Lily Nam (남정아; Nam Jeong-ah; "Jeong-ah Nam") is a minor character in Weak Hero. She attends Hero Cram School and shares a class with Gray Yeon, who she took interest in due to his appearance[1]. She is also close friends with Julia Chae and an ex-friend of Lala Lee[2].
Appearance
She's currently 5'4.5"[3]. She has pale skin and light hazel eyes that slightly change to green depending on the lighting. She has somewhat wavy, back-length brownish-blonde hair with bangs swept in a side part. In the past, she frequently wore her hair in two pigtails, but has only been seen in a high ponytail in recent chapters. Similarly, in earlier chapters, she had a spattering of freckles on her cheeks, but not in her more recent appearances. She wears big circular glasses that are tinted pale blue when hiding her eyes.
During middle school, her uniform consisted of a gray blazer with a matching gray skirt[4]. The collar of the blazer was lined white and a red flower is sown into the lapel. There's a single golden button at its break point. Underneath is a white collared shirt with a red tie and a V-neck vest. The vest is colored a darker gray and the neckline has a bold black border edging an inch away from it.
At the Hero Cram School, she sports a yellow V-neck vest worn over white button-down uniform and a black bow-shaped tie. She also wears a knee-length plaid straight skirt, and blue or red converse sneakers with white ankle socks[5][6].
Outside of academic settings, she's seen wearing long-sleeved shirts and sweaters, long coats, jeans, and black sneakers[7]. Her night-wear so far consists of an orange-hued garment with a white inner shirt[8].
Personality
In her first appearance, she seems imaginative and somewhat naïve, although having ultimately pure intentions. In episode 5, when she first sees Gray Yeon, she takes note of his pretty looks and starts daydreaming about him being a K-pop idol[1], even sketching him in her notes[9]. But in episode 6, she notices him being picked on and swears to protect him as a big sister[5], completely unaware of Gray's status as Eunjang's White Mamba. Later in the series, when she realizes she lent him her notes without erasing her sketches of him, she's distraught and criticizes herself for not remembering[8]. However, all is remedied when Gray actually compliments her drawings, re-fueling her interest in him[10].
She's also very much a straight shooter, even disliking it when Hugo Yoon and his friend discuss Union activities in the cram school class. However, she's non confrontational for the most part. Instead of verbally calling them out, she internally complains about them and physically trembles in anger and frustration when Hugo steals Gray's notes. She also tends to cry when nervous or worried[11].
Aside from her natural curiosity, Lily shows exceptional empathy and a caring nature. She has a crush on Gray, but in the first few chapters, she seems more interested in pursing a friendship with him rather than a romantic relationship. She correctly assumes that his looks make him a target for bullying and expresses a deep concern for his well-being. The same is also true in regards to her close friends: worry drives her to the point of recklessness when she learns her best friend, Julia Chae, is in trouble.[12] Julia regards her as a strong and naturally warm person.[4] Lily also appears not to have a problem with tough love, smacking Julia on the back for walking away from her when she just wanted them to talk and work things out[13].
She's notably one of the only characters who doesn't curse in the official English translation.
History
She attended an unspecified girls' middle school with Julia Chae and Lala Lee. Although Lily was the nicest of the three, Julia stated that Lala was more careful around Lily[4]. Lily indulged Lala's claims of depression and constant mood swings, but was never talked into doing things she didn't want to, like following Lala on a double date.
Lily was unaware of the deteriorating relationship between Julia and Lala until Julia personally spoke to her, and at that point, it was too late to fix their friendship. The three grew apart, with Julia and Lily attending different high schools and Lala becoming a drop-out[14].
Plot
The year after graduating middle school, Lily pursues Julia in an attempt to work things out, but Julia is unresponsive[15]. Later, one of Lily's cram school classmates informs her that Lala and her Drop-Out Gang were targeting Julia. Lily is distressed by this and comes to the conclusion that she's the only one who can stop the situation from devolving further. She skips cram school and goes looking for where the Drop Out Gang could've taken Julia. She comes across Gray, Eugene, and Teddy, who help her locate and handle the members of the Drop Out Gang at the karaoke rooms[16][17].
Although she is shocked by the reveal of Gray's fighting prowess, she mainly focuses on protecting Julia until the debacle is over and they're safely out of the karaoke room. She denounces Lala as a friend and cuts off contact with her. Outside in a nearby alleyway, she and Julia have a heart to heart where Lily encourages Julia to stop hiding her feelings and confide in her. They officially make up with each other and Julia breaks down in Lily's arms[18].
Individual Appearances by Episode
| Episode | Appearance |
|---|---|
| Episode 5 | Lily is in the middle of her cram school class when Gray walks in late. As the teacher scolds Gray, Lily notices that he is a pretty boy, and comments that he's so pale. She thinks he'd be a perfect idol and imagines him as part of an idol group. The teacher calls for a break and Lily thinks that Hugo Yoon and his friends is making everyone uncomfortable by talking about fights. |
| Episode 6 | Lily witnesses Hugo and his friend steal Gray's notes. She trembles in anger and thinks that Gray shouldn't just give it to them. After cram school classes are over, Lily notices that she and Gray are getting on the same bus. She thinks Gray's innocent looks got his notes stolen, and wonders why he keeps weighing on her mind like a child left by the river. Lily thinks that next time, she'll keep him safe from the forces of evil. A description box mentions that Lily is deceptively strong. Lily was too caught up in her thoughts that she wasn't holding onto anything when the bus started moving and almost fell. As she glances in Gray's direction, she thinks that she'd like to get to know him. |
| Episode 9 | When Gray stands up and walks to the front of the classroom where Helmet is beating up a student, Lily thinks he’s out of his mind. She thinks someone needs to stop him because he might get assaulted, too. |
| Episode 104 | While at cram school, Lily receives a text from Lala who is annoyed that Lily didn’t reply yesterday and claims Lily is exactly like Julia. Lily thinks Lala is wearing her out and wonders what she [herself] is even doing.
Gray approaches Lily and although she keeps a calm façade on the outside, she is surprised and blushing on the inside. Gray asks to borrow her notes because he missed a few classes and says he’ll give them back to her tomorrow. Lily lends him her notes and tells him to take his time. |
| Episode 127 | Wolf, Beomsu, and the other Ganghak fodder sees Julia, who they are hunting down for assisting Jared with planting the bag on Rowan. Lily chases after Julia and wants to talk, but Julia says she doesn’t have anything to say to her. It is unknown if Lily was with Julia when the Ganghak students caught up to her, or if Julia was on her own by then. |
| Episode 128 | Lily wakes up in the middle of the night, blushing, because she forgot to erase the drawings she made of Gray in the notebook she lent to Gray. A brief flashback shows that she found Gray to be fun to draw. She thinks her cool act is ruined now. |
| Episode 130 | Gray returns the notes to Lily. She outwardly still maintains her cool composure, but internally she’s worried that Gray is bothered by her drawings. She’s surprised when Gray goes back to his seat without another word. Lily thinks it means he didn’t see the sketches and flips over to the pages; she sees his comments next to her sketches and thinks that’s sweet of him. She blushes and thinks that her mistake might turn out to be an opportunity. |
| Episode 187 | Before cram school starts, one of Lily’s friends asks if she has heard about Julia. Lily says she hasn’t been able to get a hold of her and asks if something happened. Lily’s friend says that yesterday, Lala took a shot at Julia on social media, and that it looks bad. Lily looks at the post and notices that it’s near the cram school. The friend asks if Lily knows anything since the three of them used to be close, but Lily says they haven’t hung out together since last year. |
| Episode 188 | Lily sees the post Lala made yesterday and is afraid that Lala might do something stupid. She becomes even more worried because Julia isn’t answering her calls. Since the photo was only taken thirty minutes ago, Lily packs her things and decides to try looking for her because she is the only person who can stop it. She tells her friend to tell the teacher that she had to run home because of an emergency and runs out of the classroom. Lily wonders why can’t those two just bury the hatchet and move on. |
| Episode 190 | One year ago, Lily, Lala, and Julia are all on friendly terms with each other. The flashback shows instances when Lala tries to make herself the center of attention all the time, such as interrupting Lily asking Julia about the name of a movie by claiming that she is depressed. She treats everyone like emotional garbage cans. Lily enables her behavior by constantly dropping everything to comfort her.
Another instance in the flashback shows Lala constantly butting in between Lily and Julia, with Lala intentionally taking all of Lily’s attention while excluding Julia from the conversation. Julia thinks Lala is more careful when it comes to Lily because Lily has a natural warmth to her and is strong, which is why Julia likes Lily. Lala begs Lily to go on a double date with her, but Lily tells her that she doesn’t like that kind of stuff. Lala says she can’t go alone, so Lily asks if she asked Julia. Lily seems desperate to get out of the double date so Julia reluctantly agrees to go for Lily’s sake. After the double date, Julia later meets up with Lily alone and finally reveals her true feelings towards Lala and exposes Lala’s hypocrisy. Julia tells Lily that she’s willing to be Lala’s emotional garbage can if she can act like a normal human being. She says it’s different for Lily since she’s known her for a long time, but for her, this is her limit. Lily calls out to Julia as she walks away, ending the flashback. |
| Episode 191 | Eugene notices Lily searching frantically near Ttosikki Chicken and asks Gray if she’s from his cram school class. Gray recognizes her and Eugene mentions that she looks really flustered and wonders if she lost something. They approach her and ask why she is so on edge. Lily hesitates and Gray notes that she looks like she might burst into tears any second.
Lily asks if they have seen a bunch of guys taking a girl somewhere around the area. Gray and Eugene haven’t seen anything like that, but Teddy points out that they went into the karaoke building. Lily thanks them, but Gray stops her from going in alone and asks if she wants them to go with her because she doesn’t look so good. Lily agrees, and Eugene and Gray accompany her. |
| Episode 192 | Lily tells Eugene and Gray that some stuff happened within her friend group, but she never would’ve thought things would get this bad. Before Eugene can check each room individually, Gray points out the correct room because the window’s been covered up, indicating the people inside have something to hide. Lily wonders how he knows this stuff.
Gray opens the door and Lily calls out to Julia, whom she sees is having her hair pulled by Lala. She yells at Lala and demands to know what she’s doing. Lala is annoyed that Lily is getting mad at her without even asking what happened. Lily confirms to Gray that they’re in the right room. Lily is shocked when Gray grabs the microphone and whacks it against one of the Jailbreak member’s heads. |
| Episode 193 | Lily witnesses Gray single handedly defeat all of the Jailbreak members. As she helps Julia up and asks if she can walk, she is stunned that Gray was able to completely turn the tables by himself in the blink of an eye against scary looking guys. She wonders just who Gray is.
When Jeongmu escapes the room, he shoves Julia into Lily, causing her to cry out in pain. |
| Episode 194 | She watches as Gerard beats up Jeongmu and Gray finishes him off. As they are leaving, Lala asks if Julia is okay.
Lala grabs Lily’s shoulder and blames Julia for everything, and then claims her behavior is because of her depression. Lala coldly tells her that they don’t know each other anymore, she’s blocking her on everything, and that they’re never talking to each other again. Her last favor to Lala is not chewing her out. She smacks Lala’s hand off of her shoulder, leaving Lala stunned. Julia thanks Lily, Gray, and Eugene for everything and says she'll be fine by herself. Lily asks where she is even going and that she’s not fine. Julia apologizes that they had to get mixed up in things and says that it’s all her fault. She says that Lily can go back to Julia now. She apologizes again and limps away. Lily smacks Julia’s back and says that she came to see her, not Lala. She says that Julia is just a teenager too and asks why she’s making things so complicated. She asks why she’s trying to shut her out. Lily tells Julia to not act tough and to cry if she needs to. She asks if Julia misses her, and holds Julia as she cries in her arms. |
Relationships
Julia Chae
Julia is Lily's best friend. They, along with Lala Lee, were close in middle school, and Julia often did favors for Lily even if they inconvenienced her. However, due to the decay of Julia's relationship with Lala, Julia detached herself from Lily, not wanting to be around Lala even if it meant avoiding Lily, whom she genuinely liked. In high school, Lily made attempts to reconnect with Julia, all which failed. Still, when she learned Julia was being pursued by a vengeful Lala, she decided she couldn't avoid Julia anymore and ran to save her. After the rescue, Lily employed some tough love and candid criticism about how Julia had been acting and they finally patched up their friendship.
Lala Lee
In middle school, Lily treated Lala delicately because of Lala's attention-seeking mood swings. She was unaware of how Lala mistreated Julia until Julia mentioned it, but Lily continued her increasingly strained friendship with Lala up until high school. Lily was at her wit's end with Lala's complaints and as soon as she learned of Lala targeting Julia, she didn't hesitate to cut off Lala, saying not chewing her out was the last favor she could afford Lala.
Gray Yeon
She and Gray share the same class at cram school. Lily developed a crush on him but didn't have a way to talk to him until he asked to borrow her notes. She was worried he'd think she was creepy when she realized he'd see her sketches of him in her notes, but Gray ended up leaving a note complimenting the sketches and she grew even fonder of him. She assumed he was helpless in the beginning, but after witnessing Gray's brutal beat down of Jeongmu Choi, her opinion of him shifted.
Although they had no interactions in cram school aside from Gray borrowing her notes that one time, Gray didn't hesitate to help Lily rescue Julia from Jailbreak.
Hugo Yoon
She and Hugo have the same cram school class. Lily is often irritated overhearing him talk about the Union and she considers him an evil douchebag, especially after he stole Gray's notes.
Abilities
Physical
She's shown slapping Julia Chae on the back, resulting in a smoking hand print left on Julia's shirt. However, it's unclear whether the depiction of the smoke was for comedic effect or to display Lily's actual physical strength, as other characters frequently leave smoke behind after punching someone.
Mental
She attends Hero Cram school and takes well-organized notes despite her habit of sketching in her notebook. She also likely attends Byuksan High School, one of the top schools in the area.
Trivia
- It's noted that she's "deceptively strong", hinting she might have above average strength.
- In a side by side comparison, she's currently the exact same height as Gray Yeon, who is 5' 4.5". However, he used to be 5'2, meaning Lily was taller than Gray at some point.
- Her favorite color is likely pink, since nearly everything in her bedroom is pink. She also has an affinity for cute furry animals, especially cats and bunnies, both which decorate her room and belongings.
- It is unconfirmed that Lily attends Byuksan High School, but her school uniform is very similar to what students at Byuksan High School wears as shown in Episode 25, so it can be assumed that Byuksan High is a co-ed school like its middle school counterpart and Lily is a student there.
Quotes
| “ | Talking about that kind of stuff in class? It's making everyone uncomfortable.
— [19]
|
” |
| “ | Why does he keep weighing on my mind...? Like a child left by the river.
— [20]
|
” |
| “ | ” |
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Chapter 5
- ↑ Chapter 195
- ↑ Chapter 192
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Chapter 191
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Chapter 6
- ↑ Chapter 190
- ↑ Chapter 191
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Chapter 129
- ↑ Chapter 129
- ↑ Chapter 131
- ↑ Chapter 8
- ↑ Chapter 189
- ↑ Chapter 195
- ↑ Chapter 188
- ↑ Chapter 127
- ↑ Chapter 193
- ↑ Chapter 194
- ↑ Chapter 195
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 [[ ]]
- ↑ [[ ]]