Beauty and the Beast (Book 2)

CHAPTER 25

JENNIE POV

"Hello, I'm Lisa Manoban," he said, making me laugh. But I also stood up and took his hand.

"Hi, I'm Kim Jennie. Nice to meet you," I said, and we laughed. I hit his arm, and we sat back down.

"I've always wanted to do it," Lisa said after our laughter died down. Then he cleared his throat. "I'm sorry, Jennie. It's not that I didn't want to tell you. Actually, I've always wanted to tell you. But... I..." he took a deep breath and then continued. "I'll tell you from the beginning."

I nodded and prepared to listen patiently.

"I don't know if you know the name of Manoban or not," he started.

"I know. I heard it on the news 2 years ago when you guys finally made your first investment here," I said. He nodded then continued.

"That's right, 2 years ago, Manoban Group openly entered Korea. We built the first Manoban Group building in Seoul. I've seen the news when some media even mentioned the unknown existence of the last 2 generations of Manoban," he said, and this time I nodded.

"It is true that we hid from the media. We avoided, closed ourselves because we didn't want them to know where we were. We didn't want to be exposed. At first, it was difficult. But because our family is quite influential, we can do it quite easily," he said. I know the meaning of 'influential' enough. He said it too humbly. Of course, covering yourself from the media for people like the Manoban family, who are very influential and powerful, was not a difficult matter.

"It all started after what happened when I was a kid," he said. He didn't look at me but looked in front of him, and his gaze felt far away. Like digging back his memory.

"You've been told by Rosie about the situation when I was born, right?" He asked but didn't turn to me. He also didn't wait for my answer because before telling me, Rosie had asked his permission.

"I was born perfectly intersex. With 2 genitals that function normally. A rare case in the world. My family loves me very much, and they respect me. So they let me decide whether I wanted to keep both, or I chose one. Whatever my choice, they will accept it. Of course, they have to wait for me at an age that was quite understanding. Then, when I started school, they didn't want my condition to be known by many people, especially my schoolmates, because they didn't want me to be treated differently, seen as a strange kid. Only a few teachers know, and they were asked to keep my condition a secret. But one of the teachers leaked it and made it spread among the children. After knowing, they bullied me. They started to see me differently, like other creatures from another world. They look at me in disgust. Until I fought them and came home injured. My parents were angry and sued the teacher. And to make sure things like this don't happen again, they bought my school. The news about this spread and they knew I was a Manoban.

Actually, at that time we didn't hide, it's just that my parents wanted me to live a normal life so we keep low profile as much as we could. They know how people will behave when they know you are a Manoban. And once again, they were right. The kids who bullied me didn't dare to touch me. My friends who had only stared at me and didn't help me when I was being bullied suddenly turned into my heroes. Trying to protect and defend me. Those who used to look at me with disgust or even who didn't want to be friends with me suddenly became very friendly and kind. They are all sycophants. They all just look at me because I'm a Manoban. Only 1 kid treats me a little differently. He wasn't like the others and seemed genuinely eager to be friends with me. He sometimes gets angry, sometimes does things that other people din't dare to do to me. I thought at that time, maybe I could really feel what a friend is from him. So slowly, I started opening up. Until the age of 5th," he took a deep breath and exhaled. I can't read his expression from the side.