Chapter 1: Entrance Ceremony

It was a fresh spring day filled with bright sunshine.

The front gate of the private, prestigious Takamari Academy was filled with tension and excitement.

Students, seemingly from noble and distinguished families, lined up, making this place not just a place of learning, but a gathering of those promised a bright future.

I stood there as an ordinary new student.

Inconspicuously, quietly, like an ordinary background character, I made a vow to live a peaceful school life.

“Sigh…”

Just a moment ago, as I passed through these very gates, I sighed and realized where I was.

Takamari Academy, it was the name of the noble school from the Japanese web novel I had been reading before I fell asleep.

But there was a part of me that doubted.

Could it be, was I really inside the novel I had been reading?

Fortunately, this world was not a fantasy novel with magic or superpowers that were impossible to understand or difficult to comprehend.

If it were, surviving as a member of the lowest caste in the novel would have been overwhelming.

Anyway, when someone woke me up, a middle-aged woman I had never seen before stood in front of me and said, ‘Your mom is waking you up! Are you going to be late for your high school entrance ceremony?’

And after waking up, when I realized I wasn’t in the body of a pathetic college entrance exam failure from my past life, but had become a girl, and when I realized that the voice from the woman’s mouth was Japanese but felt like my native language.

I roughly understood that I had become a different being, like the protagonists in many novels I had seen.

The feeling of standing in front of the mirror wearing a Japanese school uniform was also good.

I seemed to have gained an above-average appearance, my voice was pretty, and I wasn’t too short either.

Brown bob hair, brown eyes, an appearance that might be common even in Japan.

That was me, reborn anew.

But never did I imagine that this world I was newly living in was the world inside the book I had been reading.

However, I still didn’t confirm my suspicions just by seeing the name of the school.

Maybe I just happened to enroll in a school with the same name.

“Students, please take your seats. The entrance ceremony will begin shortly.”

After passing through the school gates and entering the large auditorium, the new students began to take their seats one by one.

In the center of the auditorium was a grand stage, and above it, the principal’s speech echoed.

At that moment, I saw her.

No, she existed, and I merely realized her existence.

‘Wow… she’s pretty.’

And I was sure.

This world was the setting of a 1:1 romantic comedy that had recently become popular in Japan, titled ‘The Heroine is Too Perfect and Dere, Making Me Fearful’.

As the title suggests, it was one of the many imitations that emerged after several 1:1 romantic comedy novels that were published and even adapted into anime in the recent Japanese web novel scene.

And I realized that I was a nobody who couldn’t join the main group consisting of the protagonist, the heroine, and their friends.

Of course.

My name in this world was Rina Kurosawa, a character name I had never seen in the novel.

And the woman confidently walking up to the podium was the protagonist of this novel.

Yukikawa Aya, born to a noble father and a foreign mother.

With just one appearance, she captured everyone’s attention, and this entire space seemed to exist for her, the top student.

“Representative of the entering class, Yukikawa Aya.”

Aya’s presence overwhelmed everyone.

It was as if time slowed down around her.

Her clear silver hair sparkled under the auditorium lights, and her contrasting clear blue eyes calmly stared straight ahead.

The slight smile on her lips was perfect.

It was breathtakingly beautiful, like an angel itself.

All her actions were perfect, the very picture of a textbook heroine.

‘But… something’s… different?’

In this scene, the protagonist Hiro Yamahashi and Aya were supposed to meet eyes, marking their famous first encounter.

But Hiro was nowhere to be seen, and Aya seemed to avoid making eye contact with anyone, keeping her gaze fixed on the podium.

“Now that the new student representative’s speech is over, please return to your seats.”

With the principal’s words, Aya bowed slightly and descended from the stage.

The students’ gazes still followed her, and she accepted the attention as if it were natural.

And then it happened.

As she passed by me.

“A new face.”

Her voice was heard.

I turned my head in surprise.

Aya, right next to me, had stopped and was looking at me.

“…Yes?”

I couldn’t believe it.

In the novel, Yukikawa Aya was kind to everyone.

But at the same time, she was very shy and rarely had intimate conversations with strangers.

Her charm came from that contradiction.

Her kind but distant attitude made her mysterious.

But, now she’s… to me…?

“What’s your name?”

Aya asked softly.

Her beautiful voice was directed straight at me.

“Ku, Ku, Kurosawa Rina!”

I answered awkwardly.

Aya repeated my name with her lips and smiled softly.

The smile was so perfect that I almost stopped breathing.

“Kurosawa Rina… I’ll remember.”

She left those words and walked away, disappearing towards the exit of the auditorium.

I was left staring blankly at her disappearing figure.

‘Remember…?’

It was just a simple phrase, but I knew this scene.

This was originally the moment when the protagonist had his first encounter with the heroine.

Aya was supposed to ask the protagonist Hiro his name first, remember him, and open the story.

‘No way?’

But now, I was taking that role.

I was hearing the lines the male lead in the novel was supposed to hear, and her first encounter had become me.

Could it be that because the protagonist doesn’t exist, I, a non-existent background character, irregularly entered that position, causing a significant error in the novel’s setting?

No… there’s no way.

If that were the case, my family, Rina Kurosawa’s, would have to be a branch of a noble family or something, which it wasn’t.