My Unrequited Love Is an Absolute Secret - Chapter 25

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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 25

“W-why are you suddenly bringing up Jessie? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
My heart threatened to burst through my ribs at any moment.
‘Did he find out that I like Jessie?’
My entire body tingled as if I’d been caught doing something wrong.
‘When on earth did he figure it out?’
I’d prided myself on keeping it well hidden. Or had I really been that careless?
Cold sweat trickled down my spine.
The memory of accidentally calling Aemerus by Jessie’s name came flooding back.
‘Could it have been then?’
I’d only made that mistake once, but that single slip might have been fatal.
No, wait. Let me think about this calmly.
Aemerus hadn’t asked me if I had an unrequited crush on Jessie.
He’d only said that Jessie wasn’t a good man.
I was just a guilty cat knocking over a flowerpot, panicking over nothing.
“But Jessie isn’t a good man? Why would you say that?”
I knew that Jessie and Aemerus weren’t as close as they seemed.
Yet it didn’t feel like Aemerus to slander someone without reason, which left me confused.
Besides, I had no idea what Jessie was like when he was only around other men.
What jokes he made with them, what made him laugh.
Aemerus caught the wavering in my eyes without missing a beat.
“You already know the answer. You’re just refusing to acknowledge it.”
Perhaps he was right.
The fact that Jessie started dating different women one after another right after graduation—women like Julia and Chloe, whom he didn’t even commit to.
Looking at that alone, the answer was painfully obvious.
He wasn’t a good man to me, nor to other women either.
I simply didn’t want to admit it.
“…Let’s stop talking about Jessie. It feels like we’re gossiping, and I don’t like that.”
“Fine by me.”
Mercifully (if I could even call it that), Aemerus dropped the uncomfortable conversation and returned to the original topic.
“I meant what I said about your lyrics being brilliant. You said you were going to apply to a Korean company with them, right?”
“Yeah.”
“If they like what you’ve written, what comes next? Would you have to go to Korea?”
Even though it was merely a hypothetical, it felt as distant as a dream.
I laughed and shook my head.
“It probably won’t happen, but even if such luck came my way, I wouldn’t necessarily have to go to Korea. These days, a lot of foreigners participate in song production work, so they do meetings remotely, I’ve heard.”
“That’s good.”
“Right? I can’t even imagine how people survived without the internet back in the day. It must have been incredibly inconvenient.”
I sighed deeply as I pictured myself participating in Song Camp.
“That’s too far in the future to think about right now. There’s no guarantee my lyrics will even be selected, and even if they are, there are problems.”
“What kind of problems?”
“If they find out I’m still underage, they might hesitate to work with me.”
Despite my explanation, Aemerus still wore an expression of incomprehension.
“But you’ll be an adult soon anyway, won’t you?”
“A completely inexperienced newcomer is inconvenient to work with in many ways. Rather than an equal colleague, I’d be more like a junior who needs to be taught everything step by step.”
I shrugged and changed the subject.
“By the way, did you know when my birthday is?”
My birthday was December 24th—Christmas Eve.
From the way Aemerus had asked if I’d be turning into an adult soon, it seemed he knew roughly when it was, even if he didn’t know the exact date.
“I heard it from JJ.”
“I figured as much.”
If I’d learned my birthday had been mentioned to anyone other than Jessie, I would have been surprised.
“When’s your birthday?”
“It’s already passed.”
“If it’s already passed, was it in the summer?”
I suddenly glanced down at my lunch box and gasped.
I’d barely made a dent in the food while talking with him.
“Oh no, lunch period is almost over. Try some of this too.”
“What is this?”
“It’s tonkatsu—it’s similar to schnitzel. The difference is you dip it in ketchup instead of lingonberry jam.”
I’d never met anyone who disliked tonkatsu.
Sure enough, Aemerus looked skeptical at first when I suggested dipping it in ketchup, but after tasting it, he nodded in satisfaction.
“This is really delicious too.”
“Jess—. No, never mind.”
I’d almost mentioned that Jessie liked this too.
I quickly coughed and fumbled my words.
I’d have to be more careful about bringing up Jessie in front of Aemerus from now on.
There was no need to drop hints that I had an unrequited crush on him.
‘He didn’t hear that, did he?’
I was eating and watching his expression carefully when it happened.
His phone, which had been on silent until now, kept lighting up with notifications of new messages on the table.
“Aemerus, is someone sending you urgent messages?”
“Ah…”
For the first time, a flicker of agitation crossed his usually composed face.
“What? What is it?”
His distressed expression was unfamiliar to me.
If it could shake someone as unflappable as him, something serious must have happened.
“Aemerus, what’s wrong?”
Faced with Harry’s pressing question, Aemerus exhaled heavily.
“It’s just ordinary spam.”
It was an unconvincing excuse.
Even now, new messages continued to accumulate on his phone.
There was a reason he’d set his phone to silent.
“Really? If it’s truly ordinary spam, there’d be no reason you couldn’t show me, right?”
Harry extended her hand, asking for his phone.
Aemerus, staring at her pale palm, spoke with reluctance.
“Do you really have to see it?”
“Yes. I really do.”
Faced with Harry’s firm response, Aemerus reluctantly handed over his phone.
“What’s the unlock pattern?”
“Just draw an ‘L’.”
As Harry unlocked the pattern and scrolled through the messages, her expression hardened.
“Aemerus, this isn’t just spam!”
A torrent of profanities—the kind that warranted immediate police reporting—was being directed at Aemerus.
Harry swiped upward through the messages, and when her thumb couldn’t find the beginning of the conversation no matter how much she scrolled, she gasped in shock.
“How long has this been going on?”
“Not long after school started this semester.”
“What? That means it’s been over a month already! Do your parents know? The principal?”
Aemerus silently shook his head.
It meant he’d been bearing this relentless malice alone all this time.
“Wait, my name is in here too…?”
Harry spotted her own name among the anonymous stalker’s messages and felt her mind spinning.
「Lili and JJ are the perfect couple. You have no right to interfere between them.」
「I sincerely pray for the day you get beaten to a pulp by JJ’s fists like ground meat!」
Reading the messages, Harry’s breath caught in her throat.
She didn’t know what to say to Aemerus….
Her words caught, and only a moan escaped her lips.
“Aemerus, this is… far too serious. You can’t bear this alone. You need to tell the adults immediately.”
Despite Harry’s barely-uttered words, Aemerus remained silent, his eyes cast downward.
He looked so fragile.
Unable to hold back any longer, Harry abruptly rose and sat down beside him.
She carefully placed her hand on his shoulder and patted it gently.
“There’s a reason you haven’t blocked this person, isn’t there?”
Aemerus nodded at her question.
“Every time I block them, they come back with a new account, and the profanities get worse each time. So I’ve had no choice but to leave it.”
His demeanor now was quite different from when he’d explained things to Randy recently, though Harry had no way of knowing that.
“The reason you haven’t told the adults…?”
“I don’t want my parents to find out.”
That explained why he hadn’t reported it to a teacher either.
If the teachers learned about this, they’d naturally contact his parents as well.
Harry bit the inside of her cheek, wondering how she could help him.
Even if he disabled DM notifications on social media, it wouldn’t make much difference.
The harassment would simply shift from direct messages to text messages.
After a moment, Harry spoke with the look of someone who had made a decision.
“If we don’t tell the adults, we’ll have to solve this ourselves. Let’s start by narrowing down the suspects.”
Harry scrolled through the previous messages, forming a hypothesis.
“The perpetrator seems to be male. Look at the language used here.”
“‘My X is so much bigger than your pathetic X’?”
“You don’t need to read such crude words out loud….”
Harry’s cheeks flushed at the unnecessarily explicit language.
“The suspect might be a hockey player like you. You and Jessie have connections with them.”
“Hmm, I don’t think so.”
Was he defending his teammates?
Aemerus explained, noticing Harry’s confusion.
“Last Friday, before the match, I got a message too. All my teammates were with me at that time.”
“So they all have alibis.”
Aemerus nodded.
That ruled out the hockey players.
‘Who else has a connection with Aemerus and Jessie?’
While Harry’s mind raced, Aemerus spoke up.
“I think the stalker might be female.”
“You mean she deliberately used those words to make you think she was male?”
“Yeah.”
“But….”
All the girls at our school like you anyway.
Harry swallowed the rest of her words, keeping them to herself.

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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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