“…You have a talent for turning things around and speaking straightforwardly.”
“Sigh… Haru.”
“I’ve already said what the secretary wanted to hear from me, what she hoped I would say directly. I’ll do that. Because we’re breaking up…”
A surging anger that seemed impossible to contain any longer welled up. I couldn’t meet her gaze. Outwardly pretending to be tough, I was exposing my inner self that was already feeble and crumbling. Biting my lower lip, I finally spoke.
“…The responsibility for the words you said to me today, you must fulfill it without fail.”
“What responsibility are you talking about?”
“Jun, you must take responsibility to ensure that I never give up on my dream.”
“Of course.”
Her answer lightly floated up in the air and reached me. It seemed to mock my fluctuating heart with a lightness as if ridiculing.
“The responsibility that has come to me through the conversation with Haru today, I will fulfill it. Don’t worry about it at all.”
Although I got the answer I wanted, it felt like I didn’t get the answer I truly desired. I was afraid that if I said anything more, tears would mix into my voice.
I had an intuition that once it started, the crying would be unstoppable. I thought that would be enough, so instead of words, I just nodded my head.
Responding to the already belated, affectionate suggestion to stand up, I replied to go first. Without asking twice, she disappeared, leaving behind a bright smile.
Her refreshed expression, pouring out the words I had kept in my heart, seemed to mock me, saying, “But why do you look so sad?”
The moment I heard her leaving the room, unable to hold back the rising tears, I wiped them away with my hands. The tears didn’t seep through my hands. Tears in my eyes only spread wider.
I, too, want to see Jun shining brightly. It’s not just you. So don’t look at people so pitifully. I won’t say it again and again because it will be like that. Jun, I’ll send you back to your original place.
This love, I’ll stop it because I can.
The words I couldn’t say a while ago started to circulate in my mouth. I held my breath a little longer and cried quietly.
Jun in front of the hotel door, where everything had stopped. Before pressing the bell, I took out a compact from my bag and looked at my face in the mirror.
After crying for a long time at the cafe, crying even while walking on the street after leaving the cafe, and stealing tears in the taxi, tears didn’t stop even when the kind taxi driver told me to go when I arrived at the hotel.
Worried that traces might remain on my swollen eyes, I stood outside the door for a long time.
I forced myself to hold back the tears to show a firm appearance as if nothing had happened. The eye sockets in the mirror were a bit swollen, but the traces of redness were faint.
I had no intention of talking about parting today. I wanted to spend an ordinary day with Jun. Tomorrow is the day of the final interview for the actress candidates who will play the lead role in the movie, and I couldn’t ruin Jun’s schedule because of me.
Before Jun returned to Japan, on the last day of his stay in Korea, I had planned to convey my decision to him that day. So today had to be ordinary. I had to spend simple, mundane moments like ordinary couples.
Even while harboring the cruel word “goodbye” in my heart, I had to do it so ordinary that Jun wouldn’t notice.
Ding-dash. The doorbell rang the moment my hand reached it. Since I couldn’t hear any signs of movement, I wondered if he was deeply asleep.
Thinking that I should just go without waking the poor guy up, the moment I turned my steps, clank, the door opened.
Jun, who seemed to have just gotten up, appeared through the crack in the door. The back of his head was slightly sticking up, and his eyes were misty against my will. His attire was the same as when he went for the audition.
“You came?”
Even in this situation, the smile that filled his lips was beautiful.
“Yeah. Have you been sleeping all this time?”
Entering through the opening in the door, Jun spoke.
“I didn’t even wash up.”
“I wasn’t feeling well, so I lay down for a bit.”
He said that much about his condition but blurred the end of the sentence. Moving inside, he asked.
“What about food? I bought some porridge this morning and put it in the fridge.”
There was no reply. Jun, glancing at me, picked up a bottle of water and sat on the sofa, gulping it down.
“You need to eat to take medicine. But you haven’t eaten or taken medicine until now.”
“Oh, Yoon Secretary left medicine in the car, so I brought it.”
As my hand reached into the refrigerator to take out the porridge, Jun’s tone caught my attention. It wasn’t because he spoke energetically about bringing medicine even though he hadn’t taken it. It was the words before that. The fact that Yoon Secretary took care of Jun. My body reacted before my mind processed the information.
“Oh, really… I also bought medicine.”
I don’t know why I suddenly felt a pang of sadness. The origin of this melancholy feeling, I…
“Haru, then give me that medicine. I’ll take the medicine you bought.”
Jun got up from the sofa and approached me, saying, “Well, give me the medicine. I want to take the one you bought.” Reading my heart, which was subtly upset, he often moved my emotions so gently.
With just a few swift steps, Jun quickly blocked my way.
But then, suddenly, Jun covered my cheeks with his hands. His fingers tenderly stroked my eyelids, causing my eyes to close involuntarily.
“Why are your eyes like this?”
After Being Cheated On, She Picked Up a Treasure (Female-dominant)
One-line summary: The husband I married on a whim had been secretly in love with me for a long time.
On the day when Jun Shao finally obtained the imperial decree for her marriage, Lan Qu, the person she had admired for six years, defied the decree and ran away.
Her gentleness and devotion, her promise of a lifetime together, were all disregarded by him. Instead, he dreamed of entering the palace to serve the Emperor’s sister as a sixth-rank attendant.
News of this incident spread throughout the capital, and the alleys in front of and behind the Lan mansion were crowded with people who came to watch the commotion.
Jun Shao should have been embarrassed and angry.
But someone stepped in to protect her dignity.
The figure was in a miserable state, yet still possessed an undeniable elegance and handsomeness.
The young lord struggled to climb the wall of the Lan mansion and shouted to her, “If he won’t marry you, I will!”
So, Jun Shao took advantage of the situation and married the person.
She thought the young lord did it to save the Lan family from the crime of defying the imperial decree, but never imagined that from beginning to end, what he coveted was her.
*
After the wedding, Jun Shao felt like she was living in a dream.
Her Wife-master was as beautiful as a fairy in a painting, skilled in the six arts, well-versed in poetry and literature, capable of being gentle and attentive, and also grand and dignified. Most importantly, she was the only one in his heart and eyes.
Jun Shao didn’t know how Lan Shiwu, as a illegitimate son without a father and blessed with beauty, had managed to preserve his purity, recklessly escape, and use his last ounce of strength to ruin his own reputation, all because of his love for her, just to stand before her.
She could only see him gazing at her with eyes full of love, and when she bestowed a name upon him, his eyes shone like stars.
“You have come to me like a weary bird perching on a branch. I shall call you A Qi.”
