Blushing, he reached behind to feel the wall, and Soo-young realized he was lost.
Being visually impaired, he must always be conscious of direction and step count in his own home, but now he couldn’t even find his way.
She considered guiding him, but touching seemed to be his biggest aversion. Pondering what to do, Soo-young asked him,
“If you don’t like me touching you… are you okay with touching me?”
“What?”
“Are you okay with touching me? You’ve touched me a few times before…”
The way she phrased it might have sounded odd, but both were too earnest to notice the strangeness of it.
“If it’s okay for you to touch me, do you want to hold on and move together?”
“…No need to hold on. Just describe the way.”
Woo-jin stepped away from the wall and spoke curtly.
“Do you want to sit at the table? Eat ramen with me.”
“Why are you still on about ramen?”
He couldn’t fathom why, after all that commotion, she still insisted on sharing ramen with him.
“I’m hungry, and so are you. Ramen smells and tastes good, don’t you think? I happened to buy an extra one, knowing this would happen. There’s rice in the fridge; let’s heat it up and eat together. Okay?”
Considering he hadn’t eaten ramen in a while due to his aversion to hot food, the smell must have been tempting, as evidenced by his stomach growling.
Her stubborn insistence seemed to challenge his proud refusal to ask for some, yet he seemed to want it. So, she actively encouraged him.
After hesitating for a while, Woo-jin, with a reluctant expression, slowly approached the table, succumbing to her persistent offer.
It felt odd to him, not resisting to the end, unlike how he was with Seol Ji-hyun.
Soo-young, engrossed in YouTube with earphones on, felt a tap on her back. It was her senior from the same department, So Yeon-ho.
“So Senior.”
Everyone called him Yeon-ho Senior, but Soo-young always addressed him as So Senior. Initially taken aback, he had now come to accept it as a nickname she alone used for him.
He had returned from military service and was now preparing for the teacher certification exam for the second time. If it didn’t work out this year, he planned to enter a private school.
“Aren’t you giving up on job hunting? Always with novels and YouTube… Why don’t you prepare for the certification exam like me? Then your mother won’t be able to pressure you anymore.”
He handed her a coffee from the vending machine while speaking.
“I don’t want to waste years on something uncertain.”
“Why not try teaching at a major academy?”
“I was at one for a year. You know it’s no joke, right? I had to create all the materials myself. During exam periods, I had to give up weekends and teach late every night, no time for dating.”
As Soo-young spoke nonchalantly, Yeon-ho looked at her incredulously.
“Are you a kangaroo child? Do you want to be a writer? Just be honest with your mother and pursue writing. Don’t just hang around in the library.”
“One needs input to produce output. And I’ve been doing part-time work lately.”
“The housekeeper one, covering for your aunt? Even your part-time jobs are like…”
“What’s wrong with that? It’s actually high-income. Two hours for 2 million won.”
“But aren’t you giving it all to your aunt?”
“I think I’ll ask for about 30%. The emotional toll is too much.”
Soo-young sighed deeply, prompting Yeon-ho to ask curiously.
“What’s there to be stressed about?”
“The landlord is… No, it’s not worth talking about. It won’t last much longer.”
“Why! Is the landlord making your life difficult? Disrespecting you for being a housekeeper?”
Yeon-ho’s voice grew harsh.
Soo-young thought it would be easier if it was just disrespect or confrontation. But this was something else, an indescribable emotion.
Insisting on explaining rather than allowing her to guide him, she led him to the dining table like coding, step by step, and scooped half her cup noodles into his bowl.
Fearing the noodles wouldn’t be enough for two, she also heated the rice from a black lunch box in the fridge and placed it in front of him. He began eating the noodles proficiently, as if he could see, savoring them like a first-timer. Soo-young ended up giving him all her noodles.
After gulping down the noodles, he quickly polished off a bowl of rice too. She realized he must have been very hungry.
Was he not eating because it was too bothersome and complicated, being blind?
After he swiftly finished lunch, he didn’t forget to nag her about ventilating the kitchen before leaving. Although it should have annoyed her, she unexpectedly felt a warm, fuzzy feeling.
What was this? Sympathy? No, it was different.
It felt like the pride a mother feels after feeding her fussy child, or the thrill she experienced sharing tteokbokki with her high school crush for the first time.
“Why? Why do I feel this way about such a prickly guy? Is it because I haven’t had a proper relationship and I’m starved for affection? Now, am I starting to like someone just for sharing a meal?”
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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