The Princess is Intrigued
Pina will be the one telling you the story again this time.
It is good to see you again today. Do you remember the story I told you last time?
You remember it well? That is a relief. If you had said you did not remember, I might have been a little sad.
But... before we officially begin, may I ask you just one thing?
Is the story I am telling you actually interesting? To me, it feels like a rather boring tale.
Honestly, it is a dark and gloomy story, is it not? What is that? Why would you come back to listen if it were boring?
Hmm... you make a fair point. Then, let us leave the small talk here and officially begin today's story.
Lee Hanbyul. When you first hear the name, it does not sound particularly unique. It is the kind of name you could find anywhere.
He is reasonably good-looking. He looks to be in the mid-180s in height, and while his face is not drop-dead gorgeous, you know what I mean, right? The kind of face that makes girls say things like "he looks cute" or "he looks like a puppy."
His face suits those descriptions perfectly. To be more precise, he has large eyes for a guy, a small face, and rather fair skin. He definitely falls on the handsome side. He does not have the kind of face that would struggle to get a girlfriend. Since he is tall, his proportions are good too.
But it was not his name or his looks that caught my attention. At first, well... I simply thought, He is a bit pitiful.
The first time I saw Lee Hanbyul was during classroom introductions after the high school entrance ceremony.
Even after entering high school, I had no intention of making friends. I planned to keep to myself.
So, I had not given a single thought to what I would say during my introduction.
I was not paying attention to the other students' introductions either. But then, I heard a completely absurd introduction.
Usually, when people introduce themselves, they talk about their middle school, their hobbies, their specialties, and what they like.
For things they like, they usually mention food or sports.
But a female student named Kim Dahi suddenly announced that she liked a student in our class named Park Sung. Honestly, is that not a bit ridiculous?
Once Kim Dahi finished her introduction, the introduction of the boy in question, Park Sung, began.
And yet, he said the exact same thing—that he liked Kim Dahi. Seriously, if they wanted to flirt, they should have kept it to themselves...
Just as I was thinking how absurd it all was, I heard Lee Hanbyul's introduction.
He said he was close friends with Park Sung, that he did judo, and that his hobby was reading. It was a very standard introduction.
But his conversation with the teacher was quite amusing.
The teacher spoke as if she were entrusting Kim Dahi and Park Sung to Lee Hanbyul.
And Lee Hanbyul reacted as if he had been utterly betrayed, blunting out, "What?!" How could I not pay attention to that? Honestly, I laughed a lot on the inside.
The second impression I had of Lee Hanbyul was disgust. It was finally my turn to introduce myself.
I intended to just say my name and sit back down. But then, this guy, Lee Hanbyul, suddenly said something bizarre to me.
He asked if I remembered him. You know those cliché pickup lines, right? "Have we met before?" or "Do you remember me?" Things like that.
As I told you before, I absolutely despise it when men do that. It borders on sheer disgust. So, I flat out told him he was disgusting.
I could hear the other kids whispering around me, but I did not care.
However, Lee Hanbyul's expression was different from what I expected. Normally, when I say something like that, people get annoyed or embarrassed. But he simply apologized and looked at me with this incredibly tender, longing gaze. I do not know why, but that look did not make me feel uncomfortable.
The third feeling was annoyance. I was truly annoyed, and a bit frustrated too.
Our school has this unique system where they select committees. They claim it is to foster independence and responsibility by assigning various school roles to students, but in the end, it is just making students do the school's chores. It is incredibly tedious. And I did not even want to stay at school any longer than I had to.
So, I was trying to figure out which committee would be the least troublesome when I heard the teacher's explanation.
The Library Committee operates during lunch hours!
Do you have any idea how appealing that condition was to someone like me who wanted to go home early? So, I immediately raised my hand to volunteer for the Library Committee. But to my dismay, Lee Hanbyul volunteered for it too.
Ah, right. His hobby was reading. Forgetting that was my mistake.
Still, perhaps because I had warned him beforehand not to strike up useless conversations, he did not speak to me. But then, Lee Hanbyul pulled out his phone right next to me.
I found it strange for a student to have their phone out during school hours, so I asked him, "Why do you have your phone?" And let me tell you, this guy certainly had a way with words.
He had coaxed our homeroom teacher into giving him permission to use his phone during committee activities.
Honestly, I was a bit jealous of that. Still, I tried my best to ignore him.
That is, until I saw it. What was it, you ask? A cat video! A cat video, of all things! Some of you might wonder why I would make such a big deal out of a cat video.
The truth is, I absolutely love animals. My hobby is watching animal videos. And cats are one of my absolute favorites. To play a video of a cat loafing right in front of me!
Not looking at it was practically torture for me. I tried to sneak glances without getting caught, but Lee Hanbyul noticed. He waved his phone right in front of my face, and my eyes naturally followed it.
I really should not have looked.
And then, he naturally started teasing me with it!
I seriously wanted to hit him right then and there. He was so obnoxious. If you had seen his face, you would definitely agree with me. Though my anger melted away when he eventually shared the video with me.
At the time, it felt like I was being trained or tamed, which made me both annoyed and frustrated.
The fourth feeling was admiration. Or perhaps a bit of wonder.
I happened to overhear Lee Hanbyul defending me. He must have heard two girls talking behind my back, because he stepped in to stop them from badmouthing me further.
Well, his way of stopping them was not a harsh "Stop it!" but rather a gentle persuasion, along the lines of, "It would be better for you guys if you didn't do that."
And surprisingly, it worked. The emotion I felt then was... What a fascinating person. Just like when he helped that lost child, he seemed to have a habit of helping others when no one was looking.
I really have to wonder what kind of fate binds me to Lee Hanbyul, because we keep getting tangled up in everything.
Hmm? What am I talking about? The group project, of course. When I looked at the group members the teacher had "arbitrarily" assigned, it consisted of the two girls who disliked me, Lee Hanbyul, and myself.
Just hearing that lineup makes it sound hopeless, doesn't it? The two girls disliked me so much that they started making sarcastic remarks at me from the very first session. I did not hold back and shot right back at them. I felt a little sorry for Lee Hanbyul, who was caught in the middle, but that was not my problem, was it?
After that first session, I did some thinking. Fighting like this would not help at all. If anything, it would only ruin our performance evaluation and drag our grades down.
But despite my resolution, those girls picked a fight with me again during the second session. I was about to fire back, but Lee Hanbyul was one step faster.
He told them to cut it out, saying that his grades were important to him and that they should stop picking fights. Of course, he also told me not to fall for their provocations.
Either way, it showed me an unexpected side of Lee Hanbyul. I realized he was not just some shallow, lighthearted guy.
The fifth feeling was amazement.
Finally, the last day of the performance evaluation arrived. On the final day, two presenters from each group had to speak, and for our group, it was Lee Hanbyul and me.
But even though he was supposed to present, Lee Hanbyul had been too lazy to write a script. Of course, I had written mine in advance.
So, I nagged him a bit, and we began preparing for our respective parts. Fortunately, it was not that he had written nothing at all; he had jotted down simple keywords and a general outline. We used that to prepare for the presentation.
But once the presentation started, disaster struck. My script had been torn.
The most important section was completely missing. Because I had the script with me, I had not memorized the details of the presentation. In that moment, my mind went completely blank.
As I stood there frozen, unable to think, Lee Hanbyul stepped forward. He smoothly spoke the exact lines I was supposed to present—the very content that had been torn from my script.
After the presentation, I apologized to Lee Hanbyul.
I told him I was sorry for causing trouble due to my complacency. But instead of blaming me, Lee Hanbyul comforted me. He said it was only natural for group members to cover for each other's mistakes.
When he said that, I could not sense any ulterior motive from him. It felt like he genuinely, purely believed it.
The culprits who tore my script were probably the girls in our group.
I tried not to pay much attention to it. But then, something strange happened.
The week after the presentation, nasty rumors about those girls began to spread.
It was as if someone had intentionally leaked them. I wonder who did it? I have no way of knowing, so I will just let it go. But I really am curious. Who could it have been?
Seeing how well he answers the teacher's questions in class, he is smart, and he is good at sports too. Looking at him like this, Lee Hanbyul is practically the perfect guy. And he is quite handsome, too.
Around the time when Lee Hanbyul approaching me started to feel normal, I asked him. Why did he keep paying attention to me? Why did he keep coming closer even though I pushed him away? Was he different from other people?
And then, he told me, "I just want to be friends with you. For no reason, expecting nothing in return. I just want to be your friend."
He said he knew I was kind, that I wanted to trust people, and that he knew my smile was more beautiful than anyone else's.
Hearing Lee Hanbyul's words, I thought, Maybe this person is different from the rest. Maybe I can try trusting people again. That was how pure and sincere Hanbyul's eyes looked.
So, I decided to trust Hanbyul—to trust people—once more.
I decided to trust Hanbyul's eyes, those pure eyes that looked straight into mine. For one very last time.
But how on earth did Hanbyul know those things about me to say them?
Things like me being kind, or having a beautiful smile.
It felt so strange when I heard those words. What did he know about me, and how did he know it, to say such things?
That is all for my story today. Did you enjoy listening to it?
If you did, I am glad. Are you sad it is over? Do not be. There will be another chance.
After all, the story of Hanbyul and me is not over yet.
So, let us meet again after a little more time has passed. I will say goodbye for today.
I will be looking forward to the next time we meet.