The Time When We Were Young

Choi Ah-ran is a successful novelist and publishing executive, but she harbors a deeply embarrassing secret. Twenty years ago, under the pen name Jo Ah-han, she achieved massive fame by writing an internet novel about Sanggo High School's most popular student falling in love with an ordinary girl. When Ah-ran visits her childhood home to announce the end of her engagement, she suddenly loses consciousness and awakens inside Cheonyang, the very fictional world of her old web novel. In this bizarre reality, her now-divorced parents are happily together, emotional emoticons float inside their speech bubbles, spelling errors run rampant, and dialogue is filled with tired clichés. Realizing she has been trapped within a universe governed entirely by the absurd tropes of early internet fiction, Ah-ran becomes determined to escape the story she created. While searching for a way back to reality, she visits the city arcade with her friend Soyoung and encounters the Four Heavenly Kings, the school's notorious elite group. A clumsy fall down the stairs sends Ah-ran crashing directly into Kang Hwiyoung, the leader of the group. Horrified, she instantly recognizes the inevitable romantic trope unfolding before her—no matter how she fell, the narrative logic of her own story guarantees an accidental kiss.