Yes, It’s Me. The Obsessive Side Top

#002

Muttering curses under my breath, I walked past the front entrance of the lecture hall and slipped in through the familiar back door. A few people turned to look at me, and then they dramatically nudged the arms and backs of those who hadn’t noticed yet, forcing them to turn around too. Within ten seconds of entering, I had everyone’s attention, as if I were the professor.

Because of all this unwanted attention, I couldn’t even use the front door anymore and had to sneak in through the back—but these people didn’t appreciate the trouble I went through.

Among the quiet whispers, hearing the name “Ha Jin” felt like a stab to the heart.

‘Ugh… should I sue the author?’

As Min Woo had pointed out, since the webtoon was set at our school, the character Ha Jin had to be modeled after me. Why couldn’t they have based the other characters on our classmates too? Then the attention would be spread around, focusing on the main characters instead. But no—unfortunately, I was the only one who matched a character’s face exactly.

While seriously contemplating my lawsuit options and setting my bag down on the desk, I suddenly felt something wrap around my torso. Startled, I glanced down to see an arm in a black suit jacket.

‘Huh?’ Before I could process what was happening, I was pulled backward. Even though the lecture hall had tiered seating and this shouldn’t have been possible, I looked back.

‘Secretary Kim?’

The previously bright lecture hall had somehow turned dim. Secretary Kim, with his neatly styled hair and a work-worn expression, met my eyes. His gaze was empty, devoid of any emotion, as he opened his mouth.

“That’s enough. If you continue, you’ll kill them.”

What? Stop what?

Secretary Kim nodded toward the front. I turned my head in the direction he indicated and saw a long table covered in shattered glass, with someone lying unconscious in the middle. Surrounding the table were several people dressed in expensive clothes, all with strikingly handsome faces, trembling in fear.

“What should we do…”  

“That crazy bastard, why did he have to mess with Ha Jin…”  

“What if he’s dead?”  

I heard their anxious whispers. As I glanced toward the murmuring group, I made eye contact with someone who looked wealthy but mean-spirited. When our eyes met, he quickly looked away, fear evident in his expression. That was strange—I’d never been told I had an intimidating look.

Turning back to the collapsed figure, I tried to force my brain to process this bewildering situation. 

What is this? I was just in the lecture hall.

How had it come to this: someone unconscious in a shadowy room, people around them cowering in fear, and me being held back by Secretary Kim?

No, wait, that’s not even the important part—how do I know the person holding me is Secretary Kim?

Well, that’s because I paid to read the webtoon The Lives of the Golden Spoons. And Secretary Kim in the webtoon looks exactly like this.

‘Huh? Something is seriously wrong here.’

***

I never imagined I’d end up reading a BL webtoon. What drew me, someone who didn’t even read webtoons, to a BL series was none other than Ha Jin. It’s embarrassing to admit, but I’ve been complimented on my looks since childhood. However, after finishing my military service, those compliments changed to, “Wow, you look just like Ha Jin.”

So who was Ha Jin? Completely clueless about the trend, I had no idea why everyone was obsessed with this name. Since he rarely appeared in mainstream media, I initially assumed Ha Jin was some minor celebrity. But who would have guessed he was a webtoon character? And not just any character, but one in an R-rated BL webtoon!

As time went on, my surroundings became increasingly dominated by the name Ha Jin, to the point where people called me Ha Jin more than my actual name. Eventually, my curiosity got the better of me. So I typed the name into a search bar.

[Ha Jin]

The related search terms popped up:  

[Ha Jin bastard] [Ha Jin wealth] [Ha Jin body]—seeing these made me want to call him a crazy bastard myself. Thinking he must be a real piece of work, I clicked to see his picture. Or more precisely, his illustration.

“That’s me?”

Staring at the illustration of Ha Jin, I ended up saying the same thing everyone else did. I’d assumed there was no way we could look that similar, but Ha Jin was drawn as if the artist had traced me directly. If there was a character in a webtoon who looked exactly like me, I had to check it out.

Despite hesitating over the title, The Lives of the Golden Spoons, and the R-rating, my curiosity got the better of me, and I quickly flipped through the pages. The more I read, the more my jaw dropped, and I couldn’t help blurting out, “Oh, fuck.” Ha Jin was way more of a bastard than I had imagined.

The R-rating? It was all because of Ha Jin. He was the ultimate villain, tormenting the main character, Sun Woo Choi, who initially looked down on him. But after making Sun Woo’s life hell, Ha Jin went completely crazy, pushing him around in every conceivable way—only to find himself getting pushed around later in the story.

Despite being a thoroughly messed-up character, Ha Jin had moments of twisted satisfaction that made the story compelling. You know how it is: when the crazy guy is on your side, it feels oddly reassuring.

Ha Jin was the type who couldn’t stand seeing others bully Sun Woo, even though he relentlessly tormented him himself. After saving him from other aggressors, he’d turn right around and harass him even more disgustingly. The author had the audacity to call it love.

‘They sure have an interesting definition of “love.”’

Though the author framed it as a romance, Ha Jin was a character whose violent and erratic behavior defied all logic. It was no wonder he earned the undisputed title of the webtoon world’s biggest bastard. He was infamous enough to make headlines in real-world news.

* * *

Sitting in the back seat of a glossy black luxury car, I tried to wrap my mind around this impossible situation. No matter how I thought about it, none of it made sense. One moment I had been walking into the lecture hall and sitting down, and the next moment, as if someone had suddenly flipped a switch, I had become the webtoon character Ha Jin. Since Ha Jin and I already looked identical, my body hadn’t changed—but everything around me had transformed completely.

No matter how hard I tried to understand what had happened, I couldn’t. But then a thought began creeping in: maybe this wasn’t so bad? Now that I thought about it, aside from being a complete bastard, Ha Jin was perfect in every other way. Just the fact that he was the only son of the Galaxy Group’s CEO—one of Korea’s largest corporations—meant his life was set.

Compared to my life of unwanted attention because of Ha Jin’s name, maybe becoming Ha Jin might be an upgrade. After all, being Ha Jin came with compensation—the compensation of immense wealth.

“You showed good restraint. Both at the meeting and in front of the Chairman,” Secretary Kim’s voice interrupted my thoughts. Sitting in the front passenger seat, he turned his head to examine the wound on my forehead.

“We’ll go to the hospital,” he said firmly.

“No. Let’s go home. It’s just a minor wound,” I replied.

Secretary Kim looked puzzled, checking on me once more through the rearview mirror before instructing the driver to head home without further comment. My polite response must have seemed out of character. If I were the Ha Jin from the webtoon, I probably would have smashed something by now.

As I absent-mindedly watched the cityscape speeding by, we eventually entered a high-end neighborhood lined with imposing houses behind towering walls. The car pulled to a stop in front of one such house, its exterior familiar—the mansion where Ha Jin lived alone after moving out of his family home.

“I’ll be going now,” Secretary Kim said as he stepped out of the car, gave a formal goodbye, and departed.

I checked my pocket and was relieved to find the house key. Staring up at the palace-like mansion I had only ever seen on TV, I couldn’t deny that Ha Jin was indeed living the life of a true chaebol.

Inside, the house looked just as it had in the webtoon. Ha Jin, who chose to live independently while attending university, had a mansion spacious enough to accommodate an extended family, yet he lived here alone. Everything was extravagant, from the high ceilings to the tastefully minimalist decor.

I pulled out Ha Jin’s phone from my pocket again. It was set to silent mode, and the screen was flooded with countless missed calls and messages. True to his character, Ha Jin always kept his phone on silent, only responding when he needed something from others.

“I should sort out the people around me first,” I murmured.

Since Ha Jin was such a bastard, it made sense that everyone around him was either a thug or trash. All the contacts coming through on his phone were people I needed to cut ties with. Without a second thought, I turned off the phone and tossed it into the trash, where it landed with a satisfying thud.

“Ha Jin, you owe me some compensation for the way you’ve messed up my life,” I muttered.

I was determined to experience how a commoner like me would splurge when handed sudden wealth—though that plan would have to wait a month. After all, the webtoon mentioned that Ha Jin’s cards were about to be suspended.

Once my mind settled a bit, the sting on my forehead became hard to ignore. I began searching for a first aid kit, but this massive mansion turned out to be all style and no substance. The countless drawers were either empty or filled with useless decor, like a model home made only for show. In desperation, I even checked the refrigerator—though, of course, there was no first aid kit there. At least the fridge had a reasonable amount of groceries, and none of the ridiculous situations suggested by webtoon commenters, like “Ha Jin’s fridge only has Evian,” seemed to be true.

After searching fruitlessly, I finally gave up and sank into the plush sofa. I should have listened to Secretary Kim and gone to the hospital. Worried the wound might scar if left untreated, I decided to head out. Though my wallet only had cards in it, I figured the cards probably wouldn’t be suspended until tomorrow. Surely I could manage a quick pharmacy visit tonight.

It was late, and finding an open pharmacy proved challenging. Even after leaving the residential area, I walked for quite a while before spotting one brightly lit and still open for business.

“Thank goodness,” I sighed.

The bell above the door chimed as I stepped in. There was already a customer at the counter, so I waited behind them. The pharmacist, busy helping the other customer, glanced at me and asked kindly:

“What are you looking for?”

“I need some ointment and bandages for a wound,” I said.

“Yes, just a moment,” the pharmacist replied.

Since the other customer was waiting for prescription medication, the pharmacist quickly handled my over-the-counter request. A moment later, they handed me the items and said, “That’ll be 6,000 won.”

I quietly handed over my card, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. I turned, and my breath caught in my throat.

“Oh?”

Standing beside me was a face I knew all too well. With striking, almost ethereal features that seemed meticulously crafted by the author, he had an aura that would draw attention anywhere. His light brown eyes, slightly moist and full of emotion, matched the description from the webtoon perfectly. Maybe that was why Ha Jin was always obsessed with the thought of making him cry.

Seeing him in real life was disorienting. He felt different, more real and undeniably captivating. There was a sensual quality to him that I hadn’t fully appreciated in the webtoon. Maybe it was because I had seen his illustrated body in all its glory countless times, or perhaps it was simply because he was the one who drove Ha Jin absolutely mad.

I found myself staring, utterly lost in his face. For a split second, I wondered if this was love at first sight. No, that would be Ha Jin’s feeling. I was just admiring his beauty, purely and simply.

‘Handsome yet pretty,’ I thought, taking in the flawless features that seemed to blur the line between delicate and strong.

As I stared, his expression subtly twisted with discomfort. He must have recognized me. He turned his head away, clearly wanting to avoid my gaze, while I continued looking at him, intrigued and slightly fascinated by this unexpected encounter. Meanwhile, the pharmacist returned my card with an awkward expression.

“Um, sir? The card is showing as invalid…”