1 Prologue: The Day a Human Ran Into a Truck

Woojin Kim, better known as just "Jessi" to her friends and family, was late for work. And not just "kind of late." She was REALLY late, as in, she was supposed to have clocked in at 8 AM and it was now - she glanced down at her wristwatch, adjusting the light leather brown band so that the sun overhead didn't cast light directly into her warm brown eyes -

"SHOOT!" she yelped, gasping as the small hand came into focus.

She had ten more minutes of lunch break before she needed to be "back" at the office. Even though she was supposed to have been there about four hours ago. Tugging down the hem of her black pencil skirt as she ran, Jessi practically flew down the street as desperation to retain her job and not get fired sent the black heels of her pumps pounding on the pavement. She panicked as sweat began to pool in between her boobs and gather on the nape of her neck, desperately praying that her bun would hold up against all the running.

It was all THAT BOOK's fault. She'd been up all night reading it: The Wily Empress and Her Scheming Consort. And if it sounded like a trashy novel, that's because it WAS, a fact that Jessi was not in the slightest bit ashamed to admit. What could she say? She was a sucker for some late-night action. (Although admittedly, she wasn't getting much of that herself these days.)

But she could, and DID, live vicariously through those "garbage" novels. Jessi didn't care what anybody else thought. And besides, if trashy romance novels were pure garbage to most people, The Wily Empress and Her Scheming Consort took the crown and sat on the garbage throne. You know what they say: one man's trash is another man's treasure. And she had treasured that novel indeed, as well as its riveting plot and the consort's steamy schemes.

Jessi shook herself out of her memories of the novel. She glanced back down at her watch and swallowed a curse. That was two minutes of leisurely daydreaming she'd spent when she could've been booking it to the office. Blowing her bleached blonde bangs out of her face, Jessi considered her situation for a moment as she took a breather.

She could probably make it if she took THAT shortcut, though it would certainly cut things close. It was too late to avoid a scolding from her boss (though Manager Lee WAS kind of hot when he was angry) but Jessi couldn't afford to lose this job. She had bills to pay and things to buy, including the latest Stray Kids merch. (So what if she was 27 years old; love knows not of age!)

Jessi panted as she slowed down at the bottom of the street where an intersection lay.

As always, that little inner voice in her head prompted her to look both ways before crossing, a remnant of when she had been a child holding her mother's hand and practicing safe pedestrian habits.

"Screw that," she snapped back, ignoring the little voice. "I don't have time to spare."

Of course, she'd had time to spare. How long did it really take to look to the left and the right at least once?

And of course, it was never a good idea to ignore the little voice at the back of one's head. Beum Gi, Jessi's friend from university, had once told her she thought of the little voices as people in the movie theatre watching your life and telling you what you should and shouldn't do - because they know the ending.

Derek, their other friend, had told Beum Gi that she needed to see a psychiatrist, a conclusion that Jessi had agreed with.

But maybe Beum Gi had been on to something. Because as it happened, Jessi should've listened to the voice.

But it was too late now, as the dark green and red truck was already barreling down the perpendicular road towards Jessi. It came at her at such high speeds that she knew right away there was no way she WASN'T going to get hit. A shame.

"Well," Jessi thought to herself as she stared like a deer in the headlights at the front side of the truck, the deafening sound of a horn echoing in her ears as if from a distance. "At least now Manager Lee can't fire me."

Time seemed to slow down in those last few seconds before she and the truck collided. Her favorite purse with Hyunjin's face pictured on the side slipped from her hands in slow motion, hitting the ground just as the edges of Jessi's C-cups brushed against the truck. Jessi REALLY considered it a shame that the last words she would see were "Umawari Inc.," printed on the front of the truck head.

"Never mind," she thought. "I think I'd much rather get fired."

Despite the blaring truck horn sounds, Jessi thought she heard someone say, "Wish Transaction Complete. Commencing Novel Integration Now."

And then her world went black.