It wasn’t intentional, but it was an enjoyable evening.
The heaviness in my heart, brought on by Researcher Jung Chanhyung’s confession, scattered like sand swept away by waves, making the burden significantly lighter.
Back at the bus stop.
When I took out my phone from my bag, there was a message from Ji Seojun.
[Who is it? Who confessed to you?]Thinking I heard Ji Seojun’s voice in the message, I glanced around. I read the message again, wondering if it supported voice playback.
This time, an image of Ji Seojun’s face, with a handsome forehead, crossed my mind.
[Jung Chanhyung, the researcher. He revealed he has a boyfriend, and I accurately conveyed my feelings too.]As I replied, I briefly regretted telling someone who’s just working. The bus heading towards my house arrived, and I boarded, shivering in the cold weather.
Sitting in one of the few empty seats, I took out my phone again, finding another message from Ji Seojun.
I chuckled at the hastily written message.
[Call me when work is over. I’ll tell you everything you’re curious about.]Putting my phone back in my bag, I looked out the window. Trees, changing their clothes in various colors, were gradually undressing.
Confession of autumn.
Sighing deeply in the midst of this inexplicable emotional turmoil, I noticed someone familiar in the direction of the pedestrian crossing—a familiar back of the head.
“Han Taei?”
Han Taei was walking along with a woman, engaging in a friendly conversation. The woman who seemed to be earnestly explaining something by Han Taei’s side also looked quite familiar.
As the bus briefly stopped at the traffic signal, I twisted my body and stretched my neck to see the woman’s face.
In that brief moment when her face was about to be visible.
“I see her. I… see her.”
She abruptly turned her head, hiding her face again.
The bus, oblivious to my eager heart, accelerated, distancing itself from them.
As their figures completely disappeared, I sat with clenched fists, lost in contemplation.
Han Taei, the person Ji Seojun struggled with the most in the 1st year of middle school. He was at the center of it all, Ji Seojun’s closest friend.
Inside the rattling bus, I recalled a day when I was 14.
Grabbing Ji Seojun, crying at the playground, I held his eyes open for an hour. Eventually, Ji Seojun yielded to me.
“What if you found out that a friend you trusted wasn’t actually a friend?”
“What are you talking about? Tell me plainly.”
With swollen eyes, Ji Seojun glared at me and let out a deep sigh.
“I made friends easily when I went to middle school… I quickly became close with a guy who was good at communicating and smart.”
Though I didn’t know who that guy was, never having met him, I felt that we wouldn’t get along.
“But…”
In response to Ji Seojun’s words, my chest bubbled and boiled, and it felt like steam was rising from my head.
In front, pretending to be friendly, acting as if we were close, the kid would smoothly maneuver, but behind my back, subtly inciting other kids, they indirectly avoided Ji Seojun.
“I sensed that the atmosphere in the class was a bit strange. I thought it could happen, so I didn’t pay much attention.”
What could happen? Because Ji Seojun, who had subtly fallen into kindness, was concerned, I became anxious.
“Trash in the bag or desk drawers, and occasionally missing gym clothes. Ah, sometimes I received letters with curses written on them, but I thought it was just a joke.”
That was a joke? Ji Seojun seemed even kinder than I had thought.
No, not kind, but foolish. Why didn’t this smart guy say anything even after such incidents… Really, Ji Seojun was someone I couldn’t fully understand.
“But… it made me angry when the Olympiad mock exam papers were torn to shreds.”
It was Ji Seojun who was preparing for the chemistry and physics Olympiads. Just a first-year middle school student. Just turned 14, Ji Seojun, even compared to his 3rd-year siblings, wasn’t lacking. There were high expectations at school and academies. Of course, Ji Seojun worked hard.
I knew how hard he worked. He always liked studying and worked diligently, but this time, it was different.
Pouring coffee and cutting down on sleep, Ji Seojun, who was studying hard, I didn’t know who the culprits were, but I wanted to tear their bags into shreds for what they did.
“Did you tell the teacher?”
“No.”
“Ugh! Falling into kindness! Try doing to others what they did to me! Ugh! It’s frustrating!”
I pounded my chest with frustration.
“Still, I wanted to know who did it. I casually threw it away in the trash bin, openly put out the mock exam papers picked up from the academy on my desk, and secretly watched.”
“So… did you see? Who did it?”
Ji Seojun, shaking his head, clenched his fists tightly.
“It was a friend. The one I thought was my closest friend… Turns out, he also incited other kids.”
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.”
