SLAP!
David’s world was a blur, a sharp sting radiating from his cheek as he felt the unmistakable heat of a high-velocity palm.
"What...?" He gingerly touched the welt.
For a second, he assumed his manager had finally snapped and slapped him awake for drooling on the quarterly reports.
But as the fog cleared, the beige cubicle walls were gone.
Instead, his vision locked onto a pair of crimson orbs set against a curtain of vanta-black hair.
The woman looked like a fallen angel with a serious temperament issue and a face that could be considered a masterpiece of aristocratic fury.
"You whore! How dare you approach an engaged man and take him away?!" she shrieked.
David gagged. He looked at his hands, then back at her.
Pardon?
***
David wasn’t a loser.
Though, he wasn’t a winner, either.
He existed in that lukewarm gray area of the bell curve, not quite a protagonist, but far too consistent to be a background extra.
He was simply David. He followed the rules, met his deadlines, and executed the mundane with a precision that bordered on the artistic.
He had a perfect life. Or so he thought.
Because if he were truly the perfect side character, his life wouldn’t be this much of a glitchy, imperfect mess.
"Good grief, Taylor Swift? Seriously? Your music taste is as bland as your personality."
What was wrong with Taylor Swift? It wasn’t like he had a long list of ex-lovers!
Besides, since when was it a crime to stick to mainstream titles?
Terms like otaku, weeb, and otome were gibberish to him, foreign concepts he only encountered through his sister.
"What are you playing?" he asked, hovering near his little sister as she occupied the PS5.
"Why do you care?" She rolled her eyes, her gaze never leaving the screen. "It’s not like you’d get it."
"Can’t a brother be curious?"
"Fine. It’s a reverse-harem otome game. Happy?"
Reverse... what?
He leaned in, genuinely curious about this subculture and why his sister had chosen the path of the professional shut-in.
On the screen, a parade of ridiculously attractive men appeared, sporting physiques that defied the laws of biology and personalities that suggested a complete lack of a frontal lobe.
They weren’t just handsome, they were clinically insane.
The title flashed across the screen:
"Sword-Sucked: The Blade’s Deep Desire."
...
Anyways...
It looked like the kind of game that haunted his browser sidebars, all suggestive angles and skin-tight physics designed for the terminally lonely.
Was this what the youth called "culture" nowadays?
He’d eventually gathered that a "reverse harem" was simply the female equivalent of a traditional harem. It was an exhausting amount of math for a genre about romance.
Suddenly, his sister’s screen stopped on a portrait of a breathtaking woman. David’s pulse actually skipped.
"Who is she?"
"Huh? You’re interested?" His sister snorted. "She’s a total bitch, though."
"Is she? I’d still marry her."
"Of course you would. You Swifties have a biological mandate to worship red flags."
He never expected to catch feelings for a collection of 2D pixels, but the art style was ethereal, and the mechanics, a turn-based RPG nestled within a visual novel, were surprisingly deep.
For the first time, he found himself falling down the rabbit hole.
Unfortunately, reality called the next day.
"Hey, David, you’ve got more..." His co-worker dropped a soul-crushing stack of files onto his desk. "Good luck, soldier!"
"Ugh."
Hours bled into a blur of spreadsheets and dry eyes.
He’d been running on caffeine and pure spite lately. Eventually, the exhaustion won, and his head hit the desk like a lead weight.
***
That was how it was supposed to end. A nap, a stiff neck, and more work.
So why was that breathtaking, 2D-illustrated "bitch" currently standing in front of him in 4K resolution?
And why did he feel so fragile? His limbs felt lithe, almost delicate, as if his muscle mass had evaporated.
"Don’t you dare touch my fiancé," a voice growled from behind.
A hand clamped onto David’s arm and pulled. It was a simple grab, but it sent a jolt of genuine pain through his newfound frailty.
"Fiancé?!" the woman’s face twisted. "Since when did we agree to cancel our engagement?!"
As the drama ignited, David’s senses finally finished loading.
He felt a suffocating tightness around his ribs, a corset, squeezing the very breath from his lungs, and the heavy sway of a silken gown against his legs.
Then, he looked up. He wasn’t in a cubicle.
He was standing in the center of a grand ballroom that screamed "excessive budget."
"What’s so special about Callista?!" the woman screamed, her voice hitting a frequency that could shatter fine china.
"Sorry," David interrupted, his voice coming out an octave higher than he remembered. "Who is Callista?"
"Don’t play the innocent with me, you whore!"
The word stung, not just because it was rude, but because his brain was finally connecting the dots. ...
"Am I...?" He looked down at the sprawling silk of his skirts. "Am I Callista?"
Right on time, a translucent screen appeared into existence, lighting up with a magical blue light.
[Welcome to the World of Zideus.]
[Character Sync Complete: You have been cast as the Heroine, Callista von Astride. Good luck, Player.]
"....Shit. Why me?"