Transmigrated as the Side Top used as an Emotional Trash Can

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The students were overflowing with energy now that final exams were over.

They watched movies during class and ran around as much as they wanted during physical education. They would probably continue coming to school as though they were coming to play, completely relaxed until summer vacation. Whenever a teacher played a movie instead of continuing the regular curriculum, I sometimes switched classes with a student from Class 12. That was how I secured the seat beside Kim Jihwan even during the subjects our classes shared. I clung to Kim Jihwan like gum so closely that no one could tell whether I belonged to Class 12 or Class 2.

“Baek Hanrim, get out.”

When I continued clinging to him all the way until homeroom, the Class 12 teacher called my name and told me to leave the moment he entered the classroom, making the students burst into laughter.

“Why is someone who isn’t even in our class here? If you keep sitting there, I’m not starting homeroom.”

Several of the laughing students booed and chanted, ‘Get out, boo, Baek Hanrim.’ I loudly shouted, ‘Guys, I’m sorry!’ and left the classroom with exaggerated gestures, making them laugh again.

Then I stood proudly in the hallway and waited for Kim Jihwan’s homeroom to end.

“Don’t start skipping classes just because exams are over. Some of you have been leaving whenever you feel like it without saying anything lately, so at least tell us first….”

The students focused more on college entrance exams than school life, so they weren’t particularly obsessed with their attendance rates. It was obvious that they had already given up on perfect-attendance awards and merely intended to meet the minimum attendance requirement for graduation. I couldn’t help finding that regrettable. School days had their own unique kind of fun, yet they were skipping out on it.

“Everyone’s too spoiled.”

There were friends at school. Our school lunch menu always included a meat dish. The teachers sincerely cared about their students. It was the kind of school life that seemed as though it could only exist in fiction.

“There isn’t even any bullying at this school.”

Bullying.

At least, I had never witnessed it directly at this school. There was no child who had milk gone bad poured over them or was forced to swallow water used to rinse a filthy rag.

‘Is it because you’ve only got a mom that you can’t understand a fucking word?’

For a moment, memories of my school days in the original world surfaced, and sweat gathered in my palms.

Relationships that only grew more distant no matter how hard I tried or how often I approached. The mockery, contempt, and humiliating violence I had been expected to endure as though it were natural. I had spent my entire school life in the original world being bullied without any friends, so I loved the vivid, shining school life I had now. The comfortable family environment, the kind people around me, and this healthy body with four functioning limbs that could accomplish anything.

“Could it be…a gift…?”

I suddenly reconsidered what it meant to have been born as Baek Hanrim. It wasn’t as though I had lived particularly virtuously outside the novel, so why had I been given this life? At first glance, it was a wonderful environment and a body anyone would envy.

“But I have to love someone as though my life depends on it.”

I couldn’t tell whether it was a gift or a punishment. I might not have lived kindly, but I hadn’t lived wickedly either. The only bad thing I was doing now was stealing Baek Hanrim’s life.

“Is that the problem?”

I raised my head and looked out the window. The summer sunlight poured over my body, stinging my skin. ‘Baek Hanrim’s’ pale, delicate skin was sizzling beneath it.

“Am I being punished…because I stole it?”

I lived as Baek Hanrim today too. Tomorrow, the day after that, and every day beyond, I would continue living that way. But if I were told to leave this novel, I would willingly give up this body. So for this moment alone, please look upon me with generosity. While I mistake these brilliant days for my own, please close your eyes to it.

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“Baek Hanrim, either eat or sleep. Pick one.”

During lunch, I had been eating when I leaned against Kim Jihwan’s shoulder and dozed off. I opened my eyes and tried to look at him, but I misjudged the distance and sank my teeth into his chin.

“Agh! Fuck, seriously.”

“Ugh, sorry.”

The swimming competition was five days away, so I came to school even earlier in the morning and left even later at night.

“If you push yourself that hard before the competition, you’ll get injured.”

Cha Gwonhyeok’s words struck a nerve. The instructor had already scolded me, saying that if I got injured too, there would be no one left at our school capable of competing in breaststroke. Someone could still enter, of course, but it was wiser to assemble the strongest swimmers possible and earn the best result we could.

“I’ll take it easy from now on.”

I smiled as though I were fine, but I was several times more tense and overworked than usual, so my body was screaming for mercy. The instructor had even said he would throw me out if I showed up at the pool today, so should I just go home normally?

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At some point, Cha Gwonhyeok had begun naturally joining us whenever Kim Jihwan and I walked home from school.

Or was that wrong? Maybe the two of them usually walked home together, and I was the one who occasionally joined them. Whenever the three of us walked together and the road grew narrow, I would slow my steps and watch the two of them walking side by side from one pace behind.

“Ah, it’s fucking hot.”

“Fanning yourself with your hand will only make you hotter.”

“So what? I said I’m hot.”

Kim Jihwan spread his palm and fluttered it like a fan, and Cha Gwonhyeok commented on it. It was truly the most trivial kind of everyday conversation. Normally, it would have made me feel pleased, but today, I felt jealous of the confidence with which they walked through lives that belonged entirely to them.