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Chapter 02
Whenever that happened, the Crown Prince would immediately run after her to catch her. He would pretend to be troubled with his words, yet he couldn’t hide how delighted he was by his lover’s attempts to demand his attention.
Though Eugene herself didn’t realize it while she agonized alone in her room, the obsessive confinement event she had been trying so hard to trigger in the game had long since devolved into nothing more than a lovestruck couple’s version of “Come catch me if you can.”
“Sigh…”
If he liked her so much, couldn’t he just say so like a normal person? Once again, a palace servant, pointlessly dragged into the romantic affairs of someone far above their station, let out a deep sigh and walked away from the room.
Inside the room, now warmed by the sacrifice of a mountain of firewood.
As the temperature rose until it was almost too hot, Eugene finally crawled out from beneath the blanket she’d burrowed into in search of cooler air.
Ignoring the gaze of her master, who continued watching her without pause, she gathered the nearby cushions, stacked them into a comfortable pile, and flopped down on top of them.
In any case, relieved that she had successfully completed the event she had wanted once again, she relaxed completely.
Sensing her good mood with remarkable accuracy, the Crown Prince slowly edged closer and leaned against her.
Feeling his weight settle onto her, Eugene frowned in annoyance and shoved him away.
“Ugh.”
Go away.
Though her expression clearly said as much, the Crown Prince pretended not to notice. Instead, he quietly took hold of the hand that had grown cold earlier.
“You’re heavy.”
He obviously understood her, yet he merely smiled with his eyes and refused to answer.
When Eugene turned her head completely, trying to ignore him, the Crown Prince brought the hand he was holding to his lips and lightly nibbled each of her fingers one by one until she finally looked at him.
Watching him gently chew on her fingers as though he had a puppy’s paw in his mouth, Eugene thought,
‘I’m not actually a puppy…’
Even if he bit her hand like that, it didn’t have pink paw pads, nor did it carry that warm, toasty puppy-paw smell.
‘Hmph!’
For some reason, now sulking, Eugene shook her hand free from his grasp.
Having his favorite toy taken away, the Crown Prince looked visibly disappointed.
‘Wasn’t this completely out of character for you?’
As handsome as he was, it made the expression all the more devastating.
But to Eugene, who remembered the Crown Prince from the original story, it was nothing short of complete character destruction.
Still pushing insistently against the Crown Prince, who remained glued to her side, Eugene said,
“It’s hot, so move away, Master.”
She pushed with all her strength, but his upper body didn’t budge in the slightest, as though her efforts amounted to nothing more than a tickle.
“That’s not it.”
The same man who hadn’t moved an inch while she was pushing suddenly lifted himself up.
Then he leaned over Eugene, who was lying on the cushions, trapping her securely between both of his arms.
Smiling slowly as she stared up at him, the Crown Prince gently brushed a finger across the lips that had spoken the wrong answer.
“Didn’t I teach you?”
Then he lowered himself closer and closer.
Faced with his rapidly approaching face, Eugene panicked.
‘You’re already impossibly handsome as it is…!’
With a face like that, wearing an expression that looked capable of melting anyone’s heart…
Hurriedly, Eugene pressed both hands against his chest to stop him before their faces touched.
“…Mikael!”
Without even looking disappointed, the Crown Prince caught the hand pushing him away and planted soft kisses all over her palm.
“Good.”
Hearing her call his name one after another was unbearably sweet.
“My lovely Eugene.”
Seriously.
‘Who are you?!’
What on earth had happened to the cruel tyrant emperor from the original story?
Looking back, Eugene tried to figure out just how things had ended up like this.
Chapter 1. I’ll Become the Main Character
“Hey!”
The furious shout of the team manager thundered through the office, which had become so silent a mouse could have been heard breathing.
“Is this how you’re going to handle your work? Huh? If that’s all you’ve got, then get out right now!”
A torrent of vulgar curses followed immediately afterward.
The manager’s booming voice showed no signs of dying down.
While everyone else held their breath and cautiously watched the situation unfold, Eugene, who stood directly in front of him enduring every insult, desperately fought to keep her shoulders from slumping.
“…”
She clenched her hands tightly together.
Her blunt fingernails dug into her palms.
Using the sharp sting to steady herself, she silently endured her superior’s endless shouting.
“Manager Shin.”
The endless parade of abuse finally came to an end only when the department director emerged from the executive office and called the team manager’s name.
“Yes, Director!”
“Don’t be late this time.”
“Ah, yes! Yes, sir! I’ll get everything ready and head straight into the meeting.”
Having once been late to an executive briefing meeting, the team manager’s face instantly turned bright red as he repeatedly bowed.
The director walked past him and left the office.
Completely forgetting the employee he had been berating just moments ago, the manager hurriedly grabbed the documents scattered across his desk and rushed after the director.
Only then did the frozen atmosphere in the office finally begin to thaw.
The employees, who had all been hiding behind their cubicle partitions with their heads lowered, cautiously stood up and started moving around again.
“Whew… The atmosphere was so tense.”
“I thought I was going to suffocate.”
Then several employees approached Eugene, who had been left standing alone in front of the manager’s desk.
“Eugene, are you okay?”
“Ah, Assistant Manager.”
She belonged to a different team, but they occasionally ran into each other in the break room.
As one of the few female employees in the company, she often checked whether Eugene was doing all right and looked after her in little ways.
Though the shock of being cursed out to her face still hadn’t faded, Eugene forced the corners of her mouth upward, trying to smile and reassure her that she was fine.
Just then, someone abruptly shoved himself between them.
“Hey! Song Eugene!”
“…Section Chief?”
“Do you have any sense at all? Don’t you realize that if you screw up like this, I’ll get blamed too since I’m your supervisor?”
The section chief, who had conveniently disappeared while the team manager was yelling at his junior employee, now raised his voice arrogantly.
“This won’t do. Come with me!”
As though he were someone from Human Resources, he announced they needed to have a meeting and summoned Eugene into a small conference room.
“What?”
Eugene couldn’t hide her disbelief.
“What I mean is… you really did a good job earlier.”
“I remember you saying something very different back in the office.”
The section chief, who had started by barking at her without explanation, shifted his eyes awkwardly.
“No, well… I just didn’t want to make a scene in front of the other teams. Our team’s business should be discussed among ourselves, right?”
Insulting her in front of everyone and then making excuses once they were alone hardly seemed reasonable.
Still, Eugene remained silent.
When she said nothing, the section chief nervously repeated himself.
“You worked hard calming the manager down. That psycho lost his temper again, didn’t he? Seriously, you’ve been through a lot. But once that bastard blows up once, he won’t explode again, so let’s just let this go. Okay?”
Even hearing it again sounded absurd.
Eugene finally spoke.
“The proposal I revised exactly as you instructed. The report I submitted with the materials you specifically told me to gather. The manager thinks I handled all of that on my own and yelled at me for it.”
She felt heat rising into the back of her head even as she spoke, but she kept her voice as calm as possible.
“You said you would explain it to him yourself.”
“So I waited.”
That was exactly what had happened.
She had completely rewritten the original draft according to every one of his demands, gone through endless trouble gathering the requested materials, and finally completed the report.
Then, out of nowhere, she had been summoned by the team manager and struck by a bolt from the blue.
Before meeting with the manager, the section chief had even stopped her from correcting the misunderstanding herself, insisting that he would explain everything later.
‘And now… after all that!’
She ground her teeth.
She wanted nothing more than to throw something at his shameless face.
Suppressing the urge, she waited for his answer.
Instead, the section chief absentmindedly rubbed the corner of his mouth with one finger, deliberately avoiding the issue.
Then he finally spoke.
“Ah… I wasn’t going to tell you because I didn’t want to hurt your feelings…”
He let out a long, reluctant sigh before continuing.
“You’re leaving soon anyway, Eugene.”
“…What?”
“You knew when you joined, didn’t you? I’ve told you over and over. Our company doesn’t hire women as permanent employees, so you shouldn’t get your hopes up.”
“What are you…?”
“I heard about the decision from HR ahead of time.”
“They’re not converting your contract.”
Something crashed inside her.
“So now you get it?”
The smile spreading across the section chief’s twitching face made her skin crawl.
For over a year, she had endured the insecurity of being a contract employee.
It wasn’t as though she hadn’t had opportunities elsewhere.
But every time she had a chance to interview with another company…
“What kind of new employee takes time off already?”
“Our company isn’t bad. If you want to stay here, you need to get along with the people you’re working with now.”
The section chief had repeated those words countless times, preaching loyalty to the company and teamwork between departments.
Then, while subtly pressuring her, he gradually dumped his own work onto Eugene.
He even brought over pointless tasks from other departments, taking all the credit himself while making her do the work.
Claiming that people learned through experience, he piled everything onto her shoulders until she was working overtime every single day.
“This is all for your own good.”
—As if you were anyone to say that.
“You’ll definitely become a permanent employee. I’ll make sure of it.”
He had boasted like that every single time.
“And even if you tell the team manager… you’re just a contract worker who’s leaving soon.”
“I’m someone who’s going to keep working here.”
“You understand, right?”
The heat rushing to Eugene’s head became so intense that her vision momentarily turned white.
The section chief kept talking, but his voice sounded like the distant buzzing of flies.
