I Don’t Want to be a Villainess

“……What?”

I unwittingly found myself asking that.

Of course, Ha-neul wasn’t someone I needed to be polite to. I wasn’t some well-mannered princess from a medieval romance fantasy; I was just a modern teenage girl. It’s not like high school students usually use honorifics with each other. Honorifics are mostly reserved for formal senior-junior relationships, and even that tends to drop to casual speech if they get friendly enough.

The reason I kept getting lost in those thoughts was probably that a part of my mind was trying to escape from the current situation.

Right now, it was just Ha-neul and me on this rooftop. Sohee was probably still crouched by the rooftop entrance, grumbling about the current situation nonstop.

I felt a bit bad for Sohee, but honestly, I was relieved to have left her there.

So, what happened to lead to this situation, you ask?

*

During the first period, Ha-neul suddenly stood up, came over to me, and tapped my shoulder.

“……What?”

In response to my question, Ha-neul asked, “Can we talk for a second?”

“……Is this something we can’t discuss here?”

Feeling a bit flustered that Ha-neul was the one initiating this conversation, I asked. Without even glancing around or thinking for a moment, Ha-neul nodded.

“Yeah. It’s something we need to discuss just the two of us.”

“Uh….”

I glanced over at the teacher, who seemed to be keeping an eye on us. When our eyes met, the teacher quickly shifted their gaze away.

Since Sohee’s bombshell declaration the other day, it had been like this.

I didn’t know how far the bribery that Yang Hye-in had involved had spread, but looking at the amount, I suspected it hadn’t been divided among just two people. Maybe even that young teacher felt the same way.

They couldn’t completely ignore us.

That’s just how things turned out.

Still, the teachers’ attitudes towards me hadn’t changed much. Even during class, I was still able to leave and return as I pleased, and no one stopped me. Even if I skipped school, they would probably still mark me as present.

Yeah, their attitudes hadn’t changed.

Only their feelings had.

Whenever they looked at me, and at my “close associates,” there was a strange look of fear in their eyes. I could almost guess why; they were probably scared because they realized they couldn’t control me anymore.

And because of what had happened when Sohee transferred to this school, they couldn’t touch her either.

In a way, it was a misunderstanding on the part of the teachers. They probably thought about how I could easily access tens of millions due to my personal made-up connections, wondering just how much I could use it to openly defy them now. Until now, I had been the innocent lamb who didn’t know how to get angry, but something had clearly changed since starting high school.

My influence was slowly but surely growing within the school.

Moreover, there were kids who couldn’t so easily dismiss me, and a recognition had emerged among the teachers that they couldn’t just ignore me outright.

This had all happened just two weeks after the entrance ceremony.

Even now, they were probably racking their brains. They might be much stronger than me, but the Chairwoman was too far out of reach, while I was someone they saw every day.

They must be conflicted about where to align themselves.

Of course, I didn’t have any intention of appeasing those teachers.

In any case, while Ha-neul and I were conversing, the teacher was intently watching us.

…Maybe they were also thinking of Ha-neul as part of a set with me.

“But if we go out of the classroom…”

But even then, I still couldn’t be sure. The only things the teachers showed me were their attitudes and feelings; they had never directly proposed anything to me.

Would leaving the classroom affect Ha-neul’s grades?

Maybe Ha-neul had already anticipated that I would think like this because she immediately looked at the teacher and spoke loudly.

“Teacher.”

“Uh? Wh-what?”

Surprised that she was calling out to him, the teacher jumped and dropped the piece of chalk he was holding. The new chalk, barely out of its packaging, shattered the moment it hit the floor.

“Is it alright if I step out to the restroom for a moment?”

The teacher looked around for a few seconds before saying, “Uh, yeah. Just don’t take too long…”

He trailed off at the end of his sentence.

“…….”

I stood there dumbfounded, mouth hanging open, gazing up at Ha-neul in awe at how bold that entire sequence was.

“Can we have a chat?” Ha-neul asked me.

“……Alright.”

As I stood up from my seat, Sohee also confidently rose to follow me. It was hard to even call her just my seatmate because she was sitting in a space between desks that should’ve been left empty.

That’s right. Given that I had blatantly bribed my way into the school, Sohee was even more of an untouchable entity.

…If maids in this high school are treated with such status, it’s only natural that they wouldn’t dare to mess with me.

The outcome was similar to “ignoring,” but fear started to creep in.

And it wasn’t fear of the Chairwoman, but fear of me.

I knew that wasn’t necessarily a positive change. But at the same time, it wasn’t entirely negative, either.

If I could utilize that fear well, Ye Sara would no longer be seen merely as an icon of misfortune.

“Let’s go.”

At my words, Ha-neul and Sohee began to move.

There was now no one left in the classroom to stop us.

Well, it’s not like anyone had tried to stop us before.

*

“Sohee.”

“Yeah?”

Once we reached the rooftop door, Ha-neul said, “We have something to discuss just the two of us. Can you wait here for a minute?”

When Ha-neul said that, Sohee’s eyebrows furrowed slightly. She tilted her head a bit.

“…….”

Sohee’s expression was completely blank as she silently stared at Ha-neul, but for some reason, I thought Sohee would refuse Ha-neul’s request.

But contrary to my prediction, Sohee acted unexpectedly.

“Is this about the thing I think it is?”

The thing?

“……No. It’s probably not.”

Huh?

It seemed they knew about something I didn’t.

“What are you talking about?”

“Nothing, nothing.”

Even when I asked, Sohee just shrugged her shoulders and said,

“Well, if that’s the case, then it’s good. Since it sounds like a personal matter. Even as a maid, I shouldn’t interfere in the personal life of my master. The senior said that as well.”

Even while saying that, Sohee still wore an inscrutable, slightly difficult-to-read expression. Almost as if she was implying Yang Hye-in hadn’t acted that way, or that she didn’t believe the words she was saying.

Leaning against the rooftop door, Ha-neul slightly bowed her head towards Sohee.

“Thank you.”

Sohee waved her hand dismissively, as if it were a bother.

And so, we entered the rooftop door, just the two of us—

—and arrived at the current situation.

What Ha-neul was showing me was a letter that Ye Sara had written in the past.

“…….”

I was staring down at it with my mouth agape, and then I asked Ha-neul, “……Did you rummage through my room?”

Thinking back, Ha-neul, Sohee, and Sua had spent a lot of time in my room. Whenever I was in the shower, those three would often hang out in my absence.

Now that I thought about it, they had quietly opened my closet the first time they came over to sleep.

“So you know where this was?”

“…….”

Since I already knew where she had found it, I couldn’t deny it.

“Yang Hye-in gave it to me. I got it from her. Here.”

Ha-neul moved her hand as if wanting me to take it. I received the letter with trembling hands and carefully folded it along the creases.

“……That person?”

I carefully tucked the letter into the pocket of my uniform and asked again.

“Yeah. It seems the Chairwoman rummaged through your room before she came to see you.”

“…….”

“Don’t worry. It seems the Chairwoman doesn’t know about it.”

That much made sense. If she had known, she wouldn’t have left me alone. It wouldn’t have been surprising if she had kidnapped me and locked me away where I couldn’t do anything.

“……So,”

I said to Ha-neul, raising my maximum guard level that I hadn’t shown before. When I narrowed my eyes to look at her, she flinched a little, looking somewhat hurt. Seeing that made my heart ache slightly, but I knew I had to confirm something.

“Why did you come all the way here to deliver this letter? You didn’t just summon me here to say something you want me to hear, did you?”

“…….”

At my question, Ha-neul momentarily looked down at the ground, contemplating, before finally raising her head.

And with a serious expression, she asked me, “That letter, you wrote it, right?”

“……Huh?”

No.

‘I’ didn’t write it.

But right now, I was ‘Sara.’

So—

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure?”

But even with my answer, Ha-neul asked me once again.

“……Why? Is there a problem?”

There are many problems. I wasn’t even the original owner of this body, and the original owner might already be dead.

…There’s a possibility the real Sara might not return.

I confirmed that the memories were still in the body, but to verify that, I might have to meet Choi Na-kyung, who is the only connection I have to the real Sara, multiple times.

But all those were things I can’t discuss openly right now.

So I asked her in a way that had a hint of thorns.

“…….”

Ha-neul, hearing my words, didn’t ask again.

She simply took a few steps closer to me.

What did Ha-neul want to say to me?

By questioning me, was she already convinced in her heart that I wasn’t really Ye Sara?

…Yoo Ha-neul was originally the heroine of the game. And within the game, she had a level of intuition that could detect some wrong choices.

Even if that was just a game mechanic, it could be that Ha-neul was using that intuition as a certain ability emanating from her face, just like the light I saw coming from it.

Yeah, she must have many questions she wanted to ask.

But Ha-neul didn’t ask me anything else.

She merely stepped closer and embraced me.

“It’s okay.”

Then she whispered to me.

“Even if you don’t remember anything yet, it’s okay. Whether you regain your memory or not, do as you wish.”

And as she tightened her embrace a little more, she whispered softly, “I’ll be by your side until then.”

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