LMO 3

Anyone would be startled by someone appearing without a sound, as if they were a ghost. I lifted my head to see who was doing this ghostly act. But this person… had ridiculously long legs.

This… just by the length of their legs, they look like a main character, don’t they?

With a nervous heart, I cautiously checked their face. My eyes met a pair of black pupils through their eyelashes. I was immediately certain.

‘Wow…’

They were incredibly, incredibly, incredibly, incredibly handsome. Admiration played on repeat in my mind.

If they were a convenience store clerk, customers would flock to see that face, causing an unexpected rush. If they were a teacher, they would be unfairly fired because students couldn’t concentrate in class due to their looks. If they uploaded only sleep videos on YouTube, that single video would easily garner hundreds of thousands of subscribers. Cold sweat broke out.

Just looking at their face, they were 100% a main character! It seemed I would have to leave this place again. Before I go, let me at least check their name. From now on, I’ll run away even if I just see their silhouette from afar. Without delay, I checked the name tag.

“Lee Beom”

‘I’m doomed.’

As soon as I confirmed the single-character name, I wanted to squeeze my eyes shut. It was a familiar name.

‘Of all people, I had to run into the male protagonist!’

The person who formed the core of the novel, the one I absolutely had to avoid!

There was a reason why I could never forget or confuse the names of the novel’s protagonists: the novel’s title was Leopard Against 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 novel’s title was Leopard Against the World. (Thinking of the anonymous author who must have been proud of coming up with this… I’ll stop here.)

“Seong Hae-jun.”

“Uh, uh?”

At the blunt voice calling me, I reflexively gave a clumsy answer.

As soon as I spoke, I regretted it. If he’s the same age as Seong Hae-jun, he’s also 17. No, strictly speaking, I’m older. Why is he so intimidating?

But with that excessively handsome face, his tall stature and build, and that arrogant posture with his hands in his pockets, standing before the real male protagonist, I instinctively felt intimidated. Even though I hadn’t done anything yet, I felt like a pathetic third-rate villain standing before a hero.

Is this overwhelming charisma a protagonist’s passive skill?

“Are you okay?”

“Huh?”

“Get up.”

In my bewildered state, I looked at him as he reached out his hand to me.

Unfortunately, I didn’t want to take it. I just wanted to go straight to the classroom without exchanging words and take my seat in the place I was supposed to be as a student. Even as I thought that, I couldn’t utter a sound and ended up taking the hand he offered and getting up obediently.

‘Wow, look at his height.’

Admiration escaped me. With my height, I had to tilt my gaze up slightly to see Lee Beom’s face. Perhaps because he was the male protagonist, his development was exceptional even at 17. It seemed like discrimination was already happening at the genetic level for protagonists.

“…”

“…”

Lee Beom released the hand that had lifted me and stood there without a word. I also fell silent. A silence ensued.

Should I say thank you for helping me up? But I didn’t want to say thank you. The reason was obvious: I wasn’t particularly grateful. I might have been grateful if he had just disappeared.

Our gazes continued to meet silently. I stood there, receiving his unwavering stare. The intensity of his gaze, which was drilling into me, made the top of my head feel hot.

He didn’t speak, didn’t talk to me, and didn’t leave.

‘What does he want me to do?’

I felt like he was going to bore a hole in my face.

I wanted to move my feet to avoid his uncomfortable gaze, but since I didn’t know which class I was in or where that classroom was, I couldn’t move rashly. I didn’t want to disappear confidently only to wander the school like a lost child.

Lee Beom broke the silence first, his voice blunt. Protagonists even have extraordinary voices.

“You.”

“Huh?”

“Heard you’re not going to acknowledge each other at school from now on.”

“Uh, uh-huh.”

It was a message from Seong Hae-min. I nodded unnaturally, like a machine.

‘Did he run all this way just to tell me that one thing?’

But thinking of Seong Hae-min asking me to deliver this message, I felt a tiny… microscopic bit of guilt.

Come to think of it, Seong Hae-min was quite pitiful too. A brother who never realized his twin’s devotion until he died, a unrequited love for the female protagonist that would never be fulfilled, and then dying while protecting her.

But pity is pity, and me getting caught up in a teen romance novel was another matter.

“I’m going. You take care too.”

Lee Beom coolly turned his back. Only then did I lift my head and stare blankly at his retreating figure, hands in his pockets, as he sauntered away.

While I was fiercely debating whether to call him back, Lee Beom had already disappeared from my sight. I stood alone in the empty hallway, feeling bewildered.

‘So, what class am I in?’

In the end, I had to go to the faculty office to find my class. My homeroom teacher was a young male teacher.

It was early in the semester, so it was fortunate that the teachers didn’t really know who the original Seong Hae-jun was or what kind of person he was. But seeing the teacher, I realized that even if the original Seong Hae-jun had attended school for a long time, the teacher probably wouldn’t have known him well. The homeroom teacher seemed completely uninterested in his students.

He just nodded when he heard my lie about fainting on the way to school, seeming indifferent to whether it was true or not.

My steps faltered as I approached the classroom. An old wooden blackboard coated in varnish, white chalk dust billowing in the air. A plump television set placed at the front of the classroom, and worn-out plywood and steel desks and chairs.

‘At this rate, the building probably has asbestos too…?’

But I didn’t have time to be flustered by the 2005 classroom, which I was seeing for the first time. The gazes of the classmates, who glanced at me entering the classroom mid-lesson, were palpable.

The subject teacher instructed me to go to my seat and resumed the lesson.

Thinking the empty seat was mine, I walked towards it, but the classmates’ eyes continued to pierce me.

It felt as if they were speaking to me.

‘You’re not supposed to be here, so what are you doing?’

I opened my textbook and looked at the blackboard, but the lesson didn’t register. I wondered if this was why I went through all that trouble to come to school, and I felt a profound sense of disillusionment.

‘Should I just prepare for the GED?’

But isn’t that something celebrities or athletes do? I didn’t think much of others taking the GED, but when I thought about doing it, not having attended school normally felt like a defect.

Moreover, there was another problem. If I obtained a high school diploma through the GED, wouldn’t admission to Seoul National University only be possible through the college entrance exam? I had gotten in through the comprehensive student record evaluation, which was separate from my college entrance exam scores. Of course, I didn’t bomb the exam, but the thought of having to win with a single test suddenly made me lose confidence.

‘Was the 2005 college entrance exam easy or hard?’

‘Does getting a GED affect early admissions?’

‘No, wait, is early admissions not a thing yet?’

And then, these various thoughts eventually converged into curses directed at this damn internet novel world.

Why did it have to be set in 2005 of all years?

‘How am I supposed to know the college admissions process of this era!’

I felt so pathetic and pathetic for having to worry about these things that I just sighed heavily throughout the class. I could feel the surrounding students glancing at me. I was tired.

When break time came, I remained on high alert, in case anyone came looking for me. However, unexpectedly, nothing happened. It seemed Seong Hae-min’s message that he wouldn’t acknowledge me at school was true.

During lunch, I followed where the other kids were heading and ate well. Since I didn’t approach anyone first, no students approached me. It felt like there was a circle around me. But it was better to be alone than to make awkward friends.

Thus, contrary to my worries, I managed to get through the school day without incident.

My mood significantly improved as I packed my bag. In the meantime, my confidence that I could live a decent life had grown a little, so I decided to be bold. How hard could it be to study twice if I had already finished it once? On my way home, I would look at some textbooks, and at home, I would search the slow, clunky internet to find admission procedures.

Coming back to the past must have its advantages. I’ll look into the admission procedures and make more plans. It will be simple to dominate the GPA in 10th and 11th grade, so I can think of enjoying high school during that time. Anyway, since I’m younger, I can make a 3-year plan and study for the college entrance exam.

Right, the college entrance exam.

Last time, I applied as a liberal arts student, just meeting the score cutoffs, but…

‘This time, I’m going into science. And I’ll get a perfect score and go to medical school!’

My mood was greatly improved because I didn’t notice any delinquent groups. I thought if I continued to distance myself slowly, I would feel relieved. I stepped forward cheerfully.

“Hae-jun-ahhhh!”

But this ominous voice…

I quickly looked around. And I found Min Si-hu, who had winked playfully, waving enthusiastically at me.

“Jju-na, Jju-u-na! Why did Si-hu’s greeting get ignored earlier? Si-hu is sad!”

“…”

What? Was my heart feeling light? I had to correct that immediately. My heart felt heavy, having to live in a world like this.