Chapter 0: Prologue

There had been countless discussions, responses, accusations, defenses, blame-shifting, pure sympathy… and simple gossip. From the media down to individuals, everyone had something to say about those who had become socially disadvantaged—no, practically experiencing a living death.

TS Syndrome was the most significant of the new social problems.

In the end, I, Ha Jinhyuk, finished my pointless pondering.

“Ugh, seriously, these guys are crazy. There are things you should say and things you shouldn’t. TS Syndrome is such a sensitive topic outside of DC Inside; what’s with these guys saying they’re glad they can do lewd things? Clean Gallery takes another L! Next post, something about loli… What about your little sister? It’s not like this is the first time; it’s been like this for years, and the featured posts never change!”

And I was someone who had been immersed in that group for at least a few years. Naturally, because of my words, even I was being demoted to one of those trashy people, but it was too trashy to even defend.

Even I, a hopeless hikikomori loser who’d developed the habit of talking to myself while browsing DC Inside, thought these guys were crazy. It was clear that somewhere in their moral compass, a screw was loose—no, at least a few.

[TL note: Hikikomori refers to a person who isolates themselves from society, usually staying indoors and avoiding social interaction for long periods.]

Those pieces of trash. I closed the site without hesitation and naturally opened Novelpia on my phone. This was a kind of given daily task. Even though my life was far from regular, with my days and nights often flipped, around this time was when most of the bookmarked novels updated, so I naturally developed the habit.

“Let’s see… Ah, is this another hiatus?! Those bastards.”

[TL note: Hiatus = a temporary pause in the release of a series or project.]

Novelpia, after the mass exodus from Joara, had become the new home of male-oriented otaku novels. Some even called it the new holy land of TS.

Anyway, Novelpia has several peculiarities, one of which is that TS is quite a mainstream genre. Frankly, if you just put [TS] next to the title, even if you just scribble something resembling a word salad, it will get a certain amount of bookmarks, just like breaking through the bottom tier of authors with god complexes. TS was a genre with a dedicated fanbase.

And,Well.

Unfortunately.

The DC Inside gallery I enjoy—or I don’t know if I enjoy it, but I participate in—loves TS as much as Novelpia readers. It’s kind of a longstanding tradition, like criticizing Type-Moon.

Unfortunately, these guys’ writing skills, while varying, are generally decent. During the TS serialization boom, they took over more than half of the daily top 10 rankings in the light novel category. And almost all of those works stopped serialization before three months had passed. Damn prologuers, it’s common courtesy to at least write a full volume!

I was fiercely criticizing the current irresponsible hiatus trend with a mix of sarcasm and harsh words, yet I myself had been on hiatus for a year. No, it’s not a hiatus, it’s a pipeline. Since it’s yearly, it’s not a hiatus. When I was doing monthly releases, I got away with it by saying it was like “Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun,” but that doesn’t work when it’s on a yearly basis.

Actually, it’s not just one or two works that I’ve put on hold, so I can’t even make excuses. If you add up the bookmarks of the works I’ve arbitrarily stopped without a word during my writing career, it exceeds five digits. Over ten thousand! One out of every five thousand Korean citizens is a victim of my irresponsible hiatuses. I feel a bit proud.

Reading what I’d written, I felt like a real piece of trash. The above paragraph is all lies. This isn’t a hiatus. It’s a pipeline.

Anyway, the minor genre of Novelpia TS is about to experience a new renaissance! This is because this TS Syndrome thing has spread worldwide. TS, which has become a close reality from a distant fantasy, is guaranteed to be a hit! It will clearly be the catalyst for TS to become a major genre!

That was the general opinion of the gallery. A few years ago, when the first domestic case of TS Syndrome occurred, these opinions poured out. Frankly, “Ah! I want to get TS Syndrome! TS Syndrome!” “The principle of TS Syndrome must be revealed so that we can inject the virus into our bodies.” “Honestly, if I get TS’d, I’ll ~” “Getting TS’d into beautiful girl A VS getting TS’d into beautiful girl B.” “Hikikomori otaku will go outside more often for the sake of getting infected.” Stuff like that was the mainstream of the posts.

Naturally, using the word “beautiful girl” instead of “woman” showed that those guys were hopeless fat otaku. They were the type to post pictures of male actors’ meetings as “group photos” and indulge in their delusions. Well, of course, I’ve been joking about wanting to be TS’d for a few years now, but… well. Anyway, both I and those guys, though some might be different, weren’t really serious. It was nothing more than an expression of a fetish.

And then the news came that the first victim had died.

The cause of death was suicide.

Well, I’d expected it after hearing the news of the death.

I could picture what had happened. Now, with over a hundred cases, the attention on individual patients has relatively decreased, but he was the first. He’d experienced something difficult to comprehend—no, nearly impossible—even if he had lived a normal life. In a way, it was natural that he couldn’t withstand the pressure of countless gazes.

Even so, there was no sudden surge of self-reflection in the gallery. Like me, a high percentage of the members had been hardcore TS fans for years before TS Syndrome even appeared. TS was one of the more major fetishes in the gallery. However, I did become unconsciously careful when discussing TS Syndrome.

The bottom line is, don’t stop serializing, you. I want to lock the authors on my bookmark list in a room with nothing but canned food and make them write. I’m reading fewer works these days. They’ve all gone on hiatus. Authors who say they can’t write actually write well if you make them. Source: Japanese manga and light novel industry. Well, I won’t write, though.

“Good night, Umi-chan! I loved you yesterday, today, and will love you tomorrow!”

I finished my rambling, said goodnight to the figure on the shelf, and lay down.

…And, as always, I fell fast asleep.