# Chapter 3
No one wouldn’t be startled by someone appearing without making a sound, as if they were a ghost. I raised my head, wanting to see the face of whoever was doing this ghost-like behavior. But this person had disgustingly long legs.
This… just looking at the leg length, he seemed like a main character?
With a tense heart, I carefully checked his face. Through his eyelashes, pitch-black pupils met my eyes. I was immediately certain.
‘Holy shit….’
He was very, very, very, very handsome. Admiration automatically played in my mind.
If he were a convenience store employee, customers would flock just to see his face, creating an unexpected crowd. If he were a teacher, he would have been unfairly fired because students couldn’t concentrate on their lessons due to his looks. If he uploaded just sleeping videos on YouTube, he could easily get hundreds of thousands of subscribers with a single video. I broke into a cold sweat.
Just looking at his face, he was 100% a main character! It seemed like I would have to leave my seat again. Before going, I should check his name too. From now on, I’ll run away even if I just see his silhouette from a distance. I checked his name tag without delay.
“Lee Beom”
‘I’m screwed.’
As soon as I confirmed the single-syllable surname, I wanted to squeeze my eyes shut. It was a familiar name.
‘Of all people, I had to run into the male protagonist!’
The central character of the novel, the one person I should avoid at all costs!
There was a reason I could never forget or confuse the names of the main characters in this novel: the title of the novel was “The Leopard Defies the World.”
The female protagonist’s name was Ban ‘Pyo’, and the male protagonist’s name was Lee ‘Beom’. Together they made ‘Pyo-Beom’ (leopard). That’s why the title of this novel was “The Leopard Defies the World.” (When I think about the anonymous author who was proud of coming up with this… I’ll leave the rest unsaid.)
“Seong Haejun.”
“Uh, huh?”
I reflexively gave a naive response to the blunt voice calling me.
I immediately regretted speaking. If Lee Beom was the same age as Seong Haejun, then he would also be 17, but no, technically I’m older than him. I don’t know why he’s so intimidating.
But with that excessively handsome face, tall height, and build, plus his arrogant posture with hands shoved in his pockets. Facing the actual male protagonist in person, I instinctively felt small. I hadn’t done anything yet, but I felt like a pathetic third-rate villain standing in front of a hero.
Was this charisma that killed the atmosphere by itself a protagonist passive skill?
“Are you okay?”
“Pardon?”
“Get up.”
As I looked at him in confusion, he extended his hand to me.
Unfortunately, I didn’t want to take it. I wanted to go straight to the classroom without exchanging words and sit where a student should be. Despite thinking this, I couldn’t make a sound as I obediently took his outstretched hand and stood up.
‘Wow, look at his height.’
I couldn’t help but admire it. To see Lee Beom’s face with my height, I had to lift my gaze slightly. Maybe it was because he was the male protagonist, but his growth was extraordinary even at 17. It seems discrimination starts at the genetic level for protagonists.
“…”
“…”
Lee Beom let go of my hand after helping me up, and then just stood there without saying anything. I also kept my mouth shut. Silence fell between us.
Should I thank him for helping me up? But I didn’t want to say thank you. The reason was obvious—I wasn’t particularly grateful. If anything, I would have been grateful if he had just left.
Our gazes continued silently. I stood there, fully exposed to his unwavering stare. The top of my head felt hot under his penetrating gaze.
Not speaking, not addressing me, not leaving.
‘What do you want me to do?’
It felt like he might drill a hole in my face at this rate.
I wanted to move away from his uncomfortable stare, but since I didn’t know which class I was in or where that classroom was, I couldn’t move carelessly. I didn’t want to become a lost child wandering around the school after making a bold exit.
Lee Beom finally broke the silence with his blunt voice. Even the protagonist’s voice was extraordinary.
“You.”
“Huh?”
“You said you won’t acknowledge me at school from now on.”
“Ah, yeah.”
That was Seong Haemin’s message. I nodded mechanically and unnaturally.
‘Did he chase after me, running like crazy, just to tell me this one thing?’
But thinking about Seong Haemin, who must have asked him to relay this message, I felt a tiny bit… about as small as a speck of dust… sorry for him.
Come to think of it, Seong Haemin was quite pitiful. A brother who dotes on a sibling who will never appreciate it until death, plus he’s in the position of unrequited love for the female protagonist, and later even dies protecting her.
But pity was pity, and being suddenly caught up in a novel was something else entirely.
“I’m going. You be careful too.”
Lee Beom coolly turned his back. Only then did I lift my head and stupidly watch his retreating figure as he walked away casually with his hands in his pockets.
While I was fiercely conflicted about whether to call out to him, Lee Beom had already disappeared from sight. I was left standing awkwardly alone in the empty hallway.
‘So, which class am I in anyway?’
In the end, I had to visit the faculty office to find my class. The homeroom teacher was a young male teacher.
Since it was the beginning of the semester, I thought it was fortunate that the teachers didn’t know who the original Seong Haejun was or what kind of person he was, but after seeing the teacher, I didn’t think they would know him well even if the original Seong Haejun had attended school for a long time. The homeroom teacher seemed completely uninterested in the students.
He just tilted his chin when I lied about fainting on the way to school, as if he didn’t care whether it was true or not.
My feet hesitated as I entered the classroom. An old wooden blackboard slathered with varnish, white chalk with dust flying everywhere. A chubby television placed at the front of the classroom, and worn-out plywood metal desks and chairs.
‘At this rate, there’s probably asbestos in the building too…?’
But I didn’t have time to be bewildered by the 2005 classroom I was seeing for the first time in my life. I could feel the glances of my classmates as I entered in the middle of class.
The subject teacher instructed me to go to my seat and resumed the lesson.
Thinking that the empty seat must be mine, I headed there, but the eyes of my classmates continued to pierce me.
It felt as though they were saying to me:
‘You’re not someone who should be here, so what are you doing here?’
I opened my textbook and looked at the blackboard, but the lesson didn’t register. I experienced severe disappointment, wondering if I had gone through all that trouble to come to school for this.
‘Should I just prepare for the high school equivalency exam?’
But isn’t that what celebrities or athletes do? I didn’t think much when others took equivalency exams, but when I thought about doing it myself, not being able to attend school normally felt like a defect.
Moreover, there was another problem. If I got a high school diploma through the equivalency exam, wouldn’t admission to Seoul National University only be possible through the College Scholastic Ability Test? I had been accepted through the comprehensive school record evaluation, which was separate from my CSAT score. Of course, I hadn’t failed the CSAT, but suddenly I lost confidence when I thought about having to compete in a one-shot exam.
‘Was 2005 an easy CSAT year? Or a difficult one?’
‘If I get an equivalency diploma, will it affect early admissions?’
‘No, wait, does early admission even exist yet?’
And all these thoughts eventually converged into cursing this damn internet novel world.
Of all things, the setting had to be 2005.
‘How am I supposed to know about college admissions from this time!’
I sighed heavily throughout class, feeling pathetic and miserable for having to worry about such things. I could sense the other students glancing at me. I was exhausted.
Even during break time, I waited in a state of high tension, worried that someone might come looking for me. But contrary to expectations, nothing happened. It seemed that Seong Haemin’s message about not acknowledging each other at school was true.
Then at lunchtime, I followed where the other kids were going and ate well. Since I didn’t approach anyone first, no one approached me either. It was as if there was an invisible circle around me. But rather than making awkward friends, it was better to be alone.
And so, contrary to my concerns, I was able to safely make it to the end of the school day.
I packed my bag, feeling much better. In the meantime, somehow a bit of confidence had grown that I might be able to live okay here, so I decided to have a bold attitude. Come on, if I had finished studying once, couldn’t I do it twice? On the way home, I would look at workbooks, and at home, I would search through the slow, crappy internet to find information about college admission processes.
There should be some advantages to coming to the past. I’ll look into the admission processes and make more plans. It would be easy to crush the school records in 10th and 11th grade, and I could even think of it as enjoying high school in the meantime. Anyway, since I’d gotten younger, I could make a three-year plan for studying for the CSAT.
Yes, the CSAT.
Last time, as a humanities student, I had just applied according to the cutoff scores.
‘This time I’ll go for sciences. And get a perfect score to go to medical school!’
I was in a much better mood because the gang of bullies didn’t catch my eye. If I could gradually distance myself at this pace, things would be fine—thinking that made me feel lighter. I took a cheerful step forward.
“Haejunaaaaaa!”
But this ominous voice…
I hastily looked around. And I discovered Min Sihu, who was winking cutely, waving his hands vigorously toward me.
“Jjuna, Jjuuna! Why did you ignore Sihu’s greeting earlier? Sihu is sad!”
“…”
What? Feeling lighthearted? I had to correct myself immediately. My heart felt heavy at the thought of having to live my life in a world like this.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
