The Gentle Queen

Chapter 1

An opportunist.

A dynamo.

A hard-worker.

All three of those words couldn't be used to describe Kim Hyejin at all.

The twenty year old university student was in fact, lazy.

So lazy that she chose to major in the subject she thought was mediocre in, to escape the tedious path of a doctor, lawyer, anything else that required too much work.

In her definition, art would definitely be easy and she wouldn't need to do much for credit. However, unlike her expectations, her first year she was taught a crucial lesson when the subject required much work: don't be prejudiced.

The constant assignments and stress actually made her, a student who didn't really feel anything towards the subject, grow somewhat fond of it? As a lazy extraordinaire, she wouldn't downright admit anything that could potentially lead to more work, but over the course of the year, she found herself liking art as it allowed for expressionism.

Actually, even her professors were amazed at the talent she displayed but played off to be an average student.

No, she wasn't like those cliché heroines who tried to stay low-key in order to hide a super big secret.

For Hyejin, staying average was the product of a lack of motivation to push herself.

Her laziness actually stopped the university student from bothering with anything like parties, activities, meeting with friends—that she didn't care enough to make—which essentially, made her a loner. On the contrary, the word loner was mostly used for a negative connotation. Yet for Hyejin, she actually didn't mind.

Solitude wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

Hyejin was naturally a sweet girl, but even to her family, at family reunions, she wouldn't really be described as a wallflower, nor could she be described as unapproachable... she would be chilling and not making any attempts for attention nor be an unforgettable presence.

Of course she stays in touch with her family, but only rarely visits for the holidays by the demand of her parents. The university she attended was in Seoul, hours away from where her parents lived. To travel constantly between the two was such a hassle for the idle girl, but even she couldn't avoid visiting on the holidays.

Other than that, during the school year, she would attend class then go back to the comfort of her small apartment.

For Hyejin, staying lazy meant not doing work, but that didn't mean staying bored.

So, in the brief periods of break she would get from the tiresome assignments, Hyejin would alternate between sleep, movies, games... and reading?

A hobby that was picked in the spur of the moment, she never expected that the pretty covers would lead down a road of obsession.

Although Hyejin read books, she didn't really read any of those sappy romance novels and preferred the novels with the male main characters who were reborn or grew powerful with foresight, thanks to their transmigrations or reincarnations. Occasionally, she did read female main character novels that were romance orientated to laugh at the cynical love the two leads harbored for each other, though very rarely, she did find good female lead novels too.