Strange, Pitiful, and a Little Broken (2)
The foreshadowing of my impending doom arrived with a screech like a dying pterodactyl.
"Aaaagh! I got into the Department of Taekwondo at Korea National Sport University!"
A biting winter chill filled December. Words couldn't begin to capture the sheer ecstasy of holding that acceptance letter from my dream school—a university that boasted the nation's absolute best entrance scores and career prospects.
"Whoosh. Swish, whoosh! Who am I?"
I bounced on light feet, sparring with an imaginary opponent before whipping out a side kick in front of my laptop that locked into a flawlessly straight horizontal line. Then came my proud answer to my own question:
"Han Serin, Class of '23, Department of Taekwondo, Korea National Sport University!"
"Shut up, you brat! Acting like you just got in on your first try when you spent an entire gap year cramming!"
Smack!
Unable to bear the sight any longer, Mom unleashed a lightning-fast smash from behind. And what a strike—she was an ex-volleyball player, after all. No matter how diligently I trained in Taekwondo, there was just no countering the lethal precision of Mom's heavy hand.
Was volleyball actually the ultimate martial art?
"Aww, shucks..."
"Shucks? Did you just 'shucks' your own mother?! That's the letter grade you'll be racking up in college, you little punk!"
Smack! Smack! Smack!
"Ow, ow, ow! That hurts! Why're you beating me over a slip of the tongue?!"
"The way you talk at home is the way you'll slip up in front of your athletic department seniors, you twerp! You want to get ostracized at freshman orientation the moment you step foot on campus?!"
"Hmph, as if I care!"
"Oh, listen to her. Where on earth does that confidence come from?"
"Because I'm pretty!!!"
I shrieked at the top of my lungs and bolted straight out the front door. Looking back over my shoulder, I caught Mom clutching her forehead in a deep headache, letting out a sigh soaked in profound regret.
"Crazy girl..."
Arranging drinks with my friends took no time at all. Among my high school clique, I was the only one who had taken a gap year to retake the entrance exams; everyone else was already neck-deep in campus life.
I opened my group chat app and cheerfully tapped away at the keyboard.
"Wait, what? Am I invisible here?"
Was my college acceptance so trivial that it got pushed aside by somebody's mandatory military enlistment?
"Well... enlisting is a big deal, fair enough."
I had a curfew, so drinking from four to four was out of the question, but the chance to drench my liver in alcohol had finally arrived after ages of abstinence. Tonight was definitely party time.
"Watch out, campus life~ Watch out, clubs~ Watch out, campus romance~"
Just as I was humming my freshly improvised tune, my phone buzzed. I woke the screen, and a small, cherished joy of daily life clamored for my attention:
A web novel update notification.
The genre: romance fantasy. The title: Taming the Deposed Emperor's Child. A title that felt almost shamelessly on the nose.
Abbreviated as Child of the Deposed Emperor, it was the sequel to another series. Yet the previous work, despite wrapping up in a tidy, rock-solid happy ending, had left a distinctly bitter taste in my mouth.
In that original story, the female lead was executed after losing a bitter political struggle. By some miraculous twist of fate, she regressed into the past, seduced the Grand Duke of the North, and turned her doomed life completely around.
By the finale, the Grand Duke male lead became Emperor, and the heroine from a humble baronial house rose to become Empress. But unlike most romance fantasies, they didn't just behead the villains on the spot.
Instead, they stripped the Deposed Emperor and his concubine of everything they owned and cast them out into the slums—a lingering, humiliating punishment.
I always thought that felt darker and creepier than a clean execution...
Worse yet, the single sentence that brought the epilogue to a close was more than enough to win every ounce of my sympathy.
"So pretty."
Those were the words that slipped from the lips of the Child of the Deposed Emperor as he watched from afar the imperial princess of his own age, radiant at the Foundation Day celebrations. Just that solitary phrase had pierced my chest with a dull, aching sorrow.
"The child didn't do anything wrong just by being born..."
It was so unfair. In an ending framed by such stark contrast between dazzling light and suffocating darkness, I couldn't help but pity the child forced to shoulder misery simply for having drawn breath.
So when I saw the sequel titled Taming the Deposed Emperor's Child, a faint flicker of hope had sparked within me.
"Still... why does someone need to 'tame' a kid who's already suffered through hell?"
I hadn't liked the premise. Even so, because my heart went out to him, I kept following every chapter, desperate to see what kind of ending he would reach. But the comment sections were practically unanimous: the author had taken things way too far.
"I mean... after wrapping up the prequel in such a neat, happy ending... why would you..."
This made no sense.
"Why on earth is the daughter of the prequel's main leads the villainess?!"
Shouldn't an author at least respect the legacy of their previous protagonists? Those were characters I genuinely loved!
"And it's not like I can just drop it, either."
Others might have walked away, but the Child of the Deposed Emperor was essentially holding me hostage. I desperately needed to see this pitiful boy reach a bright, happy ending.
As the chapters piled up, he cemented himself as my ultimate bias. Just getting to see him live peaceful, blessed days would have fulfilled all my wishes. But the author seemed determined to deny even that. This time, the female lead was light-years away from anything I could stomach.
"What is this? Why is the male lead clinging to her when she treats him like dirt? Does having zero self-esteem really break a person this badly?"
"What's the point of him being an overpowered monster if he's reduced to a convenient doormat for the heroine?!"
"Does no one have this guy's back?! The heroine is utterly gullible, and the imperial princess is trying her hardest to murder him out of paranoia that he'll steal her throne!"
"And if you're going to put this much effort into describing his handsome face, then commission an official illustration already!"
That last complaint was pure personal bias, but there were countless things grating on my nerves.
"Sure, a devoted puppy-dog male lead who only clings to the heroine is great. It's a classic romance fantasy trope, I get it! But did it really have to be the Child of the Deposed Emperor...?"
My blood boiled at the way both the heroine and the villainous princess gripped his traumatic childhood like a choke collar. Considering that the overwhelming majority of romance fantasy readers cheer for the female lead, my intense frustration was an anomaly.
"I only picked this up because I wanted to see him find happiness, so why is he constantly suffering?!"
And the heroine was a piece of work herself. She had a male lead described as the unrivaled beauty of the entire world, yet she couldn't just stick with him. Why was she constantly entangling herself with second male leads and stoking ambiguous romantic tension?
As for the princess... well, since the male lead was already head over heels for the heroine, I suppose her trying to murder him was inevitable. He was, after all, the scion of the fallen legitimate imperial bloodline.
"If you gave him to me instead, I'd shower him with all the love and adoration in the world for the rest of his life... Ugh, seriously!"
Just as I released a sigh heavy enough to cave in the pavement, the pedestrian light clicked green. Chewing over my indignation, I slipped my wireless earbuds into place. The latest model—the noise-canceling feature was truly phenomenal.
As I stepped forward, an urgent scream seemed to tug at the back of my neck.
...!
...et out of...!
...ook o...!
...Look out!
In a split second, a distinctly shouted warning breached the noise cancellation and reached my ears.
Only then did I snap my head around, but cruelly, it was already far too late.
A truck...?
A heavy freight truck was barreling straight toward me.
It was too fast for any delayed reaction, and my legs had long since ceased obeying my commands.
SCREEEEEECH! CRASH!
Ah...
A violent ringing tore through my eardrums. My body lifted weightlessly into the air, yet strangely, I felt no pain. The world slowed to a crawl, rendering every detail in razor-sharp clarity.
A woman letting out a bloodcurdling scream. A man frozen stiff, his eyes trembling in terror. And the truck driver, his cheeks flushed crimson as if thoroughly drunk.
Instinctively, I knew.
The guys are going to have his enlistment party at my funeral.
With spicy beef soup for their drinking snacks.
Haah... Damn it, I... I should've apologized to Mom...
Far more than the wasted college acceptance, that was the regret that gnawed at my heart. And one last thought:
Please let my bias find some happiness... you bastard of an author.
That was the stream of consciousness that carried me across the threshold of my first life.
I spent a vast expanse of time enveloped in warm darkness, long enough for my sense of self to fray at the edges.
So this is the suffocating world waiting after death, I thought. And the more lingering attachments I harbored, the deeper my yearning for my past life grew.
Had that desperate wish reached a god somewhere? After an endless wait, light—which I thought I would never behold again—spilled over me in an instant.
"It's a girl! A healthy imperial princess has been born!"
What? A girl? An imperial princess?
"Why isn't the child crying? What is the meaning of this?"
"It is difficult to say with certainty, Your Majesty... but her vitals are perfectly sound."
"What a relief."
The man let out a sigh of profound relief. I slowly shifted my head toward his voice, and in that single heartbeat, I thought the pulse I had just regained would stop all over again.
Huh? Wait... is this a dream?
By what unfathomable twist of fate...
Were the male and female leads of the prequel standing right before my eyes?
No freaking way...!!!
"Waaaahhh!"
"Ah! The princess has finally started crying!"
"I finally hear your voice, my child."
"How could a child be this lovely?"
They showered me with adoration from every side, but for the life of me, I couldn't muster even the ghost of a smile.
This has to be a dream. It has to be...!
I... of all people, I...!
Had reincarnated as the villainess of Taming the Deposed Emperor's Child!
If there's a god ruling this universe, I want to plant a 1080-degree spinning kick right into their face...
When I turned five, a momentous realization struck me.
"Nanny."
"What is it, our precious Princess?"
"I have uncovered a profound truth."
"And what might our little Princess have learned?"
I proudly propped my hands on my hips and declared:
"If you don't want to become someone you hate, you just have to not become someone you hate!"
Fun, cool, and sexy.
"My goodness, what an astonishing enlightenment!"
"Mm-hmm."
Until now, I had been busy criticizing original-novel-purist heroines who obsessed over the canon, yet I had fallen into the exact same trap.
If I didn't like the original female lead, all I had to do was replace her. And if that replacement turned out to be me, even better.
If I didn't want to be the villainess, I simply didn't have to act like one. I'd find a way, no matter what.
Still, as long as the male lead is the Child of the Deposed Emperor, there's nothing I can do for him right now from my position as an imperial princess...
If it was going to be like this, why couldn't I possess the original heroine instead? Why reincarnate me as a princess who couldn't even make contact with him?!
Still, I had to count my blessings. It was incomparably better than being Commoner Extra A, who would never stand a chance of crossing paths with him at all. Even so, human nature is fickle, and I couldn't help smacking my lips in lingering regret.
Nothing I can do. For now, I just have to wait quietly.
The clock in my chest ticked away relentlessly, fueled by the bitter helplessness of solitude.
...
......
I had assumed I was naturally cut out to be a refreshing, take-no-prisoners heroine. But the wall of reality stood far taller than I could have imagined. Strangled by the suffocating routine of an imperial princess and the delicate political web around me, I wasn't granted even a speck of dust's worth of opportunity to go see him.
And when the report arrived that the male lead had escaped the Capital, I bawled my eyes out. I cried rivers of unadulterated tears.
What kind of reincarnation parts you from your ultimate bias without even letting you catch a glimpse of his childhood face?! How is that fair?!
"My dear male lead... my precious runaway male lead who vanished to who-knows-where... The void left by your absence is unbearable, so from this day forth, I shall stand above the heroine..."
Stand above what, exactly?
As the years drifted by, my unhinged babbling only multiplied—reaching such alarming heights that the prequel's leads, my current mother and father, grew gravely concerned for my sanity.
Uuugh...
As if mocking my yearning heart, all word of the Child of the Deposed Emperor vanished without a trace as time marched on.
Drifting through a hollow existence as though possessed, I eventually blossomed into a young lady of nineteen—roughly the same age I had been in my past life.
By that point, I had grown so thoroughly acclimated to this life that my confidence bordered on recklessness. Reckless enough to ditch my royal escort, don a disguise, and roam the city streets on my own.
There was only one tiny detail I had overlooked:
This wasn't the Republic of Korea, the safest country on the face of the earth!
I unsuspectingly accepted drinks from some middle-aged men bearing sly smiles, and before long, an overwhelming drowsiness plunged me into blackness.
From there, the kidnappers executed everything without a hitch.
Bound hand and foot, dumped unceremoniously into the back of a cargo wagon, a million stray thoughts tormented me while the wheels rattled on.
I'm terrified, I'm losing my mind... My hands are numb, my whole body feels filthy... I need... to pee. I want kimchi stew...
Nine days dragged by in that misery. When the wagon finally halted, I found myself inside a bustling, chaotic tent. Hearing hushed whispers all around brought a shred of relief, but anxiety swiftly surged back—there was no guarantee these people wouldn't harm me, either.
"U-um... excuse me...?"
That was when it happened.
As I shivered in terror, a figure stepped forward and gently untied my blindfold.
"A pleasure to make your acquaintance, nameless young lady. We have taken care of the kidnappers, so you may put your mind at ease."
A masked man. A man who looked overwhelmingly suspicious to any sane observer had just rescued me. When the reality sank in that I was finally safe, it felt as though I had been handed yet another lease on life.
And that brought the situation to the present.
To a present churning with deeply grave contemplation.
It's still before the original timeline starts, so I can't be one hundred percent certain, but...
Based on my years of seasoned romance fantasy reader intuition:
I harbored a very reasonable suspicion that Rian was none other than the male lead of Taming the Deposed Emperor's Child.
The reasoning was simple and crystal clear.
Because... in a romance fantasy, the one who rescues the reincarnated heroine is always the male lead...!
A name was nothing more than an alias he could easily fabricate!
Even to my own ears, it was a deduction worthy of the century.
On top of that, concealing his face behind a mask was dripping with suspicion, and his blond hair and blue eyes matched the description to perfection.
Before I go back, I swear I'm taking off that mask!
With everything on the line, absolutely!
And so, through this ridiculous chain of events, our mutual war of probing glances had officially raised its curtain.