Chapter 10
Chapter 10
A story about romance.
It’s a topic that never goes out of style, no matter the country or era, and it always circulates among women.
Who likes whom.
Who confessed to whom.
Who is dating whom.
Who got rejected.
No matter the differences in social status or time period, people are drawn to stories like this.
And Angela was no different.
She had lived an ordinary school life. Chatting with friends about romance was normal. But since falling into this world, she had almost no experience with romance stories.
Among the people she met, there were barely any female peers. That had a huge impact.
She earned money making perfumes, soaps, shampoos, and conditioners, but the people she met through that were mostly middle-aged male merchants.
Their conversations revolved around sales figures, popular products, or money in general. Even if romance came up, it quickly shifted back to how it could make money.
There was hardly ever room for genuine romance stories.
At most, she’d overhear things like:
“When I got home, my wife got angry.”
“After one fight, we haven’t spoken for days.”
It never stirred her heart.
Moreover, despite landing in a romance fantasy world, Angela had had almost no chance to witness actual romance.
Her ambiguous social status prevented her from entering the center of high society. She rarely mingled with peers.
So this situation—
It was practically a miracle for her.
The male protagonist of the original story. And not just anyone, but the illustrious Luang. He might even be suffering because of love.
The moment she realized that, Angela’s heart began to race wildly.
It was the scent of a real romance story, one she hadn’t experienced in a long time. Her long-dormant curiosity flared up all at once.
“If Your Highness have something troubling you, I can listen.”
“Hm… really?”
“Yes!”
Angela answered almost reflexively.
Scenes like this barely appeared in the original work.
The thoughts of characters were shown only in limited ways. Usually from the heroine’s perspective, at most two or three perspectives. Repeating the same scene from everyone’s point of view would bore the reader.
So Luang’s true thoughts had mostly been filtered through the saintly heroine’s eyes.
When the villain pressed the heroine, Luang would shield her. The reader would empathize with the heroine. How troubled or shaken Luang really was could only be inferred from the atmosphere.
In other words,
Angela was now standing in front of a scene she had never seen in the original.
Luang’s true face. The male protagonist’s bare emotions. And she might be the only one able to see them.
Her breath grew even heavier at that thought.
But too much excitement was dangerous.
Like a drunk person babbling without realizing what they are saying, if she got too carried away, her mouth would betray her first.
Angela knew that in her head.
The problem was, it was already too late.
She was excited while completely sober.
‘But why would His Highness tell me this?’
Even so, her mind was racing.
Angela felt a strong sense of internal closeness to Luang. After all, he was the male protagonist she had read about for so long.
But from Luang’s point of view, it was different.
A fan excited to see their favorite celebrity is one thing, but the first time a celebrity meets a stranger is entirely another matter.
So first, he had to let his guard down.
How?
Simple. Make the other person feel non-threatening. Act naive, harmless, and a little cute.
Angela immediately played her card.
“I still can’t eat carrots well.”
“Pfft…!”
Luang laughed.
Really laughed.
Short but unmistakable. His lips curved, and a laugh he couldn’t hold back escaped.
Fireworks exploded in Angela’s mind.
‘I made him laugh.’
The cruel, sensitive, wild male protagonist—she had done it.
This was enormous.
Usually, a male protagonist like this hardly laughs except in front of the heroine. Yet she had done it herself.
Angela let out an internal roar of victory.
Of course, she didn’t know that she had just broken the rule: male protagonists only laugh in front of the heroine.
Right now, there was only one thing on her mind.
Luang’s romance story.
‘No time. Hurry. Hurry!’
She didn’t know when the conversation might end. When someone might interrupt. Ballrooms were always like that.
“Haha, so that was your little secret. I’ll make sure to tell your parents later.”
“Oh no! They’ll make me eat carrots for every meal to fix my habit!”
Angela grimaced sincerely.
Carrots in this world were terrible. Not sweet and crunchy like in modern times. Their color was dull, small in size, and biting into them released a delayed earthy bitterness.
‘Someday I’ll improve carrots too, and potatoes. I won’t give up on vegetable fries.’
It was a thought completely out of place for the situation, yet Angela was serious.
Above all, she felt great right now.
Luang was reacting to her words. His expression changed. He even asked a question.
At a fan meeting worth millions, you might get a handshake for a few seconds. If you asked a question, the answers were usually standard. Fans always left wanting more.
But Luang was different. He was truly focused on Angela right in front of him.
“Did you graduate well from school? If you were picky there, word would get around.”
When he asked that, Angela straightened her chest reflexively.
This was her area of confidence.
For a Korean student, grades were pride. Even after college entrance exams or moving on to university, they followed you to family gatherings.
Angela remembered staying up for night study sessions to boost her grades in her previous life.
Honestly, the schools in this world were much looser than Korean high schools. At least, to her.
“Of course. I graduated with top grades.”
“Really? You don’t seem like it. How high were your grades?”
Angela answered confidently.
“I got the highest tier… oh, no, wait, they said women couldn’t become bureaucrats even though I could have been assigned.”
Only after speaking did she realize how strange that sounded.
Of course, there was no “highest tier” in this world.
Her face stiffened, but fortunately, Luang didn’t react as if it were odd.
Angela hurriedly continued.
Just a little more. Push a little further.
Maybe she could hear about Luang’s worries, his inner thoughts, maybe even his romantic troubles.
At that moment—
“His Highness Luang, it is time.”
A servant approached, bowing.
Angela’s face froze.
Too soon.
“Is that so? Then, Miss Goldrun, I hope we can meet and talk again next time.”
“Eh? Yes?”
Without hesitation, Luang turned and left.
As he moved away, Angela felt the treasure she almost grasped vanish into thin air.
If only she had stayed a little longer… it felt like the scene had been cut off just before the crucial moment.
She stared at Luang’s back in a daze, then realized something strange.
‘Manuel and Luang meeting? That’s odd…’
Angela recalled the original story.
At this point, Luang had neither the villain nor the saint nearby. The first conflict came later. The villain caused trouble first, Luang pressed politically, and Manuel intervened.
Manuel would keep the villain as a mid-level obstacle and, under the pretext of royal stability, push for Luang’s political marriage again.
At that point, the ballroom was practically a daily scene of clashes between villain and saint. Luang always followed to protect the saint. Otherwise, he rarely went out.
But now it was unusual.
There was no saint. No villain. No sparks of romance yet.
Yet the woman who had the longest conversation with Luang—
Was Angela herself.
And everyone in the ballroom knew it.
The only one who didn’t realize it was Angela herself.
She had just met the protagonist of the novel. There was neither time nor mental space to reflect on the reality of this world.
‘He said we’ll meet again, right? Can we really meet again? Or will he send a letter? No, a letter would be better. I could write more… my true thoughts—’
Angela closed her mouth, lost in thought.
So lost in excitement that she didn’t notice a single gaze around her.
The dozens of eyes fixed on her.
The whispers floating low.
The strangely heated atmosphere.
She missed it all.
So when someone approached and spoke directly beside her, she was startled.
“Miss Goldrun, is that you?”
“Yes? Yes, I am Angela Goldrun. And you are?”
“I’m Bianca Lascachi.”
Bianca was smiling.
But it was not a friendly smile.
Under the polite face lay clear curiosity and calculation.
What everyone in the ballroom wanted to know was one thing.
How had this woman approached Luang? And what had they talked about?
So Bianca stepped forward herself.
Angela still had no idea.
In any romance fantasy, the first person to reach out to the protagonist rarely ends ordinarily.