I Don’t Want To Be An Ojakgyo

"Eugh……. Ugh……"

"Shushu! Shushu! Wake up! Are you okay?!"

I blearily opened my eyes to see my older brother, Harun. Where was this? I held onto my consciousness as soon as my brain turned back on. Oh, right, I was heading to the academy in a carriage. It seemed that I had fallen asleep.

It felt like I dreamt a chilling dream. Although I couldn't really remember the original plotline of the story I'd seen in my dream, I felt like I was going to throw up.

My older brother looked at me with a worried gaze.

"Did you have a nightmare? Your face was pale while you were asleep."

Hestia sat next to me, looking at me with a worried gaze. She brushed her fingers across my arm and opened her mouth to speak.

"Look, you even have goosebumps. It must've been a really scary dream…."

"….It was seriously scary."

My hands shook as I took the hand of older brother Harun, who was sitting right across from me. Surprised and touched by my sudden physical contact, he held onto my hand and didn't let go. I looked at his expression and snatched my hands back from him. It felt like my goosebumps were going to come back if I didn't.

"Shushu, we arrived at the academy while you were asleep."

Hestia smiled as she opened the window of the carriage. My hair was tousled from sleep, so I ran my fingers through it to calm it down. I hurriedly washed my face with a stone that had a magic circle for water drawn on it.

"We're not late, right?"

Hestia tilted her head and asked me. I shook my head. I haphazardly got Hestia's belongings off the carriage, and came down from the carriage without an escort.

"Have you ever seen me be late? We have plenty of time, so don't worry."

The coachman stood to help me with my belongings, but looked confused when he saw everything already on the ground.

Hestia waited for my older brother to lend her a hand and escort her off the carriage to come down.

I waited as she slowly came down, and handed our lightweight-charmed belongings to the school groundskeeper.

"The groundskeeper's going to tell us everything we need, just follow them around."

Harun, who had already attended the academy for two years, just told us that and headed to the boys dormitory.

Before I followed the groundskeeper into the school, I stepped back for a moment. I took in the view of the entire campus. I could see the school's name written on a sign far away. It was a elegant sign that said 'Augran Academy'. Next to it stood a fountain with a bronze statue of a dignified black dragon. The eyes of the statue held jewels that changed colors based on the angle of the light.

Augran Academy, with even the entrance being so grandiose, was located in the center of the country and was a school for the rich.

Considering that there was a concentrated population of rich families living in the cities, even if the student population was fairly chosen, it was only natural that the majority of the students were rich. Hestia and I lived near the capital, and we were assigned this school because of it as well.

Because the academy's students were generally rich, we had that many sponsors. It naturally followed that even the academy groundskeeper was highly educated and was paid handsomely.

The groundskeeper's well-dressed form reeked of money. Of course, it wasn't a smell that I disliked. I admired the school's grounds reeking of cash and followed behind them.

"Once the entrance ceremony ends, you will be assigned a dorm room."

The groundskeeper had short hair gelled back. Their words were as curt as their short hair.

"Morning lessons are general courses taken in assigned classes, and afternoon lessons will be based on the major you have chosen."

The groundskeeper passed us a time schedule and a brochure about our school as they led us to the auditorium, where the entrance ceremony was taking place. Once we arrived at the auditorium, they gave us a short bow and left to greet the other students.

"Speaking of, what major did you choose Shushu?"

"Swordsmanship."

Hestia smiled and clapped her hand. Her expression hardened slightly and she opened her mouth.

"But if you do that, boys won't like it, right? It's not very ladylike."

I was trying to figure out where we would be sitting, so I hurriedly moved around and nodded slightly at her words.

Hestia had a slightly old-fashioned view of the world. She cared too much about others' gazes. I responded without much thought as I tried to find a good seat to doze off during the principal's speech.

"Man or woman, we're all going to end up as corpses anyway. Why should I care? You live life how you want."

I huffed out a laugh with a vacant gaze.

"Even if others' validation feels important right now, we're all just useless specks of dust from space."

Oh, I found it. A perfect blind spot. I placed my bag on the chair and picked my seat. Hestia looked at my expressionless face and shyly continued to speak.

"….don't say confusing things like thaaat. You really don't want to do horticulture or home economics with me? All the other girls are majoring in them too."

I looked up at her. It…sounded like she just wanted to take the same classes as me. I gave her an awkward smile.

"Sorry. I'll visit often and play with you whenever I can."

Hestia pouted at my words.

"Fine, you're so mean. I'm going to make a ton of friends other than you, Shushu. Hmph. Even if you whine about not having friends, I'm not going to take you back! Good luck by yourself amongst all those boys?"

There was something off about her words. There were a lot of points I could pick at to start a fight, but I didn't want to start an argument. I decided to ignore it.

"Sure."

I smiled and brushed Hestia's hair with my hand.

Once the entrance ceremony began, the auditorium started filling up with students. Just as I thought, my seat was the best one in the whole place. My entire area was surrounded by students so I could hide from the principal's passionate eye contact, and there was plenty of space for me to sleep comfortably.

Because of that, I was able to pass the first half of the ceremony without much hassle. There were moments when I was almost caught by the teacher, but Hestia would poke my side to give me notice. I woke up from a restful sleep as the student representative stood in front for the student rep pledge.

After standing to praise the empire, I sat back down and looked at the student representatives for each class sitting in the front row. Student representatives were chosen based on entrance exam results. I was also picked as a student representative, but it was too annoying so I passed it along. I didn't want my face to become known.

My goal was to live a quiet life and graduate without any problems. I also had my own secrets, so I didn't want to catch anybody's eyes and have something happen. I was slowly amassing riches, and I could achieve fame when I graduated and became a knight.

Right, it's fame and riches. I mentally cheered as I looked at the last step of the ceremony.

The teacher signaled the student to come along as they called the representative forward.

"Please come forward, Hylli Orde Ianess, Green class swordsmanship student representative."

I ducked my head and thought for a bit. Hylli Orde Ianess…..it was a familiar name.

Ianess…..wasn't that the surname of the royal family? And anyway, Haily? It was a name I've heard before…. With a strange feeling, I looked at the student rep.'s face.

As he went on stage to receive the award, all the students fell silent. His steps were confident and made everyone's gaze fixed on him. With an elegant side profile and an almost coquettish set of red eyes, and black hair gleaming bright under the light…he was an image. All the students began to whisper.

'So apparently we have a royal coming in this year, I think that's them.', 'He's that handsome, and he's smart too? He really is living life by himself,' 'Oh my god he's so hot!', "He looks like a prince….." etc., most of the students seemed to like him. But my face slowly turned to stone.

Hey, me. Am I panicking yet?

The dream I'd had earlier in the carriage helped me remember. Hylli Orde Ianess. He was an obsessive control freak that had to take anything he didn't like out of the picture, and he loved to fight.

In the original novel, he used me, Hestia's closest friend, to become closer to Hestia. In the novel, I believed that he was being nice to me because he loved me.

Well, if a prince who supposedly hated women was nice to only me, I would've felt the same.

But anyways, I began to become jealous of Hestia.

Later, once I started to become a hindrance more than a magpie bridge, what did he do again? Oh, that's right. I embarrassed him by spreading weird rumors about him following me around, as if my being jealous of Hestia wasn't already bad enough. He would tie me to a tree when I chased him around, and pushed me into a lake because he didn't want Hestia getting the wrong idea. He was a cruel person that tried to kill me after that. In the novel, I loved Hylli so much that I giggled and thought that everything he did to me was a show of affection, and just. Ugh, I'm getting chills.

That was a really hardcore job. I praised my novel self, and also felt a chill down my spine. It felt like he was looking over where I was. Maybe I had the wrong idea. I turned around and saw him, and it definitely was me having the wrong idea.

He was staring at Hestia, right next to me. Considering it was the first time she was meeting one of her love interests, I was curious about Hestia's response.

She ducked her head slightly and fiddled with her self-embroidered handkerchief. She looked at Hylli with a disinterested gaze.

"We're in the same school as a royal prince! That's so cool!"

As I looked at Hestia's bright smile, I felt goosebumps. I really was in a novel.

I pushed down each of the goosebumps down with my fingers, then pinched Hestia's pink cheeks.

I was assigned a different dorm room from Hestia. Hestia complained about our room placements, but I just shot her a grin.

The academy employees who were assigned to help students around tried to help me with my work, but I refused. I showed them how I had used lightweight charms on my belongings, and showed the maids how skilled I was. Instead of helping me, I asked, you could help Hestia who was probably struggling. The maids nodded and helped Hestia with her belongings.

Once I finally got to be alone, I headed to my room. Each room was shared by two people, and there was a higher chance that you would be assigned to live with an upperclassman, from what I heard. I had to walk a bit because my room was towards the end of the hall. The entrance ceremony ended later than expected, so the dorm room window showed a dark blue sky.

There was a fresh breeze in the hall. Before heading in, I looked at the names written on the door.

[Shuraina West (1)]

[Hazel Minimiez (3)]

I could guess that my roommate was a third-year named Hazel. I stood blankly in front of the door before nodding and heading inside.