I Don’t Want to be a Villainess

“So, you really mean you want to be my maid?”

“Yeah. And I’m expecting a salary too.”

Shin So-hee was casually answering while pulling something thick and rolled up out of her bag.

It was a sleeping bag.

“I went camping on a family trip last year. I’ve only used this once, but now I have a reason to use it again.”

“…You’re planning to sleep on the floor?”

No matter how I looked at it, Shin So-hee seemed to be thinking about staying in my room. Last time we all just slept in the bed together… Well, if she was planning to stay here, it was unrealistic to sleep in the same bed every day. Even among same-sex friends, there are lines that shouldn’t be crossed.

I also wasn’t quite sure what that line was yet.

“There are rooms for the servants, you know…”

Honestly, I didn’t even know where they were. This mansion was that big. But I did know there was a room that Yang Hye-in used. If Shin So-hee really thought about living as a maid, it would be easier for her to stay there than sleep on my floor.

“I don’t want to.”

But Shin So-hee refused flat-out.

“Why?”

When I frowned and asked, Shin So-hee shrugged her shoulders and replied.

“…Because the heating bill is high?”

The heating system in this mansion was incredibly inefficient. But even so, it wasn’t so inefficient that it would be unbearable. After all, not the whole mansion was heated.

Initially, Yang Hye-in had stayed in another room. And that was something anyone living in this mansion could easily guess. Of course, Shin So-hee would be aware that there was a room she originally used.

It felt like there was something I hadn’t grasped yet.

I let out a sigh as I sat on the bed. Rubbing my forehead with my palm, I noticed Shin So-hee was unpacking her stuff one by one from her bag. Her things were piling up neatly on the table in the room.

A toothbrush, toothpaste, various cosmetics, shower supplies, casual clothes, and a school uniform…

Ah, right. The school uniform.

“If you’re working as a maid here, what are you going to do about school?”

I asked like that. Sure, if Yoo Ha-neul or Lee Soo-ah made the same claim, I might have understood, but Shin So-hee was a student from a different school. One that was essentially in the completely opposite direction.

My maid would go with me to the front of the school every morning and see me off as I entered. And whether I left school through the main gate or not, she had to come early and wait for me in the car. Naturally, there wouldn’t be enough time in the day for her to manage all that while attending school. She would have to repeat tardies and early dismissals every day.

There was no way she could have a normal school life.

“Oh, right. The school.”

While unpacking, Shin So-hee suddenly seemed to remember and clapped her hands.

“Yeah, the ‘money-making plan’ I mentioned. It’s related to school.”

“…Related to school?”

Ah.

After asking back, I had a feeling I knew what Shin So-hee was going to say.

“If I enroll in Hwayoung High School, everything will be resolved, right?”

Shin So-hee said to me with a bright smile.

“So, I hope you can arrange my salary to be enough to go to that school.”

“…”

I pressed my hand to my forehead.

*

Shin So-hee knew her request was unreasonable.

She had no idea how much the tuition at Hwayoung High School was. What she did know was that it was an amount too high for a ‘normal family’s student’ to afford. It could easily be several thousand, or in the worst case, maybe even in the hundreds of thousands.

She had no experience, nor was she confident she could do as well as Yang Hye-in did as a maid. To boldly state she needed such a large sum was an incredibly shameless request, and she was well aware of it.

Maybe she thought she’d at least say it once, even if she got rejected. Shin So-hee thought that way as she came here.

After reading the will in the cafe, she exchanged a few words with her companions. Each seemed to have formed their own thoughts about the will, but they could not lay everything bare. Yeah, they didn’t share it all. It wasn’t that they didn’t want to, but that their thoughts were too tangled to give a clean answer. While Shin So-hee was not sensitive enough to read the thoughts of others, she could roughly guess from the troubled expressions of Yoo Ha-neul and Lee Soo-ah.

Each had decided to take some form of action.

So, what decision did Shin So-hee come to?

…She hadn’t decided anything at all.

Even when she returned home and lay on her bed, she was lost in thought for a long time. What can I do? No, what should I do now? How can I see Sara’s face again? She realized she was thinking about those things.

Shin So-hee liked Sara.

That was a definite fact. Thinking about Sara made her heart race faster, and she felt a yearning after not seeing her for a long time. She sometimes thought how nice it would have been if she studied harder in middle school to get into Hwayoung High School. Sometimes, she imagined walking down the aisle in wedding dresses alongside Sara.

Honestly, she knew that was a ridiculous fantasy.

She was the daughter of an ordinary family. While she never thought of herself as poor, she’d never thought of herself as rich either. It was just her thought about her family was that they lived just like everyone else.

However, the person Sara was, was so rich that it was difficult to even imagine. It wasn’t just about inheriting an astonishing fortune. When she searched online, Sara was already counted among the richest teenagers in the world. Excluding royalties from several countries, she was also listed as one of the wealthiest people in capitalist nations.

At her age, she was already like that.

Sara treated Shin So-hee without hesitation like a friend. She casually invited her over, and she didn’t say anything difficult or choose her words.

Because of that, when she was next to her, she unknowingly thought, “Maybe I could…”. Sure, she was a ‘young lady’ with a little bit of money, a bit naive about the world, and a little clueless in several ways, but in essence, she thought they were living in the same world.

But,

But… no, that wasn’t the case.

The world she lived in was different from the one Shin So-hee lived in.

When she first heard that ‘Chairwoman’ meant ‘stepmother’, she felt a bit relieved. She thought Sara wasn’t experiencing ‘that kind of thing’.

However, unfortunately, the most crucial part of that delusion was quite on point.

That woman, the so-called ‘stepmother’ of Sara, Choi Na-kyung, clearly had sexual feelings for Sara.

Shin So-hee couldn’t even imagine how far gone that woman was or what circumstances led to such a mindset, but to her, that woman was undoubtedly a ‘dangerous’ type of person.

…Well, perhaps fundamentally they might be similar to Shin So-hee. They liked women, and their affection targeted the same object.

And that woman almost drove Sara to death with that twisted feeling.

No, it might be that she had already pushed Sara to that edge. Just that Sara had been unlucky enough to fail.

“…I won’t just ask for it for free. To be honest, I know that no matter how hard I work here, I could never earn that cost.”

While brushing her face, Shin So-hee said seriously.

“So, everything I earn from working… I’ll pay it back.”

Of course, the amount wasn’t something that could be settled overnight.

“…No matter how long it takes, I’ll repay you bit by bit while staying by your side.”

Could there be a possibility that Sara liked women? I don’t know. Sara had left a message saying she loved Choi Na-kyung, but it was more likely that it was said in the context of family love.

…If she loved Sara as a woman, would she have thought of ending her own life?

At first, she thought that way too. If she was going to throw her life away anyway, wouldn’t it be better to entrust it to me? After all, that was what the male protagonist said to the female protagonist in a romance novel she once read.

But soon, she dropped that thought.

Shin So-hee was, despite appearances, a very timid person. She kept her heart hidden deep down like a porcupine bristling with quills and wouldn’t show it to anyone. The reason she showed such a heart in front of Yoo Ha-neul and Lee Soo-ah was merely out of restraint. She was raising her quills to declare, “I like this girl.” So that the two wouldn’t approach her rashly.

But at the same time, it was selfish. When Sara chose her, she wanted it to be a decision she made with her own will. Not as if she was just throwing her life away, but that she actually loved Shin So-hee.

Though she was afraid of rejection, she was being that bold at the same time.

So,

So, she wanted Sara not to give up her life.

She didn’t want her to be satisfied and leave within this week, but hoped she would continue to stay and lead her daily life.

…But sadly, Shin So-hee found it difficult to know how to make Sara think that way.

She thought she had been slowly getting to know Sara so far, but in reality, she knew nothing at all. She didn’t know what Sara really thought, what kind of life she had lived, and how painful that life had been. She knew nothing.

Not knowing meant—this was the choice she eventually made.

The only thing she could come up with was a simple idea. It was a thought she suddenly had as she ran out.

Holding the ladder she had seen in the storage room, and stuffing her bag with daily necessities, she impulsively jumped over the mansion’s wall.

And she came this far, saying all of this.

If Sara ever had a wrong thought. Or if someone appeared who would harm or hurt Sara.

Shin So-hee would step in herself and stop it.

She would stick by Sara 24/7, buying time until Sara found the happiness to continue living.

That was the only ‘idea’ she could come up with.

…In fact, she didn’t care much about the money. She didn’t care how much fortune was behind Sara. Even if Sara said she wouldn’t pay for school, that was fine. She didn’t have to go to school. She could take the GED someday.

Right now, all she felt was a desire not to lose Sara. Just a desire to protect her.

And so, Shin So-hee chose this path.

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