The silence of the room was shattered by a sound that didn't exist in the physical world. It was the sound of a glass dam bursting inside Cael's mind.
"AAAGH!"
He clutched his skull, his fingers digging into his scalp as if he could physically hold his brain together. It felt as though a red-hot poker was being driven through his temples, followed by a torrential downpour of information that wasn't his. Memories, sharp and jagged, poured into his consciousness: the smell of burning ozone, the weight of a heavy mantle, and the face of a cold, stoic man with eyes like dying embers.
After a minute that felt like an eternity, the agony subsided into a dull, rhythmic throb.
Cael gasped for air, his lungs burning. He tried to push himself up, but his limbs felt like leaden weights. His balance faltered, and he tumbled backward, his back hitting the plush, oversized headboard of the bed with a soft thud.
He stared at his hands, and the sight stopped his heart. They were small, soft, and uncalloused. The skin was porcelain-pale, the fingers long and elegant—the hands of a child who had never known a day of labor.
"Ten... maybe eleven," he croaked, his voice high and melodic.
The irritation began to set in. A beam of sharp, midday sunlight was cutting through the curtains, hitting him square in the eye. "Shut up," he hissed. In a fit of pique, he slammed his small fist down onto the bedside table.
BOOM. The wooden table didn't just break; it detonated. A burst of orange-red flame erupted from his knuckles, instantly incinerating the fine wood and catching the nearby rug on fire. Cael froze, staring at the flickering flames. Phenix Bloodline. The Flame of the Phenix. He sat back, sorting the data. The truth hit him like thunder.
"And now I'm back in school," he muttered, his voice high and youthful. "Great. Just what I wanted. To go through puberty and homework twice."
He sat on the edge of the bed, forcing himself to breathe through the panic and sort the mental files. As the realization settled in, his face went pale.
"House Phenix... Jude... Cael Phenix... No. No way."
The pieces clicked together into a picture he recognized all too well. This wasn't just any fantasy world. This was the world of My Cute Sovereign.
"Why this manga?" he groaned, burying his face in those soft, childish hands. "Of all the stories, why the one that's basically a high-budget snuff film with a plot?"
He had spent hours scrolling through the panels of the infamous Yaoi manga, "My Cute Sovereign." The title was a lie. There was nothing cute about this world. It was a brutal, supernatural hellscape where cities were destroyed on a whim and families were slaughtered for a drop of pure blood.
And Cael Phenix? In the original story, Cael was the most hated character in the fandom. He was the "Scourge of the Household." He was the genius born with a bloodline so pure that the flames themselves bowed to him, yet he used that power for nothing but cruelty.
He remembered the manga panels vividly. Cael's father, Blake Phenix—a man whose heart was as cold as his flames were hot—had brought home a bastard son, Jude.
"Jude..." Cael shivered.
In the manga, Cael had been a monster to Jude. He had bullied him, scarred him, and even tried to have him killed during training expeditions. He had watched with a smirk as his younger half-brother was tormented by others, all while their father, Blake, watched with total indifference.
"That old man, Blake..." Cael's eyes narrowed. "If you can't take care of your son, keep your damn pants zipped."
It was that neglect and torture that turned Jude into the "Black Flame Demon." In the end, Jude didn't just get revenge; he erased the Phenix family from the map. He burned them all alive.
The only reason Cael survived was because he was away. And what did Cael do with his survival? He didn't become a hero. He became a tragic, heartbroken mess who fell in love with a femboy named Mike.
"Mike..." Cael groaned, rubbing his temples.
Mike was the protagonist. A soft, delicate, "bottom" archetype who collected lovers like Pokémon. Original Cael had been so desperate for love that he agreed to share Mike with two other men. The manga had eventually devolved from a plot-heavy tragedy into a straight-up, hardcore pornographic display of a four-way relationship that made no narrative sense.
"I don't mind the homosexuality," Cael muttered, looking at his childish reflection. "I even get why he fell for Mike. He was a cutie. "But seriously, sharing one guy with three others? That's not love, that's desperation."
Cael took a deep breath, the flames in the room dying down as he calmed his mind. He looked at his small, powerful hands.
"The story hasn't started yet," he realized. "Jude isn't here. The tragedy hasn't been written."
He wasn't going to be the Cael from the manga. He wasn't going to be a bully, he wasn't going to let the house burn, and he was definitely not going to be part of a multi person relationship just to get a piece of Mike.
He walked to the mirror, adjusting his silk pajamas. He practiced a smile—not the cruel sneer of the original Cael, but a calm, calculating look.
"The manga is over," he told his reflection. "The story? The story is mine now."