I was Thrown into an Unfamiliar Manga

Blinding sunlight poured down from above.
“……!”
Thud! Crash!

The moment I realized it, I jumped up in shock.
Outside the window, the sun was already high in the sky.
Normally, I should have gone out for training at four in the morning, but I had overslept for the first time in a long while.

Last night, just in case, I had gone to bed completely naked, and now I hurriedly reached for the clothes hanging over the chair.
And then I froze.
The arm that had been thin like a twig due to the drug’s side effects had returned to its original log-like thickness.

“No way?”
It had been barely a day since Saya left my body.
And yet the effects were already showing.
Maybe it was because of all the beef and eel I ate yesterday.

‘First, I should get dressed.’
Instead of the temporary old clothes I’d been wearing, I put on my usual clothes.
A perfect fit.

Of course, this was how it was supposed to be, but I couldn’t help feeling strangely emotional.
To think I’d experience the cliché of only realizing something’s value after losing it.
After throwing on some comfortable clothes, I went out into the living room, but there was no sign of anyone.

They must have already gone down to the restaurant to prepare for opening.
Even after coming back home, I had been deliberately avoiding my parents, so it had been nearly a week since I’d seen them.
Feeling like an unfilial son, I decided to at least show my face and headed downstairs to the shop on the first floor.

“Oh! Son! You looked like you were sick—are you sure you don’t need more rest?”
That was the first thing my mother said as soon as she saw me.
“Me?”

Tilting my head in confusion at this news, my mother removed the towel wrapped around her head and explained:
“I heard strange noises at dawn, so I opened the door, and you were groaning in your sleep. So I quietly closed the door again.”
Fortunately, she had only seen me after my body had already returned to normal.

If not, she wouldn’t be speaking so casually.
Relieved, I realized that the groaning in my sleep must have been why I overslept.
“Shouldn’t you go to the hospital? You were sweating buckets.”
Ever since I started working out, my body had been so healthy that I hadn’t caught so much as a cold, but my mother still worried.

“Today’s Saturday, so I’m not sure which clinics are open. If there’s one, I’ll go.”
“Good. That’s a good idea. Go rest upstairs.”
“Yes. But I’ll greet Dad first.”

After saying hello to my father in the kitchen, I told my mother before going back upstairs:
“I’m back.”
At that, my mother looked at me with a questioning “Hm?” expression, but then, realizing what I meant, she smiled faintly and replied:

“Welcome home.”
***
The long, long summer vacation.

And its end was already just around the corner.
Looking back, this summer break had been far more eventful than last year.
That meant my previously narrow circle of acquaintances had widened, but it also meant that large parts of the original story had already progressed without my knowledge.

‘There’ll be even more events in the second semester.’
In love comedies, the second semester was always packed with major incidents.
Especially in second year: there would be a school trip, a sports festival, and of course, a cultural festival—essential staples.

Maybe I’d read too many romcoms, but I could already see the typical developments ahead. Still, there were parts that worried me.
‘The Seven Fists.’
The frequency of that term being mentioned was far too high to be just a passing piece of foreshadowing.

Ivan Romanov, whom I defeated first; Fuma Kotaro, Fuma-senpai’s father; and Li Mei Ling, who had returned to China—she was also a disciple of the Seven Fists.
I had a feeling that, in typical Jump-style battle manga fashion, the Seven Fists would end up being a key element spanning the entire story.
Not to mention Mahes, the Egyptian ghost attached to Ryuji, was anything but ordinary.
‘I need to work even harder after school starts.’

Unintentionally, I hadn’t been able to hit the gym much during summer break.
I had appointments almost once a week, so I had no choice, but to make up for the muscle loss, I’d need to put in double the effort.
I’d been skipping the gym so often lately that the owner even asked if I’d lost interest in working out.

I had to reassure him, sweating nervously, that it wasn’t true.
Especially after I said, “I might quit porn, but I’ll never quit the gym.” The owner actually cried, saying he could feel the sincerity in my words.
They say men in their fifties get emotional easily due to hormonal changes, and apparently it was true.

To see a man who looked like the world’s strongest tearing up like that…
Anyway, enough about the gym. There was one last important thing I ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) had to do before school started.
That was finishing my summer homework.

I thought I’d done quite a lot in the first week of break, but there was still a decent amount left.
I’d probably need to spend half a day to finish it.
‘But first, I have to pick up Saya.’

I had left her temporarily in Sasha’s care, who understood the underworld, and it had already been three days.
Before anything happened to Saya’s body, it would be best to bring her back quickly.
I dropped by the restaurant to tell my mother I was going out to meet a friend.

“Will you be late?”
“No, just an hour or two. I’ll be back by dinner at the latest.”
Saying that, I headed for the subway station to go to the hotel in Akihabara where Sasha was staying.

***
“I’m here to see Alexandra Ivanovna Romanova.”
“Ah, yes. Right this way.”

The same receptionist was at the front desk as three days ago, but their reaction was completely different.
When I’d come in my younger form, they had looked at me with a kind of fondness. Now, they seemed slightly intimidated.
Anyway, I took the elevator to the top-floor suite, where Boris was already waiting.

Last time, seeing him felt like facing a giant stone statue, but now it didn’t faze me.
“That form suits you better.”
Boris threw out a compliment like that, then turned away and started walking ahead.

He looked embarrassed to me.
Following him into the living room, I was shocked to see Sasha.
Her hair had turned completely white.

“Oh, you’re here, Kim Yu-seong.”
Sasha greeted me casually, as if nothing was wrong.
“What the hell happened? And where’s Saya?”

Sasha waved a hand dismissively.
“No need to rush. I’ll explain—it’s a long story.”
She chuckled, picked up a glass from the table, and drank.

At first I thought it was water, but the smell told me otherwise.
“Is that vodka?”
“Yeah. Want a drink?”

She offered me the glass, which had her lipstick mark on it.
“No, I’ll pass.”
Considering I blacked out after just a few cans of beer, there was no way I could drink something stronger.

“Suit yourself.”
She shrugged and took another drink.
“So, what about Saya?”

“She’s right in front of you.”
“What?”
“She’s inside me. Saya’s in my body.”

Sasha poked her own chest with a finger and explained.
“After staying together, I realized we were surprisingly compatible. So I tried full possession as a test. Turns out I can use Saya’s powers like this.”
She smiled faintly and then suddenly dropped her glass to the floor.

Huh?
The glass, which should have shattered, stopped in midair.
“This is Saya’s ability—‘Freezing.’ You can freeze objects, living beings, even time, for a short while.”

“Even time?”
I realized that during our fight, when my body had periodically stopped, it had been because of this freezing ability.
Stopping time… That was completely broken.

“The duration seems to be about five seconds at most, but even so, it’s ridiculous, right?”
“…That’s true.”
I already knew from her yin energy alone that Saya was a great-class spirit, but I hadn’t expected a time-stop ability.

In a battle manga, she’d basically be a boss-tier character.
“But there’s one problem.”
“What?”

“It’s freezing. Literally.”
Sasha shivered as she spoke, then refilled her glass with vodka.
Now I realized—she wasn’t drinking to get drunk; she was drinking to stay alive.

“Then just end the possession.”
“I wanted to surprise you when you came, so I waited like this.”
Well, it was surprising—in a very different way.

Her hair had suddenly turned pure white.
Then again, it had been blue before, so maybe “normal” wasn’t the right word to begin with.
“Anyway, you look like you’re suffering, so stop it now.”

Sasha nodded obediently and closed her eyes.
A white, ghostly shape slowly drifted out of her body.
It was Saya, finally visible again.

«Why are you so late.»
“I came exactly on the day we agreed.”
I stared at her, unimpressed, while she pouted.

Then I sighed and said:
“Anyway, let’s go. I have homework to finish at home.”
Saya gave me an incredulous look, then smirked and approached.

«Fine. Let’s go back.»
To your house.