faeni

Death by Truck-kun? Too mainstream. I died choking on my own laughter during a late-night comedy rerun. Pathetic? Yes. Fitting for someone who gave up on life halfway through university and became a full-time couch potato? Also yes.

When I opened my eyes again, I wasn’t in the afterlife—or if I was, it had a suspicious amount of baby talk and clean diapers. I was reincarnated... as an infant. No powers. No memories of my new name. Just chubby cheeks and existential dread.

But the real horror? I slowly realized I was now living inside one of those cliché romance novels I absolutely despised. You know the type: cold-hearted king meets brave commoner girl, falls in love, political chaos ensues, blah blah gag me with a spoon. I read it. I hated it. And now? I think I’m in it.

And not as the heroine. Or the villain. Or even the funny sidekick. No—I'm just some background baby who probably gets held once, then vanishes from the plot forever.

With no grand destiny, no cheat skills, and no idea what chapter we’re on, I’ve decided to do the only thing I was ever good at—absolutely nothing. But fate has a funny way of dragging the lazy into the spotlight…

They think I’m innocent. I think this whole thing is a joke. Let's see who breaks first.

Reborn as a Background Baby in a Novel I Hate

The door to the war room creaked open.

Charlotte and Mira froze mid-conspiracy. A candle stub burned dangerously close to a parchment labeled Operation Ghost Pudding, and Mira was up to her elbows in a velvet pouch of suspiciously fragrant herbs.

Elias stood in the doorway, arms crossed, gaze unimpressed.

Charlotte adjusted her slightly crooked crown with dramatic flair. "Welcome, Sir Elias. Have you come to interrogate us? Or defect?"

He stepped inside, letting the door click softly shut behind him. "I've come," he said dryly, "to inquire why the Grand Chamberlain's chair now cackles like a banshee every time someone sits on it."

Charlotte held out a slightly crushed biscuit. "Collateral brilliance."

Elias didn't take it. His eyes scanned the chaos—blueprints scrawled with crayon and ink, maps of the palace peppered with alarming annotations, and something that looked very much like powdered goose feather sprinkled over a stolen ceremonial sash. His brow furrowed.

Charlotte's grin turned sly, like a cat with a paw in the cream. "That's why we're recruiting you."

Mira signed grandly: We need a lookout. Ideally one with a moral compass and long legs.

Elias shot her a look. Then turned it on Charlotte, who was now solemnly wrapping a napkin around her shoulders like a royal cloak of mischief.

"I'm a knight-in-training," he said flatly. "Not your errand mule."

"Exactly," Charlotte beamed. "Which means you get access to the guard tower schedules."

He exhaled sharply, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

"Please, Elias," she said softly now, the act fading into something more earnest. "Not for trouble—" (Mira snorted loudly.) "—but because it helps. Us. The others. All of us stuck here pretending everything's fine when it's not."

Her voice cracked slightly at the edges. "We need this."

Then Elias stepped forward, plucked a map from the wall, and held it up.

"This one's outdated. They added a new watch rotation after the last… incident."

Charlotte took it as though it were a royal seal and stared at Elias like he'd just pledged eternal loyalty.

"Does this mean you're in?" she whispered.

Then sighed the deep, tragic sigh of someone who already knew they were doomed.

Mira fist-pumped. Charlotte squealed.

And that night, the three of them huddled together on the cold stone floor, cross-legged and bent over parchment, building what Charlotte would later dub The Prank Corps of the Crown.

Mira, silent as ever, crowned Elias with a tiny paper crown when he wasn't looking.