Chapter 1: Reincarnation
Before the mirror stood a version of me that was not me.
Brown-dyed hair, multiple piercings in the ears, sharp eyes, a stern face. He was tall and muscular.
As I pinched my cheek in front of the bathroom mirror, where the morning sun streamed in, I pondered.
Who on earth was this guy?
With the throbbing pain spreading across my cheek, memories of yesterday came flooding back.
Thanks to continuous overtime and several months of working on holidays, I remember collapsing right after returning to my apartment and falling asleep on the spot at the entrance.
And when I woke up, I was lying on the bed. Unconsciously, I had come to this bathroom to wash my face and realized that I was not myself.
I had become someone else. Looking around carefully, I noticed I had no idea where this place was. It was not the messy apartment where I lived alone, but a large, well-maintained house, seemingly shared with others.
In my confused state, I looked at my hands.
It was immediately clear that these large, rugged hands were not mine. There were several old scars on the knuckles, as if they had been in fights, and a flashy silver skull ring was on one of the fingers.
“What the hell is going on...?”
A completely unfamiliar voice escaped from my mouth. It was a voice I had never heard before, yet it was undeniably mine.
As I wondered what to do, I heard footsteps coming from the hallway. In a panic, I thought about hiding, but... there was no space in this bathroom to conceal my large body, so I just stood there.
The person who appeared when the door opened looked familiar. Although I shouldn’t have known her, for some reason I understood that this person was my sister. I had no logical explanation for it.
“Huh? My brother awake at this hour? At 7 AM? No way?”
The person who seemed to be my sister appeared surprised to see me.
For someone who was always catching the first train to work, waking up at 7 AM was quite late, but for this unknown version of me, it seemed to be unusually early. What kind of life was this unknown me leading?
“Are you planning to go to school today? Your attendance is becoming an issue, right?”
“Uh? Oh...”
“Anyway, I need to get ready for the morning too, so move aside. I can’t do my makeup.”
Saying this, the person who seemed to be my sister pushed me aside and stood in front of the mirror, starting her makeup with the cosmetics she took out from a pouch.
I looked pretty delinquent myself, but my sister had a rather gal-like appearance too. Although she didn’t have piercings, her hair was dyed brown like mine, and her makeup skills enhanced her gal look.
Watching her from the side, the fog clouding my mind slowly began to clear.
Something started explaining the current situation to me, speaking abstractly and conceptually rather than in words, but I could understand it seeping into my mind.
According to this mysterious explanation, this was undoubtedly what they call “reincarnation.”
It's the thing where a person who has died is reborn in another world and rises to prominence in that world.
The explanation continued in my mind, stating that this world was a so-called "romantic comedy world."
It was still unclear which manga, novel, game, or anime this world was based on, but in any case, I had reincarnated into a vibrant romantic story world where young men and women experience bittersweet youth.
Having been deeply into manga, novels, games, and anime during my high school and university years, and still considering myself a devoted otaku, I was well-versed in isekai reincarnation and knew what a rom-com world was like.
I never dreamed I would actually reincarnate into another world, but here I was, as someone else, so I had no choice but to believe it. Otherwise, there was no way to explain the current situation.
However, as far as I could recall, I had no memory of dying.
Could it be... that I thought I fell asleep at the entrance, but it was actually death from overwork, and I—
“Hey, bro, I’m done getting ready. You can use the bathroom now. Brush your teeth, wash your face, and get ready. It’s been a while since you went to school, so make sure you’re prepared.”
“Oh. Okay…”
After my sister left, I faced the mirror to check my current state.
If the explanation that echoed in my head was true, and I had indeed died from overwork and reincarnated, then I had been given a chance to restart my life.
My youth was a dull grey, without friends. Even after getting into a university after all that studying, nothing changed. I worked at that company until I died from overwork. I never had a girlfriend.
In a rom-com world, the protagonist is typically surrounded by cute childhood friends, is on good terms with the student council president, and sits next to a beautiful girl in class, being popular with the heroines. Now that I recognized this as a rom-com world, it was only natural to expect such a vibrant youth.
But, but—
“No matter how you look at it, I’m clearly the ‘delinquent villain character’ in a rom-com…”
—It seems my second life won’t be going so smoothly either.
