Not a Single Ally
The moment I stepped into the lecture hall, every conversation died.
Dozens of eyes locked onto me at once. A few scrambled to look away, but others made no effort to hide the open disgust twisting their faces.
“She’s here again.”
Someone muttered it under their breath—except they didn’t bother lowering their voice at all.
Three days had passed since I woke up in this body, and the face in the mirror still felt like a stranger’s. Silver hair cascading past my waist, pale flawless skin, vivid red eyes framed by softly upturned lids. It was a face without a single flaw, breathtakingly beautiful.
Yet no one in this place looked at me with admiration.
As I walked down the aisle, students shifted aside to clear my path. One girl pressed herself against her friend and whispered,
“Don’t make eye contact.”
“Why? She doesn’t do anything anymore.”
“You really think a person can change that easily?”
A soft snicker followed.
I pretended not to hear and headed for the seat by the window. The desks around mine stood conspicuously empty. Someone had scrawled a message in black ink across one corner of my desk.
—Get lost.
When I rubbed it with my fingertip, the ink smeared faintly.
Since the day I possessed this body, I hadn’t laid a finger on anyone.
But that was a secret only I knew.
To them I was still Serena Ardel—the villainess who had used her beauty and high birth to trample everyone beneath her.
And it seemed no one was prepared to forgive a villainess just because she had suddenly decided to behave.
Then the lecture-hall door opened.
Someone walked in.
For the first time, anticipation lit the faces of the murmuring students. A few smiled. Others turned toward me as if waiting for the show to begin.
He cut straight through every stare and fixed his gaze on me alone.
“Serena Ardel.”
His voice was ice.
“I won’t let you do as you please any longer.”
Small cheers rose around us.
Only then did I understand.
In this classroom, I didn’t have a single ally.