A Side Character's Guide to Surviving an Otome Game

Waking Up

Kim Rok Soo, age 36, was, in his opinion, nothing special. There wasn't really anything that made him "special", other than, of course, his Tragic Past ™️, which honestly wasn't even that tragic, in the grand scheme of things. Sure, he was intelligent, and worked hard, but plenty of people were like him. Kim Rok Soo tended to be overshadowed by those he worked with, no matter how much effort he put into everything he did.

To put it bluntly, Kim Rok Soo, age 36, was sick and tired of life.

This was what was the main instigator for him deciding to listen to his coworker, Choi Jung Soo, and play the romance game "Birth of the Soulmate's Hero," a popular otome game that had become Choi Jung Soo's newest obsession.

Despite Kim Rok Soo's insistence that he was only playing the game to distract himself from the pressures of Korea's corporate life, he soon found himself drawn into the game. The game was in a fictional nation, the Roan Kingdom, that seemed very similar to that of the real world-only medieval. The player played as a childhood friend of love interest Cale Henituse, who was labeled "intelligent", "possessive", and "morally gray" in his bio. The player then became involved with the six other love interests- the swordsman Choi Han, the mage Rosalyn, the wolf beastman Locke, the prince Alberu Crossman, the crazy blood mage Redika, and the cursed criminal Cale Barrow-as they worked to defeat a secret evil organization.

Kim Rok Soo didn't have any real obsession or connection with any of the characters; after all, it was a game, it was fictional, and Kim Rok Soo was what he'd consider pragmatic. Though it was true that he enjoyed the game and the world building, as well as the characters' scripts, he wasn't delusional. He knew they weren't real, and he was okay with that.

But when he opened his eyes one Monday morning, he found himself in a very fancy room that was very much not his own.

"What the fuck," he muttered, forcing himself to sit up. A bolt of pain struck through him, and Kim Rok Soo stifled the shriek of agony that squeaked past his lips unwillingly. He was on a giant and extremely luxurious bed, one with the fanciest and softest sheets and blankets he had ever felt. The room's elegantly carved wooden furniture looked expensive and heavy, the kind you'd expect to find in the mansion of a noble of the past. The room was the definition of bougie, and was that gold decorating the walls ?

He squinted.

Yes, yes that was gold decorating the walls. Where the actual fuck was he?

Kim Rok Soo looked down at himself. He was in a set of silky, expensive-looking pajamas, the shirt unbuttoned to reveal his (much too slender and unmuscular) chest bound in thick bandages. He blearily raised a hand to poke at the bandages, then staring at the far too small and delicate hands that he was somehow able to control.

"Wha..." he muttered in confusion, blinking as what he assumed to be a wound on his chest began to pulse with pain. "What happened to my abs? I worked hard for those!"

Through the pain fogging his mind, an unbelievable thought popped up unwanted as he searched the room for a mirror.

There.

On the opposite side of the room, above a roaring fireplace, a shiny gold-framed mirror hung proudly.

Kim Rok Soo attempted to slide out of the giant bed, an act that should have been extremely easy considering the satin-smooth pajamas and sheets. However, he had been far too concerned with his bandaged chest to notice his right leg, which was also carefully wrapped in bandages. His leg screamed as he tried to move, a flare of pain that spread up his hip and filled his entire body. Tears leaked from his eyes as Kim Rok Soo stifled a pained scream.

Sucking in another pain-filled shriek, he forced himself out of the bed. Kim Rok Soo held onto the bed frame as his vision spun, static flickering in the corners of his vision as he resisted the urge to simply collapse onto the sleek wooden floor. He took a step and then another, grabbing onto furniture in a desperate attempt to keep the weight off of his aching leg as well as to keep himself from crumpling. Little by little, he finished his unnaturally long trek across the room to the decorative mirror hanging over the blazing stone fireplace.

He met his reflection's dark and unfamiliar eyes, his knees finally giving out just as the door opened to reveal a handsome twenty-something man, dressed in what looked vaguely like the butler outfits characters on television wore.

"Master Ambrose!" he yelped, dropping the tray as he leapt with inhuman grace to grab Kim Rok Soo before he hit the ground.

He stared up into the handsome man's light brown eyes, fighting the panic growing in his chest.

Master... Ambrose?

He had a sick feeling in his gut. No, this was impossible! Transmigrating? Ridiculous! Completely fictional! What was this, a cookie-cutter transmigration manhwa? A crappily written fanfiction?

And yet, despite the denials, the truth was all too painfully obvious. Either he had somehow fallen into a coma and was having an impossibly realistic dream, or he was actually in the body of a frail twelve-year-old silver-haired boy he recognized only through a few cutscenes in "Birth of the Soulmate's Hero".

Ambrose Finley. Cale Henituse's oldest friend, who died at the age of twelve after a mysterious organization murdered him and his family. His death led to Cale's obsession with hunting down the Finleys' murderers, and to meet the Main Character.

What.

The.

Hell.

This wasn't supposed to happen! He was only supposed to play the game, yes the game not this absurd new reality he was suddenly in, as a distraction from his job . But now he was twelve years old, in a new reality, with injuries beyond his imagination, in the arms of who should by all rights be nothing more than a few strings of code.

This is a dream.

This has to be a dream, right?

Unfortunately, the logical side of his brain that had kept him alive all those years knew it wasn't a dream, that this was reality, and he was no longer thirty six year old Kim Rok Soo but twelve year old Ambrose Finley.

"Master Ambrose," the man said quietly as he helped Kim Rok Soo- no, he was Ambrose now, right?- back onto the too fancy bed. "I assure you, you're completely safe. You recognize where we are, yes? You are in the Henituse manor. You are safe. You are safe."

Oh. Right. The shock and horror that surely must be visible on his face was being misconstrued as him being not-so-mentally-stable after witnessing his entire family dying and nearly dying himself.

Kim Ro- Ambrose was at a loss for what to do.

Those people in all those "Reincarnated as a Refrigerator Princess" or whatever the titles were always seemed to know exactly what to do after waking up in a new world. Ambrose very clearly wasn't that person.

Why? Why was he always so painfully unlucky? Why couldn't he have woken up with at least some memories? He couldn't even rely on the plot of the game to help him, considering the fact that this body was supposed to be dead .

The only thing he could think to do, the only thing that he remembered from the stories Choi Jung Soo always liked to force him to read, was feign amnesia. Which wasn't hard, considering Ambrose had gotten the short end of the reincarnation stick and had absolutely zero of the original Ambrose's memories in that aching noggin of his.

So he just stared blankly at the butler he didn't recognize, and let a few of his panic-brought tears drip down his face. "I don't know where that is!" he protested. "Where... who..." Ambrose let his panic and confusion fill his face. "I don't know who you are or where I am or even who I am or why I'm here and..."

Acting. He could do that, right? And no one would suspect a traumatized twelve year old to be lying about amnesia of all things.

The butler's face seemed to pale. "Is there anything you do remember, Master Ambrose?"

He stared in the butler's dark worried eyes, before shaking his head and attempting to curl up in a fearful ball, only to let out a brutal hiss of pain and went back to his original sitting position.

"No, sir," Ambrose choked out. "I don't remember... anything ."