“Just that I really want to shoot well. I’ll go up first. The July schedule is going to be redone anyway. So tonight’s video conference is meaningless. I’ll apologize to the others, so you can go now too.”
Leaving Secretary Yoon, who tried to stop me, behind, I hurried upstairs.
The door hinge creaked as I closed the door, an irritating sound to my ears. But it didn’t matter. Creating a space where my emotions couldn’t be detected by anyone, that was enough.
I wanted to hide my body somewhere. Anywhere.
A sense of relief washed over me, realizing I was now alone in this space.
“Sigh…….”
As soon as I sat on the bed, my head, which had been tensely pressed down, slumped. All this happened in just a few minutes.
Haru, just the thought of you so easily cracks my otherwise tranquil day.
Instinctively setting conditions to keep you here, irresponsibly blowing off all my schedules. And yet, still fretting over whether I should have done more, whether I shouldn’t have let them go, fearing you might disappear again without a trace, feeling utterly trivial.
But Haru, don’t run away. There are still things you and I need to do together.
My hand on the bedsheet clenched.
I had to finish it by July. To say goodbye to everything that reminds me of you.
Since the year you left me, my year has started in June. The time when memories of the day you came to me are most vivid.
And the July you left. As I feel the warmth of July on my skin, I recall the pain of that day. The full summer, the brighter the sun shone on me, the more paradoxically I seemed to sink into a terrible abyss.
That brilliant season from late spring to summer had thus dimmed within me.
So, it was the perfect time to part with these memories. I wanted to reclaim the sensations of a brilliant summer. I wanted to set right the sincerity you had hidden from me in the times I loved you, in those memories. I wanted to finally understand that light sincerity of yours from back then, when you were always ready to leave me.
That’s why I wanted to cleanly betray myself from the time I loved you passionately.
Only then, it seemed, I could part with you. I could face a complete summer. A hot summer all by myself, without a hint of lingering attachment to the spring, to you.
There, in front of the house, I stand.
In my memories, it’s a bit blurry and vague, the sharp triangular roof of the wooden house fading in the light, but now it stands solidly in front of me, seemingly within reach if I run and stretch out my hand.
The house that must have silently stood its ground during the 9 years I was not by Jun’s side.
……Or perhaps, what this house was guarding was not just barren land, but the very spot where I left Jun.
I quickly lowered my gaze. I opened the small wooden door that barely reached my waist and stepped into the yard.
With a few steps, the thick scent of green grass filled my chest.
The house was just the same. It had waited here all along. Even in the time I was absent.
With a trembling heart, I forcibly inhaled and stood in front of Jun’s house door. I neatly aligned my feet. I didn’t have the courage to ring the bell right away without any mental preparation.
Is Jun really behind this door?
Just the thought made my heart shrink rapidly, bringing a sharp pain that made me exhale hastily.
I moved my finger toward the bell beside the door. But just before my hand reached the round bell, my heart fluttered so uncontrollably that I hastily withdrew my hand.
The thought that ringing this bell would make it impossible to avoid meeting Jun. My unprepared heart made me pace back and forth in front of the door several times.
Just as I took a deep breath and was about to ring the bell, the door suddenly flung open.
A man visible through the open door, not giving me a moment to compose myself, said,
“Were you reciting some spell to open the door? What are you doing, standing in front of the door?”
I recognized him at a glance. It was Jun.
That gruff voice. The eyebrows raised in displeasure but eyes still enveloping me warmly like a puppy’s. His brown hair, shining under the sun that seemed to overflow around this house alone.
The image of Jun as a twenty-year-old boy from my memories overlapped with the man standing in front of me.
“I saw you come in through the gate earlier…….”
I struggled to maintain my gaze towards Jun. He cocked his head and looked down at me.
“What, don’t recognize me because it’s been too long? It’s been a while since I erased you from my memory, hard to recall now?”
I couldn’t believe Jun was standing in front of me. It was too surreal. Staring at his eyes, nose, lips as if caressing them, all I got in return was such an unpleasant remark.
My lips parted slightly, but I couldn’t utter a word. Jun spoke, seeing me speechless.
“Then take a good look. It’s Kim Jun you knew, alright.”
I swallowed inconspicuously. Maybe it was because my heart was trembling. My gaze, which I dropped for a moment and then lifted, was shaky.
Jun’s gaze seemed to spread heat everywhere it touched. Eventually, I turned my eyes around the door and awkwardly greeted him in an atmosphere as tense as the air enveloping us.
“Have you been well?”
The Villainous Demon Lord Laid an Egg for Her (Female-Dominated)
Several months after transmigrating into a book, Yu Wu found herself facing the demon lord Li You, who could no longer conceal his dragon horns. With one hand on her aching waist and the other gripping a sharp sword, she stared at him.
The demon lord’s eyes were red with fury:
“This is all your doing! Today, I won’t rest until I kill you!”
Yu Wu rubbed her temples. Putting aside the taboo against bloodshed during pregnancy, wasn’t it this very man who willingly walked into her trap that day?!
Warnings:
- Male pregnancy.
- Height ratios are set to mirror typical male-female height proportions.
- Characters include a foot-loving demon lord and an eldest daughter from an immortal family’s concubine lineage.
