyes.
After a free seconds, he finally opened his eyes. He didn't say a single word, indicating he had fallen into deep thought. Only when he placed one foot over the other, he started tapping the corner of the wooden frame of the bed with his finger.
It was the only sound in the silent room.
"Seven Hart…" he whispered. "The seventh child of House Hart."
The tapping sound halted, and he looked down at his frail hands.
This character was terminally ill! A sickly, fragile, and barely mentioned seven times in the story.
He looked upon the ceiling, tracing the circling pattern like a hypnotic device with his dark blue eyes in which he hadn't noticed, as it looked kind of black in the mirror earlier. Aside from the eye color, everything about him was still the features of Seojin from Earth.
"Argh, damn it!" he screamed, throwing his head back. "Of all characters… why him?!!!"