Same Face Syndrome 소설 & 이야기

“You are a virgin, Celine, so I am trying to make things right,” Nicholas said in a whisper and my face flushed with anger and shame. He caught on. He knew I was a virgin. Fuck! I laughed out and slapped his chest tightly. I needed to defend myself and try to appear like a whore. I can't give him the satisfaction of believing he is the one who deflowered me. “Wait, I thought you were drunk? I think you are being delusional here Nicholas. A virgin at this age?” I asked and tried to hide the nervousness in my voice. “Sorry to hurt your ego. I have been with many men before you. Don't think…” I began but Nicholas turned his back to me, ignoring me. ******* Life didn’t truly end when Celine discovered her husband never loved her. He stood by while his cousin tormented her simply because of her size, leaving Celine humiliated and broken. But fate gave her another chance. Celine got reborn three years earlier, on the very night she had a one-night stand with Nicholas. This lifetime, Celine vows not to repeat the same mistakes. This time, she refuses to marry Nicholas. But Nicholas isn’t the man she remembers. Determined and unyielding, he wants Celine and he’ll stop at nothing to prove that her size is the very last thing that could keep him away.

When Steven Baxter, the heartthrob of the school, admits that he loves action movies the most, my childhood friend, Lisa Thornton, has my limbs strapped to four huge drones. During the flag-raising ceremony on Monday morning, the drones lift me high up in the air in front of the entire school. The students' laughter is deafeningly loud. The videos they take quickly go viral, too. I only get to return to the surface once the drones finally run out of power and make their descent automatically. With a wide grin on her face, Lisa unties me from the drones. "Steven loves action movies, so we had you cosplay the main character from the most popular Tom Cruise movie. "We grew up together since we were kids, Dominic. Surely you don't mind, right?" As I sit on the ground, Steven pulls Lisa into his arms before he starts guffawing at me. Tears soon streak down his face from all the laughing. "I can't believe you actually peed yourself!" "Ahahahaha!" I get up to my feet and walk away. From then on, I don't return to Lisa's side. But Lisa soon loses her mind. "We've known each other for ten years! Must you really do this to me?"

"You’re worth five million dollars, Vespera. Don't make me regret not selling you to the labs." My father didn't look at me like a daughter. He looked at me like a bad investment. As a 'Dud' born into a Royal Shifter line, I was a freak, a wolf-less servant who scrubbed the floors of the packhouse while my sister prepared to lead. But when my grandmother’s heart started failing and the hospital threatened to dump her on the street, I ran out of options. I signed the paper. Ninety-nine days. One child. No names. No light. The man who bought me lives in a fortress of concrete and silence. He is a billionaire who never shows his face, a shadow that only comes to me in the dead of night. They say he’s a monster. They say he’s deformed. But when Killian finally touches me in the dark, his skin doesn't feel like a monster's. It feels like a furnace—a scorching, electric heat that makes my dormant blood scream for the first time in nineteen years. The truth is much worse than the rumors. Killian is the Lycan King—the same God my former pack kneels to every Sunday. He doesn't want an heir. He’s dying from a feral rot that’s eating his mind, and my 'useless' human blood is the only thing that stops the screaming in his head. My parents think they sold a broken girl to pay a debt. My ex-mate, Alpha Jax, thinks he rejected a nobody. But as the life inside me begins to howl, I realized that I’m not a Dud. I’m a Moon-Healer. And King Killian isn't going to let his medicine walk away when the ninety-nine days are up.

Flynn Watson, the actual heir of the Watson family, reported me for cheating during the exams. As I stared at both copies of the test papers with perfect grades and the same answers, I found it difficult to explain what happened. Everyone took Flynn's side. Because of that, I was painted as a cheater, which resulted in my exile from the Watson family. The Watsons went as far as to get me blacklisted from all industries just so they could appease Flynn. I ended up on the streets as a homeless person, where I got tormented incessantly. In a daze, I got hit by a car. I still failed to understand why my test papers would show the same answers as Flynn's even when I was on death's door. When I open my eyes again, I've gotten reborn on the day of the exams. This time, I choose to not write anything on the exam papers at all. I'd like to see just how I can be branded as a cheater now that I'm not given any marks at all.

First day of school, and my roommate Sharon hits me with a $50k guilt trip over some "limited-edition" suitcase. "You're blind or just too dumb to walk straight?" My boyfriend? Useless. Classmates? Total sheep. The dean? Clown. Then I really looked at Sharon. Wait a sec—wasn't she the same scholarship case my family covered?

My grandfather, the company’s chairman, had an unmistakable obsession with pink. Not only had he decorated his entire house in soft rosy hues, but he even had his newly purchased Rimac Nevera repainted in blush pink. I was home for the summer. On the day he got his new car, he excitedly asked me to drive him to work. We had just entered the underground parking garage when a black Rolls-Royce suddenly blared its horn and sped up to cut in front of me. It then slammed on the brakes without warning. Unable to react in time, I crashed straight into it. The driver lowered his window and cursed at me. His face was twisted with arrogance. “Are you blind? Vixen, can’t you drive?” Swallowing my anger, I retorted, “You were the one who deliberately cut me off. How can you twist this around and blame me?” He let out a mocking snort. “You women in pink cars are hopeless drivers, yet you still blame others? You had it coming. You must be a new intern. Let me tell you something. You’ve just hit the chairman’s car. Get ready to go bankrupt!” My grandfather and I exchanged a baffled look. If that was the chairman’s car, what were we in?

He ruined Her Life, the man she gave everything to, even her kidney. But she is back with a new face and a new identity, seeking to exact a pound of flesh and reclaim her child. Three years ago, everybody thought Alicia was dead, including her ex-husband, Lucas, and sister, Becky, who betrayed her. What they didn't know was that a top sailor rescued her, and her face that was once scarred beyond recognition was rebuilt through advanced facial reconstruction. Now, she has the face of a goddess, and a top business tycoon who commands power, not the regular naive girl that Lucas discarded. What happens when her ex-husband, Lucas, unknowingly falls for the woman he once destroyed? What happens when the betrayer becomes the beggar? Because this time, she’s not his savior. She’s his Karma.

On the seventh day of freshman orientation, I ran into the cafeteria like I was running the hundred-meter dash, desperate to get my favorite grilled sausage. Instead, I crashed straight into my childhood friend's embrace. The idiot was shirtless, and his huge pecs smacked me right in the face and the impact knocked me onto my butt. In the seconds I lost, the grilled sausage was almost gone. I almost fell apart. Seven days, and I had only managed to eat them once. My childhood friend waved a plate of grilled sausages in my face, then spat on it. "Yup, no. Not giving you any." Furious, I slapped his hand away. "Stay away from me. I get dizzy around big pecs." My childhood friend instantly lost it. "I'm still better than that useless fiance of yours!"

My sister and I were both adopted from the same orphanage. When we got to choose our paths, she picked a prominent family in Edenorf City—wealthy, influential, and utterly untouchable. But the heir turned out to be twisted and cruel. He tormented her day in and day out. I chose the unassuming Moss family. They didn't have the fortune or the status of her new family, but they treated me with genuine warmth. In time, their youngest son became a business titan, and he married me, giving me a life filled with more happiness than I'd ever dreamed possible. Consumed by jealousy, my sister secretly strangled me. But when I opened my eyes again, I found she had shamelessly stolen the life I’d built—this time, choosing the Moss family for herself. "Carmen," she sneered, "now it's your turn to suffer." I almost laughed out loud. Did she think the Moss heir was some simple jackpot?

The day before our engagement, Stellan Graves came shopping with me, but his mind was clearly elsewhere. I bought a chili dog from a street stall and held it up to his mouth only for him to swat it out of my hand, sending it flying to the ground. Fury flashed across his face as he snapped, "Ivy Stein, the Graves family needs a woman who can actually show her face in public. Stop buying cheap trash like this. You're embarrassing me. How do you expect my parents to accept you like this?" I picked up the food in humiliation, threw it into the trash, and nodded meekly for the sake of our four years together in college. "As you wish." … However, the very next day, he switched his fiancee to Amelia Lane. "Ivy, Amelia tried to kill herself just to marry me. She's in the hospital now. Once she's stable again, I'll come back and marry you." Four years later, he showed up at my tiny apartment with a diamond ring in hand. "Ivy, Amelia has already agreed to divorce me. We can finally be together. I told you before—once Amelia lets go of her obsession with me and stops hurting herself, I'll come and marry you." I frowned at Stellan's so-called heartfelt expression. I must have had terrible luck that day. Who'd have thought I'd run into this wacko when I'd come back to my place on a whim?! "Move," I demanded, shoving him out the door. "You're blocking the way. I need to pick up my kid from school."