Life throws all sorts of things at you.
Getting hit by a car and dying on your first day as a newly appointed teacher, for instance. Or opening your eyes right after dying to find yourself inside the world of a teen school romance manhwa you'd read to try to understand students a little better.
One look at the high school name, "Seowol," and this uniquely designed uniform, and there was really no way not to recognize it. A sky-blue checkered tie, garments in a bold, colorful palette, that artistic flair that only ever showed up in manhwa. That kind of uniform.
Well, of course. I was reading that manhwa up until literally yesterday.
The problem was, out of a 150-chapter completed run, I'd only made it to chapter 35. After that, I'd gotten sleepy and started skimming, flipping through in a rush, mostly just glancing at the art. Thinking things like, wow, the artist really draws well.
If I'd known this would happen, I would've stayed up all night to finish all 150 chapters.
But who could've guessed? That I'd die that day, just like that.
Anyway, this body's owner was named Seo Chaheun.
After settling into this body, the memories had started flowing in. Who he was, where he'd been, what he'd done… that sort of thing. It didn't all come pouring in at once, more like fragments surfacing here and there.
...Same name as mine. Minus the surname.
The body's owner, "Seo" Chaheun, was apparently a third-year high school student, and today, the very first day of the new semester, he'd just transferred into this manhwa's school.
But more pressing than any of that were the faint memories bubbling up about something called a "trait."
This body's exterior is male, but... it's similar to a female's. Meaning I've got female reproductive functions, plus I emit pheromones, and I'm technically a man?
Even after the memories surfaced, he couldn't process it, and stayed frozen like a broken robot for a while. It took about fifteen mental replays before he finally understood.
So. The conventional male/female split was more like a "custom skin," and there was a separate sex system, alpha and omega, determined by internal organs and pheromones. Betas seemed to correspond to the regular men and women from his original world.
Hmm. ...So if I break it down simply, I've become a woman? Just with a male custom. And I emit these things called pheromones, which are basically like perfume that seduces men?
After a lot of thinking, Chaheun accepted his conclusion.
Yep. Starting today, I'm gay in this world.
Beta women, omega women, welcome. Here stands a male-form omega whose looks are, at the very least, absolutely killer. End of story.
He hadn't been planning to date in someone else's body to begin with, but if he had to categorize himself, he figured he'd go with being a man attracted to people whose exterior differed from his own gender, and whose internal organs matched his own.
Chaheun wrapped up his thoughts there, checked the date on his phone, and got ready for school.
Today was Seo Chaheun's first day at his new high school. Possession or not, what mattered was that this body was a student, so it had to go.
...Ah, what do I do.
It was awkward beyond words. The memories bubbling up on their own was fine, but the next unavoidable batch came rolling in right after.
So... Seo Chaheun was born female, but as a woman without any organs capable of pregnancy. Is that how I should think about it?
He'd just packed his bag and was standing at his bedroom door when this revived memory tripped him up all over again. After mulling it over, Chaheun shook his head.
No, wait. The trait was Beta from the start. Not just the custom, the sex is male too.
If he was a Beta, he was supposed to be identical to a man from his original world, but the problem was he'd been born between an Alpha and an Omega, which had produced a secondary pheromone-secreting organ inside his body. And that organ produced Omega pheromones, not Alpha ones.
So from the perspective of Alphas and Omegas or other trait-holders, he read as an Omega, but on strict physical criteria, he was a Beta man.
...Ah, so that's why he's called a "half-baked" Beta.
Inside Chaheun's memories, he could hear a voice, family or acquaintance, he couldn't tell, calling him a "half-baked Beta bastard." Probably Chaheun's older brother.
...You've had it rough too, huh, kid. And you're still underage.
Seo Chaheun wasn't a character who appeared in the portion he'd read, so he was probably an Extra No. 40 in the manhwa. But in this life, he'd definitely be the protagonist, so Chaheun set himself a goal right there.
First, let's summon Seo Chaheun back here. Do I need to buy a book on necromancy?
He'd caught the word "necromancy" on the spines while sorting through Seo Chaheun's things earlier. Thinking that absurd thought, he stepped fully out of the room.
Thud-
"Ah, fuck!"
"..."
Lost in thought while walking, he'd bumped into someone. The other party spat out a rough curse and started glaring at Chaheun with ominous eyes.
"Ah, you dumbass Beta bastard, is your fucking eyesight cut in half too?"
Startled by the almost feral profanity, he blankly focused on what was in front of him: a sleek, well-groomed man in casual clothes. A slightly rough-edged handsome guy. ...From the vague sense of familiarity, this was probably Chaheun's older brother.
"Yah, I told you to keep your eyes down when you walk."
...What's the request, exactly? Keep my eyes down, or actually look?
...Crazy kid, absolutely crazy...
Chaheun gave him a single glance, muttered an apology, and decided to head straight to school. As the saying went, one shouldn't even engage in conversation with a lunatic.
More importantly, this house is ridiculously fancy.
Looking around, it was the textbook image of what people called a rich person's house. Chaheun's room was on the first floor, but there was a staircase leading up to the second floor in the center, and even the first floor itself was so subdivided that it felt enormous.
"Seo Chaheun."
He'd been momentarily lost in his surroundings, and at the sound of someone calling, he turned around to see a middle-aged man in a suit standing near the front door, watching him. He looked like the kind of man who would have been very popular in his youth.
"A-ah, F-father..."
The man, who stood over 180 centimeters with a solid, no-nonsense build, gave off a distinctly intellectual air. His pitch-black eyes examined Seo Chaheun.
"How's your body feeling?"
...How's my body feeling?
Was this like… a morning greeting?
"I'm... fine."
"Good. Let's go down. I'll drive you to school."
He'd been thrown by it, and being that this was a first meeting, was about to naturally decline, but he figured that if the body owner had been riding along until now, refusing would come across as stranger. Chaheun obediently answered and followed the man.
Ah, but since my real name is Chaheun too, this is a bit disorienting.
Not exactly a common name, and the overlap was throwing him off.
...Alright, from now on I'll stick a surname on and call him Seo Chaheun. Seo Chaheun. Nice. Seo Chaheun.
What was he even doing, alone.
Maybe it was just because the class he'd have been assigned to teach right after being appointed was high schoolers. He couldn't help feeling a bit invested.
Well, whatever. As Day 1 of the "Return Seo Chaheun's Soul" mission, Chaheun planned to do his best with school life until Seo Chaheun came back.
Not knowing this was the start of hell.
The plan to have a great school life had run into trouble from the very start. In this world, a dominant Omega was clearly the equivalent of a female idol.
Digging through his memories, Seo Chaheun was a Beta, but the pheromones his secretory organ pumped out were, of all things, those of a dominant Omega. There were scattered memories of unusual flirtation attempts back in middle school for exactly this reason.
Of all things, the pheromones from Seo Chaheun's body had to be dominant.
From what he could tell, the pheromone system was set up so that stronger pheromones were more seductive to the opposite sex. Roughly, it was probably similar to how more attractive people were popular with the opposite sex, only through scent.
...I just transferred in? And it's only been ten days since the semester started.
...And.
And the number of times I've been flirted with by men is already five.
When he'd first arrived at the school, nothing much had happened. It felt a bit off, showing up as a student instead of a teacher, but the classmates seemed kind, and adjusting to school didn't seem like it'd be too hard. Then those species called Alphas started showing interest, and everything went off the rails.
The confessions on nearly every other day were a problem in themselves, but the Beta kids apparently found the Alphas around him uncomfortable, and started avoiding Chaheun as those Alphas kept swarming.
...I'm losing my mind.
To make matters worse, the bigger problem was that Chaheun didn't even like men. Alphas were the ones who could smell his pheromones, and Alphas of both external genders apparently had externally protruding genitalia.
In other words, whether the exterior's male or female, they're both men with 'that' attached.
Cut and dry, from Chaheun's perspective, even female Alphas were men wearing a female custom skin.
There was a reason he'd gotten instinctive revulsion and full-body chills when a pretty-looking girl had asked if he'd be willing to date her. Of course, he had no intention of dating a minor either way, but the definite result had been actual goosebumps rising on his skin.
Anyway, aside from that, Chaheun had started adapting to this world without any big issues. Aside from being treated like the invisible man at home, that is.
Though honestly, being treated like the invisible man made sense.
He'd remembered later, but originally Seo Chaheun had lived with his biological mother, and after she died, he'd followed the man called Seo Chaeil, "father," to this house, where he'd been living for a good while now. But a year ago he'd apparently dropped out of school for some reason and was only just now returning.
Even so, the father, Seo Chaeil, tried to look out for him, though even that felt awkward.
At the end of the day, this man had a proper family already, and was the perpetrator who'd had an affair and produced Seo Chaheun.
...In any case, in that house I'm not just cold rice, I'm literally the rock you kick when it's in the way. And I get why that flashy guy hates me.
Seo Chaheun really did have a lot going on.
Well, whatever. His original body was either dead or in a coma, one of the two, so he'd tried to give this body back to Seo Chaheun and get himself out somehow.
Even if Chaheun himself was dead, this body wasn't his, so he had to return it to the student.
First I need to meet the kid... Ah, where the hell did he even go.
He'd even bought a book on necromancy at night and tried summoning him because of that, but it did absolutely nothing. He honestly wanted to sue every author who'd written those books for fraud.
Seo Chaheun's precious 100,000 won, wasted. Sorry, kid, I'll pay you back if I can.
...For a high schooler, 100,000 won had to be blood money. His heart was heavy.
But an even bigger problem had arrived, starting from when the world's second male lead showed up. Day 33 in this world, Chaheun met an unexpected obstacle.
"Ah! Please, what's your deal?!"
"Hyuung, go out with me, come on? I'll be really good to you."
Chaheun was desperately trying to shove off the large-framed guy clinging to him. Up until now, when he'd rejected the Alphas, that was it, but this one was on a completely different level of persistence.
Baek Yugyeong, Second Male Lead No. 1 of this high-teen romance world. For the record, this guy definitely didn't play a great role. Chaheun had only read up to chapter 35, but Baek Yugyeong was the one who bullied a friend and ended up on bad terms with the female lead, and even after that, his cold face would keep him at odds with her.
