AUTHOR

A reader of mine DM'd me asking if this is an ongoing story. No, it’s not. This is a long fic. If this might exceed 50k words, it’s still a long fic XD Let’s not call it ‘ongoing’ because that phrase is very much cursed. All of my ongoing stories have the 50% of being paused and abandoned because my perfectionist arse wants every sentence to be ‘perfect’. So let’s just not go there so that I wouldn’t stress much XD

I got a bit busy btw. Thanks for waiting ;)

Yizhuo’s love for Minjeong is unlike any other. It’s unconditionally selfless. It is the kind of love that will last forever and be admired only from a distance. It’s not bound by any other force, fate, destiny, or some sort of nonsense some hopeless romantics referred to.

   It ceased to exist because she wanted it to. It lingers because she knows that it is the kind of love that she will always remember dearly.

  It started on one rainy day after she found out that her father ran away with all their savings and left her, her mom, and two of her siblings with nothing. Her mother is sick and bedridden due to an incurable disease. She has two twin siblings who are very young and need to be fed every day. Now, she’s having trouble finding the money to help her bounce back from their unfortunate loss.

 Yizhuo was smoking a cigarette in front of the school building entrance as she waited for the rain to stop. Some of the students who were eyeing her didn't have the guts to go near her. The only annoying person who could match her intense persona was Uchinaga Aeri, the school’s student council president. But she’s not in the mood to listen to Uchinaga's constant nagging right now. She’s too stressed out. She just wanted to ease her mind a little.

“Would you like a spare umbrella?” A person’s voice snapped her out of her reverie.

 Kim Minjeong, one of Yizhuo's classmates, greeted her with a curious and innocent-looking expression. She raises a brow, a bit perplexed by the sudden offer.

“No worries. I have two. This was supposed to be for my best friend, but she didn't come to school today. Here.” She smiled a bit and placed the Hello Kitty umbrella on Yizhuo's hand.

  She watches the latter struggle her way through the rain. Yizhuo stares at the Hello Kitty umbrella. She dislikes how utterly colorful it was. But she doesn't have a choice but to use it so that she can get home quickly.

  That was their first-ever conversation.

 At first, Yizhuo thought that the latter was just a goody-two-shoes who liked to make people like her. But she wasn’t. She was rather clumsy, obviously blameless in a lot of things, and just plain ol’ stupid.

 Yizhuo dislikes people like Minjeong. She’s the kind of person who has not experienced the harsh reality of life and treats every opportunity lightly. That's why she always makes fun of her every time they meet.

 She knows that the latter is a bit wary of her, which is good because she wants to keep it that way. She doesn't want Minjeong to know that she sees her in a different way.

 She doesn't know when it started. She just realized one day that