My High School Nerd Rival - Chapter 13

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 13
Perhaps the answer would come back as “You don’t need to know that.”
No, it surely would.
“Will you keep the secret?”
But the answer that came back defied her expectation.
The darkness kept their faces hidden from each other. Yet somehow, she could sense where their gaze was directed.
Most likely toward each other.
“I’ll keep the secret.”
Ibis answered solemnly, as if swearing an oath.
The room remained quiet still.
Perhaps such a vow wasn’t enough? Ibis quickly added another assurance.
“I stake my entire academic record on it.”
From beyond the darkness came a soft laugh.
“That’s more trustworthy than any vow I’ve heard before.”
Then silence returned. Ibis waited gladly, keeping quiet until Joie was ready to speak.
After hesitating several times, Joie finally opened her mouth softly.
“He’s…… my brother.”
It was a shocking statement.
So there was an illegitimate child in the Carter Family, which supposedly had only an only daughter?
“It’s complicated. You probably won’t understand. Not someone like you.”
There was no scorn or blame in that phrase “someone like you.” If anything, it sounded as though Joie were belittling herself.
“What kind of person am I, then?”
“Someone whose parents actually listen to what you have to say.”
“They don’t listen to you, do they? Your parents.”
Rather than refute Joie’s hypothesis about herself, Ibis focused on Joie’s situation.
“They don’t listen to me, and they don’t tell me their side either. They claim it’s all for my sake, but really they just couldn’t find the words to wrap up their own ugliness.”
Ibis heard Joie’s breath catch for a moment. She’d spoken in anger, but now she seemed to regret voicing such an accusation against her parents.
“My vow is absolute.”
Ibis reminded her of the promise she’d just made. She wanted to offer whatever comfort she could.
“Yeah, I know.”
Joie gathered courage from Ibis’s words, and her story continued.
“Right, but who would believe it? That such a refined couple couldn’t conceive a child, so they borrowed a housekeeper’s body to finally have an only daughter?”
Ibis had to cover her mouth with her hand.
“And when that housekeeper grew to love the child she carried for ten months and refused to hand her over, they beat her and drove her out.”
Carter.
“I felt something was off from childhood. But no one would ever tell me what it was.”
In her voice—barely more than a whisper—lay the pain that had tormented her entire life.
“My parents thought I’d feel ashamed if I knew the truth. They’re still working hard to keep the secret.”
“But you found out anyway.”
“Yes, I did…….”
Her voice wavered slightly with emotion.
“I was happy.”
She spoke as though unveiling the most precious treasure.
“Truly happy. My ‘mother’s’ determination to take me away no matter what was so…… foolish.”
A housekeeper alone could never have pried a child from the hands of the Carter couple.
The housekeeper herself probably knew that better than anyone.
And yet she’d made up her mind to try anyway. It was foolish, truly.
Beautifully foolish.
“She really loved you. From the moment she carried you, all along.”
“Yes, without a doubt.”
“She was brave.”
“Though in the end, she failed.”
Once Joie discovered she had a biological mother, she’d hired people to track her down and eventually succeeded.
But living in her parents’ house made visiting her nearly impossible.
At the slightest sign of something amiss, they’d say it was out of concern for her and assign someone to watch her every move.
The inevitable result would be harm coming to her biological mother.
“That’s why when I came here, I was relieved. Finally I could go meet her.”
“I understand.”
Ibis answered at once. It was a sincere urgency.
She too had been desperately searching for the nursemaid who’d loved her in childhood.
Just imagining finally finding that person after all this time, imagining the visit itself—her heart felt as though it might burst.
“When you actually went to meet her, weren’t you nervous?”
Now Ibis’s voice carried a deeper interest.
“Of course I was. I was so anxious I almost asked my cold roommate to help me practice my opening line. Although you just answered that you were too busy with assignments.”
“……Yeah.”
Ibis searched her memory for a moment. Early in the semester, that had happened. Back then she’d been so consumed with focus that nothing around her registered.
Though of course, she’d been the same way right up until last week.
“I’m sorry. I was awful.”
“It’s fine now.”
“But tell me anyway. I want to hear it. What was it like the first time you saw your mother……?”
Joie shared more of her story.
How her mother had recognized her immediately and embraced her right away. How, sadly, her mother’s health wasn’t good now, so Joie visited whenever she could.
There was a lightness to her voice that was lovely to hear.
“Talking like this…… it really does feel like we’re actual roommates.”
Joie fell silent. Because they’d been talking so much, even this brief quiet felt strange.
It was strange indeed. Spending time in silence with her had been so natural before.
Yet after sharing the deepest story just once, everything had shifted like this.
“……I guess so.”
After a long moment, the answer came. Then Joie rolled over to face the other direction.
“We should sleep now.”
Ibis had started to say “Sleep well,” but lost her nerve.
The room filled with awkward silence again.
* * *
Friday morning.
Ibis was beginning her last morning at the School.
She pulled on the uniform she’d grown familiar with over the past months and opened the window. Snow that had fallen overnight blanketed the world in white—a landscape too brilliant for the morning of one’s departure.
‘How romantic,’ she thought.
Ibis had drawn the curtains shut for Joie, who was still sleeping. Ever since the night they’d both fled from the mannequin specter, Ibis and Joie had maintained a fairly decent relationship.
But they hadn’t had lively conversations like that night again.
The fault was Ibis’s.
Now that she was soon to leave the School, she couldn’t bring herself to be honest with Joie about the reason.
It was connected to Ibis’s own secret, after all.
Still, she felt she ought to tell her beforehand that she was leaving, so she’d written a brief letter and left it on Joie’s desk.
The content was really sparse. Just that quitting school wasn’t Joie’s fault, and that the last few days had been pleasant.
And the rest of what she wanted to say, she couldn’t write. The lies would only multiply.
‘…… We’ll meet again someday, Joie.’
Joie was the daughter of the Carter Family, so they’d surely meet again.
But they would never be able to speak of that one warm night they’d shared.
To Joie, Ibis Underwood would remain forever just a roommate from a fleeting moment that couldn’t be reclaimed.
“Goodbye.”
Ibis bid farewell as Underwood and left the room.
Just then, she encountered another student from the Dormitory standing in the hallway ahead.
With any other student, she would have ignored them or offered a perfunctory greeting and moved on. But not with this one.
Cyrus Quinton.
If Ibis left the School now, the probability that he’d become her future husband was as certain as the sun rising tomorrow morning.
It was truly unsettling. Ibis’s face twisted into a grimace despite herself.
Seeing that expression, Quinton’s brow creased lightly. In any case, it was clear that they both disliked each other.
“Hello, Quinton. If you don’t mind, I wanted to ask you something.”
Ibis approached him and greeted him.
“Could you tell me about your strengths?”
She’d decided to draw on wisdom from adults.
If something was unavoidable, she might as well try to think positively about it. Like saying “the glass is half full!”
He seemed to hesitate for a moment, then replied like this:
“I don’t have any.”
It appeared Ibis’s glass was completely empty.
“Thanks for the information. So what were you doing standing here? You weren’t waiting for me, were you?”
“I was waiting for you.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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