Takumi sat bolt upright in a school desk that was far too small, feeling the distinct impression that something had gone horribly wrong.
For one, he distinctly remembered falling asleep in his dorm room, hunched over an open laptop, not… wherever he was now.
His gaze swept across the room, taking in the rows of unfamiliar faces.
High school students, all of them in pristine uniforms.
A clock on the wall showed the time—barely past eight in the morning.
He fought down a surge of panic.
No, no, this had to be a mistake.
He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them again.
Nope.
Still here.
"Okay, think," he whispered, trying to ignore the strange looks his murmuring was earning from his classmates.
"What do I remember?"
His mind flashed to the night before: scrolling through forums, reading up on bizarre plot twists in God of Desire, an NTR novel that he'd skimmed through more out of morbid curiosity than anything else.
Suddenly, his eyes widened.
No… there's no way.
He glanced down, taking in the unfamiliar uniform and unfamiliar hands—hands that were definitely not his usual ones.
His heart sank.
I'm… I'm inside God of Desire, aren't I?
It all came flooding back.
God of Desire was a popular novel known for its scandalous plot: a regular high school protagonist gets entangled with mythological figures, who, in this world, are all female and absurdly attractive.
Through a series of, ahem, "encounters" with these beings, he ends up gaining the powers of a love god, charming women left and right.
"Great," he muttered.
"Of all the places to end up."
At that moment, the bell rang, jolting him out of his thoughts as a teacher walked in and started taking attendance.
Takumi frantically racked his brain.
He knew God of Desire well enough—especially the story's early chapters, where the protagonist started meeting the various mythological heroines.
But Takumi's character, or rather, this random extra whose body he now occupied, didn't even merit a name in the novel.
He was just one of countless background characters.
He was suddenly hit by a rush of hope.
Wait, maybe this isn't so bad.
If I'm just an extra… then all I have to do is avoid the main characters and let the story play out.
He could practically feel the universe laughing at him.
The class droned on, and Takumi did his best to stay out of sight, hardly daring to move.
He spent the next few hours blending in, listening to mind-numbing lectures, and breathing a sigh of relief as he made it through each class without incident.
But, as he should have expected, his luck didn't last.
It happened in the hallway between classes.
He'd just rounded the corner when he heard a familiar voice—a boy's, bright and clear, just on the other side of the crowd.
Takumi's stomach dropped.
The protagonist.
It was unmistakable.
The novel's protagonist was talking to his friend, probably heading toward his next big encounter—the first fateful meeting with Persephone, goddess of the underworld, who'd been rewritten into a moody, mysterious beauty.
Takumi froze, eyes darting around for an escape route.
This was his chance to avoid the main character entirely.
He'd just take the long way to his next class, avoid the encounter, and—
"Hey!" a voice called out.
"Watch where you're going!"
Takumi barely had a chance to register what was happening before something slammed into him.
A girl with long black hair and a piercing gaze glared up at him from the floor, her books scattered.
He hadn't even seen her coming.
"Oh, I-I'm sorry!" he stammered, bending down to help her.
Please don't be Persephone, please don't be Persephone…
But as she fixed him with a smoldering glare, recognition set in.
Dark hair, pale skin, eyes that looked like they could pierce through a soul.
This was Persephone.
Great.
She was supposed to bump into the protagonist, not him.
Her whole storyline revolved around her meeting the protagonist here in this hallway, drawn to him by a sense of fate she couldn't explain.
And instead, she'd run into Takumi, a total nobody who shouldn't have even existed on her radar.
She reached out and grabbed his collar.
"What's your problem? Who are you?"
"N-no one," he blurted out, frantically trying to disentangle himself.
The protagonist's voice drifted closer, probably just seconds away from rounding the corner and finding Takumi caught in a confrontation with Persephone.
"I'm really sorry, okay? I'll just… I'll be out of your way."
But Persephone didn't seem interested in letting him go.
Her eyes narrowed, and she leaned in closer, studying his face.
"You don't seem like a nobody to me. Do you know who I am?"
Takumi's mind raced, and he forced himself to remain calm.
"Look, I'm really not anyone important. I was just… passing by."
The crowd around them was beginning to thin, and with each passing second, the probability of the protagonist walking in on this scene grew.
Takumi's panic surged.
If the protagonist saw this, he might end up thinking Takumi was some kind of rival, or worse, that Persephone was interested in him instead.
Just then, Takumi heard footsteps approaching from behind.
He didn't need to turn around to know who it was.
The protagonist, right on schedule, was about to come face-to-face with the girl who was supposed to be his soulmate.
And she was currently clutching Takumi's collar, glaring at him like she was seconds from starting a fistfight.
"Excuse me," a calm voice interrupted.
Takumi looked up to see the protagonist himself standing there, watching the scene with a faint look of surprise.
Persephone immediately dropped her hand from Takumi's collar, her icy glare softening ever so slightly.
"Oh, sorry about that," Takumi mumbled, ducking his head and trying to shrink into the crowd.
"I was just leaving…"
But Persephone's gaze lingered on him for a moment longer, her expression thoughtful, almost intrigued.
As Takumi walked away, heart pounding, he realized he'd just done the one thing he'd sworn not to: he'd meddled with the story.
Persephone was supposed to be captivated by the protagonist, but her gaze had been focused on him, an insignificant extra who'd just altered one of the most important scenes in the entire story.
It's fine, he told himself.
This doesn't mean anything.
She'll just forget me.
I'm not a part of her story.
But deep down, he knew that wasn't true.
Fate, or whatever force governed this twisted story, wasn't about to let him off that easily.
As he slipped into his next class, a sinking feeling settled in his chest.
No matter what he did, he was involved now.