Side Story 8. Don’t Provoke Me2024.04.19.Yuan narrowed her brow, her face showing she didn’t understand Clade’s words.
Beneath her furrowed brow, her dark eyes, unfairly distorted, kept tugging at his nerves.
A strange anger surged toward Yuan, who seemed unaware of how beautiful she was.
“I don’t want to look like a bald, creepy old man to you.”
It meant his head was filled with thoughts only a bald, creepy old man would have.
Finally grasping the meaning behind his words, Yuan relaxed her brow and replied.
“Aren’t you kind of a creep, though?”
“Don’t provoke me…”
He muttered in anguish, rubbing his face dryly. He forcibly turned away, suppressing the urge to pull her into his arms and kiss her.
If he held Yuan now, he felt he wouldn’t be able to stop pouring out the darkness that had clouded his heart that morning because of that Kimfri guy.
Clade didn’t want to taint Yuan with even a hint of the shadowed heart he hadn’t yet erased, like the back of the mansion.
“You never once said I was beautiful. If it were Noel, he’d have told Tasha she was beautiful a hundred times over…”
Yuan muttered in a sulky tone, staring at his broad back, and Clade froze, turning his head.
Seeing her expression, heavy with disappointment, his heart felt like it dropped and rolled on the floor.
Lately, Yuan had been murmuring more often that Noel or Tasha would have liked whatever she was doing.
Each time, Clade couldn’t shake the feeling that invisible people—one, two, or more—were wedging themselves between him and Yuan.
Normally, he let it slide, but hearing her grumble in the bedroom about how someone else would have spoken differently made his lips tremble in disbelief.
Even with all those sparkling things dangling from her, Yuan didn’t even think to wear the ring he’d given her, and suddenly, he started to resent her.
“When you said earlier you’d invite Eugene Kimfri to the wedding.”
The anxiety he’d been suppressing surged to his head, and a hoarse voice reached out to Yuan, who was heading behind the partition to change.
“Why did you just look surprised and say nothing?”
Her shadow, faintly visible, seemed to pause. When Yuan’s voice didn’t come, his heart raced.
His ears buzzed, and his breath grew short.
Even this time, Enoch Pelliese refused all the new dowry payments and kept repeating that he couldn’t agree to nullify the divorce since he hadn’t discussed it with Yuan yet.
It would’ve been easier to just ask Yuan directly.
What was she thinking, not discussing the divorce nullification with her uncle?
Did she think it was fine because they had strong trust and love, even without being bound by papers, or…
“Do you not want to marry me?”
Clade panted like an orphaned child, his voice trembling with emotion.
“…The wedding talk caught me off guard, that’s all.”
“Everyone else does it. A wedding.”
Before he could even process what he was saying, his racing heart set the rhythm, and his mouth moved on its own.
“We haven’t had a wedding.”
“Clade.”
“I want to.”
Yuan, half-dressed, stepped out from behind the partition to face Clade.
His bloodshot eyes glared at her pitifully. Yuan clutched her swirling emotions.
“I want a wedding too.”
“Then why aren’t you wearing the ring?”
He finally spat out the word he’d been holding back. Once the truth broke free, it wasn’t easily contained.
“Your uncle still hasn’t stamped the divorce nullification papers I sent. Do you know what that means?”
His trembling voice paused. Biting his lips hard, he whispered.
“It means we’re still divorced. Do you know how much that makes me anxious?”
“Clade, I…”
“I’m having nightmares I hadn’t had before. About you leaving again…”
Though his eyes were only bloodshot, with no tears falling,
Yuan thought he was sobbing.
To her, the towering man was trembling, confessing his fears.
“I heard what you told Lancelot last time, that I’d only be fully recovered if I could live well without you. You said this is your home. That you’re back, that you’ve come home. I really don’t understand…!”
The words spilling out in his anxiety stopped abruptly.
Seeing Yuan’s face, her long lashes lowered with a regretful expression, he suddenly snapped back to reality.
He clenched his teeth to avoid making a bigger mistake.
He didn’t want to get angry at Yuan.
Since meeting her, he’d only ever done wrong.
He’d hurt her with cruel words, treated her so harshly that she’d have every right not to forgive him, and even driven her toward death.
He shouldn’t be berating her just because he was anxious.
A sudden wave of failure and despair crushed his anxiety.
“…I’m sorry.”
He willingly bowed his head. Unable to embrace the woman standing there, he hurriedly pulled her into his arms.
Burying his face in her white neck amid her scattered blonde hair, he rubbed his suppressed anxiety against her.
“I’m scared you’ll run away, that you’ll leave me behind…”
His trailing words were crushed by regret and fear.
Until Yuan, who had been stiff, quietly returned his embrace.
Like a young animal seeking milk, he rubbed his firm cheek against her neck, repeatedly begging for forgiveness.
Yuan tightly held the trembling man. His faint shivers filled her embrace.
It wasn’t that she didn’t understand Clade’s anxiety.
She regretted not discussing her thoughts with him sooner.
She’d thought that just being together was enough, that Clade must feel the same.
She hadn’t realized he’d be so anxious about the paperwork.
Yuan held him until he calmed, then led him to the vanity.
He let himself be led, still holding her, and watched as she took something from a drawer.[National Academy Medical Department Recommendation Letter]No long explanation was needed. The moment a single sheet of paper emerged from the envelope Eugene Kimfri had given her, Clade’s face drained of color.
“What I realized while traveling across this country all last year… was how little I knew about the world.”
“…”
Clade’s quieter-than-expected reaction gave Yuan a bit of courage to continue.
“When I had my abilities, I wasn’t free from pain, but I always felt like I had a weapon in hand. I was confident I could pull it out and overcome any crisis when needed.”
“Don’t glorify that damned ability.”
Clade, still grinding his teeth at the thought of “Pelliese’s ability,” spat out bitterly.
Yuan looked at him steadily, then replied without backing down.
“I’ve become an ordinary person now, and I’ve lost the ability I used my whole life. Without it, I think I at least need an education. Medicine, yes, but I also want to study other things.”
“You’re a noble who doesn’t need to work, and you could be a duchess. Everyone here already treats you as such. If you want to learn something, I can hire as many tutors as you need.”
“The Pellieses were always working nobles. I’m still the head of the Pelliese family, and coincidentally, we’re divorced right now. Tutors have their limits compared to the rigorous academics of the Academy.”
The Academy had strict procedures for married individuals to enroll.
That’s why Yuan had unconsciously avoided talking about marriage, just in case.
And, in a way, she’d always been thinking about leaving this place… leaving him.
“…You said you came back.”
He wasn’t angry. No matter what Yuan did to him, he couldn’t be angry.
But her leaving him was a different matter.
“You said you came back, that you were home, so why are you doing this?”
“I’m saying I want to go to school, not that I’m running away from you.”
His voice, trembling pitifully like a young lover blindsided by a breakup, slipped through his teeth.
He shook his head, overwhelmed by an inexplicable sense of betrayal.
“No. You can’t.”
A fierce rejection twisted his heart.
Surrounded by Tasha, Noel, Eugene Kimfri, and people he didn’t know, he felt pushed further outside Yuan’s world.
Her kind, dark eyes sparkled and curved toward someone else.
Intense jealousy swelled, filling his chest. A dark premonition overtook his reason.
He imagined Yuan leaving for school and never returning.
Yuan, staring at his wildly shaking eyes, the veins bulging in his neck, and his trembling hands, gave a bitter smile, seeing him fight his immense anxiety without even getting angry at her.
“…Alright.”
“What do you mean, alright? I…”
“I won’t go.”
Yuan tore the recommendation letter in front of him and stuffed it into a small trash bin.
“I was just saying that’s how I felt, and it seems I made you anxious.”
Clade, frozen like a rock, watched Yuan head toward the door with only his eyes.
“I’m sorry for making you anxious for no reason… I won’t go, so don’t worry.”
Her bittersweet smile as she left the room burned painfully into his eyes.
Top Celebrity Younger Brother Bears Her Child (Female-dominant)
One-line summary: Forced to live stream romance with a top celebrity in a female-dominant world.
Yan Jin transmigrated into a brothel, with a fellow transmigrated junior beside her.
Hearing the obscene words coming from outside, the unfortunate junior covered his ears tightly, his cheeks flushed red, and whispered to comfort her, “Don’t worry, I will definitely help you escape.”
“Don’t worry, I will definitely defend your chastity.” Yan Jin looked at the flawless and delicate features of the unfortunate junior and gently comforted, “Because we have transmigrated into a female-dominant world.”
※※※
Top celebrity Yu Shu suddenly fell into a coma during a concert.
Research scientist Yan Jin fainted in the lab after working overtime.
Two people with no connection were rushed to the same hospital.
Three days later, neither of them had woken up.
Suddenly, the entire nation discovered that a live streaming app had been forcibly installed on their phones.
Upon opening it, they heard the two discussing how to escape from the brothel.
The entire internet was in an uproar.
After the two successfully escaped from the brothel, Yu Shu’s fan group rushed to make a banner and sent it to the hospital overnight.
“Big sister bravely took action to defend the chastity of our idol!”
※※※
When Yu Shu was diagnosed with pregnancy, Yan Jin stared at his belly for a long time.
Covering his stomach, he muttered gloomily, “If you don’t like it, I’ll go get an abortion.”
“It’s not that I don’t like it.” Yan Jin hugged Yu Shu and said softly, “I just feel like I’m not human.”
Yu Shu comforted Yan Jin, “I was already an adult when we got together.”
Yan Jin hesitated, “But you won’t be of legal marriageable age even after giving birth to the child.”
At the same time, a flood of bullet comments appeared in the live streaming room that the two couldn’t see.
[Although it’s inappropriate, I also want a young and handsome boyfriend to have my child.]
①Male pregnancy (highlighted)
The female lead is five years older than the male lead, and the male lead is already an adult when he appears.
