Villainess Reborn

I stared outside the window and looked at the orange sky, the sun setting down was something I’d never get tired of watching. The colors infused with the clouds are like a mixture of both cold and warm colors. I smiled a little to myself, I never thought of something so beautiful in this chaotic life of mine.

“Seriously Bjorn is hot!” my classmate said in excitement.

“Agatha seriously has it all, imagine being loved by every single male lead,” another answered.

“Gosh I wish I was her.” Another girl wished.

“Good thing Tatiana dies in the end, she deserves it for everything she’s done.” The first one replied.

“Trashtiana.” The last one commented.

The girls behind me giggled. There was this novel rising into popularity lately, everyone was talking about it at school. I only heard about it since I didn’t have the time nor the money to read it. I can barely even feed myself, what would I do with a book.

I stood up when the bell rang. I gathered my things to put inside my bag when something sticky was dripping out of it. When I looked inside, several eggs were cracked and my thing was covered in egg whites and yolks. The smell didn’t help either, everything smelled awful.

I looked at the girls behind me. They snickered and laughed while they looked at the mess they made. They always do things like this to me, ever since that incident. I felt someone staring when I turned my head, a girl with huge glasses covering half of her face looked at me in horror and ran away from the classroom.

I bit my lip. No matter how frustrated I am, there is nothing I can do. As if I can stop them as if the teachers will take my side when I tell them what happened. The system sucks, people suck.

I immediately left and when to the bathroom to clean my things. Some of the yolks seeped through the textbooks I borrowed from the library, just thinking about paying for the destruction fee makes my head hurt.

My phone started to vibrate from my pocket. I stared at the half-broken screen and tried to turn it off but the screen froze and I had to click it multiple times before the alarm turned off. This phone of mine is really old, I bought it from a second-hand shop back in 8th grade.

I immediately gathered my things and started to run. People stared as I ran past them, why would a high school student-run so fast when school is done for the day. Other high school students talked and laughed with their friends during their walk home, some stopped by a newly opened café and others go to karaoke and hang out.

I never had time or money or friends to do that with. The only friend I made turned her back at me. The cold air hit my face as I was running, my bag still wet from the water I used to wash it. By the time I arrived at the store the owner was waiting angrily outside the door.

“I-I’m sorry, I had a situation. I ran here as fast as I could—” I told her.

“Don’t bother,” she said and stared at me from head to toe, “today will be the last day for you. I’ve had enough consideration.”

My eyes widened and shook my head. I took her hand and begged.

“Please, I have nowhere else to go. I need money for food, rent, and my school. I promise this will never happen again,” I begged.

She stared down at me with disgust and covered her nose.

“What is this awful smell?!” she scowled and pulled her hand away. “Never mind working today, just go home!” she said angrily. She handed me a small envelope and went inside her eatery, I tried to follow her and beg but she closed the door in front of my face.

I bit my lip and stared at the envelope that she gave me, a week’s worth of pay. I sighed and combed through my hair in frustration. What am I going to do now?

This is not right. I’ll start looking for a new part-time job tomorrow, being a student assistant will not cover all my expenses. I’m going to go home for now.

I walked up to the stairs of the cramped apartment. Rats and other bugs were running around and the whole place smelled of alcohol, pee, and cigarette. I could look for a better home but this is all I could afford. When you leave the orphanage, there isn’t any financial assistance, you’re all on your own now.

I entered my cramped room where there is only a little wriggle room. The paint is peeling off and at one corner is a bucket since it leaks during the rain. The bathroom isn’t any better also. Most of the time, there is no water running and the toilet does not work sometimes.

I cleaned my things thoroughly and took a bath. Just when I got outside the bathroom, someone knocked on my door. I went to peep in the hole but no one was there. When I opened the door there was no one but a tiny rectangular object wrapped in newspaper. I picked it up and went inside the room.

I took a seat at my bed since there was no other chair. I observed the box-like thing and decided to unwrap it. It was a stack of textbooks from school and there was a little note above it.

You never should’ve helped me, there is nothing I can do for you. I’m scared.

I sighed. I guess she still has the conscience to at least help me replace the destroyed textbooks. I browsed through the books and saw something different, a black-colored book with character designs as a cover.

To be loved.

This is familiar. Was this the book that everyone was talking about? Everywhere I go everyone talked about the story and the characters of the book, and apparently, the author is also good-looking and the same age as me. This is the first time I have had something that’s not related to survival. This is the first leisurely thing I have had ever since leaving the orphanage last year.

Ever since I left the orphanage, all I thought about was surviving. There was no financial assistance from the government or the foundation that ran the orphanage for orphans like me. I even barely got into high school because of my grades and the student assistance program.

I started to browse the book and looked at the clock. It is currently 8 pm and I finished all my schoolwork. Maybe reading it a little bit won’t hurt.

There was a kingdom called Aragon which was led by an Emperor and an Empress. The main character here is named Agatha Grace from the house Grace, a wealthy and successful family. This all changed and they went into poverty. The once brilliant house was now forgotten. She worked her head off just to support her family, her father, and two younger siblings. Her father was not of any help either, he became a drunkard and would abuse her in front of her siblings.

One day, on her eighteenth birthday, she was working late at a restaurant when some injured knight went in and asked for help. The owner was not there and Agatha badly wanted to help him. She treated him and cared for him all night. The next day he disappeared and Agatha was fired. The knight looked for her and pretended to be a commoner, he hid the fact that he is the son of the Military General of their kingdom.

The story rotated around her journey and where she met many people including the male leads that loved her. A knight, a prince, a mage, and even the personal guard of the villainess. Everyone loved her because she was kind, gentle, and loving. She had charms that anyone would love and protect. She built herself a family and people she cared for. But things were not easy, the villain of the story was someone powerful and someone she could not go up against.

Tatiana Loriel, the princess of their kingdom. The person who will be the next empress.

I paused reading and looked at the clock. My eyes widened when I realized that it was already 3 am. I have been reading for seven hours! The story was just so good I couldn’t stop reading, the plot was great and the characters were likable too. It was well written for someone my age.

I laughed and cried throughout the story and I got angry at the people who tried to sabotage her happiness. It was the first time I rooted for someone to have the happy ending they deserved. Everyone had a story to tell and the way they acted was justifiable.

I stared at the book, there are only a few pages left. Should I just read it? I should wake up early tomorrow to find a part-time job or I’ll starve.

I looked at the book again.

Reading a few pages left won’t hurt me.

This is the best story I’ve read so far, not that I’ve read other novels. But this was certainly better than the old novels we had at the orphanage.

I decided to continue reading, I was hooked on the story.

The villainess in the story caught my attention. She was straight out crazy. She was extremely violent and harmed her servants and nobody wanted to serve her. She had no friends and even her family, the emperor gave up on how crazy she was.

Throughout the story, she was the stepping stone for the characters to develop. Agatha learned to defend herself from her, the male lead realized his feelings for Agatha because of her, the others protected Agatha from her and even her little brother learned to go against her.

Everyone hated her including the readers. Now I realize why they call Tatiana “Trashtiana”. She would often frame Agatha, harm her when she became her servant, and always yelled.

She hated Agatha from the start because she thinks Agatha was taking everything away from her, but the male lead told her that she had nothing to be stolen from since the beginning.

In the end, Agatha died from murder while being exiled far away from the kingdom, where she cannot harm anyone anymore. She died alone and scared and that bothered me.

It bothered me how she became the villain. In the story, she was a childhood friend of most of the male leads but there are no other details on why she changed and what caused her to become so crazy, why she caused all that trouble.

It’s like the story needed a villain for the characters to develop and for the readers to hate. Nobody knew why she became like that in the first place.

She had everything, or so I thought.