"It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live."
— Marcus Aurelius
***
The door swung open before I could say anything. A maid walked in without bothering to knock twice, middle-aged with graying hair yanked back into a bun so tight it looked painful. Her face had the kind of blank expression that servants wore when they'd seen too much and cared too little. She looked me over the way someone might inspect a stain on expensive furniture.
"Young Master Kaelen." Her tone made it clear this wasn't her first rodeo with the morning wake-up call. "I trust you slept well?"
I tried to respond. What came out was a noise like a dying frog.
Great start, Alex. Really selling the 'normal person who belongs in this body' act.
What was I supposed to say? Hey, funny story, I'm actually a twenty-two-year-old college student from another dimension who spent last night trashing this guy in a comment section, and now I'm apparently living in his skin. Any chance we could reschedule whatever's happening today?
"I..." My throat felt like sandpaper. "Fine. I slept fine."
Nailed it.
"Your morning attire has been prepared." She gestured toward an ornate chair where someone had laid out clothes with way too much care. Dark, simple garments that screamed 'minor noble trying not to get noticed.' "Your cousin, Young Master Leo von Valerius, awaits you in the courtyard for your... scheduled discipline."
The words landed like a punch to the gut.
Scheduled discipline.
Oh. Oh no.
I knew exactly what that meant. Chapter 7 of Heirs of the Azure Orb. The scene where Leo, beloved protagonist and golden boy extraordinaire, beat the ever-loving crap out of Kaelen in front of half the estate. Something about harassing a servant girl who'd turned him down. The novel had framed it as righteous justice, the hero standing up for the powerless against a scumbag noble who abused his position.
The readers back in my world had eaten it up. I remembered the comments. "Finally someone putting that trash where he belongs!" "Leo is such a good guy, I stan!"
All those comments, all that cheering, and now I was the guy about to get his face rearranged for crimes I didn't commit.
"I... perhaps we could postpone—" My voice cracked like a thirteen-year-old going through puberty.
"Young Master Leo was quite insistent." Was that sympathy in her voice? Hard to tell. "He mentioned that delays would only make the lesson more... thorough."
Thorough. Because nothing says 'heroic protagonist' like promising to hit someone harder if they're late.
The maid turned to leave, then stopped with her hand on the door.
"Young Master, if I may offer some advice?"
I nodded. At this point I'd take advice from a talking squirrel if it meant surviving the next hour.
"Accept your punishment with dignity. Young Master Leo is... merciful to those who show proper remorse."
Merciful. In the novel, Leo's mercy meant stopping before he broke anything that couldn't be healed by a good doctor. What a prince among men.
The door closed behind her with a click that sounded way too final.
I stood there in the sudden quiet, my borrowed chest heaving with breaths that came too fast and too shallow. My hands were shaking. When I pressed them against my eyes, I could still see that aristocratic face from the mirror, all sharp cheekbones and grey eyes that belonged to someone else.
This was real. This was actually happening. No alarm clock was going to save me. No "it was all a dream" cop-out.
Okay. Okay. Stop panicking. You know the story. Use that.
I forced myself to breathe slower. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Some technique my ex had tried to teach me before she got sick of my emotional unavailability and found someone better. At least those sessions were finally paying off.
Think. What do you know?
I knew the story better than I knew my own family tree. Read it twice, argued about it in forums, wrote paragraph-long comments dissecting every plot hole. In about thirty minutes, I was supposed to walk into that courtyard where Leo and his cronies would be waiting like a welcoming committee from hell.
The original Kaelen would try to bluster. He'd throw around the Leone family name like it still meant something, despite House Leone's influence having declined for years. Leo would calmly explain Kaelen's crimes to everyone watching. Harassment. Abuse of position. General scumbag behavior that made readers feel good about cheering for violence.
Then the "lesson" would start.
I could almost feel it already. The crack of ribs under Leo's boot. A shoulder wrenched the wrong direction. Blood in my mouth. The novel described it in detail that bordered on gratuitous: a week in bed, every breath a reminder of what happened to villains who stepped out of line.
The readers had loved it. They'd left comments about how satisfying it was. How Kaelen deserved every hit.
But I hadn't done any of that. I hadn't harassed anyone. I hadn't abused servants. I was just some idiot who'd stayed up too late writing angry comments about fictional characters.
Cosmic irony at its finest.
I shoved the existential breakdown aside. Crisis mode. Think about solutions.
Running? Where would I go? This was the Leone estate. I had no money, no contacts, no idea what was outside those walls beyond what brief descriptions the novel had bothered to include.
Fighting back? With what, these noodle arms? The original Kaelen had zero combat training. I could feel it in the weakness of this body, the way my muscles seemed to protest at the idea of any physical activity more strenuous than walking.
That left option three. Take the beating. Survive. Figure out the rest later.
Not a great plan. Definitely not a dignified plan. But it was all I had.
Unless...