Ch.33Taking Off Your Glasses Doesn’t Exactly Make You a Hottie (8)

“Flick”

“Ouch.”

Dad’s thick finger flicked my forehead.

“I told you to be careful. I warned you.”

“Hehe, sorry.”

“Haah… Well. Where would the great Ban Do-young go? You only broke his glasses, right? His legs and neck are fine?”

Dad, deciding that any further physical scolding would be meaningless, left the office to check on the condition of Do Ha-min’s separated glasses.

“Haah, these are completely unusable.”

Dad sighed deeply as he looked at Do Ha-min’s glasses, which had broken completely in half at the bridge.

It was obvious, really.

I broke them with the intention of making them unusable.

“Ha-min, are you hurt anywhere? Any scratches or cuts? No nosebleed?”

“I-I’m fine. Really, precisely… only my glasses were damaged.”

Ban Do-young’s talent for kendo was truly exceptional.

Precise enough to target and knock off only the glasses perched on Do Ha-min’s nose.

When it comes to swords, and specifically bamboo swords where there’s less worry about injury,

I suppose it’s okay to make relatively bold movements.

“Well, at least you’re not seriously hurt. The lenses look scratched but don’t seem to be shattered. Still, just to be safe, stay away from where the glasses fell until I vacuum the area.”

“Ah, understood.”

“Ban Do-young, go get the vacuum cleaner.”

Concerned there might be fragments of broken lenses around,

Dad picked up the fallen glasses and thoroughly swept the area, cleaning up dust and debris.

The most important thing in running a dojo is the safety of students,

especially for physical activities centered around children, it was necessary to be adept at preparing for such accidents.

“Oh, it’s already time…”

“You’re right. It’s almost time for evening self-study.”

“I’m sorry, Master. It’s getting late, so I think I need to leave for today—”

—THUD!

Without his glasses, Ha-min bumped his forehead into the wall next to the men’s changing room door as he tried to enter.

“Owww…”

“That’s what happens when you run around without being able to see properly. Hey, make sure you’re steady before going in. You can change clothes by yourself, right? Or should I go in with you and help you dress?”

“N-No! I can change clothes perfectly fine without glasses!”

“Heheh. Alright. Dad, I think this guy… he’s a bit unsafe without his eyes. Should I take him to school?”

“Why are you even asking? Of course you have to take responsibility and escort him since you broke his glasses!”

“Yes, yes. Did you hear that? So hurry up and change.”

“Sorry, I’ll impose on you just a little bit then.”

While Ha-min was changing clothes,

I briefly considered peeking into the men’s changing room but quickly abandoned the idea.

One wrong move could hurt his pride.

Making fun of someone’s face might be taken as a joke,

but laughing at what’s below could have a completely different meaning.

“Maybe my skills got rusty from not holding a sword for so long. Even though you were shouting strange technique names, your skills didn’t seem dead. Why make a mistake you wouldn’t have made even in elementary school… almost as if you deliberately targeted only the glasses…”

Hiccup.

“Ah, what’s wrong, Dad? I’m really reflecting on it! It won’t happen again.”

“Reflecting…? Then come here.”

“Huh?”

While I was momentarily looking away from the changing room,

Dad, having finished cleaning and putting away the vacuum cleaner, took out his wallet from his pocket.

“Take it.”

“No, this is…”

Dad held out a black card he had taken from his wallet.

“Woohoo! An adult’s card!”

“I’m not giving it to you to use as you please. I’m giving it to you so you can get Ha-min new glasses tomorrow.”

“Of course, of course. I understand that. If you’re worried, we can go to the optician together tomorrow.”

“I can’t go. I told you tomorrow is when Mom arrives. I need to go to the airport to pick her up.”

Unable to handle both schedules at once,

Dad, though somewhat anxious, entrusted me with his card.

“I’ll go to the airport alone to pick up Mom, so you absolutely must get Ha-min new glasses by tomorrow. Got it?”

“Yeah, trust me.”

“Haah… If your mother finds out about this unexpected expense, she’ll have something to say…”

“Come on, it’s not like she’ll kill you.”

“…Haah.”

“…Right?”

While he looked like a cool father taking responsibility for his child’s mistake when confidently handing over the card,

as soon as the word “Mom” left his lips, Dad’s face began to turn pale rapidly.

“Ah, looks like Ha-min is done changing. I’ll take him and come back.”

“Alright, please don’t cause any more trouble this time.”

“I know, I know.”

In that short time, Ha-min had quickly changed into his school uniform.

Having to prepare for early morning school every day,

Ha-min’s changing speed was quite fast even without his glasses.

“Go on in, Ha-min. I’m really sorry about today and thank you. You must have a hard time dealing with my problematic daughter as a friend.”

“N-No, not at all. I’ll see you next time, Master.”

“Are you two talking about me again? There’s only 5 minutes left before evening study! Can you stop chatting and come out?”

Sensing that the conversation between Dad and Ha-min was strangely prolonged,

I went outside first and urged them both, calling Ha-min out.

“I-I’m coming! Goodbye, Master…!”

“Alright, take care.”

Ha-min left the dojo with his broken glasses in his school jacket pocket.

“Haah, time is tighter than I thought. We need to hurry.”

Looking at the time on his phone,

Ha-min lowered his posture as if ready to run straight to the classroom as soon as we got back to school.

“You can’t even see properly, where do you think you’re running to?”

I was starting to notice, little by little.

His bad habits.

Whenever Ha-min got even a little anxious, his stride would shorten and his pace would quicken.

It was as if his urgency immediately manifested physically.

You could call it honest,

but it also made him seem like someone who couldn’t maintain composure with his time.

“Thanks for coming to school with me. I’ll head to the classroom first.”

“Hold on, wait. If you rush like that near the entrance where the streetlights aren’t even on yet…”

If he had his glasses and could see properly, there wouldn’t be much to worry about,

but if his vision wasn’t clear…

—THUNK

“…Huh?”

He immediately risked tripping by missing a step on something like a threshold in front of the school gate.

Just like now.

“See? This is how you fall.”

I grabbed Ha-min’s hand as his center of gravity tilted and pulled him back up.

You should be grateful, Do Ha-min, that the heroine is taller and stronger than the protagonist in this setting.

“Th-Thanks… It’s dark and I can’t see well, so I didn’t know there was a threshold in front.”

“You were about to pull me down with you. Or was that your real goal? Pretending to fall so you could secretly touch my chest?”

“N-No, that’s not it.”

It’s entirely possible.

If Do Ha-min is the protagonist of this world, perhaps the lucky pervert causality applies to him—where simply tripping on a stone while walking could allow him to explore heroines’ chests and lips.

Just like how a heroine being late is just an excuse to show her panties to the protagonist she bumps into in an alley.

“Thanks anyway. For catching me before I fell.”

At the front gate returning to school,

with the threshold between us, Ha-min and I stood on opposite sides—him inside the school grounds and me outside.

“I think you’re right. It’s better to go in slowly without falling, even if I’m a bit late. I’ll go ahead then.”

“Wait.”

I held Ha-min back for a moment as he tried to enter the classroom.

“I just realized this is the first time I’m seeing it. I couldn’t see properly earlier because I was getting scolded by Dad.”

“U-Um…? What?”

“Your bare face.”

—CLICK

At that moment, with the start of evening study,

the streetlights along the road began to light up one by one, illuminating the surroundings to signal nightfall.

Only after the streetlight’s glow illuminated the area around the school gate

could I properly see Ha-min’s face without glasses.

“Hmm…”

“U-Uh… staring so intently is a bit…”

Unaccustomed to his bare face, Ha-min furrowed his brow at the streetlight illuminating his face and avoided my gaze.

“As I thought…”

“Hm…?”

“Taking off your glasses doesn’t exactly make you super handsome, huh?”

“…”

Ha-min’s face without glasses was, in a word, ordinary.

Not quite handsome enough to call attractive, but not unattractive either. The kind of face you might see anywhere—just that level.

There wasn’t any dramatic change compared to before he took off his glasses.

“…Is that why you were staring so intensely?”

“Sorry, I thought you might look a bit more handsome. I didn’t expect there to be so little difference. Ahahaha.”

“…”

I thought perhaps the trope where characters who’ve worn glasses for a long time suddenly look like different people when they take them off might apply to Ha-min too.

Unfortunately, for Ha-min, such appearance authenticity was applied more realistically.

“What about you? Don’t I look different when you see me with and without glasses? You seem to wear pretty high prescription lenses.”

“Never happened to me.”

“Come on, look at you getting all sulky and giving half-answers. You can be honest. I know. Everything looks like blurry graphics when you take off your glasses.”

“…Not with you.”

“Huh…?”

“I’ve never… not found you pretty.”

“…”

—WHACK!

I gave Ha-min’s butt an emergency kick.

“Why, why did you hit me?!”

“Sorry, that was a bit dangerous just now. I urgently needed to fill my loser quota.”