Title: Monochrome Rumor

Author/Story: Chiyul (original novel) and NORANG

Artist: Momoko

Rating: Slightly Mature (for themes of exploitation and abuse, side stories on Ridibooks for the novel are R19)

Genre: contemporary romance, thriller/mystery, BL, second chance at life, celebrities, found family, crime/criminals

Hosted On: Tappytoon

Official Link(s): English

Official Summary:

After being involved in a car accident together, Hajin is asked by Sihyeon to take care of Sihyeon’s younger sister after his death. Hajin never expected that to mean he would wake up in the hospital in Sihyeon’s body instead of his own. Even worse, Sihyeon was an infamous idol who would do anything for money, had multiple sponsors, and was apparently about to abandon the boy band he was a part of to sign a new contract with a larger agency. At first, Hajin believes the public’s negative opinion about Sihyeon, but the more he learns about Sihyeon’s miserable circumstances, the more enraged he becomes. Determined to get revenge in Sihyeon’s stead, Hajin decides to reach out to an old acquaintance for help. However, the deeper he goes into his revenge plot, the more people he becomes entangled with…

My Thoughts:

Normally, I am a huge weenie when it comes to this kind of dramatic contemporary series that makes it clear at least one of the characters has an immensely traumatizing backstory. Just like how I currently can’t watch horror movies because I live in an apartment by myself and am, again, a weenie… I tend to stay away from any series that made it clear that a character had sexual exploitation, especially as a younger adult or child, in their backstory. Nothing wrong with those stories, I just know that I don’t need to be crying at 2:00 a.m. When there’s nobody to hug me but my haunted Cabbage Patch doll.

I chose to read Monochrome Rumor because of a recommendation for the plot that I got from TikTok that I can barely remember and y’all… I do not regret it.

 When it comes to the main character of the series Sihyeon, you’re actually getting a character who’s experienced a lot of really upsetting trauma in that same vein because he’s trying to pay for his younger Sister’s medical bills because they’re the only people they have in their lives. As a result of the horrible things that have been done to him – things that have not actually been laid out in full detail in the webtoon so far, but are pretty clear in the completed web novel– Sihyeon  has an immense level of trauma that extends to an ability to interact with people.

Which is tough because he’s an idol and an actor.

Enter Hajin.

Hajin was the  illegitimate son of some kind of criminal. He is accidentally killed as a result of Sihyeon losing control of his car at the beginning of the series. While they both die, Sihyeon reaches out to Hajin across time and space and asks him to watch out for his little sister who would be devastated if she lost her last living family member. While Hajin agrees, he does so expecting to wake up in his own body.

Not Sihyeon’s.

This is the start of the most tragic body swapping series this side of What It Means To Be You. 

While the series has its comedic moments mostly because Hajin doesn’t have the same trauma or trauma reactions as the original Sihyeon, most of the series is a very tough look at what happens when someone has to step into the shoes of an abuse survivor who never got closure. Sihyeon’s backstory unfolds and bits and pieces as Hajin interacts with people who knew, loved, and hated him before and aren’t sure how to reckon with his new reality and personality after the accident that put him in Sihyeon’s body. While some people – like his new bandmates – are excited and hopeful about the sudden change in personality, other people are wary of this change and suspect something is wrong. These tend not to be very good people.

The series is partway through its second season and it just keeps getting better and better. The more Hajin and the reader learns about Sihyeon’s original life – rumors abound that he had a sponsor/sugar daddy but the truth, as we’re slowly seeing, isn’t that clearcut – the sadder we get about it all.

It’s also painful watching Hajin-as-Sihyeon get the love that was apparently waiting for OG!Sihyeon if only he’d been able to open up.

But the thing is… he couldn’t open up because he had this huge burden – of immense financial debt, a romantic betrayal that shook him, devastating sexual assault and exploitation, and his sister’s health – looming over him.

Monochrome Rumors Is also really interesting because it’s kind of about healing from someone else’s trauma.

Hajin didn’t have the greatest life before of the illegitimate son of a mobster’s mistress, to be clear, but what he went through as a young adult and child legitimately does not compare to the endless trauma and violations that even now (at the point of the webtoon) are implied to have deeply traumatized Sihyeon for years. So he’s not necessarily healing from his past, but he is actively trying to fix things in Sihyeon’s life and come to terms with how that terrible past impacts his new present. He doesn’t have full access to Sihyeon’s memories and when he gets new ones, they are usually linked to some trauma or devastating emotional situation. And being hit with those kinds of memories has to be really upsetting.

This is something we’ve seen in a few of the transmigration novels and webtoons where the transmigrator has memories of the original character that were not shown in the novel! (Like that one novel where the transmigrator villainess has memories of her original selves childhood including abuse from her parents that were not present in the novel but do explain her behavior in the book). 

It’s really that learning more – even about the character or person you’re currently possessing – isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.

 I highly recommend reading this webtoon if you can spare the change. So far, it’s a really good look at trauma reactions, building yourself but better, the ins and out of the entertainment industry in Korea, and so much more. There are also a lot of potential capture targets in this series. However, it’s not a “why choose” or harem series, so Hajin-as-Sihyeon doesn’t end up in the relationship configuration that will make me happiest (I know this from reading novel spoilers because I binged the manhwa and was left hanging). Even without that, it’s bound to be satisfying as long as all of the novel’s key moments are rendered expertly by the adaptation team because the relationships are all really expertly unspooled and most end satisfyingly in the novel according to those spoilers I read.

If you’re a fan of dramatic contemporary romances with a dark edge, you need to be reading this series… and then you need to come talk to me about it because I have theories and I would like to scream about the potential love interests on the pages of this webtoon.