Reborn: The Straightest Man in the Room

Everyone thinks Jimmy Hudson, my college roommate, is the typical brutally honest and socially clueless guy who just has zero filter sometimes.

A friend and I meet up to go boxing and practice our hooks, but he calls it a hookup when texting the group chat about it. He even nonchalantly says he won't be deleting his message.

When I meet my boxing buddy, he says I'm meeting my hookup buddy. He even has the nerve to say, "It's just a joke. Don't be overly sensitive and read so much into it."

Thanks to a few more of his dirty tricks, my reputation is ruined, and the entire class ostracizes me.

But Jimmy doesn't stop there. He slips sleeping pills into my drink, which leads me to miss an exam. Later, he claims it was just a careless mistake and blames it on his scatterbrained tendencies.

Eventually, he dumps crushed cherry pits into my water bottle, which ends up poisoning me to death.

This all happened because our campus belle, whom he has a crush on, helped me with my luggage on our first day on campus.

All of a sudden, my eyes open again. I've returned to the first day of my freshman year at college.

This time, I'm going to let Jimmy get a taste of what it's like to have his life ruined with a helping of some social cluelessness of my own.

"Whoa! You alright, Alex?"

When I heard that familiar tone—and Jimmy Hudson's look of feigned concern appeared before my eyes—I suddenly realized I had been reborn. I'd gone back to the very first day of my freshman year in college.

In my previous life, this was the day Jimmy had "accidentally" spilled scalding coffee on me. He proceeded to "kindly" help me check my phone, only to "inadvertently" send one of my intimate photos to the class group chat.

Then, instead of pressing "Delete for everyone", he pressed "Delete for me". So, I couldn't remove the message from the chat.

As a result, on the very first day of the semester, I became the laughingstock in class.

Jolting upright, I reached for the phone on the desk—but Jimmy was quicker. He grabbed it and unlocked it in one smooth motion. "I'll help you check to see if there's any damage!"

The next second, he yelped in alarm and looked at me with a wide-eyed expression. "Oh, shoot! I think I accidentally sent one of your photos!"

I snatched the phone back from him in a frenzy.

The situation in the group chat was the same as it'd been in my previous life. He'd deleted the photo on this end, which meant the photo couldn't even be removed from the group chat anymore.

"Huh?"

"Is this some kind of special surprise for the first day of college?"

"Who sends an intimate photo of himself out of nowhere?"

"Hey, man. Are you just trolling or are you seriously trying to show off your muscles?"

"I've got a tip for you. You can delete messages on WhatsApp, you know."

"I guess there really are freaks like him."

I froze in place, watching as the mocking messages appeared one after the other in the class group chat, before weakly slumping back into my chair.

Jimmy's eyes flashed with smug delight, but he acted like the typical straightshooter who didn't know much about social cues. "So sorry about that, man. I was too careless. I didn't even realize I'd send the photo…"

Connor Lewis, one of our other roommates, stuck his head out from his bunk bed and glanced at us. "I'm sure Alex won't be so petty and make a big deal out of something this small, right?"

Jimmy chimed in breezily, "Exactly. You won't hold this against me, right, Alex?"

I looked at the two of them, who were echoing each other, and abruptly chuckled. "That's great to hear!"

Both of them eyed me in confusion. "What do you mean?"

I simply raised the phone and looked at them with an unbothered expression as I calmly replied, "Well, this is Connor's phone. I was worried you two might end up fighting over this."

As it was, this time around, the phone I'd reached for was the phone Connor was charging on the desk. It was the same model as mine.

Therefore, the intimate photo that Jimmy hastily uploaded and deleted belonged to Connor!

Jimmy and Connor both turned pale, their eyes widening in shock. Cursing loudly, Connor jumped off his bed.

Meanwhile, I turned to Jimmy with a clueless yet frank expression of my own, asking, "What's with you two? I guess it's my fault for being a little slow on the uptake. I can't even figure out what's going on."

Jimmy was so furious that he almost popped a vein, while Connor stood to the side with a scowl.

In my previous life, our classmates started calling me a deluded showoff who thought too highly of himself. They even started rumors about my so-called messy private life.

Apart from Jimmy's "unintentional" setups, all that happened in no small part thanks to Connor deliberately fanning the flames.

He would approach me in private to "tease" me with the "dumb comments" that Jimmy made, which were so blatantly riddled with inconsistencies. Then, he would record my anxious rebuttal and maliciously edit my response before spreading the videos around.

That cemented my reputation for getting triggered by the truth and reacting aggressively to it.

Connor was also the one who took a screenshot of Jimmy's "hookup" comment and added a suggestive emoticon before posting it on the college forum. He even captioned it with, "As expected of a ladies' man. Much respect, bro."

That resulted in the entire campus sending a barrage of insults and criticisms my way.

Even after I drank the water that Jimmy had added crushed cherry pits to and was poisoned to death, Connor helped my murderer out. He spread the story that I'd taken my own life after having an emotional breakdown over missing the exam.