Perfect Crown in Royal Academy of Korea - Chapter 1

Chapter One: Dormitory

Heejoo’s heart kept leaping erratically ahead of the dormitory assignments. At the Royal Academy, there was a tradition of living in the dormitories starting from the 7th grade, when students turned fourteen, and this old-fashioned tradition was no different from an undeniable royal decree. The moment you refused it, you had to leave the school.

 
Dormitory life lasted for a total of six years, from the 7th grade to the 12th grade, and it was notorious for its strict and conservative school regulations, to the point that students who gave up halfway appeared quite frequently.
 
It was nothing unusual. At a full-blooded age, being controlled from the way one walked to the time one lay in bed was no easy feat, and furthermore, most of the students at the Royal Academy were from noble families or had grown up in households that gripped immense wealth. Compliance could not possibly be easy.
 
However, there was a certain reward for those who endured. The pride of studying under the patronage of the Royal Family, and the classmates who shared that pride. They actively played a role across society while carrying a sense of community as elites raised by the Royal Family. Not to mention the political and business worlds, but also the medical and legal fields, the art world, and even somewhere deep underground.
 
In that way, they pulled each other, pushed each other, and supported each other in their respective fields. Some criticized such behavior as collective exclusivism, but the more they did, the firmer the closed academic style became. Belonging is originally strengthened through the hostility of other groups.
 
In that sense, Heejoo looked forward to the dormitory assignment. She wanted to know what belonging felt like. Because she was curious about what it felt like to feel a sense of homogeneity with people other than herself, winning together and losing together, and what it felt like to grow together and be frustrated together.
 
Usually, people learned that at home, but Heejoo could not. Among her parents, there was no mother, and her relationship with her father was not good. Although she had an older brother who shared half her blood...
 
"Better off without one."
 
Frowning, Heejoo headed toward the central library. Passing through the needlessly luxurious campus, passing through the fountain where the stone statues of the Guardian Deities of the Four Directions stood, miscellaneous sounds reached Heejoo’s ears as she climbed the marble steps.
 
"Hey, where do you think Sung Heejoo will be assigned?"
 
"Probably White Tiger Palace, what else."
 
"White Tiger Palace?"
 
"She’s good at studying. And she has no manners."
 
Laughter burst out among the whispering students.
 
"If she goes there, isn't she 100% going to be an outcast? Where else is there a place where kids care about backgrounds as much as White Tiger Palace."
 
"True. It's not a dormitory for a bastard child to go to."
 
"Speaking of which, where is there a dormitory that suits her? She's a commoner and a bastard."
 
As a male student clicking his tongue shook his head as if it made no sense, another student cut in.
 
"Why, she has a lot of money though."
 
"If having a lot of money was all it took, why would the word 'nouveau riche' even exist?"
 
It was not long before the expressions of the students who were continuing their mockery stiffened. It was the moment Heejoo’s small head appeared above the stairs. Subsequently, as her pitch-black eyes were seen and the fluttering trajectory of her long hair was seen, someone swallowed hard.
 
"......"
 
One guy had tripped Heejoo and ended up with a broken foot, and another guy had a history of being choked for mocking her as a child of a concubine. Learned fear was indeed that faithful. Every time, the school was turned upside down, but nothing much happened. Having a lot of money was good in that sense. Although bowing her head couldn't be avoided, preventing expulsion was possible.
 
"Wh-What."
 
One male student raised his voice. It seemed he wanted to put on a bravado despite not even being able to look her in the eyes. Though it was hard to hide that he was nothing more than a frightened dog anyway.
 
Pfft, letting out a smirk, Heejoo leisurely took her steps.
 
"Ryu Minseok."
 
"...What, what."
 
"Which dormitory do you want to go to?"
 
"Uh...?"
 
"It would be nice to be in the same dormitory as you."
 
When Minseok frowned instead of answering, Heejoo whispered quietly.
 
"There are no CCTVs in the dormitory, right?"
 
"......?"
 
"There, even if I kill you, wouldn't nobody know?"
 
"...You crazy bitch!"
 
Minseok screamed belatedly, but by then, Heejoo’s steps had already moved into the library. Flapping her long hair. Enjoying the fear of others.
 
"Vermilion Bird Palace...."
 
Heejoo murmured after checking the notice attached to the wall. Like Ryu Minseok babbled, she thought it might be White Tiger Palace, but her dormitory was Vermilion Bird Palace. Representing the guardian deity of the south, and fire and summer.
 
Heejoo, who put on the red robe received from the administrative office over her school uniform, headed to the dormitory. The location of the dormitories matched the directions symbolized by the Guardian Deities of the Four Directions, in a way that Azure Dragon Palace was in the east and Vermilion Bird Palace was in the south.
 
The more she walked toward the south, the more students wearing red robes increased. They were people with different faces, names, ages, and personalities, but for some reason, they looked similar. Just like... siblings.
 
"Sung Heejoo!"
 
At that moment, Sung Taejoo’s voice was heard. An older brother three years older, he was someone who shared half her blood. While the strangely resembling parts were unpleasant, a sense of relief would wash over her at completely different points. Unlike his neat and pretty appearance, what he did was so pathetically stupid that it was common for him to get suspended at the drop of a hat.
 
Belonging to Azure Dragon Palace, he was wearing a blue robe, and since he walked around wearing blue pajamas top and bottom even at home, it was inevitable to feel annoyed every time she saw him.
 
"What."
 
"What do you mean, what."
 
Taejoo, who grumbled, glanced at Heejoo’s robe. He frowned as if the red robe was bothersome, but his face soon put on a smile again, making his inner thoughts completely transparent.
 
"Is it good?"
 
"Uh?"
 
"I asked if it's good that you're not in Azure Dragon Palace."
 
"Then what, did you want us to be in the same dormitory?"
 
Taejoo, who flared up and raised his voice, opened his mouth as if he realized something. Then, nonchalantly—
 
"Did you, like, want to come to Azure Dragon Palace?"
 
"Me?"
 
"No, well...."
 
"If it's a dormitory where you are, it's definitely bound to be crummy, so why would I."
 
"Fine. Fine."
 
Taejoo, who shook his head annoyedly, headed toward the east. Toward Azure Dragon Palace, where idealists gather.
 
Heejoo, who unpacked her luggage in the dormitory, gripped her cell phone in her hand. Although it seemed he wouldn't care whichever dormitory she was assigned to, she thought she had to tell him. Still, he was her father among her parents.
 
As the dial tone started along with the call button, Heejoo stood up from her seat without realizing it. Whenever she talked on the phone with her father, this level of tension always accompanied it. Even though she knew there was nothing much else besides a curt reaction and an indifferent voice, she wondered if she was imagining something else.
 
—Why.
 
"It's me."
 
—Speak.
 
"I got my dormitory assignment. It's Vermilion Bird Palace."
 
—......
 
"This time too, I am the top graduate."
 
Anxious at her unresponsive father, Heejoo rolled her eyes. Should she talk about how small the dormitory room was? Should she vow to continue being the top graduate in the future? While searching for things to talk about here and there, her father's voice followed.
 
—So.
 
"Pardon?"
 
—There must be something you want to have.
 
Biting her lip, Heejoo’s heart turned crooked. Her father's question wasn't entirely strange. It was Heejoo’s habit to say she wanted to have something whenever she accomplished something. When she was young, it was mostly things like the snacks her brother ate or the bicycle her brother rode, and sometimes it would be her father's fountain pen.
 
But those things were just excuses. Because what she really wanted to have was her father's acknowledgment. Even if she was a bastard child, even if she was not a child he wanted... acknowledgment like "magnificent," or "well done."
 
"The watch my brother wore looked pretty."
 
"Buy that for me too."
 
—......
 
Her pride was hurt to say that she wanted to be praised. Because to say she simply wanted her father's acknowledgment made her, who wished for it, pathetic. So she just acted exactly as her father wanted. Like a greedy, cocky, nothing-more-than-a-snob bastard child.
 
Heejoo, who hung up the phone, sat on the window frame. Suppressing the heart that belonged nowhere, the desire to set down her heart anywhere.
 
 
From the Royal Academy School Regulations
 
Article 5, Paragraph 1: Dormitories follow the names of the Guardian Deities of the Four Directions and shall not be changed after assignment.
 
Article 5, Paragraph 3: Dormitory assignment is based on all the time from the 1st grade to the 6th grade, and this includes assignment performance ability, behavioral development, and the evaluation of the faculty and staff.
 
Article 5, Paragraph 4: Competition between dormitories is permitted, but mutual slander and defamation are designated as grounds for serious disciplinary action.