I Don’t Want to be an Ojakgyo (124)

The day I received that sudden confession was a day like any other.

I had been dangling on the edge of a window putting anti-monster devices on them because monsters had been entering school premises recently.

Of course, I wasn’t doing this out of the kindness of our hearts or something. The academy had promised to add our assistance to our club activities, so Cory and I switched around to install monster warding devices around the campus for protection.

From what Yves had told me, all authorities the principal had regarding school policies and regulations had shifted down to the vice principal.

When the principal had run the school, there had been no policies or measures for what we needed to do when monster came down to our school, but as soon as the vice principal was in charge, they began to focus on rules and facilities. Apparently, the vice principal was the one that made it so that students would be teleported to the nurse’s office when they were injured during subjugations.

Anyway, I had caught the eye of the vice principal, who was trying to make the campus a safer place. It was kind of embarrassing, coming from me, but the vice principal had come to me themselves, someone who could make an idea into reality.

When I complained about how the school was using their students without proper reimbursements, the vice principal provided more monetary funds for our club. I decided to quietly obey the vice principal. Money was important, but students’ safety was also important, of course.

I thought about if I was being too obedient and too materialistic, but well, so what? It wasn’t like I was being an inconvenience to others. Honestly, I had enough money now to be able to not starve until I died, but the more money there was, the better, right?

Whatever. I felt like saving money was a habit now. Now that I had enough money to survive, I wasn’t being chased by the fear of destitution. Instead, money had become kind of a hobby in my life.

I was still chasing after money, and I was always busy because of it. The reason why I was so adamant in doing my best in school and in clubs was because I wanted to have a leg up over others when I was looking for employment.

A monster had destroyed the devices I had set up last time, so I was floating upside down near a window and was putting the devices back in. Then, when I saw a monster come nearby, I just stabbed it with my sword.

I had been scared and wide-eyed about tiny monsters when I had joined the academy, but now they were just funny.

I quietly, emotionlessly worked on repairing the equipment and told the students making a fuss about a low-level slime to quiet down. They were so loud that they were breaking my concentration.

But the thing that had broke my concentration the most was Eric, who had suddenly popped up in front of me.

“You’re living a busy life, Shushu.”

I could hear a hint of a smile on their face as they called me by my nickname. I scowled and turned my head. I was upside down, so my sight was flipped too. I could see green hair first, and then bright yellow eyes under it.

I was a bit surprised because I hadn’t expected them, but I turned off my attention to him and focused on my work.

He had called me by my nickname when we were younger, but it was weird to be called that when we weren’t close now. Maybe I was the only one that found it weird.

I tried to pretend that the cold sweat forming on my head wasn’t because his stare made me feel awkward, but because I was just hot. I was trying to focus on my work, but his continued stare made me lose concentration.

“Um, you’re making me feel uncomfortable. If you don’t have anything to say, can you leave?”

I said with a frown. He smiled awkwardly.

Eric scratched the back of his head and began speaking again with an embarrassed voice. He stared at the ground as he said it.

“Sorry, I just saw you and you’ve gotten so much prettier now.”
“What?”
“I just ended up staring at you, you know?”

It was the first time in my life that I’d ever heard something like this, so I floundered for a moment. My magic was a bit unstable nowadays, so I needed intense concentration when I was barely floating. His nonsense made me lose concentration in an instant.

I felt like I was incredibly weak towards these kinds of statements. Karim and Harun always told me that I was the prettiest in the world and told me that often, but I felt like their statements and Eric telling me that was different in how effective it was. It was a compliment that I’d never thought that I’d hear outside of family. Compliments were always nice to hear.

I felt awkward and didn’t know where to stare, so I just focused on the device in front of me without a word.

“Here.”
“…….?”

He handed me a cold drink and smiled again.

The hot weather, combined with the coolness of the cold drink. The cold droplets of water on the bottle ran from the bottle onto the back of my hand.

I just blankly stayed there, without a single thought in my mind.

“Take it easy, it’s hot.”

Then, he turned around to leave.

I stared at his retreating back and wondered if he still had a crush on Hestia. Was he approaching me again to get close to me because he wanted me to be the bridge between himself and Hestia? If it wasn’t that, then I didn’t know why he would do that.

It had been a long time ago, but he wouldn’t ask me to guarantee his personality or something to Hestia, right? Hestia seemed to be doing well with Harun–how would I reject him if he asked me to help him get with Hestia? A lot of questions and worries ran through my head.

Then, not too long ago, when he called me out to confess, I asked him to repeat what he said three times, like a dummy. I seriously didn’t expect to hear what I did.

The situation was basically a scene out of one of the romance novels I used to read all the time.

In my hand was a note that read, ‘Meet me behind the senior building’ from Eric, and I must’ve clenched my fist without knowing it–the paper was crumpled slightly.

The wind was blowing slightly, so his hair, resembling the color of the shade under leaves, was slightly blown back. I could see his forehead. He stood below a ray of sunlight.

I didn’t need to explain the weather much–it was warm and nice, and my mood at the time wasn’t too bad.

“The…..it’s probably really sudden, but.”

He fumbled with the edge of his sleeve as he spoike.

“I……I think I like you. If you don’t dislike me……Would you…..”

Then he sighed deeply, then said,

“Would you go out with me?”

It was a confession that people had probably heard once or twice in their lives. But that had been something incredibly new to me. Dating or whatever, I thought it was all human interaction and that I could act calmly and rationally if it happened to me.

I stumbled on my words and asked if he was poor and needed money or some kind of material object. I basically showed that I felt incredibly awkward and out of place.

It felt like my head was malfunctioning.

Wow, this kind of thing really happens to me, too. I was intrigued, and I didn’t dislike it because I had been interested in him once upon a time.

I forgot to ask him why he suddenly liked me. I basically exposed the fact that I had never dated someone in my life and just accepted his confession without a moment’s worry. I just nodded my head a bunch of times. Then, that was the start. I felt blank. However it worked out, I was dating now, too.

If I had been in a worse mood and my senses had been in the forefront instead of my emotions, I would’ve asked him for some time to get to know each other. But I was weirdly upbeat about it, so I hadn’t been careful.

But I felt like if I hesitated now, I would never be able to have a love life. I didn’t regret it.

He thanked me for accepting his confession and told me that he thought I would accept it, and went back to his dorm.

My mood suddenly plummeted, but I shook my head a few times.

When I was returning back to my dorm, a bunch of people pulled me aside and asked me what happened.

They told me that my face was red and that I was smiling, so I just stared at the ground and said, “….It’s nothing,” embarrassed. I must’ve sighed a few times, too. That’s what I was told, but I didn’t remember any of it.

It was just new and embarrassing.

I brushed my teeth and washed my face that night like any other night, but I just stared at the ceiling on my bed the entire time.

There were some strange rumors about me spreading, but my head was so filled with thoughts about Eric that I didn’t hear a single word of it.

It felt like I was floating.

I had been blanking out with my mouth open. A bug almost got in.

Whoa. Get yourself together. Keep it together.

---

If you asked anybody in Augran Academy to describe Shuraina West, they would first describe her scary sambaekan eyes of hers. She looked cold and mean, and was incredibly intelligent–she was always top of her grade. Everything she was assigned to do in school was always well done and close to perfect, so every single professor on campus couldn’t praise her enough.

Moreover, she was just the child of a baron, but her connections were incredible. All of the friends she had were the children of some of the most influential people in the empire, and they were also incredibly close.

Seeing how all of her friends were all well-connected, rich, and powerful, it would have been possible for Shuraina to be swept up in a bunch of rumors, but the uncaring air around her and her focus on money made everyone notice that it was more of a friendship than love.

Seeing Hylli and Shuraina race to the cafeteria to eat first, seeing Cory braid her hair into twenty different braids, they all looked like close friends instead of lovers.

People had been a bit suspicious about Yvnes and Shuraina, but Shuraina made it so obvious that she disliked him so that everyone just shook their heads and thought there was no way they were together.

When they turned around to suspect Swanhaden, nobody could possibly believe that Swanhaden and his rabid personality could ever love someone. Everyone thought that Swan and Shuraina’s relationship was also one between friends.

Shuraina was living her life in the academy without any huge incidents and was living as earnestly as she could, but she was always in the center of attention. So when she acted even the slightest bit strangely, she always ended up in the rumor mill.

“Shuraina West is installing monster-repelling devices around school this time.”
“She has some incredible ideas and just whips up monster cores when they’re out doing subjugations.”

And other stories popped up all the time. Thus, that meant that there were a lot of eyes watching her.

So, when Shuraina gathered enough courage to write Eric a letter and had gotten caught with her face red, people could tell right away that she was writing a love ltter.

The contents of the letter were more of what lovers would write each other instead of a confession, but not a lot of people knew that her and Eric from the red class were together at this point.

So at first, the rumors went that Shuraina had a crush on someone.

[Shuraina is going to confess to someone with a love letter sometime soon.]

That was what the rumor was.

The rumor spread and spread. People were shocked that someone so unexpected had a crush.

And a love letter, of all things? That didn’t seem much like her.

It wasn’t a big issue for people to like someone and to date someone, but it was a big issue because it was Shuraina.

The first person who had caught on to the rumors was her swordsmanship friend, Hylli Orde Ianess.

---

T/N: ???????????? I THOUGHT YOU WOULD ACCEPT???? B****?????????

---

Previous | TOC | Next