Seung Joo was badly injured.
She, who usually attended school without blinking an eye at minor injuries, did not even participate in the graduation ceremony and disappeared for several months.
As a friend, I wanted to visit her in the hospital, but I only received a cold response not to come.
Even that wasn’t from direct communication, but news heard through Sun Jin.
Sun Jin comforted Na Eun, saying she would be fine and just needed a longer recovery period, but didn’t tell how or where Seung Joo was injured.
That was the distance between them and Na Eun.
She had to feel once again that there was an insurmountable wall between them.
After the graduation ceremony without Seung Joo ended, Na Eun finally turned twenty.
Like many students before entering university, she started looking for a simple part-time job.
Her parents, who were stricter than anything about economic awareness, maintained the attitude of “Earn your own pocket money.”
Still, Soo Hyun, who didn’t want her daughter to do harsh work somewhere, introduced Na Eun saying that an acquaintance’s middle school son was looking for a tutor.
Although she didn’t know the going rate for tutoring, it seemed like quite a high-paying part-time job.
At the house she visited, thoroughly prepared for her first-ever tutoring session, she encountered an unexpected figure.
“Say hello, Na Eun. My eldest. I was sorry I couldn’t introduce you then, but here we meet like this.”
The mother of the student she was to tutor smiled contentedly, pointing to her son standing beside her.
Na Eun, still carrying her backpack, only then realized that the person in front of her was the woman who had been fidgeting at the wedding hall, wanting to introduce her son.
“Hello?”
Though he seemed a bit surprised himself, Hee Won quickly changed his attitude and grinned.
Na Eun, not wanting his mother to know they were already acquainted, bowed stiffly to him as he raised his hand in greeting.
“Hello.”
“Speak comfortably~ You’re only four years apart. Your mom and I are friends, so wouldn’t it be nice if you two get along too? Like oppa and dongsaeng.”
Somehow, it seemed like she was hoping for more than just an oppa-dongsaeng relationship.
While Na Eun hesitated, unsure how to respond, the boy standing in front with one leg crossed in a slanted posture interjected into the conversation.
“Then can I speak comfortably too?”
“How rude. You should call her teacher.”
The expression of Jae Won, the student Na Eun would be tutoring, became even more twisted.
Hee Won watched amusingly as his younger brother, who was about to say he was only four years apart from this noona too, got scolded harshly again by Mrs. Kim.
Thanks to his mother who pushed his back saying she’d bring up snacks so go study quickly, Na Eun headed straight to the room where Jae Won studied.
Fortunately, the first tutoring session wasn’t just difficult.
Jae Won, who initially showed a twisted and sharp attitude, didn’t act more rudely to the teacher who came to teach him, and seemed to study quite well.
However, he didn’t seem to have much passion for getting good grades, which Na Eun thought might be why Mrs. Kim found this child frustrating.
About an hour past the two-hour scheduled tutoring, Na Eun excused herself to the bathroom for a moment.
The long corridor she encountered right outside the room was so unfamiliar that she had no idea where to go to find the person she wanted.
While wandering, a now somewhat familiar voice cut in.
“The bathroom is that way.”
“…”
Hee Won pointed to the far left towards Na Eun, who had hurriedly turned to face him.
Na Eun stared at him for a moment before speaking.
“I wasn’t looking for the bathroom.”
“Then were you looking for me?”
“…”
“Why?”
Though he roughly guessed the reason, Hee Won pretended not to know and asked.
Na Eun hesitated for a moment before speaking.
“It’s the first time seeing you since then, so I couldn’t greet you.”
She bowed her head.
“Thank you.”
Hee Won, hands in his pockets, amusingly watched Na Eun, who still hadn’t forgotten the incident at the hotel months ago.
He approached teasingly.
“If you’re grateful, will you repay me?”
“What?”
Na Eun’s face, which had lifted her bowed head not understanding what he meant, suddenly crumpled.
Hee Won was pointing at his lips with his finger.
Na Eun glared at him with coldly sunken eyes.
“…When someone greets you, you should either accept it or ignore it. Just one of the two.”
“Sorry, did you dislike it? Usually everyone likes it when I do this.”
Hee Won, more accustomed than anyone to meeting, touching, and discussing cheap love, laughed saying it was unexpected.
Because he often received passionate kisses as thanks rather than getting slapped when he did this with his looks, it had become a habitual attitude, so he wasn’t particularly aware he had done wrong.
Na Eun made a strange expression towards him as he apologized, saying it was a habit so don’t be offended.
Holding back her anger because he was the person who saved her life and her parents’ lives, but unable to contain her curiosity, she asked casually.
“Then do you do that at work too?”
“Do what?”
“That…”
Na Eun looked around to check if anyone was around, then lowered her voice.
“When you’re working, like if you save someone, do you receive kisses as thanks and stuff like that?”
“…”
After about 3 seconds of silence at the question asked with sparkling eyes, Hee Won burst into laughter.
“You really like those kinds of movies, huh.”
“…”
“Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen much. What if my face gets exposed doing that.”
He shrugged, saying this was just his private life.
“Just catching a coffee cup that’s about to spill makes everyone so grateful. Grateful enough to kiss.”
Ah, so he’s just a frivolous punk who knows how to use his good looks.
[This is the timeline separator]Na Eun inwardly berated herself for briefly imagining something like James Bond and a Bond girl at his words.
Her first impression was right after all.
Barely holding back laughter at Na Eun’s expression that didn’t hide her disgust and contempt at all, Hee Won suddenly asked curiously.
“But you’re using formal speech today? Last time you used informal speech.”
“…”
“Does your attitude change like this depending on the situation?”
Na Eun, who had used formal speech at their first meeting and then arbitrarily blurted out informal speech due to her dislike of him at their second, avoided his eyes.
No matter how much she disliked his personality, he was still a benefactor who saved her and her parents’ lives.
Moreover, he was also the older brother of the student she was tutoring.
It was difficult to maintain informal speech knowing he was four years older, so she was about to say that she would use formal speech respectfully from now on, when Hee Won beat her to it.
“Just use informal speech. I like it when women treat me casually.”
“Alright, then.”
Annoyed by the teasing that came out like an exhale, Na Eun immediately switched to informal speech.
Hee Won laughed again at this lightning-fast change in attitude.
But only for a moment, as Na Eun hesitated a bit before trying to ask something, he stopped her with a completely hardened expression.
“Don’t.”
“…”
I haven’t even asked anything yet. To Na Eun making such an expression, Hee Won coldly warned.
“You want to ask where Kwon Seung Joo is, right?”
“…”
“If Lee Sun Jin doesn’t tell you, you should know there’s a reason she’s not telling you. Right?”
Yoon Na Eun, the good student? At her full name being called out almost like a warning, Na Eun’s eyelashes trembled slightly.
Hee Won took a step closer to her. In the instantly narrowed distance, he whispered softly.
“I told you I’d kill you if you tried to find out unnecessarily.”
“…”
“Don’t dig any deeper. If you want to keep living peacefully like you have been.”
She had enough sense to roughly distinguish whether the person speaking was serious or not.
This man was serious now, so even while feeling her two hands trembling slightly, Na Eun firmly kept her mouth shut.
Having finished his brutal warning, Hee Won lifted his head with a bright face as if nothing had happened and pointed behind him.
“You should go now. My brother will be waiting for his teacher, neck craned.”
Pressured by Hee Won’s momentum telling her to stop and go back to do the scheduled tutoring, Na Eun obediently moved her feet to return to where she had been.
Hee Won was about to return to his own room, thinking she probably understood well enough now.
“Hey.”
Hee Won turned his head at the voice that suddenly came from behind.
At the end of his gaze, Na Eun was glaring at him with a slightly upset expression.
“It’s not needlessly digging, it’s worrying about whether she’s doing well.”
“…”
“It shows you don’t have friends.”
And then, whoosh, she runs away like she’s fleeing back to the room she was in originally.
Hee Won, who had suddenly become a fool who couldn’t empathize with her feelings because he had no friends, burst into a hollow laugh at the slightly sloppy and cute counterattack that left him feeling deflated.
[This is the timeline separator]The best thing about becoming a university student wasn’t the freedom of being an adult who could do anything they wanted.
It was being able to proudly walk around campus as a couple with the person you like, finally at the same school.
Moreover, while majors might differ, they could take the same elective courses if they chose, so Na Eun was happy in every moment of eating at the school cafeteria and attending classes together with Jae Kyung.
Getting into the university she wanted, being at the same school as her boyfriend, finding a decent part-time job.
Everything was just perfect.
Except for one thing.
“Still no contact?”
Jae Kyung carefully asked Na Eun, who was habitually fiddling with her phone while eating at the campus cafeteria.
Na Eun nodded with a sunken expression.
It was now the last week of March, and it had been nearly 4 months since contact with Seung Joo had been cut off.
She was in contact with Sun Jin, who had gone to a different university, but even that was rare these days.
Na Eun, who had been scrolling through her messenger with Sun Jin that hadn’t even shown as read for 3 days, flipped her phone back over onto the table.
“She said she’d contact me when she’s better, so it’ll be soon.”
She tried to put strength in her voice as if it was nothing, but that didn’t work on Jae Kyung.
Jae Kyung overlapped his hand on top of Na Eun’s and slowly patted it.
He knew that saying anything more wouldn’t be comforting.
Appreciating her thoughtful boyfriend’s consideration, Na Eun just poked at the food she was eating before opening her mouth.
“I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t gone to the amusement park that time.”
“…”
“Then, maybe Sun Jin and Seung Joo wouldn’t have had to fight there.”
Even while knowing it was meaningless self-blame, she had been having such thoughts lately.
If the four of them hadn’t gone to that amusement park that day, or at least if they had gone somewhere else.
Then maybe another hero would have rushed to that amusement park, and if so, maybe Seung Joo wouldn’t have been injured and had to hide herself for so long.
Jae Kyung stared blankly at Na Eun, who had lost her appetite and was just holding her chopsticks, before speaking.
“It’s not your fault.”
“…Thank you for saying that.”
Na Eun smiled awkwardly. Then, a thought suddenly occurring to her, she spoke jokingly to try and lift the sunken mood.
“I’m glad you’re not a hero, Jae Kyung.”
At that, his gaze fixated on her more intensely.
Na Eun found it a bit unfamiliar when Jae Kyung looked at her like that very occasionally.
Because when those black eyes like an emotionless doll stared directly at her, she sometimes had the secret thought that it was a bit scary.
Na Eun, who had decided not to pay much attention to the occasional sense of alienation, smiled and said.
“I always thought while watching movies and comics. I could never be a hero’s girlfriend.”
Being kidnapped, threatened, those things are scary, but what’s really frightening is something else.
“Just anxiously waiting like this, it seems like something I couldn’t do.”
And again, as if out of habit, her gaze falls on the phone placed on the table.
“…Being a hero’s friend is this overwhelming, let alone being a lover. It’s scary just thinking about it.”
“Then how about a villain?”
At Jae Kyung’s sudden question, Na Eun lifted her gaze from the phone to look at him.
As Na Eun stared with round eyes, Jae Kyung propped his chin and asked again with a smile.
“Would a villain be okay?”
“What’s that about.”
Na Eun burst into laughter at the amusing nonsense and playfully hit Jae Kyung’s arm.
Thanks to her beloved boyfriend’s wit, she temporarily put aside her gloomy thoughts and focused again on the meal set before her, gripping her chopsticks with renewed strength.
Jae Kyung’s dark gaze watching Na Eun sank a little deeper.
[This is the timeline separator]Male lead is a clingy little husband
One-line summary: The male lead is initially an arrogant, noble, love-deprived brat, later a cute, clingy, scheming little jealous one.
Introduction:
One day, Lu Yuner’s soul transmigrates into a female-dominant world. She enters the Imperial Academy and takes up the position of a doctoral instructor, teaching classes and grading schoolwork.
One day, she encounters the young prince Su Qingwan secretly skipping class from the male academy.
As a result, Su Qingwan is punished.
From then on, Su Qingwan sees Lu Yuner as a “thorn in his side”.
But before long, this “thorn” becomes the person he cherishes most, and he goes to great lengths to win Lu Yuner’s affection.
Mini scene 1:
One day, the sun is high in the sky but Su Qingwan still hasn’t gotten up for class.
Servant Xiaoyuan: “Young prince, it’s time for class. You’ll be late otherwise.”
Su Qingwan says arrogantly: “I’m not going. I am the esteemed prince, my status is so noble, why should I suffer this hardship? Besides, isn’t learning all this just to please women? Hmph, they’re not worthy!”
Mini scene 2:
After Su Qingwan falls for someone, he completely changes. He no longer skips class and diligently learns how to be a good husband and father. But he discovers that Sister Yuner is always surrounded by admirers.
Drunk and overcome with jealousy one day, he clings to Lu Yuner, crying beautifully like a pear blossom in the rain.
Su Qingwan: “Qingwan likes Sister Yuner.”
Lu Yuner: “Young prince, you’re drunk.”
Su Qingwan: “Qingwan isn’t drunk. Qingwan likes Sister Yuner, likes you so much, likes you to bits…” Before he can finish, Lu Yuner’s eyes flash with emotion and she leans in closer.
[Reading Guide]
1. The female lead is gentle, gracious, humble and polite but not weak. The male lead is initially an arrogant, noble, love-deprived brat, later a cute, clingy, scheming little jealous one.
2. 1v1, a bit torturous in the beginning but definitely sweet later on.
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