Prologue.

My name is Julia, twenty years old, French, and a professional at being unremarkable. My greatest achievements? I hold a black belt in binge-reading Rofan novels and can identify an isekai truck from miles away. My tiny Paris studio was a shrine to this obsession— a landscape of empty coffee mugs and neglected textbooks.

The tropes are practically all the same, but they are  so addictive. I’ve reached a point where I can read a whole novel in a day and start a new one the next day. I barely remember the main character’s names. It’s always the same: the female lead gets hit by a truck, wakes up in the villainess’s or side character’s body, starts a new business or become a political genius, and then the male lead suddenly finds her interesting.

Another day, another Rofan novel. The female lead gets isekai’d again. She revolutionizes the medieval economy with coffee—again. The cold Duke of the north falls for her— again. I should.be sick of it. So why can’t I stop?

Today was finally the weekend, I decided to put my studies on hold to focus  on my reading. (Well it’s not like I study that hard; I am satisfied just passing my class. My grades doesn’t matter.) But my thumb grew tired, scrolling endlessly through the novel’s app. Five novels marked ‘Read’. Then ten. Then twenty. A hollow panic began to bloom in my chest. I turned off my phone and laugh. The sound was sharp and brittle abrupt. This was pathetic. A surge of defiant energy shot through me.

“Well, shouldn’t I try to do something tonight? Everyone my age is having fun right now. I am not going to grow old in my bed waiting to read novels.”

So I prepared some clothes to go to a new club that had just opened near my house. I even dug out a dress from the back of my wardrobe, a little black thing that I’d bought on a hopeful day but never worn. I went into the bathroom to take a shower.

When I was finished, I brushed my teeth and put on some makeup. It was still a bit early for the club to open, so I put on some comfortable clothes and lay in my bed.

The silence of my apartment, usually so comforting, felt heavy. I just needed to close my eyes for a minute. Just a minute, to gather the courage to become a person who went to clubs. The last thing I thought was the familiar, comforting cliché of truck-kun barreling towards a heroine.

I woke up to the scent of roses and old parchment. And the canopy above my head was definitely not from IKEA.