Chapter Text
The thing about being a princess was that it was pretty amazing. Was Jihyo detached from most of reality? Yes. Did she know how to cook a basic meal for herself? Only because she begged the palace chefs to teach her. Did she have no clue how most people her age lived outside of what she saw on the internet? One hundred percent.
But she was still a princess. So no complaints there. She lived in a palace, was a millionaire before she hit the legal drinking age, and got to do pretty much anything she wanted in her free time. So far, she had mastered horse riding, archery, snowboarding, surfing, football, singing lessons, dance lessons, and golf.
But there was one tiny thing that was starting to bother her. If she was to become queen one day (And she would unless one of her little sisters decided to poison her or something, but thankfully they seemed as normal and well adjusted as one could be when you were a princess), she would need to know how to talk to people. She would need to know social skills, to see through people’s lies and forge connections when needed.
She knew how to tell when her sisters were lying. And she knew how to terrify them so that they never touched her belongings. But people outside the family? The ones who went in and out of the palace every day to converse with her parents? Jihyo simply didn’t know how to talk to them. Her current policy was a polite greeting, a comment about the weather, and then smiling and nodding until something else caught their attention.
She had a feeling that this strategy would no longer be sustainable when she became queen. And at seventeen years old, Jihyo felt like she was ready to start a journey of personal improvement. Her latest MBTI results said she was an extroverted person (she may have taken it seven times but whatever, it showed the truth in the end.) which meant that she should really have no problem with socialising. She just needed the right opportunity.
And so, she hatched a very simple scheme. Right after her daily lessons with the family tutor, she had four hours of free time before dinner. And in those four hours, the biggest school in the city had its lunch break.
She’d done her research. If she left the palace right after her lessons, she’d reach the school five minutes into their hour-long break. And since the school had no uniform but had over six thousand students, Jihyo figured it wouldn’t be a problem just slipping in. If she could blend in and socialise for an hour, it would be the perfect first step.
Obviously, she’d be recognizable as the princess. So she had a red wig of the highest quality and clothes she’d seen girls from that school wearing on Instagram. With slightly different colours and brands than theirs obviously, she’d seen enough movies to know that wearing the same outfit as another girl was a recipe for disaster. She didn’t want to get a drink thrown over her on her first day, or accidentally start a rivalry with a mean girl that would force her to use Machiavellian tactics in a guerilla war until one of them… got hit by a bus? The movies were vague and unclear about what happened to the loser of a popular girl fight.
Although the second option didn’t sound too bad. Verbal and social warfare was an important skill to hone and Jihyo always liked challenges. Especially when they came from pretty girls.
So today, when the weather was nice and calm and no one in the palace suspected a thing, she left the school building and turned left while her sisters went right. They didn’t think anything of it, since Jihyo was well known for running around the palace gardens looking for activities to try. She made her way to the guard house, where her best friend was waiting for her.
“This is a terrible idea.” Jeongyeon said flatly.
“Yes, thank you.” Jihyo grabbed the clothes from her and stepped inside the small, empty watchtower to begin changing. “You’ve mentioned that several times already.”
“Because if you go through with this terrible idea and die, I’m getting thrown into a deep dark jail cell and never seeing the light of day again. And that’s the best case scenario.”
Jihyo may not know how to socialise with anyone outside the family, but Yoo Jeongyeon practically was family considering they’d been best friends since they were five years old. Jihyo had debated whether or not Jeongyeon counted as her first success at a normal friendship, but the more she thought about it the more she realised a truth she’d always subconsciously known: Jeongyeon was just as weird as she was. She couldn’t count Jeongyeon as an honest success at normal socialising when the success in question was five year old Jihyo stealing a royal car because the new girl visiting them bragged that she was an expert at steering go karts.
(Jeongyeon had been too short to reach the pedals of the Audi to prove her driving prowess, so Jihyo had hunched down and pressed the pedals while Jeongyeon steered. Their parents found them arguing over who’s fault it was that they crashed it into the wall, and unsurprisingly they had not been pleased. Jihyo had no idea what convinced her mother to let Jeongyeon back in for another playdate, but she was eternally grateful. Even if most of her earliest visits ended with Jihyo in a time-out after their innocent games got a tiny bit out of hand.)
“All you've done is accidentally set a few dogs loose, distracting the guards.” Jihyo waved an arm breezily. “As far as anyone knows, the fact that I slipped out is a total coincidence. I’ve checked the cameras, reviewed every step of this over and over. Trust me, it’s foolproof.”
“That’s what you said when you tried to snowboard over that gap in the mountains. Or when you convinced me to play golf indoors with all the centuries old pottery. Or that time-”
“Alright but who actually got in trouble all those times? Who gets to deal with the consequences of my own dumbassery? Me, or you?”
Jeongyeon frowned, conceding the point. Whenever their messes got exposed, the king and queen barely ever scolded Jeongyeon, instead bringing the full force of their stern parenting down on Jihyo. A typical end to their recent adventures consisted of Jeongyeon getting offered snacks and made to wait in the guest room while Jihyo got lectured. Jihyo’s parents were somehow convinced that Jeongyeon was a good influence on their spirited daughter. Either that or they weren’t cruel enough to take away Jihyo’s only friend, no matter how many scrapes and shenanigans they got themselves into.
“Alright.” Jeongyeon’s frown got sterner. “But if anything happens-”
“They didn’t blame you when you shoved me into the royal glassware or when you dropped me out of a two story window. They’re not going to blame you for this either.”
“You asked me to dangle you out the window so you could pet the stray cat and then you wouldn’t stop wiggling that one was not my-”
“Love you!” Jihyo finished throwing on her varsity jacket, which apparently had no meaning other than fashion, and quickly sprinted out the gate. “Get away from here before the guards finish catching the dogs!”
She sprinted out of the palace and down towards the town before Jeongyeon could complain again. This would be fine, it was nothing like their previous escape attempt of tying sheets together and abseiling down the palace walls. They’d been ten back then, and now Jihyo was seventeen. Almost an adult. Old enough to be stealthy and subtle, and also to understand that not everything in movies was feasible in real life, particularly not anything physics related such as gravity or the average arm strength of a ten year old princess.
(Jihyo was very grateful that the palace was much longer in width than height. She’d spent a lot of her childhood falling off various parts of it.)
It only took her ten minutes to reach the school. She caught one or two stray glances, likely because of her hair colour, but she hoped that they would just brush her off as an art kid or a theatre kid.
Did this school have a theatre? It was so big, it must have at least one.
It didn’t matter. Even if there weren’t any theatre kids at this school, Jihyo had plenty of other points of interest to start a conversation with them. Yu-Gi-Oh, Rummikub, manga and anime, Pokemon, the local football clubs, all various interests she’d had over the years and that she’d seen other kids her age discuss online. Surely in a school of six thousand children, there would be at least one interested in the same things she was.
And if all else failed, there was always music. Everyone loved music! And Jihyo was an expert with some of the best training and education in the world. No matter what genre or group these kids were into, she could find a way to relate to it and talk about it.
The gates of the school were in front of her now, open with the older students walking in and out. From the preparation she’d done she knew that the girls her age and older were allowed outside during lunch break. Mostly they just walked to the shops and got food.
Jihyo was tempted to do that too. She’d never been in a local store. Jeongyeon tried describing one to her once, but then gave up and just showed her images on her laptop. It looked very neat and normal, but Jihyo still wanted to try it. The thought of buying regular candy herself, talking to the cashier, making her own choices from the limited store selection instead of the pricey yet unlimited world of online shopping…
No! She had to stay focused. She had a simple mission today, which was to familiarise herself with the school and start up a conversation with at least one student.
Taking a deep breath, Jihyo made her way into the school yard. She walked calmly but with purpose, headed straight for the open door that hopefully led inside the school.
You can do this. You’re an extrovert. You’ve got this.
The door did lead her to the inside of the school, just as expected. What she didn’t expect were the rows and rows of lockers that greeted her. That on its own wouldn’t have been a problem, but the fact that there were hundreds of students still hovering in front of their lockers, or conversing in the hallway, was suddenly incredibly overwhelming.
They were so loud. And chaotic. It was a sea of people, moving and talking and bumping into each other. It was like the crowds that gathered outside the palace during special occasions, but Jihyo had always been safely inside the palace watching the crowd while it happened. Now she was a part of the masses.
And she was not ready for it.
She tried moving through the hallway to find a less crowded part. But after the third time she’d apologetically stumbled over someone and crashed onto the floor, she decided the best course of action was to not try and get up again, and to instead huddle against the wall and wait for the crowd to ease.
Being on the floor made her anxiety worse. But less people bumped into her, and they tripped over her instead of her tripping over them. Not entirely better, but slightly.
“Are you alright?”
Jihyo glanced up, and her jaw dropped.
The most beautiful girl she’d ever seen was smiling gently down at her. She was tall, even from Jihyo’s perspective on the floor she could tell that much. Tall with dark hair and sparkling eyes, she looked like the fairies Jihyo read about in books as a child. Her clothes weren’t as elegant and ballerina-like as the storybook fairies, but she made the simple yellow dress work for her. Jihyo spent three seconds marvelling at the smoothness of her skin before blushing and jerking her head upwards to look at the girl’s face again.
Which led her to a new observation: This girl also had the most adorable cheeks. The impulsive part of Jihyo’s brain wanted to nibble on them or squish them. She didn’t, of course, but the thought was there.
“I’m fine.” Jihyo said faintly. “I’m an extrovert. This is all fine.”
“You look overwhelmed.” The girl held a hand out, and Jihyo mentally admired how toned her arm was. “Want to come with me to someplace quieter?”
Jihyo had a lot of pride. Some people(Jeongyeon) had even called it her fatal flaw, which Jihyo disagreed with. Her temper was her fatal flaw. Her pride was a house of cards, easily swayed by simple things. Such as the smile of a beautiful girl.
And this girl had one beautiful smile.
“Thank you.” She said, holding the girl’s equally as beautiful hand like a lifeline and letting her steer Jihyo through the crowd.
It only took them a matter of seconds to reach a much quieter room, with only a few students occupying a corner of the room and talking in soft voices. Jihyo sat on one of the desks in this almost empty classroom, and let out a deep breath.
“Seriously, thank you.” She said, “I didn’t realise I was so bad at handling crowds, but that was not fun.”
“It’s nothing really.” The girl’s smile grew impossibly bright. “There’s this young student I mentor, she’s shy and not really good at handling crowds either. It’s pretty normal, nothing to feel bad about.”
Oh. So this girl wasn’t a fairy, she was an angel. According to the movies about high schools, girls this pretty were usually mean or secretly deeply sad. But Jihyo didn’t get the impression that this girl was either. She just seemed… genuinely nice and happy.
“I’m Ji- Jyo.”
“Jeejo?”
“No, just Jyo.”
“Unique name.” The girl wiggled her eyebrows. “But it does sound kind of similar to Joe. Your parents didn’t really think that one through.”
“No.” Jihyo laughed. “I’m pretty sure it was a last minute impulse decision. They wanted to name me something else but a celebrity baby was born the day before with that exact same name, so they switched.”
The girl laughed, and Jihyo grinned back. At this rate she was going to get a good grade in fake backstories, something totally normal to want and definitely possible to achieve.
“I’m Sana.” The girl stuck out her hand, and Jihyo gave it a firm shake, which made her giggle.
Interesting. Jihyo thought handshakes were the normal greeting, and kissing the hand like she did back at the palace was barely used among teenagers. But Sana’s reaction made it seem like Jihyo did something unusual. She’d have to work on that.
“So I’m guessing you’re new.” Sana’s face got that mischievous look again, the one where her eyebrows wiggled slightly and her eyes sparkled. “Because otherwise you must have missed out on every single assembly ever.”
“What makes you say that?”
“You didn’t know my name.”
“Oh.” Jihyo matched Sana’s gaze with a sparkle of her own. “Are you a bigshot around here then?”
“Head cheerleader.”
“Ah.” Jihyo tried not to look surprised. “Schools here have cheerleaders?”
“It was a last ditch attempt to save the dance society. We made a big powerpoint and everything to convince the school board not to put all of our funds into sports and maths.”
“I’m glad it worked out.” Jihyo felt her heart warm looking at the proud smile on Sana’s face. “I think the role suits you.”
“It does?”
“Yeah.” Jihyo nodded. “You seem… very cheerful.”
For a second Sana stared at her. And then she burst into giggles again.
“I think that’s the first time someone’s tied actual cheerfulness to my cheerleading position. Normally it’s my looks if they’re being nice, or calling me a bimbo if they want to be mean.”
“Well I know I’ve only known you for less than an hour, but I think anyone who calls you a bimbo deserves to be publicly executed.”
Sana gave her that surprised look again. Jihyo wondered if she’d come on too strongly, but Sana’s face softened and she leant back against the desk.
“You’re a kind person, new student. I think you’d get on well with my friends.”
Fuck yeah, a friendship invitation. When Jihyo got home she was going to give herself an A+.
“Well I’d love to meet them.” Jihyo replied. “Do any of them have Korean class after lunch?”
It was a bold move, making up a class that might not even exist for anyone at this time period. But something about Sana was so fun to talk to, it made Jihyo want to take more risks.
“I think we’re all in English class unfortunately.” Sana pouted. “But maybe I’ll see you after school?”
“I need to go home right away, help my folks unpack.” Jihyo sighed, acting as if this was an unavoidable fact instead of an excuse she made up to protect her cover. “But if I see you around I’ll come over and say hi. You’re my favourite person in this school so far.”
Sana blushed bright red at that, and Jihyo had to hide her smirk.
This friendship thing was easy.
—
Getting back into the palace was much simpler than sneaking out. All Jihyo had to do was skulk her way around to a deserted part of the castle walls, and Jeongyeon threw a rope down so that she could climb up and back inside. The higher areas were not as heavily guarded as the lower parts of the wall, so it was a tough climb, but Jihyo wasn’t ten anymore. She had muscle now, and could climb ropes at the gym that were twice as high as these.
Jeongyeon raised an eyebrow as Jihyo scrambled in, but even her friend’s cynicism couldn’t wipe the giddy smile off her face.
“I take it you had fun?”
“I met a girl.” Jihyo smirked. “First day and I already made a friend.”
“Congratulations.” Jeongyeon gave a sarcastic clap. “Only took you twelve years longer than the rest of us.”
“At least I don’t have weird homoerotic energy with my new friend.”
“Alright one, you’ve never met Momo so I don’t know where you’ve gotten the idea from that we have gay feelings for each other. Two, I haven’t met your friend either but judging by the smile on your face, there’s something going on there and I can’t wait to hear all about your future embarrassing attempts at handling this crush.”
“You got all that from a smile?” Jihyo snorted. “Cute, but no. This is a smile of victory, not like whatever gets you grinning every time Momo texts you a photo of her dogs.”
“Cute dogs are a very normal reason to smile. Especially when she dresses them in sweaters.”
“Whatever you say.” Jihyo gave Jeongyeon’s shoulder a condescending pat as she walked past. “Now c’mon, let’s go find something fun to do while we plot our next attempt at sneaking out.”
“ We ?” Jeongyeon shook her head in disbelief, but followed Jihyo anyway. “ Our attempt? You’re hilarious, Park Jihyo. Absolutely hilarious.”
—
The second time she snuck out to the school, a full week later, she found Sana in the same room their last conversation had taken place in.
Only this time, she wasn’t alone.
Jihyo entered the room, wig secured and clothed in jeans and a fresh green top she’d seen other kids wearing. She saw Sana chatting animatedly with another girl who looked the same age, although her hair was darker and she had a fringe. Two other girls sat beside them, conversing quietly. One had brown hair, the other dark black.
Jihyo should probably have tried to remember more details about them, but she was distracted when Sana noticed her, and her whole face lit up.
“Jyo! You came back!”
Jihyo smiled too, although she couldn’t quite hide her nerves. Her awkward wave did nothing to help that, nor did the incredulous looks on the faces of the other three girls.
“Sorry I haven’t been around. Moving was more complicated than I thought it was going to be. I should be able to start attending regularly soon.”
A complete lie. But it bought her time. Everyone seemed confused by the vagueness of the story, but no one was questioning it either.
“I can’t believe you're real.” The girl with the fringe muttered. “I had a bet going with little Chaeyoung that Sana was just making you up. Now I have to give money to a junior, so thanks for that.”
“Uh…”
“Ignore Momo.” Sana hurriedly stepped in front of the other girl. “She can’t talk to strangers, we all think it’s something to do with the time she hit her head when she was a child. Scrambled the part of her mind in charge of social interaction.”
“Fuck you.” Momo grumbled. “See if I let you copy my Korean notes again. Let Miss Kim find out how good you really are at grammar structures.”
“It’s OK.” Jihyo hurriedly cut in. “I can’t talk to strangers either.”
“Really?” Sana tilted her head. “But you left such a good impression on me last time.”
Oh fuck. Now Jihyo was the one blushing. This was bad, she needed to regain control.
“As did you.” A good start. “It’s why I came here actually. I was hoping we’d get the chance to hang out again.”
“Really?” Sana’s grin made her cheeks even more adorably round. “You came here for me?”
“I mean, yeah pretty much.” Jihyo grinned back. “So far you’re still the best person I’ve met at this school.”
Sana preened a little at that, while behind her Momo said something under her breath that caused the brown haired girl to snort and the black haired girl to whack Momo gently.
“These are my very annoying friends.” Sana’s smile didn’t dim at all. “Momo’s the muscle, Mina’s the brain, and Tzuyu’s the baby.”
Jihyo blinked at Tzuyu, the brown haired girl, who even sitting down was clearly the tallest of the group.
“Fourteen isn’t a baby!” Tzuyu protested.
“And Mina as the brain?” Momo shook her head. “I had to threaten to never cook for her again to get her to stop playing Minecraft at 3am last night and go to sleep. All of you wouldn’t last a day without me.”
“I think my estimated life span would actually go up if I stopped hanging out with all of you.” Tzuyu shot back.
Jihyo watched them argue back and forth, in a way that reminded her very much of her daily arguments with Jeongyeon. This must be the ‘banter’ that she’d heard about. A popular form of affection among close groups of teenagers her age.
“So Jyo,” She jolted slightly as Sana interrupted the noise. “Where did you get your top? I love that colour on you.”
Mina, for some inexplicable reason, laughed loudly at that. Then immediately covered her mouth and pretended like nothing had happened.
Was Jihyo being bullied? Was Sana being falsely sincere and actually hating on Jihyo’s outfit choice? Jihyo looked at Sana and immediately dismissed that thought. Sana had gone bright red, and looked like she wanted to crawl into a hole.
Jihyo had no idea why. She was clueless about the hidden meanings of this entire conversation, but that was why she was here! To learn social skills. So she smiled pleasantly and responded.
“I bought it in town a few days ago, there’s this really nice shop just fifteen minutes away from here. You probably already know it though, it’s called Some Days ?”
“Oh I love that shop!” Sana’s hands flapped excitedly. “We should go together sometime.”
“Smooth.” Momo coughed, loud enough that they all heard it.
“I’m going to kill you.” Sana responded, her bright smile still not wavering.
Jihyo felt herself relax a little more. Whatever teasing was going on here, Sana was clearly the victim. They weren’t making fun of Jihyo, they seemed to be teasing Sana for… being too eager? Too friendly? Jihyo didn’t know why that was a bad thing.
But she was determined to learn.
As she settled down in the seat beside them, paying close attention to the scraps of information on the school they casually dropped into the conversation, she realised that the parameters of her self imposed mission had changed. No longer was she interested in socialising with large groups of people, or even meeting new people at all.
If she could get herself to fully understand Sana and her friend group, that would be enough to satisfy her. She’d probably have to show up at least once or twice a week, and keep her backstory vague but convincing to justify her conspicuous absence from the rest of their school life. But if she really put her head and heart into this, Jihyo thought she could pull it off. She could get close enough to these girls to understand their banter, and to understand why Sana got so embarrassed every time she complimented Jihyo.
Purely for research purposes of course.