ODBP 01

Chapter 1

One day, I became a princess.

“How can I make you love me?”

Atanasia lifted her tear-streaked face and looked at the person before her. But her father, Emperor Claude, only gazed down heartlessly at Atanasia sobbing at his feet.

“Should I become like Zenith? Then will you love me? Will you call my name gently and look at me with warm eyes, just as you do for Zenith? If I try harder than now…”

Her beautiful half-sister. The lovely Zenith, who not only took away Atanasia’s meager scraps of glory but also stole her father. Atanasia was at her mental limit, even begging while uttering that name.

“With those hands, can you hold me without pushing me away ever again?”

“That will never happen until the day I die.”

“Why?”

Claude did not hesitate to answer. He showed not a hint of emotion even as his always-obedient daughter revealed such desperation.

“I am also Your Majesty’s daughter. I have been by your side much longer than Zenith.”

For Atanasia, it was her first plea—squeezing out every ounce of courage in her life—and her final appeal. But her king, her father, remained cruel to the end.

“Foolish thing.”

The hands gripping Claude’s legs fell helplessly to the floor. The intense contempt crashing down from above. The voice piercing both ears was even more ruthless.

“I have never once considered you my daughter.”

Atanasia’s blue-tinted eyes welled with deeper despair than ever before.

— From Lovely Princess, Chapter 8: “Twisted Fate”

“Huff.”

Crazy. Suddenly remembering a scene from that novel, I was so startled I dropped the rattle I was holding. Of all things, why did this novel I read ages ago have to pop into my head now?

A romance novel I’d skimmed when a middle schooler left it behind while I was working a PC bang part-time job. I remember it being a tacky, childish story matching its tacky title, Lovely Princess. Is it because my current name is the same as that unimportant princess who gets framed for trying to poison her half-sister and is killed by her own father on her 18th birthday? Ah, so unlucky. Pfft, pfft—get out of my head right now.

“Ugh, what’s with you? Why do you keep dropping things so clumsily?”

Just then, the woman who had been dozing in a chair lifted her head, apparently woken by the sound of the falling rattle. Then, as if she’d been waiting, she scolded me. Naturally, I was dumbfounded. Keep dropping things? What have I dropped so many times to deserve this? And anyway, babies drop things all the time!

“Stop fussing and play quietly with this.”

Even so, are you really picking that up off the floor and giving it to me without even washing it? I don’t know if hygiene standards in this country are just low or if they’re looking down on me as a back-room princess. Probably the latter… sob, I wish that weren’t true.

“Ngah.”

I dropped the rattle again. Even if I’m just a baby who can only crawl around right now, this is too much.

Then the mean older sister started to get more openly annoyed with me.

“What is wrong with you? I’m already busy with so much sewing. Here, I’ll put it back in your hand.”

“Ee-ah.”

I don’t want this! First of all, I’ve dropped it twice, so it’s dirty, and more importantly, it’s not my taste! No matter how much my body is a baby, my mental age is older—there’s no way I’d find a rattle fun!

“Are you already bored with it?”

She tilted her head, then laid me, who had been playing on the carpet, back into the crib and left the room. Probably to go see the head maid. If you’re just going to bring back another rattle or something, don’t bother coming.

“Wua-ung.”

I lay quietly in the crib and shifted my gaze. Beneath the spinning mobile, I saw a white, squishy, chubby hand.

Ha, no matter how many times I see it, I can’t get used to it. I clearly fell asleep after taking sleeping pills… and when I opened my eyes again, I looked like this. Does that make any sense? Becoming a baby all of a sudden—this isn’t some fantasy novel.

“Princess!”

Ah, this sister always does this! Is it okay to bang the door open like that and yell when there’s a baby in the room?

“The head maid says we’re short on budget. Just play with this.”

The maid sister forced the rattle back into my hand, then sat down on a chair and started sewing.

“I won’t soothe you even if you cry. I’m really busy, okay?”

The way she said it was so cold. Hey, I’m a baby! Do you think a baby can understand what you’re saying? Waaah, that’s so mean! I guess even princesses have their own circumstances. It’s good that I, an orphan in my past life, was born a princess with a silver spoon in my mouth… but why did it have to be the mistreated princess? Boohoo.

I was an orphan. A girl at the same facility later told me that I had been wrapped in old clothes and abandoned at the front gate of the orphanage as a newborn. The first time I heard that was in February, before entering elementary school; that girl was nineteen, about to leave the orphanage. My birth mother hadn’t even given me a name, so the orphanage director flipped through a phone book and named me “Lee Ji-hye.”

When I first heard that, I just thought, “Oh, I see.” There were plenty of kids like me at the orphanage, and by the time I first formed a sense of self, it was already too late to feel the absence of a mother who had never existed in my life. At the orphanage, an eight-year-old isn’t a child anymore.

In that cramped orphanage, I had to fight tooth and nail over rice bowls every day with kids who had the same story as me.

So, when I reached the same age as the girl who told me the secret of my birth—when it was time to leave the orphanage—I was immaturely a little excited, feeling the liberation of finally escaping that detestable place. But reality was harsher than I expected. Even more so for an orphan girl like me with no money, no connections, no education.

After leaving the orphanage, I did every kind of job to survive. I washed dishes in restaurants until my hands chapped, worked at a smoky PC bang. I survived on expired kimbap while working convenience store shifts, and I despaired at my situation under the blazing sun at a car wash, wiping down gleaming cars until I nearly got heatstroke.

I wanted to study and date like everyone else, but circumstances didn’t allow it. Just paying the monthly rent for a moldy single room was overwhelming, so I worked myself to death without a moment to look elsewhere.

Wow, no dreams or hope at all. I thought that while shivering in my ice-cold room in the middle of winter, unable to afford heating.

I had a part-time job early the next morning, but I couldn’t sleep because of the cold. Summer would be better. I even wondered if I’d freeze to death if I fell asleep like this. But it had already been days since I couldn’t properly sleep due to the biting cold.

Eventually, I asked the restaurant owner for help and took a sleeping pill I’d gotten the day before. The drowsiness that slowly crept in seemed sweet, as if it could make me forget all the worries and anxieties of reality. And when I opened my eyes… I had become a princess.

“Ah-uh-bah.”

Today again, I was babbling in my crib. Eating, sleeping, pooping, and staring into space all day—I’ve lost track of how much time has passed. I still sometimes get confused whether this is a dream or reality.

“Our pretty Princess Atanasia.”

The small comfort is that not all the maids next to me are mean.

I smiled brightly at the woman rocking my crib. She was a young sister with brown hair and blue eyes, newly assigned to me starting this month. Why don’t I have a nanny, only maids? Sob. That’s exactly because I’m the mistreated princess.

“You need to grow up healthy and strong.”

She was so beautiful that when I first saw her, I just spaced out and drooled. Her name was Lilian, a name that perfectly suited her pure and refined looks—no, that even surpassed them. What a perfect match for a lily-like appearance! So I’ve been shortening it to “Lily” in my head.

That a fragile beauty like her, who looks like she might blow away in the wind, is my maid? Ha, I’m glad I was reborn.

“Woo-ah, bah-ah.”

But then Lilian’s face gradually filled with a quiet sadness and longing. Oh no, seeing such a pretty sister make that expression breaks my heart. Whenever she looks at me, she often makes this face, as if thinking of something. Sis, don’t make that face. You’re prettiest when you smile.

“Oh my. Princess, it’s time for you to sleep.”

But my joyful attempts at being cute were short-lived. At Lilian’s words, spoken as if she’d just remembered, I squirmed in refusal. The sun is still high in the sky! Don’t do that—play with me more. I’m so bored here.

“No, no. You have to eat well and sleep well to grow up strong.”

But my resistance was useless. As I babbled, soothed by gentle hands, Lilian looked at me and smiled sweetly again.

“Lilian!”

Just then, a voice called Lilian from outside the room. That sister always does that! I’m a small, fragile baby—I startle easily!

Lilian also flinched for a moment, surprised by the thoughtless behavior of the person outside. Still, she gently patted my chest to comfort me, worried I’d been frightened, and I was a little touched.

“Princess, I’ll step outside for a moment.”

I waved my hand as if to say, “Go ahead.”

Left alone, I lay staring at the ceiling, rolling my eyes aimlessly. The ornate chandelier and the ceiling painted with delicate patterns came into view as always. When I turned my eyes slightly, the gleaming furniture and decorations beyond the crib stabbed my vision. I always wonder—are those real gold? Once I get teeth, I’ll chew on them and find out. Of course, that’s if I’m still alive by then.

“Euh-yah.”

Thinking again about the man called Father made my body tremble involuntarily. All I know about him is from snippets I overheard from the maids, but that guy is terrifying. Just from the whispers of the sisters who come to clean my room every day, I can tell he’s dangerous.