IYBML 03

Chapter 03

My Child Can’t Possibly Be the Second Lead (3)

The representative youth web novel, <Welcome! Summer Film>.

Semin, the female protagonist who grew up under parents who owned a video rental store, became an outsider at school for some reason.

Semin had one dream she couldn’t tell anyone about… making a movie under her own name.

And then two men who seemed straight out of a movie appeared in Semin’s boring daily life!

“Hi. Would you like to make a movie with me?”

“You can’t live quietly anymore. Because I filmed you.”

Dogyeom, the son of a famous actress who had come from the United States to Korea,

and Eunho, who quit judo because of an injury and became a delinquent at school.

Caught between a kind-hearted man and a tsundere man,

Semin would experience the most turbulent period of her nineteen-year-old life.

– Hmm, I like Dogyeom, though. Eunho is way too much like a protagonist from an old-school internet novel.

As much as I hated to say it to Eunho, I had been on Dogyeom’s side until the early part of the story.

Dogyeom was kind, considerate, and someone who communicated well with Semin.

Eunho, on the other hand, was not.

His way of speaking wasn’t pleasant, and he was like a hedgehog that kept its prickly quills raised at all times.

Even without all those reasons, early-story Eunho was extremely sensitive and frightening, practically the embodiment of a stray cat covered in wounds.

In other words, the time I had transmigrated into was when Eunho’s sensitivity was at its peak.

“…Are you making fun of me right now?”

Before I could even open my mouth, I heard a whistle.

The students who had been unable to enter the school gate because they were watching the two of us turned their attention toward the schoolyard.

I turned around as well.

In the distance, a man wearing a tracksuit was approaching while scratching his head.

“What are you doing?! The bell’s about to ring. Aren’t you going inside? Bae Eunho, you come with me.”

So this was the school disciplinary teacher.

The one who wore yellow tracksuit pants and loved hot dogs….

I remembered that the school disciplinary teacher actually had more screen time than Yerim did.

Surprisingly, Eunho obediently followed the teacher’s call.

As he passed by me, Eunho lowered his gaze and gave me a quiet warning.

“You… don’t let me see you again.”

Eunho’s back gradually grew smaller.

The students hurried through the school gate, and I headed toward my classroom in time with the ringing bell.

As I climbed the stairs, I remembered Eunho’s final words.

[Comment: What’s wrong with him? Why is he so damn rude? Please, I hope this guy isn’t the male lead;

Comment: I freaking hate delinquent male leads;]

Right.

A lot of readers had disliked Eunho from the moment he first appeared.

Whenever he saw the female protagonist, Semin, he would frown and pick a fight with her for no reason.

Even I had thought Eunho was a little too rough for a male-lead candidate.

But…

That was only because they didn’t know our Eunho well.

I was certain that after reading through Season 1, they would end up becoming Eunho fans with their hearts torn apart.

Because that was exactly what happened to me.

Maybe because I knew Eunho’s personality so well, seeing him glaring at me and telling me not to get in his sight was just too…

“Cute. What am I going to do?!”

There was no way a kid this cute could be the second lead!

I wanted to punch a wall and scream at the sky, but I remembered Moon Yerim’s reputation and held myself back.

Once I actually tried to enter the school, I felt like a panic attack might come over me.

I took a deep breath and looked around at the students.

These kids were pure and kind.

And I could do this.

“I’m Moon Yerim.”

I adjusted my bag again and looked around for my classroom.

I was definitely in the same class as Semin and Dogyeom in the novel, and their class was…

“Class 3!”

It was Class 3.

The problem was that I had no idea where Class 3 was.

On top of that, the third-year high school students used a separate annex building, so I mistakenly entered the main building earlier and ended up going all the way up to the fourth floor before having to come back down.

I was impressed that the author had carefully planned out even these invisible details of the setting when I checked the map of the annex.

“Huh? Han Dogyeom?”

In the distance, I saw a tall man wandering around the building lobby.

His handsome appearance immediately caught my eye, along with his naturally brown hair and naturally brown eyes.

Seeing Han Dogyeom, who was even more handsome than his description in the novel, I unconsciously opened my mouth.

Come to think of it…

After this scene, Semin found Han Dogyeom because he couldn’t find his classroom and took him to the teachers’ office.

Han Dogyeom fell in love with Semin at first sight.

Semin was also surprised by the handsome Dogyeom.

It was fair to say this was the beginning of a fresh and youthful romance.

“The first meeting was the problem from the beginning. I shouldn’t have let the two of them meet first.”

At the sound of someone approaching, I looked toward the stairs.

In the distance, a girl with fair skin and short hair that reached her chin was coming down while carrying a large stack of books.

My heart began beating at the aura of a female protagonist that radiated from her even from afar.

With every step, the name tag hanging over the left side of her chest moved slightly.

Finally, she appeared.

The female protagonist of this story, and my second-favorite character—

Jung Semin.

This was where Semin would coincidentally discover Dogyeom and take him to the teachers’ office.

That was how the original story was supposed to go….

But I hurried toward Dogyeom.

“Hi! Are you a transfer student?”

At my question, Dogyeom’s expression, which had been blank, instantly brightened.

Dogyeom was the kind of kid who always welcomed anyone who approached him with a smile.

I raised the corners of my mouth just as brightly.

When I saw Semin through the glass door, I hurriedly grabbed Dogyeom by the arm.

Then I moved inside with him.

“This is the teachers’ office.”

“Oh, thank you.”

Only after showing him the teachers’ office inside did I realize that I was still holding Dogyeom by the wrist.

I released him in surprise.

Dogyeom rubbed his wrist and nodded gratefully.

I waved at Dogyeom as he entered the teachers’ office.

At the same time, I watched out of the corner of my eye as Semin’s back disappeared from the annex.

“Why did I do that?”

Maybe it was because I had just seen Eunho, wounded and hurting.

I had instinctively felt that I shouldn’t let Semin and Dogyeom meet.

And yet, I couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling.

I turned around and looked toward the place where Semin had disappeared.

“Huh? It’s Eunho.”

Beyond the glass door Semin had just walked through, I could see Eunho crossing the schoolyard.

His face was scrunched up as though he were dissatisfied with something.

When I saw Eunho’s dependable back, I instinctively remembered that day just before I was about to die.

[“I’m still going to live. It sucks, but I have to keep living. What else can I do? Honestly, you want to live too, don’t you? Am I wrong?”]

If I ever got the chance to meet Eunho, even if only in a dream, I had always wanted to tell him thank you.

Now that I had transmigrated into this world, I wanted Eunho to become happy too, just as I had.

“Eunho, I’ll make sure you and Semin end up together.”

*

“Hello. I’m Han Dogyeom. Nice to meet you.”

With my help, Dogyeom entered the classroom with the teacher before the first period began.

The girls’ faces turned red at his gentle manner of speaking and his beautifully curved eyes.

When recess began, Dogyeom became famous throughout the school.

He was the son of a famous actress, and he was incredibly handsome, so it was only natural that everyone wanted to talk to him.

I subtly turned around and looked toward the back of the classroom where Semin was sitting.

Semin wasn’t looking at Dogyeom.

She was drawing a storyboard.

“Yerim, we’re going to the school store. Want to come?”

“We’re going to the store when lunch is coming up?”

“What’s with you? Since when did you care?”

My classmates left the classroom, saying they were going to the school store without me.

Before class, I stepped into the hallway to wake myself up.

Then I saw Semin climbing the stairs.

She was holding her storyboard in her hands and heading toward the school rooftop.

“Looks like Semin is going to draw on the rooftop again.”

In the original story, Semin was the kind of girl who sat on the rooftop during every break and drew storyboards.

So she really did draw even when no one could see her.

I was about to stop her when I saw Dogyeom heading toward the rooftop in the distance.

“Did Dogyeom meet Semin up there?”

I had reread the web novel so many times, but there was no scene anywhere in the early chapters where Dogyeom and Semin met on the rooftop.

Could there be some kind of behind-the-scenes story that wasn’t written in the novel?

Wondering about that, I followed Dogyeom up the rooftop stairs.

When I opened the metal rooftop door, bright sunlight and a cool breeze rushed in.

I also saw a long metal fence installed to prevent students from jumping.

I looked around, searching for Dogyeom and Semin.

The school rooftop had been arranged like a garden, with flowers, trees, and benches scattered around.

It was larger than I expected, making it difficult to find the two of them.

“Where are they?”

I had already gone halfway around the rooftop, but I couldn’t see either of them.

I was slowly becoming anxious and quickened my pace.

Maybe it was because I had been diligently looking ahead, behind, and to the sides.

I didn’t look down.

Something soft touched my foot, and I fell backward.

“Ah!”

With a floor this hard, I should have been covered in bruises for at least three weeks.

But it didn’t hurt.

Feeling uneasy, I looked down.

I had fallen using someone’s stomach as a cushion.

What a way to start my first day.

“Oh my! I’m so sorry!”

The book I had been using to cover my face from the sunlight fell away.

The moment I saw the face hidden behind the book, I sucked in a breath.

As I startled and nearly fell backward, Eunho’s large hand firmly caught me around the waist.

From extremely close range, Eunho narrowed his eyes and spoke.

“You… I told you not to let me see you, didn’t I?”