The Loner in a Class Torn Apart
Han Sia’s POV
According to the investigation I’ve done, Lee Narin is, in her own way, the daughter of a wealthy family who was raised with plenty of care.
No, perhaps it would be more accurate to say she was the daughter of a wealthy family.
Her parents died in a car accident two years ago, and they aren’t wealthy anymore.
Lee Narin’s parents were young entrepreneurs who started with nothing and built their fortune through sheer effort.
The cosmetics company they ran wasn’t especially large, but it still pulled in a fair amount of revenue through outsourced production at external factories.
And the fact that they trained Lee Narin in figure skating suggests they were parents who took their child’s education seriously.
Putting a child through a gymnastics-related education takes a great deal of time and money, so it’s too much to be treated as a simple hobby.
Of course, they probably didn’t expect Lee Narin to become an Olympic athlete...
Still, for a daughter from a wealthy family, an athletic background carries a rather high score.
From the perspective of parents who built their fortune themselves, it seems they wanted to give their daughter a weapon of her own, so she wouldn’t be looked down on by the upper-class people around her because of her background.
That’s a slightly different subject, but just recently a Korean female figure skater won Olympic gold, and her stock has skyrocketed.
If Lee Narin hadn’t quit figure skating, by now the doorsteps of her house might have worn away from all the marriage brokers coming to offer their sons as husbands.
Her family’s background is nothing special, so she’s easy to approach; her parents’ business is still running fairly smoothly; and Lee Narin herself is a high school girl with a very striking face who even works as a figure skater.
On top of that, her personality is quiet, emotionally steady, and obedient, so her relatives on her father’s side would probably like her even more than the man she’d marry.
But everything went wrong when both of Lee Narin’s parents died in that accident.
The company her parents had run was torn to pieces and vanished completely.
I couldn’t find out the details of that part, but...
I was able to confirm that there had been a considerable number of lawsuits and accusations flying around among her relatives.
And considering that she, who must have inherited a fair amount from her parents, is now staying with Song Changwon’s chaebol family instead of her relatives...
It’s obvious that Lee Narin’s relationship with her relatives has completely fallen apart.
In other words, after her parents died, her relatives likely fought like rabid dogs over the inheritance, trying to take more for themselves, and in the process her parents’ company collapsed.
Lee Narin is a poor girl with unfortunate circumstances.
If not for the misfortune of that car accident, she would surely have lived a life of steady success with her entrepreneur parents behind her.
Even though she’s now staying with Song Changwon’s chaebol family...
Given how sensitive chaebol families are about asset distribution and succession issues, she’s almost certainly treated like little more than a boarder, not as family.
That’s why I can’t trust Lee Narin.
Even if she lost her backing after going through something tragic, her exceptional looks and her daughter-in-law-friendly personality haven’t changed.
If she did a “slightly special favor” for the chaebol family in return, Song Changwon’s family might even offer to bring her into the household, through adoption or marriage.
No, honestly, the moment they sent a pretty girl like Lee Narin into the same class as Jung Ian, their intentions were obvious.
Unlike me, who comes with every possible restriction when it comes to romance, Lee Narin has complete freedom in that department.
And in a class full of this trash, the only person who can even be called a human being is Jung Ian.
So where else would the attention of a seventeen-year-old girl at the height of her interest in the opposite sex naturally turn?
Song Changwon’s chaebol family must be thinking exactly this.
If Lee Narin succeeds in bringing Jung Ian over, jackpot.
If Lee Narin’s presence creates a crack between me and Jung Ian, success.
If she simply maintains a good relationship with Jung Ian, that’s already a gain.
And even if everything fails and her relationship with Jung Ian collapses, they can just disown the whole thing by saying she has nothing to do with Song Changwon’s family, so there’s no loss.
...
Though they don’t seem to have said any of that directly to Lee Narin herself.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Han Sia maintained her cold demeanor and kept pressing Lee Narin.
Her frigid voice and gaze, still seeping with chill, were enough to raise goosebumps.
...
But after spending half a year with Han Sia, I had already realized her attitude was nothing but an act.
From the start, if Han Sia had really been in a bad mood or truly angry, she wouldn’t have bothered trying to solve the situation with words.
In other words, this was nothing more than a practiced performance, a voice and manner she’d learned to use to intimidate others as a rich girl.
You could say it was basically the same thing as the business smile she always used at school.
So... maybe Han Sia had another intention entirely?
But Lee Narin had no way of knowing that, so she was still unable to stay calm and was trembling slightly at Han Sia’s presence.
For the record, even if she looked wronged and pitiful, I had no intention of helping her.
Part of the problem was that I knew absolutely nothing about the ecology of upper-class children, but...
If something happened, I was going to side with Han Sia no matter what, right or wrong.
It might seem a little heartless, but that was only natural.
I wasn’t Lee Narin’s friend. I was Han Sia’s friend.
Before rushing in on sympathy for the weak or some inflated sense of justice, you should first make a clear-eyed assessment of yourself.
And if I thought her behavior was wrong, I could always bring it up later at a better time.
...
Still, it was true that Han Sia was reacting somewhat sensitively to the transfer student...
Curious about why, I decided to ask her directly.
"Sia, could you tell me what exactly you’re worried about? Honestly, I’ve been out of the conversation since a while ago."
At that, Han Sia dropped her cold expression and smiled at me.
"Ian, I told you before, but when the upper class wants to weaken a rival’s power, targeting their children is a common tactic. They make contact with the child to leave a good impression, or they wear them down relentlessly to seize psychological advantage."
But as Han Sia explained it to me, she suddenly turned her gaze toward Lee Narin and said,
"In worse cases, though... they even deliberately introduce their children to bad friends and drag them down the wrong path. Gambling, drugs, things like that."
Han Sia’s words were rather shocking.
In response, Lee Narin shook her head desperately and insisted on her innocence.
"N-no, you guys...! I do want to make a good impression on chaebol families, but it’s not like I’m being held by the leash or anything! They might not even ask me to do something like that in the first place, and even if they did, I would never, ever do something like that!! Really!! Believe me..."
Perhaps feeling wronged by Han Sia’s words, her voice began to waver and turn watery.
But Han Sia didn’t stop pressing her.
"Right. Chaebol families have their pride, so I don’t think they’d go that far either. Still, after you get close to Jung Ian, you could easily slip him into Song Changwon’s family under the radar, couldn’t you?"
"I would never do something like that..."
"What if they offered to bring you into the chaebol family on the condition that you bring Jung Ian over? And what if, conveniently, you also happen to like Jung Ian, so you think you can kill two birds with one stone? Could you really refuse then?"
"..."
"You’re probably aware that your looks are well above average. When they pushed someone like you into Jung Ian’s class, with what kind of intention do you think the chaebol family did it... You’ve probably already guessed, haven’t you?"
Under Han Sia’s sharp assault, Lee Narin couldn’t answer at all.
And yet, even as she teared up a little, she seemed to be lost in thought, which meant she had probably suspected something herself.
...
Then Han Sia suddenly softened the chill on her face and said in a warm voice,
"Mm... judging by your reaction, you really haven’t heard any of this before? Sorry. I’ve been caught by similar tricks several times before, so I get a little sensitive in situations like this."
"H-huh? Yeah..."
"Narin, even if the chaebol family asked you to do something like that, you absolutely wouldn’t, right? Right? I believe you, Narin. As long as you don’t do that kind of awful thing like 'selling us out,' we can definitely get along well from now on! Want to be friends?"
Press her, then act friendly.
...This was textbook gaslighting.
She was even trying to manipulate Lee Narin by quietly branding obeying Song Changwon’s family as 'selling us out' and an 'awful thing.'
Scary.... Han Sia!!!
.
.
.
But our conversation didn’t continue any further.
The reason was that the classroom suddenly turned noisy.
"Guys!! Let’s stop doing this already! Bullying one person with a group is wrong!!"
Turning toward the source of the commotion, I saw one of the girls in the class suddenly step forward and take Song Changwon’s side.
Of course, the other students in the class were flustered and tried to stop her.
"Why are you suddenly saying that!? That bastard didn’t even apologize to us once—he just mocked us instead!!"
"A bunch of you bullying one person like that is so unmanly! You losers! Changwon only talked badly to you because you’re such losers yourselves, right? Isn’t that right, Changwon?"
"..."
Hmm... that girl was the same one who had smiled and led the charge last semester when the class spread nonsense rumors about me...
Whatever happened over summer break, it seemed her values had undergone a massive upheaval.
And not only that, but a few other girls seemed to agree with her somewhat.
"Yeah~ 'dog hair'... if you think about it, isn’t that kind of cute? I didn’t really feel insulted at all."
"Because you guys were being so narrow-minded, the rest of us got lumped in and insulted too~ You should be apologizing to us!"
This was... that.
Just as girls like Han Sia, even when they acted a bit arrogant, were hard to hate because they were pretty,
Song Changwon was tall, handsome, and from a great family, so... at the very least, the girls’ feelings toward him had changed from the boys’.
Whoa... the boys in our class must be feeling betrayed beyond belief.
That unified post-opening atmosphere between the boys and girls had just been cleanly blown apart.
Heh. With a single word—dog hair—Song Changwon had split our class in two again. As expected of him.
Thanks to that, this semester should make school life go much more smoothly, so I’d have to thank Changwon separately later.
...
Ah, before that, where did I put the popcorn I bought from the cafeteria during the last period...?