Chapter 66 \n<h1>I Don’t Want to be an Ojakgyo (66)</h1>\n
Ever since we were little, Hestia always felt like she had been downtrodden and was pushing herself down. I didn’t know what exactly pressed down on Hes because she never told me, but Hestia was holding back on a lot of things. I sometimes felt like she was trying to push away the things she liked to do.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like Hestia’s, reliant, old-fashioned style. If that was truly Hestia and part of her identity, I would understand it. It wasn’t like there had been any issues between us because of it.
But there were times that Hestia couldn’t hide how bored she was about it all. She always talked about being calm and collected and mature and talked about how such and such was unladylike, but her heart never seemed to be truly agreeing with her words.
She always seemed like she was trying to avoid what was in front of her. Instead, she always seemed focused on something else.
I wanted Hestia to feel content about the things she wanted to do and for her to live without regrets. We grew up together since we were young, so we were basically family. No matter what her real interest and heart lied, I just wanted her to do what she wanted.
“Damn……..the more I think about it, the more annoyed I am. Swan, you son of a… You unpleasant asshole. Crazy bastard.”
Hestia wore a placid smile on her lips as she muttered curses under her breath, deep in thought. I stared at Hestia. When she saw me, she seemed surprised as she covered her mouth with her hands.
Well, there was no way that Hestia would curse somebody so strongly. I must’ve misheard it. That’s what I told myself as I cleaned my ear with one hand.
Thanks to all of the different sides of Hestia that I’d been newly discovering, I spent a considerable amount of time deep in thought. Even during swordsmanship classes. I swung my sword with my head to the ground. It was a move that I’d done thousands of times, so it didn’t matter too much.
My thoughts about Hestia continued on even during Hylli and my duel, so I almost got hit by his attack. That was when I came back to my senses and focused on class.
“Students, class is over! Dismissed!”
The teacher’s voice rang clearly through the training hall. All of the students were swinging their swords with vigor, then immediately dropped their swords when the teacher spoke. Although the training hall had been filled with energetic shouts just a moment ago, once class ended everybody began to chatter amongst themselves.
The swordsmanship students greedily gulped down water as they wiped off their sweat with the towels that they brought. Hylli and I were also doing the same. My ribs ached from exhaustion. I wiped my sweaty, shiny face and stretched my arm towards Hylli. Hylli grabbed a nearby water bottle and threw it at me.\nI had placed a spell on my bottle earlier, so the water was as cold as ice. I gulped down the cold water until my head began to ache from the chill, then grabbed a towel off the floor and poured the ret of the water on it.
“Yap.”
With familiarity and ease, I threw the wet towel onto Hylli’s face. When I did that, Hylli, also with ease and familiarity, allowed the towel to land on his face. With a resounding slap, the towel hit his sweaty face. It wrapped around his entire face. But even when his face was covered, you could see his handsome profile and silhouette. It was a prank we always played, but it was still funny so we burst out laughing.
Hylli poured water on another towel and did the same to me. Just like he did, I caught the wet fabric. It wrapped around my face, too. Cool freshness embraced my hot face. It was as cool as an air-conditioner, full blast, in a bank.
“Uh, Shuraina, I have something to say…..”
Hylli and I were snickering as we played around, but a male swordsmanship student put his hand in his back pocket and slowly approached me. He looked embarrassed as he looked at the floor and quietly began to speak.
Hylli and I both stared at the boy together. The boy held a letter in his hand. Hylli’s eyes grew wide as he looked at the boy squirming in front of me.
“Um……this……..”
The boy gave me a letter with a heart drawn on it. He handed me the letter, then put his hands behind his back and put his hands back in his back pockets. Hylli’s eyes widened as he watched the scene unfold.
“Shushu, you’re surprisingly popular.”
Hylli narrowed his eyes and poked my ribs a few times. I twisted his fingers to tell him to stop, but saw that Hylli’s bones were stupidly strong and let them go. The male student seemed shocked at Hylli’s words and immediately spoke up.
“Sorry, Shushu…… It’s not for you…… It’s, your friend Hestia, give it to her.”
Even though the student had been acting shy a moment ago, he suddenly shifted gears and spoke as if he was ordering me to do it. It was a familiar situation for me, so I just cleaned my ear with one finger. I grabbed the letter with one hand and looked at the part of the letter that said ‘To Hestia Flowith’. What number letter was this again? There were a lot of people who asked me to send their love letters to Hestia before, but the number only increased once we got to school. This was probably the eighteenth? Number shib-pal*?
Hylli’s expression shifted minutely when he heard the student asking me to give the letter to Hestia. Before I could even say anything, Hylli spoke up first, annoyed expression clear on his face.\n“Why don’t you do it yourself?”
When Hylli threw a truth bomb at him, the male student’s expression stiffened.
“That’s, well, I’m shy. I don’t have the courage to, either. Shuraina, you handed letters for other students? It’s not fair if you don’t give her mine then. Pass it on for me.”
He couldn’t seem to respond to Hylli’s words, so he just looked at me and responded because I seemed easier to mess with.
As if extremely displeased, Hylli watched the situation with his arms around his chest and whispered in my ear.
“Shuraina, why’s he behaving so rudely to you?”“What about his behavior?”“The letter isn’t even for you, and he’s asking you with such a shit attitude when he’s the one asking you to send his love letter to your friend. Doesn’t it hurt your pride?”“This is a pretty common situation, so…not really.”
I don’t care enough about these situations for it to hurt my pride. There had been one specific time in the past when I had a crush on a boy and I thought he liked me back. The boy had, however, asked me to pass on a confession letter from him to Hestia. I had been absolutely devastated. After that incident, I put my pride in those kinds of situations in the back burner.
“This is common? Have you ever received a letter of your own? I’d think you would get a lot.”“Please shut up.”“Sorry, seems like you don’t. But you’re full of charms, so I thought you’d have a lot.”“I do have a lot of muscles.”
Hylli scratched his cheek as he checked my mood.
“Anyway, are you close with him?”\n“No, I just got angry. Wasn’t he completely ignoring you? And how many times have you been compared to with her for you to just think that was normal? The fact that he was looking down at you made me feel angry. He looked down on you, someone who’s defeated me.”
It felt like he was looking down on me, too, Hylli muttered angrily, pouting.
Wow, that was actually kind of heartwarming.
T/N: *Shib-pal sounds like the Korean word “Ssibal”. 십팔 (shib-pal) is #18, while 씨발 (ssibal) means ‘fuck’.