CHAPTER 96: WHAT’S HAPPENING?

Looming over the fact, he decided to sleep over it. Cheon Areum finally closed his weary eyelids, but he stayed awake with his eyes shut.

"..."

For a full ten minutes. Turns out, Cheon Areum also couldn’t sleep without Yoon Seoyul now. He dramatically threw his eyes open and kicked the blanket off—though the kick lacked real strength, the blanket still fluttered to the floor. Sitting up on the bed, a wave of darkness clouded his vision. He braced himself with both arms for support, his head spinning, his back screaming in protest; he couldn’t even sit upright.

He winced, feeling the aftereffects of the previous night. He definitely overdid it—Yoon Seoyul had been the first to pull back, forcing him to stop. If Yoon Seoyul hadn’t intervened, Cheon Areum was certain he might have lost himself completely. His fingers trailed over the back of his neck, where the faint, lingering sensation of the bite mark still burned, before his gaze swept across the bedroom, searching for his phone.

The phone, unfortunately, wasn’t anywhere in the bedroom. Too drained to drag himself out of bed and search for it, Cheon Areum sighed and let his energy ripple out across the house. Within seconds, something zipped through the air—his phone came flying straight into his hand, which he caught instantly.

Unlocking the phone with Face ID, Cheon Areum opened the camera and pointed it toward the back of his neck, sweeping the hair away with his other hand. He adjusted the angle, snapping a few shots of the bite mark etched deep into his nape—dark, red, and still slightly swollen. It wasn’t bleeding, but the teeth marks were super prominent.

"I was going to confess first with a ring..."

He hadn’t expected Yoon Seoyul to say it first at all.

"Ah... I should have recorded it!"

Suddenly craving vanilla ice cream, Cheon Areum got up on his feet, stretching his back with difficulty, but it was no use, so he just went with it, making his way to the kitchen; he stubbed his toes four times before finally reaching his destination. He yanked open the freezer, grabbed a handful of ice cream bars, and dropped them on the counter. Just then, the doorbell rang, echoing through the quiet house.

Taking one of the bars with him, Cheon Areum padded slowly to the intercom, peeling back the wrapper as he walked. He bit into the vanilla ice cream, and the sweetness instantly lifted his mood—only for it to plummet the very next second when he saw who was standing on the other side of the screen.

Lee Nari smiled into the lens, holding up a woven basket brimming with neatly wrapped cookies, the cellophane catching the light as she gave it a little shake like an offering, already standing at the entrance of the house. Cheon Areum tapped the screen of the intercom, enabling the voice function.

"Go home, I’m not going to open the door."

Did Yoon Seoyul leave the gate open?

"I bought you something, take this at least."

"I don’t like cookies."

"Then what about this?"

Lowering the basket of cookies to her side, Lee Nari raised a folded newspaper to the intercom screen. Plastered across the front page was a close-up photo of Yoon Seoyul and Cheon Areum locked in a kiss as butterflies flew over their heads. Cheon Areum’s eyes narrowed, taking the bait as he unlocked the entrance door of the house.

*

*Click*

*Click*

Taking over a hundred photos of the newspaper’s front cover, the bold headline blaring: ’Yoon Seoyul and New S+ Class Cheon Areum Confirmed Dating?’ he folded the paper neatly, satisfied, and put it into his inventory, completely ignoring Lee Nari, who now sat silently at the far end of the long dining table.

"Areum, try the cookies, I baked them myself."

"And what if they are poisoned?"

Cheon Areum blurted out, causing Lee Nari’s smile to falter for a second. Her overly happy expression slightly dropped as she rose from her seat and walked over to his side of the long dining table. Reaching for the basket of cookies she had brought, she grabbed the one at the top, unwrapped it slowly under his watchful gaze, then took a bite. She chewed and swallowed in silence, her eyes fixed on him—as if daring him to accuse her again.

"Hmm. What about this one?"

Cheon Areum plucked a cookie at random from the basket, unwrapping it skeptically and giving it to Lee Nari to check for poison. When Lee Nari suddenly grabbed the hand holding the cookie and brought it closer to her mouth, taking a small bite directly from the cookie in his grasp while initiating eye contact with him, Cheon Areum instantly recoiled, yanking his hand out of Lee Nari’s grasp.

"See, it’s not poisoned, will you try it now?"

Lee Nari remarked as she settled into the seat nearest to him. Cheon Areum tilted his head slightly, returning the half-eaten cookie in his hand to the basket, feeling the cold stare of Lee Nari from the side.

"You’re still not going to eat it?"

"No, I don’t want to."

Lee Nari tapped her fingers on the dining table without a word, then abruptly rose to her feet, retrieving the half-eaten cookie from the basket. She gripped Cheon Areum’s jaw firmly, forcing his mouth to part as she pressed the cookie to his lips. He instantly jerked his head to the side in astonishment.

"What are you doing?"

He shot her a glare, rising from the chair and putting space between them. Lee Nari smiled faintly and tossed the now-crumbled cookie from her hand.

"Do you have a fever? Why are you so warm? What’s wrong with your voice and eyes?"

"If you really can’t tell from a glance, I slept with Yoon Seoyul last night."

Cheon Areum spoke while Lee Nari’s smile vanished entirely, her gaze fixed on him as though he had greatly betrayed her. No matter how much he pondered over it, something just felt off.

"I’m tired, leave and take the basket too."

That’s when he heard another voice from the end of the dining table, belonging to neither of them.

"Cheon Areum, what do you think about marrying Lee Nari?"