Chapter 1: Lets Make A Perfect Plan

I went back in time ten years and became a girl.

That was my state described in one sentence, but it took me considerable time to understand this.

Ddu-ddu-da-

The orphanage’s auditorium.

There, many children dance to the exciting music, shaking and shrugging.

In front, the director is diligently filming with a cheap camcorder, and next to him, a teacher is dancing with large movements to make it easy for the children to follow.

On the stage, the girls are dancing happily, watching the teacher or having memorized the choreography.

This stage, composed of elementary school students, was only half happy.

“Why do we have to do this…”

“It’s embarrassing…”

“F*cking hell…!”

The lower-grade children were just happy to dance to the fun choreography, but the upper-grade children were embarrassed to move their bodies to the childish music.

And that included me, caught between the two groups.

I was exhausted from desperately trying to follow the choreography teacher’s movements.

‘Why am I doing this?’

Such thoughts came endlessly, but the fist is closer than the law, and the logic of a 12-year-old kid is nothing to 6th graders.

I just let go of myself and entrusted my body to the exciting music.

At this time, my mind goes blank.

Thoughts popped out of my head randomly.

Why am I doing this?

If I refused, I would be beaten by the discipline leader (a high school student).

The director’s plan was to make the higher-ups feel good with our embarrassing videos and extort sponsorship money.

Participation was mandatory, as it was the most important matter for the orphanage.

Did I enter someone else’s body?

As far as I can remember, there was no child named Seo Sua in the orphanage.

I don’t remember her appearance either.

Moreover, among the boys, there was no child with my appearance and the name Seo Joyeon.

My existence was created, and my existence disappeared.

Was this all a hallucination?

I couldn’t say that my current body movements were a dream.

Then, was my 22-year life as Seo Joyeon all a delusion?

Or was my life being controlled by someone’s intention, like a brain in a vat?

Doubt added to doubt, and thoughts followed one after another.

I shook my head.

Further self-questioning is meaningless.

Digging into the supernatural phenomenon only ends in pain.

‘First, I need to get out of this crazy place.’

Regaining my confused mind, I immediately planned to escape this terrible place.

“Sua~ Smile a little more~!”

“Fck, are you fcking kidding me?”

“If you don’t do it properly, you’ll be in for it…”

Smile!

Damn it!

I need to get out of here!!

Before my brain shuts down!

An orphanage is a kind of wilderness.

Of course, there is no place that is not, but the form is more clearly revealed when the people who make up the group are younger.

A place where children who prioritize strength over logic and emotion over reason gather is truly a place like a safari of the survival of the fittest.

Anyone who has worked in a place with many children does not doubt Xunzi’s words that people are inherently evil.

Normally, education and management can control it to some extent, but an orphanage is not a normal case.

But even in such a place, there is only one way to control it.

“I got scolded by the teacher because of you, you b*tch.”

It was the age-old practice of passing the blame downwards.

“I’m sorry.”

“Do better, okay?”

“Yes.”

From the teacher to the discipline leader, from the discipline leader to their subordinates, from the subordinates to the 6th graders, from the 6th graders to me.

The concentration of the scolding that came down from above, which was clearly verbal caution, was converted into three punches by the time it reached me.

After being hit in the stomach, back, and arm, I was able to escape the pressure only after bowing my head to the bullies.

There are three other friends in the room for four people, except for me.

However, the children were cautious and did not say anything to me or approach me.

Even 12-year-old children could understand that they could get into trouble.

“Sigh, it hurts….”

Even if she is an upper elementary school girl, I am now a 12-year-old girl.

Moreover, compared to my peers, my body was not very developed.

It means it’s very small.

On the other hand, the 6th-grade group seemed to be well-developed, and there was even a child who was over 170 cm tall.

Almost two heads taller than me.

It was natural that the punches of such a child would hurt.

‘Kids at this age don’t know how to control their strength, do they…?

I generously sighed and climbed onto the bed.

Even though the bed was designed to be low for children, it was a bit high for me, so I had to jump a little to barely get on.

‘First, let’s make a plan.’

It was the orphanage I was in, but it was hard to say that this place was a good place.

The teachers were often exhausted from their lives and managed the residents poorly, and they often left it to the high school students.

The director was genuinely working for the residents, but he was often absent because he was traveling around to get donations from various places.

The result is the Serengeti of children.

It has become a wild place of the strong, the weak, the survival of the fittest.

And I, who was usually timid, was thrown out into society without ever adapting.

I thought I was barely chasing my dream while living alone like that…… but I have a terminal illness.

Life really sucks.

‘…Let’s think positively for now. My body has changed, so maybe my terminal fate has changed too.’

I open my notebook and scribble with a pencil.

I organized my future plans.

1. Leave the orphanage. How?

There are three main ways to leave the orphanage.

The most common way is to leave when you become an adult.

The orphanage can no longer take care of a child when they become an adult, so they have to move out.

It was the most common method, but for me, who wanted to leave quickly, this method was not welcome.

The second is to just leave and not come back.

The orphanage has no legal responsibility to hold onto a resident who leaves on their own.

Therefore, many middle and high school students leave the orphanage on their own.

Of course, since they can’t work without a guardian, they often end up in runaway gangs and do illegal things.

I don’t like this method.

‘Then the only thing left is adoption….’

I circled and underlined the word ‘adoption’ and pondered.

Becoming someone’s child is something I have never experienced.

It was the same in the past.

No, should I say past life?

Except for infants or children who haven’t grown up yet, the adoption rate drops sharply as they get older.

So it becomes common to leave the orphanage when you become an adult.

This was especially true for boys.

There was a time when people preferred sons in the past, but by the time I grew up, a social atmosphere was created that favored daughters over sons.

Therefore, male residents around this time did not even think about adoption, but rather worried about what to do when they became adults.

I was the same.

‘But now I look like a girl.’

Although it is a low probability, there is a relatively high possibility of being adopted.

But I don’t want to be simply adopted.

There is no guarantee that a person who adopts a poor orphan is a saint.

There are many cases where people adopt and then abandon their children because they become pregnant with their own children.

In order for me to grow up safely until I become an adult, I have to create something that benefits both me and the adopter.

Only then will I not be abandoned.

“Something I can appeal to the adopter….”

I spun the pencil in my hand and thought.

My body was still unfamiliar, so the pencil kept falling out of my hand.

When the pencil mark on the notebook was made for the twelfth time, I stopped the falling pencil with my palm.

“…This is good?”

The plan began to take shape.

The person in charge of the orphanage, Director Seo Gangcheol, was sitting in the director’s office and working for the first time in a long time.

He had a lot of outside schedules, but today he borrowed an old camcorder to film the children and was with them.

He smiled happily as he transferred the video taken on the camcorder to the computer.

‘The children are so pretty. I think I can get more sponsors with this.’

There is nothing that catches the eyes of adults more than cute children doing cute things.

Most of the sponsors were around his age or much older, so they would not dislike their granddaughter-like children acting cute.

It was fashionable to upload promotional videos to YouTube instead of the homepage, so he opened a free video editing program.

He had no skill in video editing, but he could cut long videos to make them look good.

He could outsource it, but it would cost a lot, so he was satisfied with this quality.

Then it happened.

Knock knock-

Someone knocked on the door of the director’s office.

“Come in.”

As soon as he finished speaking, the door opened.

But no one came in.

‘Huh? Is it a children’s prank?’

Sometimes children played pranks like this.

He got up from his desk and looked at the open door.

But contrary to the expectation that it was a prank, a girl who was hidden by the bookshelf appeared.

She was a small child in a yellow dress.

He knew the girl.

Surely, she was the child who had recently been reported by the teachers to be a little worried about.

Her name was definitely….

Right, it was Seo Sua.

“Sua, do you need something from the director?”

He asked with a good-natured smile.

The way he bent his knees to meet her eye level showed that he cared for the child.

Sua hesitated for a moment and twisted her hands at the question.

Seo Gangcheol waited without rushing her.

A child of this age would be embarrassed to ask the teacher for something.

After a while, Sua opened her mouth.

“Um…, can I go to the PC Cafe?”

The usually timid child had the courage to ask for something for the first time.

He was usually generous and giving to the children, even to the point of hearing from other teachers not to listen to the children’s requests too much.

Seo Gangcheol said with a kind smile.

“No.”

Thud-

Sua was shocked.

For some reason, she looked as if some huge plan had completely collapsed.