A9 1

“Suho-ya.”

A voice, tinged with the scent of unripe fruit, brushed against his ear. Despite the timid yet brave boy calling out to him, Suho didn’t even glance his way and, as always, kept his gaze fixed out the window.

“Suho-ya, you said you had something to say. Why won’t you look at me?”

The boy, discouraged by the continued indifference, shrank back. Even when he whimpered like a puppy caught in the rain, or moved closer toward the window where Suho was staring out, nothing he did managed to catch his attention. That cold indifference made the boy faintly but surely sense that this was the end. After all, the rumors weren’t quiet. It was said that the seat beside Im Suho changed every three months.

Unfortunately, today marked the end of that three-month deadline.

“…Im Suho.”

“Let’s stop.”

“……”

“Let’s just end this.”

To be honest, neither of them was sincere.

When Suho finally spoke after a long silence, there wasn’t a trace of yesterday’s tenderness in his voice. The boy fell silent at his firm tone.

Not sincere… Right. Truthfully, he hadn’t been either, at least not in the beginning. He was curious about Suho, who was always surrounded by new guys despite the persistent rumors. And yes, with his pretty face, Suho seemed like the perfect accessory to show off.

As expected, Suho didn’t stop anyone from coming to him. Nor did he stop anyone from leaving.

“I don’t think there’s anything more to say. I’ll get going first.”

With that, Suho stood from his seat by the window. His face was so calm and expressionless, it was hard to believe he had just ended a relationship. Watching him walk away, the boy clenched his lips shut.

It had been only three months, short but sincere in the end. What began as a game ended with him dancing to Im Suho’s tune instead. Even knowing Suho had a fiancé, he’d been intoxicated by the strange thrill of doing something forbidden. And now, those three months were coming to a sordid end.

* * *

With an indifferent expression, Suho left the classroom and headed, as always, to his place of escape. At the far end of the fourth floor’s right-hand hallway was the library. On the fifth shelf of the literature section sat a book he never missed a day of reading. To avoid others getting their hands on it, he always kept it tucked between two thick hardcovers. It was a book meant only for him, so there was nothing strange about his behavior.

“If anything’s strange, it’s definitely the author.”

Muttering softly as he stared at the book that awaited him again today, Suho let out a faint sigh. After locking eyes with it for a moment, as if in a staring contest, he lifted an eyebrow like someone admitting defeat and bent down to pull the book out.

The black cover and golden letters gleamed just as brilliantly as always.

<AROUND9>

The title was both familiar and unsettling; it was the work his older sister had adored with obsession, and the very BL web novel Suho himself had transmigrated into.

“AROUND9” was a pillar of the female-oriented genre market in Korea. It had been translated overseas, adapted into an audio drama and a webtoon, and was even confirmed for a drama adaptation on an OTT platform. But the way Suho—no, Park Geonwoo—had come to know of this massively successful BL was far from pleasant.

His sister, the hopeless “ugly cabbage¹It’s a teasing or mocking nickname, often used playfully to call someone plain, awkward, or unattractive.” Park Juyeon, had filled her room to the brim with “AROUND9” merchandise and collectibles. Worse still, she was the main reason he’d been forced to witness men getting intimate even in the shared family living room.

That deranged, ugly cabbage went so far as to buy three full sets of the printed volumes. Whenever she found a chance, she’d shove one in his face and say,

“Why do you look nothing like this? You’ve got the same number of eyes, nose, and mouth, but still…”

She would often burst into laughter as she hurled such outrageous comments. Enduring it once or twice was manageable, but the torment went on for two whole years. Even in the year he became a college entrance exam student, Park Geonwoo had to put up with endless complaints and comparisons to characters in the novel.

In the end, the night before the Suneung²South Korea’s Suneung Test, also known as the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT), is regarded as one of the extremely challenging and important college entrance exam held annually to determine university admissions., the stress exploded. Park Geonwoo couldn’t take it anymore. He resolved to finally carry out the revenge he had only imagined for so long. First, he stormed into the room of the ugly cabbage. Then, he forcefully opened the “AROUND9” volumes that she never even dared to spread flat for fear of creasing the covers. If there was even the slightest depiction of an R-rated sex scene, he ripped the pages out without hesitation. As a final touch, he carefully drew horns and pig noses on every single illustration of those oh-so-beautiful faces. And with that, he achieved a satisfying revenge.

That night, he had the best sleep of his life. He eagerly awaited morning, fully convinced that a full night’s rest would lead him to a perfect score on the Suneung.

But life always has a way of throwing misfortune at you right after something good. That day, Geonwoo never woke up from his dream. He had somehow ended up inside that damn “AROUND9.”

At first, he simply thought, This dream is going on for too long. But as time passed, the sense of disconnect, the pain, the emotions, and his instincts all made one thing painfully clear: You’ve become Im Suho in AROUND9.

“Haah…”

Remembering those past events after so long made his brow furrow. Suho flipped to the last page of the book and stared at the illustration of his own face.

“…Of all people, why did it have to be Im Suho? Just my damn luck.”

It was only natural that he felt that way. Im Suho was the sub-bottom in AROUND9, a tragic character whose lover was stolen by the main bottom. And it wasn’t as simple as just being cast aside. He was humiliated all the way up to the eve of his wedding by the main top, who was also his fiancé, only to be dumped in the end and fall into utter ruin. Even among readers, he was often called pitiful, a character who was used and discarded in the most miserable way.

Feeling pity for the original owner of the body, “Suho,” his gaze slowly traced over the faces of the main characters and the web of relationships illustrated on the page.

“Not even royal genealogy is this messed up. What are we supposed to do with a relationship chart like this?”

With so many characters in the story, the connections between them were so complicated that it was hard to grasp at a glance.

Notably, there was Im Suho, the only dominant Omega in the prestigious medical foundation Dayul; his fiancé and the main top, Kang Minhyuk, an extreme-dominant Alpha; and the main bottom, Lee Jaeyoung, who was the primary target of Im Suho’s notorious cruelty. There were also many other supporting tops who appeared throughout the story.

Among all those characters, not one person genuinely cared for Suho. Not even his own family, save for his older brother. Maybe that was why the original Suho had been obsessed with relationships. He longed for something stable, something that could anchor his identity. That was why he clung to the engagement, something so inherently dependent and precarious.

Because of this, the days Park Geonwoo spent inside “AROUND9” were filled with confusion. The cold family, the friends, the people around him, and then his own role as a supposed villain. Just stepping into this world had made everything feel foreign. Nothing went the way he wanted, and every day felt like a reminder that he was an outsider.

The longer he sank into this endless gloom, the more his thoughts began to multiply. Can the Im Suho I’m living as still be defined as a villain like before? If so, must I live out this story the way the original villain did?

No matter how much he thought it over, even after months had passed, he couldn’t find a clear answer.

But one thing he could be sure of was this.

‘Park Geonwoo’s Im Suho is different.’

But that didn’t mean he intended to become some kind of superhero and change the world. It was simply a modest goal, at the very least to avoid a miserable ending. When you really thought about it, the main characters weren’t the entirety of the world. Their love would inevitably come true, as dictated by the original plot. So all he needed to do was not interfere, and when the inevitable breakup proposal came, he would gladly accept it.

Wasn’t it simple? Just step back and wait for the right moment. Besides, his personality wasn’t that of a perfect villain, nor was he some saintly good guy. In that sense, he wasn’t all that different from the original Im Suho.

With that resolution, unlike the original Suho, Geonwoo began treating Kang Minhyuk with even less regard than a passing dog. His gaze was cold, and he made every effort to avoid even brushing against him. Furthermore, he blatantly met anyone regardless of male or female, Alpha or Omega, and changed partners every three months without fail as if to eliminate all suspicion.

The relationships were excessively casual, but they were only a pretext to distance himself from the two main characters. He had no regrets. Even when he felt like he couldn’t escape the shadow of the original story and grew dangerously close to collapsing, his ability to quickly and cleverly adjust was one of Geonwoo’s strengths.

And so, today, just days before the Suneung, he had broken up with his last boyfriend.

Whenever Suho ended a relationship, he would spend the whole day holed up in the school library. Strangely enough, he could focus best on days like this. As if giving him permission to take it easy after three months of dealing with people, the world seemed to tell him to just review “AROUND9” in peace.

As if replying to that, Suho gave a small nod to himself, then carefully checked through the upcoming storyline once more. At the end, he folded the page slightly to mark his place with a personal sign.

Just then, the school bell rang at the perfect time.

“Should I head back to class?”

Suho quietly tucked the book between the thick hardcovers. As he straightened his bent posture and turned to leave—

Tap.

Something landed on his shoulder.

Immediately after, a scent brushed past his nose. It was a scent he’d definitely smelled somewhere before, and it made his whole body freeze. Even without anyone telling him, he instinctively knew he should not turn his head right now.

And sure enough.

“What are you doing here?”

That deep, low voice he’d tried so desperately to avoid grazed his ear. Even if he didn’t want to remember, the owner of that voice vividly appeared in his mind.

A figure taller than him by at least a cheek’s length, despite Suho being on the taller side himself. Hair and eyes so dark they looked deliberately dyed black. Sharp, intense eyes and skin so pale and clear it almost looked translucent.

With his aesthetic looks and aura that perfectly suited his title as the only son of Korea’s top luxury hotel group, “Goun”, he was someone whose presence said it all with the words—

The main top of “AROUND9.”

“Im Suho.”

Though he had tried so hard to avoid him,  perhaps he had let his guard down on this final breakup before the exam. At the sound of that low voice calling him again, Suho let out a deep sigh and slowly turned his head.

And the face that filled his entire field of vision—

“I asked, ‘What are you doing here?’”

Was, regrettably, Kang Minhyuk.

• 1
  It’s a teasing or mocking nickname, often used playfully to call someone plain, awkward, or unattractive.
• 2
  South Korea’s Suneung Test, also known as the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT), is regarded as one of the extremely challenging and important college entrance exam held annually to determine university admissions.