Our Every Moment - Chapter 15

Just let me cry my heart out. This kind of kindness is a bit uncomfortable…

Even through my blurred vision, I see a man’s hand, a man’s handkerchief. It’s burdensome. As I think about how to refuse, I roughly wipe my tears and turn my head to look up at the man.

“Oh, you… How did you get here?”

Surprisingly, Kang Mo was standing tall in front of me. Why did he suddenly come here during work hours? The tears that had briefly stopped started flowing down my cheeks again.

“I had a feeling you’d be here like this.”

Kang Mo lifted his handkerchief and wiped the tears hanging from my chin.

“I’ll do it.”

As I try to snatch the handkerchief from Kang Mo’s hand, he quickly raises it. He gently lifts my chin with one hand and carefully dabs the tears smeared on my face.

“I said I’ll do it.”

“Just leave me be.”

I couldn’t meet Kang Mo’s eyes as he stared at me intently. I fixed my gaze on his Adam’s apple and held my breath. His low, thick voice quietly flowed into my ears.

“You still have tears left to shed after crying so much? Stop crying now. If you come here and cry like this every time, do you think our elder sister can rest in peace?”

I know, but I can’t help it. I want to smile for her now. I want to smile and tell her that this incompetent friend is still doing well so she doesn’t have to worry.

But whenever I see that wicked girl’s smiling photos, that day comes to mind. That day when that nasty girl asked nonsensical questions with a smile. When I think about how I went along with it with a smile, when I think about the words I uttered so casually, I still feel like going crazy.

“Baek Seo Hee, it’s time to forget. It’s not your fault. No one blames you. Not father, not me, and… our mother never blamed you either. You know that. Mom was even sorry. You were elder sister’s only friend. She was grateful that thanks to you, she wasn’t lonely until the end… and sorry that she left such a heavy burden on your heart.”

*Sobs* A wail burst out from the surging sorrow.

I resented Joo Yeon so much. The friend who said I was her only friend, yet left such a big rock, a rock like a boulder that I can neither remove nor break, on my heart.

Seeing my endless tears that kept flowing no matter how much he wiped, Kang Mo let out a short sigh and pulled me into a tight embrace.

If it were me at any other time, I would have pushed him away long ago, but my trembling body didn’t budge and kept sobbing and shedding tears.

Kang Mo just silently stroked my back as my tears soaked his chest. Perhaps because my sobs sounded so sad, his eyes had also turned red at some point.

Seo Hee, who had washed her face and touched up her makeup, blushed when she found Kang Mo waiting in front of the restroom and walked ahead. Kang Mo, who smiled in amusement at the sight, quickly came to her side and matched his steps with hers.

“But Kang Mo, how did you really know to come here?”

“I told you, I came because I knew you’d be here. Whenever I visited elder sister, there were flowers I hadn’t seen before. The only people who would visit our elder sister now are you and me. You must have come back to Korea from time to time? And visited here each time?”

“…Yes. I was curious how she was doing, and I missed her.”

Kang Mo let out a short sigh, and his words sounded blunt.

“You were curious how our dead elder sister was doing, but I guess you weren’t curious at all about me, who is alive.”

“You really have a way with words…”

“What, why? Did I say something wrong? Every time you came from abroad, you made sure to visit elder sister, but that’s why you had no idea. I thought you were in some other province, I never imagined you’d be abroad…”

As Kang Mo swallowed a curse under his breath and tried to continue, his cell phone rang.

“Just a moment.”

“Sure. Take your time.”

Kang Mo glanced at Seo Hee after checking the caller ID, then hurriedly answered the phone and stepped away.

Seo Hee continued walking slowly. Kang Mo’s voice grew more distant, and the sound of unknown birds tickled her ears.

Passing under the shade of green-colored trees, she looked up at the blankly stretched blue sky and shook her head strongly to erase the image of her friend that naturally came to mind. She didn’t want to show Kang Mo, of all people, the sight of her crying while thinking of her friend.

As she tried to calm her mind alone and forcibly immerse herself in other thoughts, Kang Mo tapped her shoulder at some point.

“What were you thinking about that you didn’t hear me calling? Let’s go together.”

“Oh, just… Some old memories came to mind for a moment. Did your call go well?”

Kang Mo nodded and cautiously asked Seo Hee.

“By the way, have you been to the studio apartment you said you found?”

Seo Hee sighed involuntarily as the topic of the studio apartment, which she had briefly forgotten, came up, and replied in a calm tone.

“No, I haven’t had a chance to go yet. I thought my mom would… surely choose a good place.”

“I’m sure she did. You said you’re moving into the studio apartment tomorrow?”

“Yeah.”

Kang Mo, who had an enigmatic smile on his face, nodded.

“If you don’t like the studio apartment you moved to or if there are any issues, you can come to my apartment. You’d like it the…”

“Why would I go there?”

Kang Mo’s smile vanished in an instant at the sight of Seo Hee’s stern expression before he could even finish his sentence, and his brow furrowed.

Come to think of it, yesterday, the relief of seeing Seo Hee again had relaxed his tension and he couldn’t think straight. He belatedly realized that after they had parted so abruptly in Guam, he hadn’t had a proper conversation with her.

“I was too tired yesterday to think straight. We still have things to talk about, don’t we? We need to finish the conversation we couldn’t in Guam.”

“…”

Instead of the sharp retort from earlier, Seo Hee walked with her lips pressed tightly together, staring at the distant mountains. Kang Mo grabbed her arm to stop her.

“Why aren’t you saying anything? Baek Seo Hee, don’t tell me you’re planning to hit and run again?”

Seo Hee’s startled gaze pierced right through Kang Mo.

“H-hit and run? When have I ever done that? You really say the strangest things…”

“You have a history of it. What, you don’t remember this time either?”

“…”

Seeing Seo Hee moving her lips as if she couldn’t find the words to say, Kang Mo couldn’t help but express his disappointment.

“Exactly 4 years ago, you hit my lips and ran, and this time you’re trying to hit my lips and run again? I didn’t think you were like that, but you have no conscience, no conscience at all. Huh? How can you even think of hitting and running not once, but twice?”

Seo Hee’s cheeks flushed bright red. She quickly surveyed the surroundings and spoke in a very low voice.

“Lee Kang Mo, lower your voice. Let’s have some discretion about time and place, please. Okay? I don’t think this is the place to talk about such things.”

As soon as she finished speaking, Kang Mo grabbed one of Seo Hee’s hands and strode ahead.

“What are you doing? Why are you suddenly acting like this?”

“You said to have discretion about time and place. Let’s go to my car and finish talking.”

Kang Mo gripped the small, wiggling hand tightly, leaving no room for it to slip away.

Kang Mo’s car was the only one parked in the empty parking lot. He took out the remote, unlocked the car, opened the passenger door, and gently pushed the stiffly standing Seo Hee to sit.

As he walked past the hood towards the driver’s seat, he never took his eyes off Seo Hee in the passenger seat. As soon as he opened the driver’s door and sat down, he turned his waist towards Seo Hee.

“Baek Seo Hee, don’t draw the line anymore with the word ‘brother’. That doesn’t work on me anymore. That day, to you, I was clearly a man. No, not just that day, but 4 years ago too, we were just a man and a woman. Not an elder sister and a younger brother.”

Seo Hee moved her lips as if she had something to say, but couldn’t easily open her mouth and let out a thin sigh. Kang Mo stared at her intently and continued in a confident tone.

“Don’t even think about denying it. You clearly felt me as a man too. Am I mistaken? Am I?”

Kang Mo was frustrated to see Seo Hee not readily opening her mouth. He was worried that his impatient heart would only make Seo Hee’s cautious heart close up more, but he couldn’t find any composure.

“Don’t even think about saying I’m a younger man. Can’t you be honest for once, please?”

“Kang Mo, I… I…”

“Do you hate acknowledging your feelings, or do you really just dislike me?”

Seo Hee strongly shook her head, denying Kang Mo’s words.

“It’s not like that. Why would I… dislike you?”

“Then what’s the problem? You know well how I feel, so why do you keep trying to push me away?”

Seo Hee bit her lip as she looked at Kang Mo, who was gazing at her more earnestly than ever. Her mind was in complete disarray, not knowing what to say or how to say it.

That I still don’t know my own heart well, that it’s not that I dislike you, but that I’m afraid of the many problems a change in our relationship would cause, the self-blame that always comes to mind when I see you, the complex changes in my feelings towards you.

Because you’re not someone I can casually date and break up with, Kang Mo. Because you’re too precious to me. Because if our love goes wrong, we… can never go back to how we were before.

Rather than risking losing you, maybe I just want to stay by your side for a long time, even as an elder sister… I don’t know my own heart well, so what can I say and how? What should I do?

Male lead is a Divorced Husband

She said to him: “Tell me, what makes you like me? I’ll change it!”

Liu Changning transmigrated into a female cannon fodder character in a female-dominant novel.

After reading the first half of the novel’s plot, the first thing she did upon transmigration was to divorce the Pan Jinlian-style male protagonist she had just married.

She indulged herself, pretending to be ugly and poor.

But as time passed, the way that man looked at her became more and more unusual…

Liu Changning was dumbfounded: Tell me, what makes you like me? I’ll change!

――

This lifetime, Pei Yuanshao was rejected by the same woman twice!

The first time, she drove him away. Forced by the situation, he endured the waves of anger in his heart, yielding and humbling himself.

That person lay slanted on a rocking chair, her sallow face emotionless: “If you don’t want a divorce, go cook!”

Pei Yuanshao’s face was dark and gloomy: “You!”

The second time, after the crisis in Jinling City was resolved, the new emperor sent someone to pick him up. He turned around, stammering: “I… I have to go. If you keep me…”

That person lay on the kang bed, her back to him, as if she had long anticipated this day, crisp and clear: “Goodbye!”

Pei Yuanshao was so angry his fingers trembled: “You… you!”

The mission of family and country made him restrain himself, averting his eyes and turning to leave this broken household.

Two years later, they met again. Seeing her ethereal face, his body shook like a sieve.

“She was originally a ‘she’!”

At the Qionglin Banquet, the top scholar of the imperial examination, a talented person with exceptional speech and conduct, all the unmarried young gentlemen from aristocratic families looked at her with shy and timid eyes.

The peerless imperial official Pei Yuanshao felt the anger in his heart erupt. He pointed at the woman surrounded by the crowd at the Qionglin Banquet, his thin lips slightly curled: “Little sister, I wants that person to be the wife-master of my Mingde Prince Manor.”

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