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CHAPTER 04
The confident footsteps didn’t go very far before they turned into hesitant steps.
Apparently, the person who had entered was also surprised to see a male student sitting there, casually wrapping a bandage around his bare ankle, just as I had been.
“What? Kim Dohwan?”
“Wi Jinha, what are you doing here?”
“That’s what I should be asking you. What are you doing here in your school uniform? You do know we have P.E. next period, right?”
I didn’t even need to look closely to know.
Those two weren’t people who had become friends recently. They were soulmates who had gone to the same schools together since elementary school.
That was Wi Jinha and Kim Dohwan.
‘So you were the unusual-looking male student, Wi Jinha? Oh my god, how could I not recognize my one and only favorite among the Three Kings at first sight!’
I quickly covered my mouth with one hand to keep a shocked cry from escaping.
“Ah. I’m looking for someone. Has anyone come here?”
“Who?”
“A girl. She has long, light pink hair. She’s pretty distinctive, so you’d recognize her immediately.”
The moment Kim Dohwan finished speaking, I quietly put my hands together and prayed.
‘My beloved favorite, please save this poor deer being chased by a hunter. Even though that deer did ram the hunter with her body… and even though she failed to recognize you at first sight…’
Somehow, it felt less like a prayer and more like a confession.
“You picked the wrong place. Only you and I have come in here.”
“Hmm, really? Got it. You said we have P.E. next, right? See you in the gym later.”
“Yeah. I’ll go ahead. Come quickly.”
After saying that, Kim Dohwan seemed to leave the infirmary.
The distinctive sound of sneakers walking down the hallway gradually faded into the distance.
“You can come out now.”
“Oh, uh, yeah. Thanks. You saved my life.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Actually, I had been wondering when exactly I should come out.
‘Since meeting like this was fate, should I take this opportunity to talk to him and become friends?’
The incredibly handsome guy had apparently finished taping his ankle and was putting his sock back on.
It was a good opportunity to start a conversation.
“Um, you know…”
I grabbed the curtain surrounding the bed and was just about to take a step toward Wi Jinha when, unbelievably, the bell signaling the start of class rang.
The timing really couldn’t have been worse.
“Why? Do you need something urgently?”
He tilted his head slightly as he looked at me.
I gave an awkward smile.
‘Yeah. I think I need a little luck.’
I had bumped into the villain twice, sat on top of a third-generation chaebol, and just when I was about to talk to my favorite, the class bell rang.
Whether I looked at it subjectively or objectively, today was definitely a day when everything was going wrong.
I arrived back in the classroom about three minutes after class had started.
Worried that I might disturb the lesson, I quietly slipped in through the back door.
Instead of a teacher’s lecture, the noisy conversations of the students welcomed me.
[Self-study]
Those two large words written on the blackboard explained the whole situation.
Nam Juyeon still hadn’t arrived, so he seemed to be talking with the teacher even now.
As Nam Juyeon’s partner, I distributed all the notices to the students in our class in his place.
‘What is the vice class president doing at a time like this if she isn’t helping?’
Just as I was about to return to my seat, someone raised her hand and spoke.
“Vice class president. I’m missing one sheet of paper.”
“You’re missing one?”
There was no way there could be a shortage.
When I had received the papers from our homeroom teacher, she had carefully counted every single sheet.
I raised my head and looked toward the voice.
The speaker was Han Yuna, sitting in the very back seat of the last row.
‘Wait, was I the vice class president? …Ah, right. I was the vice class president.’
At the same time as I realized that, a slight wave of dizziness came over me.
The memory was blurry, but I vaguely remembered running for vice class president back when I was just an extra.
‘Why am I only remembering this now?’
I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment and opened them again.
The swaying view quickly returned to normal.
“Are you sure you’re missing only one? Did anyone take two?”
“I have the exact number here.”
“Me too!”
“Then I’ll go to the teachers’ office and make a copy for Yuna during the next break.”
“Okay! Got it!”
After finishing my conversation with Han Yuna, I returned to my seat, opened my Korean workbook, and absentmindedly thought about what had just happened.
‘How could I forget that I was the vice class president? Was my memory really this bad in this life?’
I couldn’t shake off the slightly unpleasant feeling.
“Can’t solve the problem?”
“Huh? Oh, no. I was just thinking for a moment.”
I hadn’t even noticed when he had arrived.
Nam Juyeon was sitting beside me, looking at me as I was lost in thought.
Had about ten minutes passed?
Just as I checked the clock, the bell rang.
I had been trying to figure out the reason in my head, and the class had already ended.
I briefly told Nam Juyeon that I was going to the teachers’ office to make a copy of the printout and stepped outside the classroom.
Then—
“Hey, Pink. Where are you going again?”
“……”
“Are you looking for this?”
The person whose voice I wanted to avoid the most was standing right in front of me.
As if no matter how much I ran, I would eventually end up in the palm of his hand, Kim Dohwan was casually leaning his upper body against the open front door with his arms crossed.
He was holding one of the handouts I hadn’t managed to pick up.
“Want to talk for a bit?”
After saying that, he moved with me to the end of the hallway, where there were relatively fewer people.
But I could feel the students’ persistent gazes following us.
Even though they were all talking to each other in the hallway, they kept glancing in our direction.
When I looked at them, Kim Dohwan lightly snapped his fingers to get my attention back.
“Aren’t you curious why I called you?”
I put on the most innocent smile I could manage and thought to myself.
‘No. Not at all.’
His intention was so obvious that saying I was curious would almost be embarrassing.
Just like Lee Segye in The World of Those Guys, I had caught his attention.
‘Poor Lee Segye. How unfortunate that she got targeted by such a nasty guy…’
Of course, I was also pitiful for having to take her role now.
‘Hmm. Or am I not actually pitiful?’
I quickly went through the plots of several internet novels in my head and reached a conclusion.
This was an opportunity.
The fact that the person who had taken an interest in me was the male protagonist meant that I had basically been redirected onto the female protagonist’s route.
‘Getting targeted by a third-generation chaebol in an internet novel? Even better!’
There was no way a male protagonist would pay attention to some random extra.
Even if I wasn’t the female protagonist, I had at least become a supporting character.
I tried to suppress the little laughs escaping from my mouth out of satisfaction, but then a strange remark hit my ears.
“You’re the one, right? The princess of Class 9.”
“Even better… huh?”
I had just escaped being an extra, but I hadn’t yet found a special character concept to commit to.
And apparently, there was already a rumor going around that I had a princess complex.
This was the first I had heard of it.
‘Should I just go with the princess concept?’
I didn’t have to think for long.
I immediately swept my light pink hair behind my ear.
‘Fine. Since things have come this far, I’ll make my character a shameless princess who doesn’t know embarrassment!’
After all, characters in internet novels were supposed to have their own keywords.
The male protagonists were like that too.
The annoying chaebol male lead.
The cheerful, kind-hearted, golden-retriever-like male lead.
The cold male lead who was warm only toward his woman.
Thinking about the three main guys in the internet novel I was living in, I decided my keyword would be princess.
“Yeah, that’s right. I’m the princess of Class 9.”
“I guess the rumor that it’s a serious condition was true.”
As he looked at me with pity, I could feel the bright smile on my face slowly cracking.
As expected, I was a person who was extremely aware of embarrassment.
My fingers began trembling from the sheer shame of what I had just said.
I had only said one sentence, but every sense in my body seemed to be screaming that this was a terrible idea.
‘Forget the princess concept. I need to go with something else.’
Kim Dohwan stared quietly at my hands.
Then, with a crooked smile, he put his hand into his pants pocket and took something out.
He held it toward me.
“You said you’re in Class 9, right? I’m in Class 10. Our classes are close too, so that’s perfect. Here.”
“Why do you have your phone out?”
I pretended not to know even though I obviously did.
Unlike my calm expression, my heart was already celebrating.
‘Oh my gosh, is he asking for my number? Am I becoming the third-generation chaebol’s number-one lackey or something? This is exactly like Lee Segye’s route in the original story!’
Thump, thump.
My heart trembled with excitement.
I never imagined I would end up following the female protagonist’s route like this.
“What are you doing? Enter your number.”
“…Huh?”
“Your phone number. Enter it.”
Kim Dohwan frowned while looking at me standing there blankly with his phone in my hand.
I pretended that I didn’t want to give it to him and slowly entered my number.
The moment I pressed the eleventh and final digit, Kim Dohwan snatched the phone away and immediately called me.
My jacket pocket began vibrating.
He even carefully checked to make sure that it really was my number.
‘Was Kim Dohwan always this thorough?’
I stared silently at the eleven-digit number displayed on my phone.
Kim Dohwan snapped his fingers twice in front of me, as if telling me to wake up.
“If you get a call or message from this number, answer it immediately.”
“…Yeees.”
Only after hearing my answer did he leave with a satisfied smile.
I thought that would be the end of my interactions with him for today.
“Gang Beotkkot. Gang Beotkkot.”
“Huh? Um… why?”
“Wake up. Your phone is going crazy.”
I had collapsed onto my desk from exhaustion immediately after class and apparently fallen asleep without realizing it.
When I checked my phone, there were already more than thirty unread messages.
If Nam Juyeon hadn’t woken me up, Kim Dohwan probably would have come looking for me himself.
Fortunately, he was sitting right beside me.
“It’s not even lunchtime yet. This is already the third time…”
I had relaxed because I thought he would start giving me errands from tomorrow, so the annoyance felt twice as bad.
Ever since I had officially become Kim Dohwan’s errand girl, my daily routine had completely changed.
I used to solve workbooks even during breaks so I could have something to talk about with Nam Juyeon.
Now I was too busy jumping out of my seat and heading to the school store.
At least it was nice to be getting away from studying.
But I couldn’t exactly say everything about it was good.
In order to increase my closeness with Nam Juyeon, I still had to finish the studying I hadn’t completed at home.
It was getting to the point where going to sleep at dawn had become a habit.
“My goal in this life is to make memories with the main characters, not become first in the entire school and make memories with studying.”
To ask questions about studying, I needed a certain amount of basic knowledge.
And the only way to get that basic knowledge was to study.
It was basically a vicious cycle.
Sometimes, while studying late at night, I would get caught up in that strange emotional mood that comes with staying awake until dawn.
Whenever that happened, I would tell myself:
“Yeah. This crazy nonsense will end once I become friends with them. That’s all!”
With a determined look in my eyes, I stood up from my seat.
Then I checked the messages Kim Dohwan had sent me and ran toward the school store.
