Main Male Leas Disqualified

Hanbin closed the door for a moment, unlatched it, and then reopened it. He look at Jeong-hwan with a doubtful expression and gestures for him to come inside.

“Alright, come in and talk.”

Jeongh-wan entered  Hanbin’s home and sat on the sofa in the living room.

“Sigh, where do I start?”

After thinking for a moment, Hanbin decided to spill everything he’d experienced so far. Most people would find his story unbelievable but since Jeong-hwan is going through the same impossible situation, there is no reason to hide it.

“So, you’re saying that a webtoon appears once a week and disappears the next morning?”

“Yeah.”

“And the protagonist in that webtoon is me?”

“Yep.”

As Jeong-hwan repeated the facts to confirm them, Hanbin nodded vigorously.

“And the voice I heard … Those were your comments?”

Hanbin recalled the comments he had written. They had been quite harsh. Feeling a bit guilty, he quickly waved  his hands and said:

“I wrote this not knowing you could hear it.”

“I didn’t expect you to be a keyboard warrior.”

Hanbin’s eyes widened in disgust at Jeong-hwan, who commented with expressionless face and questioned him.

“If we’re going there, then aren’t you a mouth warrior?”

Jeong-hwan hadn’t expected Hanbin to snap back at him like that. As he was stunned for a moment, Hanbin quickly realized what he had just said and apologized.

“Ah… sorry.”

“Well, I guess we’re both warriors in some way.”

Jeong-hwan said, holding back his laughter. Meanwhile, Hanbin reassured himself that what he said wasn’t entirely wrong.

“I just thought it was strange that I kept dreaming about someone yelling at me whenever I was with a girl… but now it all makes sense.”

Jeong-hwan finally seemed to grasp the situation and nodded. Hanbin let out a deep sigh and said.

“Could it be that we’re both possessed or something?”

Jeong-hwan normally didn’t believe in ghosts, but this strange supernatural phenomenon made him reconsider.

“Sigh, should we look into exorcism methods or something?”

Even after racking their brains together, they couldn’t come up with a solution. Jeong-hwan stretched and got up from his seat. Hanbin hesitantly followed suit.

“Well, at least we figured out how to recover my condition.”

“You found a way?”

Hanbin’s eyes widened, as if this was the first he’d heard of it. Jeong-hwan stared at him in disbelief.

“Are you seriously that dense?”

At Jeong-hwan’s exasperated comment, Hanbin frowned. Ignoring Hanbin’s irritation, Jeong-hwan continued.

“I told you earlier. Every time we talk face-to-face, I recover.”

Hanbin didn’t like the way Jeong-hwan spoke. More than being afraid of him, he was just plain annoyed.

“Just because I didn’t notice doesn’t mean you have to call me dense. You could’ve just said I was slow on the uptake.”

Jeong-hwan looked at Hanbin, wondering if this was really the same person who used to run away whenever he tried to talk to him. Now, Hanbin was standing his ground and talking back. Not one to back down, Jeong-hwan shot back.

“Oh? So you wouldn’t be offended if I called you oblivious instead?”

Hanbin didn’t respond. Instead, he just glared at Jeong-hwan. How could a guy like this be the male lead of a romance webtoon? Of course, it was all just happening in a dream, but still.

“Until this curse or nightmare or whatever it is ends, we’ll have to meet up every morning. Even on days we don’t have school, we still need to see each other.”

Jeong-hwan figured that if something had worked three times in a row, then it was reliable enough to count on.

“Why?”

Hanbin asked bluntly. Jeong-hwan looked at him like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“You might only see it as one bad day a week, but for me, it’s a much bigger deal.”

Jeong-hwan stared straight into Hanbin’s eyes.

“Last week, I completely screwed up a physical education test. All because of this damn condition.”

At that moment, Hanbin recalled running into Jeong-hwan last week.

“Just like my brother…”

The memory overlapped with a past experience, and Hanbin’s expression gradually stiffened.

“My future is at stake because of you, so don’t screw this up.”

A silence fell between them after Jeong-hwan’s words. Hanbin avoided his gaze and looked away.

“…If it’s that important, then fine. I’ll help.”

Jeong-hwan was a little surprised at how easily Hanbin agreed. It was the perfect opportunity for Hanbin to take advantage of the situation, yet he didn’t.

“Well, hopefully, this whole thing ends before my next test.”

Jeong-hwan muttered as he glanced at Hanbin. The conversation was getting a little too serious, so he tried to lighten the mood with a joke.

“Honestly, the worst part is that I have to see your face once a week until I die.”

Yeah, Jeong-hwan is definitely a mouth warrior. Hanbin scowled. Instead of thanking him for his help, this guy just had to say something infuriating.

“Why are you acting like you’re suffering? Hey, you think I’m enjoying this?”

No matter how much Hanbin yelled, Jeong-hwan didn’t seem fazed. He simply yawned and casually scratched his ear. Hanbin clenched his jaw before landing a critical hit of his own.

“Fine, I’ll help you recover, but everything else is up to you.”

“Up to me? What do you mean?”

Hanbin wanted to retort with “Are you seriously that dense?” but held back. He doesn’t want to stoop to Jeong-hwan’s level.

“There is something called a, “Romance Percentage.” It’s obvious you have to fill it up to 100%.”

In the dream, there was a floating “Romance Percentage” meter above Jeong-hwan’s character. Since he hadn’t done anything remotely romantic, it was, of course, stuck at 0%.

“What is that? I never saw anything like that.”

“Oh~ so you were acting like that because you didn’t know?”

Hanbin thought back to Jeong-hwan’s countless rude remarks and nodded to himself. But even if Jeong-hwan had known, Hanbin doubted it would’ve changed anything.

“It’s not certain, but don’t you think this will all end if we get it to 100%?”

Hanbin’s eyes sparkled as he proposed the idea.

Jeong-hwan doesn’t like it, but he has no other solutions.

“I guess we’ll have to try it.”

“Then stop acting the way you did yesterday!”

Jeong-hwan sighed. He has a feeling Hanbin is about to start nagging him. Yesterday, he had covered his ears in his dream to block out Hanbin’s thundering voice.

“You could’ve at least shared your umbrella!”

In the webtoon, the female lead had been caught in a sudden downpour. Just when she expected Jeong-hwan to share his umbrella, he simply walked away and said:

“There’s a spare in the classroom. Use that.”

He looked confused, as if he couldn’t understand what he had done wrong.

“Isn’t it her responsibility to check the weather and bring an umbrella?”

Jeong-hwan’s cynical response made Hanbin fume.

“In romance webtoons, the guy usually tilts the umbrella so much that his shoulder gets soaked, or even hides the umbrella and runs with her through the rain!”

Despite Hanbin’s passionate explanation, Jeonghwan remained unimpressed.

“I was just acting like I normally do.”

“And that’s the problem! If you keep acting like that, your Romance Percentage will stay at 0% forever!”

Hanbin sighed, deciding to explain things calmly instead of yelling.

“Think about it. What’s the title of the webtoon?”

“Grumpy…”

Jeong-hwan trailed off, unable to bring himself to say the full title: “I’ll make that grumpy guy mine!”

“The title is so lame. Who read something like that?”

Hanbin, who had read well over 500 webtoons with similar titles, felt a pang of guilt at Jeong-hwan’s sharp remark.

He wanted to defend himself by saying it wasn’t because the titles were pretty, but because he could understand the plot at a glance.However, he held back, worried that he might sound like an otaku.

Hanbin smirked.

“Doesn’t that mean the story only ends when the cold-hearted jerk falls in love?”

Jeong-hwan cannot  argue. Hanbin’s theory made too much sense.

“So, you need to act like you’re falling for the female lead. That’ll increase your Romance Percentage and end this nightmare.”

It’s a logical plan. But just imagining it made Jeong-hwan cringe.

“In that case, I’d rather just see your face once a week.”

“Hey!”

Just the thought of saying lines like a romance male lead made Jeong-hwan’s skin crawl. He had no desire to date and had never watched any content with romantic elements.

“It’s awkward because I never do things like this.”

Hanbin wondered if Jeong-hwan, despite his good looks, had no dating experience. Or maybe he simply never had to say those things because people liked him regardless.

“Of course, saying stuff like that all the time in real life would be weird. But you could at least try to be a little kinder, even to people you don’t like.”

Hanbin couldn’t understand why Jeong-hwan seemed to push people away on purpose. At Hanbin’s words, Jeong-hwan turned to look at him.

‘I don’t even know what it means to like someone, but the real problem is that I can’t say those cringeworthy things to people I don’t like either.’

Jeong-hwan kept the thought to himself. If he said it out loud, he’d probably be treated like some kind of anomaly. Someone who had never liked anyone before.

“If you really can’t do it, you should at least practice being nicer.”

“To who?”

“Anyone.”

Hanbin shrugged. With so many people around Jeong-hwan, just a week of practicing kindness would probably make a difference. Jeong-hwan looked down at Hanbin for a moment before nodding.

“…I don’t really want to, but I’ll think about it.”