NOVEL NEXT Chapter 1: Prologue
For some unknown reason, I suddenly found myself inside the novel written by my younger brother before he disappeared without a trace.
———
My younger brother had become the most successful romance genre writer on a famous online platform despite being in his early twenties. Meanwhile, I, his 25-year-old sibling, was just an ordinary office worker who had to constantly work overtime to avoid getting fired by my boss.
It all began because I, who actually disliked fictional stories, especially romance genres, was reluctant and felt uninterested in reading or even touching them, even when my brother, the romance writer, asked for advice on his recently finished novel.
We had a big fight after that incident. And the next day, my younger brother disappeared without a trace.
As my only family member, panic and hysteria overwhelmed me. I promptly contacted the police, seeking their assistance in locating my brother, who had disappeared without notifying me of anything.
While attempting to remain optimistic, a part of me believed that my brother had staged his disappearance as a prank following our fight the previous night. I also found some relief in the thought that he had enough financial resources to survive independently.
Yet, five years passed without any word of my missing brother. It was as though he had been entirely swallowed by the earth.
In my loneliness, due to the loss of my only family member, coupled with stress from work problems, I unwittingly entered my brother's workspace—a room where heavens of diverse genre books converged into one, a space I had never wanted to enter in my entire life.
And for some reason, my tired eyes were drawn to a brightly red-covered book. An R19+ novel that my brother had written for the last time.
It was the only witness to the last time I saw my brother before his disappearance after I unintentionally insulted his favorite genre during a heated argument where he continuously tried to make me read it despite my firm refusal.
"Are you really angry just because I refused to read your novel?"
In the end, I finally decided to read a book that was completely opposite to my preferences.
As I became completely engrossed in the story within the novel, I failed to notice something illuminating the entire room.
And... as you can probably guess. I mysteriously lost consciousness when I was nearly at the end of the novel my younger brother had written.
What's even more miraculous, when I woke up, I was inside a beautiful, unfamiliar body. And to top it all off, why did I end up entering the body of a character with an miserable destiny?
"... My dear brother, what kind of prank have you truly played on me?"