Monday.
06:47 AM
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon woke up feeling strangely refreshed.
Which immediately made him suspicious.
After two days of nonstop practice, his body should have hurt.
A lot.
Instead—
Nothing.
No aching shoulders.
No sore legs.
No overwhelming urge to remain in bed forever.
Weird.
Very weird.
Slowly, he sat up.
Then paused.
“…Hm.”
Something felt strange.
The room felt smaller somehow.
Not dramatically.
Just enough that he noticed.
The desk looked slightly closer.
The ceiling seemed a little lower.
Or maybe—
Jiwon frowned.
That didn’t make sense.
Rooms generally weren’t supposed to change size overnight.
Unless his apartment had been secretly renovated while he was sleeping.
Which felt unlikely.
Then again…
So did waking up after two days of intense practice without feeling like he’d been hit by a truck.
Possibly several trucks.
Jiwon rubbed his face.
Maybe he was still half asleep.
Hopefully.
Five minutes later, he stepped into the bathroom.
Splashing cold water onto his face.
He lifted his head.
Looked into the mirror.
And froze.
“…Holy shit.”
Silence.
The reflection stared back.
Jiwon stepped closer.
Then closer.
Then suspiciously closer.
The face was still his.
Obviously.
The same eyes.
The same nose.
The same person.
Yet everything looked different.
Sharper.
Cleaner.
More defined.
His eyebrows looked thicker than before.
Not dramatically.
Just enough to frame his eyes more strongly.
Those eyes themselves seemed brighter.
Clearer.
Less tired.
As if somebody had removed a permanent layer of exhaustion he never knew was there.
His eyelashes looked longer too.
Enough to make his gaze stand out.
The kind of feature people noticed without consciously realizing it.
His skin looked healthier.
Smoother.
More even.
And his lips—
“…Were they always like that?”
Fuller.
Better defined.
Naturally colored.
The sort of lips makeup brands probably wrote marketing campaigns about.
Jiwon immediately hated that thought.
Unfortunately, it didn’t make it less accurate.
The weirdest part wasn’t that he looked better.
The weirdest part was that he still looked like himself.
Just…
A higher-resolution version.
“…That’s cheating.”
The reflection offered no defense.
The really annoying part?
He couldn’t even blame the mirror.
Mirrors weren’t known for handing out compliments.
Jiwon narrowed his eyes.
Then narrowed them again.
Something still felt wrong.
It took him several seconds to realize what.
His glasses weren’t on.
Slowly, he reached toward the sink.
Picked up the familiar pair.
Then froze again.
“…What?”
Everything was already clear.
Perfectly clear.
Jiwon narrowed his eyes.
Looked at the tiny label on a toothpaste tube.
Read it.
Without glasses.
“…Absolutely not.”
He put the glasses on.
Everything immediately looked strange.
Slightly distorted.
He removed them.
Then put them back on.
Then removed them again.
“…Did my eyesight improve too?”
The System, naturally, refused to answer.
Which meant he wasn’t getting an explanation.
As usual.
Jiwon stared at the mirror a moment longer.
Then sighed.
School wasn’t going to wait for an existential crisis.
A few minutes later, he pulled on his school uniform.
Then stopped.
“…”
Something felt wrong.
He looked down.
Then frowned.
The sleeves.
His sleeves were shorter.
Not dramatically.
But enough.
The cuffs that normally rested near his wrists now sat noticeably higher.
Jiwon stared.
Once.
Twice.
The sleeves weren’t lying.
Which suggested one of two possibilities.
Either the uniform had shrunk.
Or he hadn’t.
Neither option felt particularly comforting.
Jiwon looked at himself in the mirror again.
His shoulders appeared broader.
His waist slightly narrower.
And beneath the thin white shirt—
He could actually make out definition.
Not a full six-pack.
Not some absurd magazine-cover physique.
But visible lines.
Actual abdominal definition.
The kind created by training.
Repeatedly.
Relentlessly.
The shirt hung differently now.
As if his body had finally started looking like it belonged to someone who practiced every day.
“…No.”
He lifted the edge of the shirt.
Looked down.
Then immediately dropped it again.
“…No.”
A pause.
Then he lifted it again.
Checked.
Lowered it.
Lifted it a third time.
Still there.
“…No.”
Almost on cue, a familiar blue screen appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Physical Adaptation Complete
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Host Physique Updated
━━━━━━━━━━━━
“That’s not an explanation.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Athletic Physique Lv.1
Additional Optimization Applied
━━━━━━━━━━━━
“…That’s even less helpful.”
The System offered no further comment.
Naturally.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
08:03 AM
School
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon locked his bicycle near the racks.
Then immediately looked around.
Suspiciously.
Nothing exploded.
Nobody screamed.
Nobody pointed at him.
Good.
That meant the strange morning had hopefully ended.
Unfortunately.
Experience suggested otherwise.
The courtyard was already crowded.
Students moved in every direction.
Groups of friends talked loudly.
Athletes carried equipment bags toward practice.
A few unlucky students sprinted toward the building.
Probably late.
As usual.
Jiwon adjusted his backpack and headed inside.
The moment he entered the hallway, the noise doubled.
Voices.
Footsteps.
Lockers opening and closing.
A perfectly ordinary Monday morning.
Which was exactly why the first strange thing stood out.
A student walking toward him looked over.
Then looked again.
Then immediately pretended not to.
Jiwon frowned.
Weird.
A few seconds later, another student glanced over.
Then whispered something to a friend.
The friend looked too.
Jiwon’s frown deepened.
Weirder.
Still.
Not impossible.
High school students looked at random things all the time.
He kept walking.
Then somebody slammed a hand against his shoulder.
Hard.
“JIWON!”
Jiwon nearly died.
He turned around.
Already knowing who it was.
Of course.
Only one person in the school possessed that much energy this early in the morning.
Lee Minjae.
The basketball player grinned.
Tall.
Athletic.
Annoyingly handsome.
Bright red hair.
The kind that immediately stood out in a crowd.
For a second his friend looked ready to say something.
Then suddenly stopped.
The grin disappeared.
His eyes narrowed.
Then narrowed again.
“…Wait.”
Jiwon immediately disliked that tone.
“What?”
Minjae stepped closer.
Squinted.
Then leaned even closer.
“…What?”
Jiwon repeated.
The basketball player pointed at his face.
“No.”
“What do you mean no?”
“No.”
“That’s not a sentence.”
“It is in my heart.”
“It absolutely isn’t.”
Minjae continued staring.
Then slowly shook his head.
“A weekend passes…”
A pause.
“…and suddenly I don’t recognize you anymore?”
Jiwon’s eye twitched.
Minjae nodded seriously.
“You know a good plastic surgeon or something?”
“…”
“No seriously.”
“…”
“You have to tell me.”
“…”
“Friendship requires honesty.”
Jiwon stared.
Minjae stared back.
Then burst out laughing.
“Look at your face.”
“You started this.”
“Exactly.”
The basketball player pointed again.
“You definitely changed.”
“I didn’t.”
“You did.”
“I didn’t.”
“You absolutely did.”
Minjae’s expression suddenly became offended.
“Also.”
“What?”
“You got taller.”
“I did not.”
“You definitely did.”
“I definitely didn’t.”
Minjae looked personally attacked.
“I’m supposed to be the tall friend.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means that’s my thing.”
“I don’t think that’s a thing.”
“It is in my heart.”
“Please stop saying that.”
“No.”
They started walking.
Minjae talked.
Naturally.
The alternative was silence.
Which Minjae considered a human rights violation.
Jiwon’s attention drifted elsewhere.
Specifically—
Toward the people around them.
A girl glanced over.
Then again.
Another student slowed slightly while walking past.
Two first-years whispered something.
One immediately looked in their direction.
Jiwon’s eyes drifted toward Minjae.
Well, that explains it.
Obviously they’re looking at Minjae.
Who else would they be looking at?
The guy practically came with built-in attention.
Basketball player.
Tall.
Good-looking.
Questionably healthy levels of confidence.
Take your pick.
And the bright red hair certainly wasn’t helping.
Seriously.
In a school full of black and brown hair, he looks like somebody accidentally turned the saturation settings to maximum.
A few more students glanced in their direction.
Yeah.
Definitely Minjae.
No other explanation.
Another student looked over.
Minjae.
Another.
Still Minjae.
Two first-years whispered something.
Also Minjae.
The guy looked like the protagonist of a basketball manga.
Meanwhile, I’m standing next to him.
Classic background character life.
Truly a difficult existence.
A girl passed by.
Looked over.
Then quickly looked away.
Minjae.
Another student nearly walked into a door.
Minjae.
A guy from another class turned around after walking past them.
Definitely Minjae.
Jiwon nodded internally.
Case closed.
Mystery solved.
Detective Han Jiwon strikes again.
Then a girl walked straight past Minjae.
Looked directly at Jiwon.
Then kept walking.
…
Okay.
A pause.
That one might not have been Minjae.
Another student looked over.
Then immediately looked away when Jiwon noticed.
…
Still probably Minjae.
A second passed.
Hopefully Minjae.
Another passed.
Please be Minjae.
Because the alternative felt significantly more concerning.
Eventually, Jiwon glanced sideways.
“Is it always like this for you?”
Minjae blinked.
“Like what?”
“The staring.”
“The looks.”
“The whispering.”
Realization appeared on the basketball player’s face.
“Oh.”
A pause.
“You mean that.”
“You notice it?”
Minjae looked genuinely offended.
“Of course I notice it.”
“You do?”
“I’ve had red hair for years.”
He pointed at his own head.
“You think this is subtle?”
“Fair.”
“And basketball helps.”
“That wasn’t supposed to sound arrogant.”
“It absolutely did.”
Minjae ignored him.
As expected.
Then he suddenly frowned.
“Huh.”
Jiwon immediately didn’t like that noise.
“What?”
Minjae looked around.
Then back at Jiwon.
Then around again.
Then back at Jiwon.
“…Actually.”
“What?”
The basketball player pointed directly at him.
“They’re looking at you.”
Silence.
Jiwon laughed immediately.
“No.”
“I’m serious.”
“They’re looking at you.”
“They were.”
“What?”
Minjae squinted.
Then looked around again.
“No.”
A pause.
“Actually.”
Another pause.
“That’s definitely you.”
“…”
“…”
Jiwon stared.
Minjae stared back.
Then pointed again.
“We passed three groups.”
“So?”
“They looked at you.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“One hundred percent yes.”
Jiwon immediately looked away.
Because that was obviously ridiculous.
And also because another student had just looked directly at him.
Again.
A familiar blue notification suddenly appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Condition Satisfied
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Visual Attention Threshold Reached
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon nearly walked into a wall.
“What?”
Minjae looked over.
“What what?”
“Nothing.”
“That was definitely not a nothing.”
Another notification appeared immediately.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
New Passive Skill Acquired
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Attention Magnet Lv.1
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Attention Collected
53 / 50
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“…”
Jiwon stopped walking completely.
Fifty-three?
Since when?
The System continued.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Description
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Host has attracted the attention of more than 50 individuals within a short period of time.
Visual recognition has exceeded expected growth parameters.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
For several seconds, Jiwon simply stared.
Then slowly turned toward Minjae.
The basketball player raised an eyebrow.
“Told you.”
“…”
“Told you.”
“…Shut up.”
Minjae looked delighted.
Naturally.
The System wasn’t finished.
Of course it wasn’t.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Condition Satisfied
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Visual Growth Restriction Removed
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon’s eyes narrowed.
“What restriction?”
The answer appeared immediately.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Appearance Cap Removed
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Face Limit
25 → 45
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Skin Limit
25 → 45
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Style Limit
20 → 45
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Presence Limit
26 → 45
━━━━━━━━━━━━
For several seconds, the hallway seemed to disappear.
Forty-five.
Those weren’t minor increases.
Those were entirely new growth brackets.
Across from him, Minjae waved a hand.
“Hello?”
“…”
“Earth to Jiwon.”
“…”
“See?”
Minjae nodded confidently.
“You definitely had plastic surgery.”
“Shut up.”
“That’s exactly what someone who had plastic surgery would say.”
“Please shut up.”
Unfortunately.
That only encouraged him more.