I woke up.
Not with fists raised or a crowd chanting my name, not with Jiwon sprawled on the cafeteria floor and me standing tall like some kind of reborn warrior.
I woke up in my bed. Sheets tangled around my legs. Sweat clinging to my shirt. My heart still pounding like I'd gone twelve rounds.
It was a dream.
All of it.
For a second, I just lay there, staring at the ceiling, letting that truth sink in. My chest felt hollow, like someone had punched a hole straight through me. The fight had felt real—too real. The adrenaline, the rush, the way I'd stood up for myself. But reality doesn't give you those cinematic moments. Reality just hands you silence and the taste of regret.
I sat up, dragging a hand down my face. My room smelled like stale air and cheap shampoo. On the desk, my phone buzzed once and went quiet again. Probably nothing important. Nobody really texts me anymore.
Those "friends" I bragged about? Jihoon. Minjae. The guys who kept me afloat when I was sinking? Yeah, they're gone. All because of a girl.
Pathetic, right?
Her name doesn't matter anymore. What matters is that I got her. Somehow, against all odds, she picked me. For a while, I thought that meant I'd finally won at something again. But the victory was empty. She cheated—once, twice, three times. Each time I swallowed the excuses, patched up the hole in my pride, and went back like a fool. And each time, Jihoon and Minjae drifted further. Jealous, maybe. Angry, definitely. We stopped laughing together. We stopped being us.
Now I'm just… me. Alone.
I shoved the memory aside and dragged myself into the morning routine that keeps me tethered to something resembling normal life.
The closet creaked as I opened it. Hanwool High doesn't have the cleanest uniform policy—white button-up, red tie, whatever jeans you've got lying around. I pulled on the shirt, sleeves wrinkled from being crumpled on the chair all week, and tied the tie loose. The jeans sagged a little, baggy in the legs, but that's just how I wear them. Not neat, not polished, just… there.
In the bathroom mirror, a stranger stared back. Blonde hair, faded and uneven, the cheap dye already dulling into something between yellow and hay. The roots were starting to show black, crawling back like my past refusing to die.
I brushed my teeth slowly, foam clinging to my lips. The sound of bristles scraping drowned out the silence of the house. My reflection didn't change, though. No matter how much I scrubbed, I couldn't erase the tired eyes looking back at me.
Back in my room, I grabbed my phone, thumb flicking across the screen without thought. Endless scrolling—feeds, memes, posts from people I don't care about. People pretending to be happy, pretending life has some kind of direction.
I caught myself thinking—if I had a power, something supernatural, something unfairly mine… would it fix all this? Would it matter?
Teleportation, super strength, psychic powers—it didn't matter which. I just wanted something that proved I wasn't ordinary. That I wasn't another nameless second-year dragging himself through beige hallways, waiting for the clock to run out.
And then, like it always does when the night lingers too long in my head, the thought crept in: what comes after all this? After school, after soccer, after love, after mistakes? After life?
I imagined it like an endless dark. Quiet. No dreams, no fights, no regrets. Just nothing. The thought should've scared me, but instead it felt… tempting. Restful.
The alarm on my phone snapped me out of it. Another day waiting. Another day pretending. Another day carrying the weight of dreams that only ever end when I wake up.
I shoved the phone into my pocket, slung my bag over my shoulder, and stepped out the door.
Hanwool High was waiting, and I was still just Nam Seop.
Damn it.
I'd forgotten my class schedule. The one paper I actually needed so I wouldn't wander around like an idiot on the first week back.
With a groan, I spun on my heel and jogged back inside. Shoes half-tied, bag bouncing against my side, I tore through my desk drawers. Nothing. Papers spilled out, old homework crumpled, empty pens rolling onto the floor.
I dropped to my knees, checking under the bed, behind the chair, even between the pages of an old notebook. Still nothing.
My chest tightened, frustration clawing at me. It was just a damn piece of paper, but the more I couldn't find it, the more I felt like the walls were closing in.
I sat down hard on the edge of my bed, dragging a hand down my face. The silence pressed heavy in the room.
And then—
Thump.
My left shoulder twitched. Once. Twice. A steady, pulsing beat, like a second heart was trying to punch its way out.
"What the…" I muttered, rolling my shoulder. But the thumping didn't stop. It spread.
My calf spasmed, a crawling sensation writhing beneath the skin like something alive. My palm joined in, the muscle tightening and releasing with each pulse.
Panic shot through me. I slapped my shoulder. Smacked my calf. Hit the palm of my hand against my thigh. Nothing changed. The crawling stayed, the thumping grew louder inside my body, until it felt like I was coming apart from the inside out.
My neck seized. Pain flared sharp and hot, forcing a groan out of me. I stumbled toward the bathroom, clutching at my throat. The mirror blurred before me as I leaned on the sink, breath coming heavy and uneven.
And then I saw it.
My veins—normally faint, hidden—were raised and bulging against the skin of my neck, dark and swollen like they'd been carved with ink. Each throb made them stand out sharper, grotesque and alive.
Something was moving under them.
I leaned closer. My reflection trembled as I stared. A shape—long, glowing faintly, wriggling—slid beneath the surface of my skin. Crawling.
"No, no, no—" My voice broke.
I slapped my neck again and again, desperate, the smack of flesh against flesh echoing in the tiled bathroom. But the thing didn't stop. It shifted, dragging itself along my vein like it was searching for a way out.
Every throb of my pulse made it glow brighter. A sickly, burning light spreading beneath my skin.
I clawed at it with my nails, frantic, groaning through clenched teeth. My body convulsed with each crawl, my vision flickering at the edges.
"What the hell is happening to me…?" I gasped, eyes wide, watching something inhuman writhe where no human thing should be.
My legs buckled under me. The crawling in my veins surged downward, coiling into my calves, my thighs. The ache sharpened until it felt like knives dragging along the muscle fibers. I staggered back from the mirror, gripping the sink so hard the porcelain creaked.
And then—silence.
The pulsing stopped. The crawling faded. What was left behind was worse: an ache that hummed deep in my legs, like they were begging me to move.
"What the hell…" I whispered, staring down at them. My legs trembled, not weak but charged, alive with some kind of unnatural energy. The air in the room felt too still, like it was waiting.
An impulse hit me. Run.
I stepped back into my room, heart hammering, then glanced at the narrow space between my bed and the wall. A stupid thought clawed its way into my head: What if I just… try?
I braced myself, bent my knees, and sprinted.
The world blurred.
I wasn't running—I was gone. My feet tore across the floor, a sharp thump-thump-thump like thunder rolling in milliseconds. By the time my brain caught up, I'd already looped around the room. My chest heaved. My eyes darted back and forth, taking in the impossible.
"I… I moved—what the hell was that?!" I shouted, stumbling.
My legs buzzed with power, heat radiating from every tendon and bone. I tried again. A circle. Faster. And again. And again. The room smeared into streaks of color, air whipping past me like I'd broken into another dimension. I tripped, slammed into my bed, and nearly flipped it over.
On the floor, gasping, I stared at my own shaking hands. No human runs like that. No human moves like that.
Adrenaline coursed through me, drowning out fear. My body was screaming with the need to test more. To know more.
And then it hit—another ache. This time in my arms. Heavy, deep, like my bones were stretching against my skin.
"…If my legs mean speed," I whispered, staring at my hands, "then my arms—"
I turned to my desk. Covered in my life—dusty soccer trophies, family photos, school certificates. Relics of who I used to be. The thought was insane, but I couldn't stop myself.
I grabbed the edge and lifted.
It rose. Effortless. Wood, metal, drawers packed with junk—I held it like it was cardboard. My muscles didn't even strain. My veins glowed faintly, crawling light spilling under the skin of my forearms.
The desk clattered back down as I let go, breathless. My reflection in the photo frames showed wide eyes, trembling lips, and something else—something shining faintly.
My eyes glimmered in the glass.
"This… this isn't real. This can't be real."
I backed away, fumbling for my phone. My fingers flew across the screen, searching. "Sudden strength. Glowing veins. Body crawling. Awakening powers?" Stupid keywords. Nothing that made sense. Conspiracy forums. Sci-fi theories. Junk.
But what else could explain this?
I had just sprinted in circles faster than thought. Lifted a desk like it weighed nothing. My body wasn't mine anymore.
I sat back on the bed, phone shaking in my hand, staring at my glowing veins.
"Do I actually… have a superpower?" I whispered.
No answer came—just the buzzing ache in my body, begging to be unleashed again.
By the time I skidded to a stop, I was already miles from the plaza.
The world caught up late. The air exploded around me, a violent gust ripping through the empty lot where I landed. Grass bent flat, dust swirled into choking clouds, and cracks spiderwebbed across the ground beneath my sneakers. My chest heaved, lungs burning like I'd just sprinted a marathon—but my legs… they ached, yes, but they weren't tired. They felt alive.
"Holy shit…" I muttered, staring at the fractured concrete. My voice was swallowed by the howl of wind still whipping against me.
Then, as suddenly as it came, the chaos died. The dust settled. The grass eased back. And I was just… standing there.
Fear gripped me—not of the power itself, but of being caught. I bolted again, straight home, slamming the door behind me and locking it like that could protect me from the world outside.
My hands shook as I pulled out my phone. Notifications popped instantly, endless pings and vibrations.
I opened the first app.
And there I was.
Everywhere.
Videos already flooded the timeline. Shaky camera angles of a black-painted figure darting through the plaza. People yelling in disbelief, voices cracking as they swore they couldn't believe their eyes. One clip caught me mid-hop before vanishing, the crowd's collective gasp cutting through like thunder.
"WHO TF IS W.I.A???" someone had captioned, the video racking up thousands of views in minutes.
Another showed a slowed-down frame—me blurred into a streak, only my glowing veins faintly visible as light. The comments were insane:
This ain't real lol, edited.
Bro looks like The Flash if he had no budget.
No way… I was there, I SAW IT. He was moving faster than cars.
New K-drama promotion?
Government experiment escapee confirmed.
Hashtags were already trending. #WIA. #SeoulSuperhuman. Even #RealLifeHero.
I scrolled faster. News outlets were picking it up too—low-res screenshots plastered under headlines like: Mysterious Figure Shocks Plaza With Inhuman Speed! and First Superhuman or Elaborate Hoax?
One post stopped me cold: a grainy photo of me mid-run, my eyes glowing faintly through the paint. The caption read: If this is real, this guy could level anyone. Hero or villain? What side's he on?
I dropped the phone on the bed and buried my face in my hands.
Hero. Villain.
The words felt heavier than anything I'd ever lifted.
Should I try to save people? Be some kind of symbol? That thought almost made me laugh. Me—the kid who lost everything, who couldn't even keep friends, who crawled back to a cheating girlfriend three times—me, a hero?
But villain… that word clung to me differently. Darker. Easier. I could already picture it: robbing banks, breaking anyone who laughed at me, making the world choke on the same humiliation I had. The crowd in the plaza—they looked at me like a god when I ran. Imagine if I pushed harder.
My chest tightened. "Am I really the strongest?" I whispered to myself. "If I'm the only one like this…"
The phone buzzed again. More videos. More headlines. My name—well, not my name anymore, but W.I.A.—already burned into the internet.
I wasn't invisible anymore.
And the world wouldn't forget me now.