I Don’t Want To Be An Ojakgyo

The more my thoughts changed, the harder it became for me to keep up my fake appearances. I couldn't bear to be treated like some kind of pretty, decorative flower anymore.

The love letters that I always received made me scowl, and hearing people talk about how my face and body showed that I would be a great wife made me feel sick to my stomach.

I tried to bear it and hide it, but I ended up showing Shuraina my real self.

I had actually been heading over to the girls' changing room last time to hand something to Shuraina that time.

I couldn't bear to hear the girls talk about Shuraina like that. Shuraina, though, just listened to the girls speak about her like that and just got angry when the girls started to talk about me.

I was touched at how Shuraina got angry for me, but the moment some girl grabbed at Shuraina's hair and ripped it out, I felt like my eyes were going to roll into my skull in anger.

But I knew that if I tried to jump in right now, I would only be a bother to Shuraina. I just got the teacher with the prince who was also waiting for Shuraina.

I watched as the girls got yelled at by the teacher, but couldn't help but pick a fight with them when I thought of Shushu's bald spot.

I yanked out a bunch of their hair, and came back to the room completely messed up. But I was still fuming from what they said about Shuraina.

I was just venting my anger at a cushion once I returned to my dorm, but Shuraina suddenly just popped out from somewhere in my room. She was definitely shocked, but Shuraina just faced me with a calm expression on her face.

Shuraina looked pretty perturbed after the fight. Shuraina, who always thought the best of me at all times, was sure to have been angry after hearing other talk about me like that. Because she really, truly cared about me.

We laid down together and talked. Shuraina pat me on the back and told me to let myself be free of myself.

And she handed me the fountain pen that she forgot about, the one that she gifted me back then. The one that the asshole, Swanhaden, made her forget about. And she told me that she was regifting me.

"Hestia, I'm a pretty imperfect, needy person too, so I want someone next to me that I can rely on. I hope you can be that person for me."

Shuraina spoke, her mouth in a smile. I didn't know what I did to deserve that kind of trust from her.

I felt like I received a resounding smack to the head when I listened to Shuraina's words.

Truly, I couldn't keep up this relationship with Shuraina forever. She had her own life, after all. I would probably only be able to latch onto her and hold on tight until the end of the academy.

After that, Shuraina would live her life, and I would probably be forced into marriage later on.

Life had been too peaceful recently. I had forgotten the position I was in. I couldn't be forever with Shuraina forever. When we became adults and Shuraina joined the royal knights, we wouldn't have much in common. It would be harder for us to meet.

And just like Shuraina had said, I really had hoped that Shuraina would make all of my wishes come true. But that was just a selfish thought of mine. Just because she was great didn't mean that she held the same dreams that I did.

Thinking about how I needed to stop relying on Shuraina made me feel miserable, and it also gave me a sense of pressure. But at the same time, thinking about how I could also become a point of support and strength for Shuraina made me feel strange.

The Shuraina that I respected trusted me, and wanted my help………. Just thinking about it made me ecstatic.

After hearing those words, the first thing I decided to do was to make those swordsmanship class girls apologize for talking bad about Shuraina. Shuraina accepted their apologies with a strange expression on her face. And she even apologized herself.

But on the other hand, what if my talents weren't as great as Shuraina thought? I worried that Shuraina would be disappointed in me.

And if I showed her my actual self, what if Shuraina rejected me?

Just like how my mother had pushed me away, would Shuraina push me away once she saw who I truly was?

What if she saw how I changed and got sick of me?

Honestly, my personality was pretty bad. I had even heard horrible things about the similarities between Swan and myself.

Swanhaden was apparently going around trying to fix his personality. I wondered if I needed to do the same.

So I even made a wish and asked Shuraina to keep it. For her not to be disappointed in me, for her not to leave me. Shuraina laughed as she told me that I was asking for something that was too obvious, but this was a huge issue for me.

It wasn't easy for me to show my personality after hiding it for so long. But whenever I showed a new side of myself to her, she was the same. She took care of me with blunt words, and always treated me just like an older sister would. Oh, she even asked me for help recently! She had asked me to read an essay that she wrote and wanted me to critique it.

At Shuraina's unwavering, unchanging self, I got a bit more courage and decided to have a talk with my mother.

I wanted to change, but a deep part of myself always remembered my mother. You need to be obedient. You need to pretty. That's all. You're useless. I couldn't help but remember the words that my mother told me, over and over again.

Even if she rejected me, I wanted to show who I was to my mother. For the first time in my life, I wanted to reject her words completely.

Recently, I decided to head home and have a proper conversation with my mother. It took an incredible amount of courage.

I tried to talk to her countless times, but my mother just scoffed at each attempt. Her face contorted into a scowl when she saw me rebelling against her words.

"Mother, the world has changed. It's okay to be more confident now."

"Even if the world changes, even if the opinions of people change, it's not like your father is changing."

And I couldn't say anything to her after hearing that. Even if society changed and the way men looked at women changed, even if society took in female geniuses and accepted them for who they were, my father probably wouldn't change.

It was hard to change someone's opinion after they decided to stick to it. Taking away gender and social status and his environment, my father as a person wouldn't change. That prideful, egotistic, stupidly self-confident person.

Truly, even if society shifted and men began to accept that change, my father probably wouldn't look at my mother like another human being. That was the kind of person he was.

My father was too stuck to his ways to change his old-fashioned thoughts, and he was too old. The old ways of society had birthed a person like him.

"Then, just….."

"…."

"Just let me help people like you, mother. I want to create an environment for everyone in the next generation to be accepted purely by their skills."

Mother stared at me with a strange expression.

"I'm sorry I couldn't be the daughter that you wanted, mother. I don't want acceptance. I just came to tell you that."

I was saying that I would leave my family behind.

My mother grabbed at her hair and sighed. She buried her face into her hands and silently cried. She soon began to sob.

I, I wish that you find a husband who understands who you are.

And that was the first and last piece of advice that my mother gave me. She told me that she didn't even want to see my face. She told me to stay away from father and her sight. She told me to leave the estate as soon as I graduated from the academy.

I held tightly onto my mother's words. I felt like I would get angry and start yelling when I saw my father so I intentionally avoided my father, and I avoided my mother who didn't want to see me at all.

I was always at the academy anyway, so it didn't really matter.

Once something exploded, it felt like everything was happening at once. My relationship with Shushu, my shift in major and the focus of my studies, my place in my family–everything was being put in its place.

As I slowly began to organize everything in my life, I realized how much of a coward I had been until now.

If I had told Shushu everything earlier, if I had put away the fear and lingering attachments towards my mother, could I have gotten this happiness sooner? Would I have felt this kind of relief sooner? Would I have been able to help Shuraina sooner?

I twirled my fountain pen in my hand and pouted. There were a lot of probabilities involved that made it hard for me to figure it out.

But going back to the main point, I didn't know what to write in my personal introduction. Should I explain everything from my childhood to the present? Or should I write out an explanation of the things that I could do?

As I buried my head in my arms and tried to think, Shushu suddenly walked into the room.

Shushu was a sweaty mess as she came back from her training. Shushu's orange, curly hair was pulled into a cute high ponytail. Sweat beaded on her exposed forehead.

Shushu looked around the room right after she opened the door, then focused straight at me.

"Hestia, there's a boy outside waiting for you."

"…….."

"As I thought, it's someone you don't like, right? I'll send him away for you."

Shushu closed the door before I could reply. I knew it later, but the boy who had asked for me was one with some pretty shady rumors.

Apparently, he even had some obsessive tendencies. I smiled as I watched Shuraina just cut off any boy who looked like they'd be problematic.

Anyway, my Shuraina probably should date once or twice, right? I felt like she wouldn't be able to date at all because of me.

Of course, I would be absolutely ecstatic if Shuraina never dated, but I couldn't help but feel bad about taking away all of the boys that Shuraina liked away from her.

The problem was that there was no man that Shushu would possibly match with.

Moreover, Shuraina had a pretty low bar for boys, and she seemed like she'd agree to go out with anybody who liked her. Shuraina didn't have a single romantic bone in her body, so she wouldn't even know it was a confession unless they explicitly told her too.

And to top if all off, Shushu was the type of person who would give her boyfriend everything she possibly could when she was dating them. Shuraina would probably take care of all of her boyfriend's needs and buy them whatever they wanted.

Because she was incredibly generous towards anyone she thought was a part of her life. She didn't act like it, but Shuraina always tried to understand the other person before speaking to them. She liked to match herself to the person she was with.

I imagined Shuraina being used by a man and getting her heart torn to shreds. She wasn't even dating but I couldn't help but grip my pen a bit tighter than usual. It was just a thought, but it made me furious.

If she was just dating them, it wouldn't be bad to just find someone who was nice and push them together.

First, I thought of all of the boys she was friends with. Hylli, Cory, Yvnes, and Swanhaden seemed to have good feelings towards her. I twirled my pen and rested my chin on my hand.

First, Hylli was the royal prince, and he was becoming more mature these days. Save.

Cory seemed like a pretty good person, but Shushu was too good for him. Save.

I'd never talked to Yvnes before, but he seemed to always want to stick to Shushu. Save. No, wait, was I the one that was always sticking to her?

Swanhaden, you're out no matter what. You're not even an option. A save is too good for you, asshole.

T/N: Here's a few gems from the comments:

[Swan's okay too, Hestia..]

[What do I do…I bought Swan stocks lololol]

– A lot of Korean comments like to say they bought stocks of the character they want as the ML

[Swan's okay too, whyyyyy ㅠㅠ]

[I'm going the Hestia route]