My Unrequited Love Is an Absolute Secret - Chapter 63

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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 63

Faye’s lips trembled under Harry’s persuasion.
“If you’re truly innocent, you just need to show me your phone for a moment.”
“I can’t do that.”
Harry didn’t relent at her refusal.
“Then I’ll take you to the Principal. The Principal will mediate this objectively. Is that what you want?”
“Not the Principal!”
Faye cried out, her face draining of color.
The moment the Principal found out, everything would spiral out of control.
If she faced disciplinary action, it could jeopardize her university admission…
“Choose now. Either show me your phone, or show it to the Principal.”
Faye clutched her phone as if it were her lifeline, shifting her weight anxiously from foot to foot.
Her lips turned pale as she gnawed at them, and finally tears spilled down her cheeks.
“It was me.”
“I can’t hear you clearly. Can you speak louder?”
“I’m the one who sent those messages to Aemerus all this time.”
I’d caught the stalker who’d been harassing Aemerus, but I couldn’t bring myself to feel purely triumphant.
Harry watched Faye sob like a child, her expression complicated.
“Faye, why on earth did you do this?”
“…”
“I don’t believe you did something like this without any reason.”
Faye, who had been crying as if the world were ending, glanced at Harry cautiously.
“…If I tell you, will you forgive me?”
“I’m not the one who needs to forgive you. It’s Aemerus.”
“You’re right, everything you say is right.”
Faye sniffled and gradually composed herself before finally confessing.
“It started because of Ricky.”
“Ricky?”
Who was Ricky again?
A hazy face surfaced in my mind as I furrowed my brow in thought.
“Ricky—you mean your boyfriend?”
“My ex-boyfriend. We broke up last summer.”
Faye emphasized that she and Ricky were no longer together.
Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t seen Faye with a boyfriend this semester.
There was a reason she’d been inseparable from Nina.
“I understand they broke up. But what does that have to do with Aemerus?”
“Oh, it definitely has something to do with Aemerus!”
For some reason, Faye flared up and burst into anger.
“You know Ricky is a hockey player just like Aemerus, right? Ricky has been struggling because of Aemerus all this time.”
Had Aemerus been bullying Ricky?
Ricky was Chinese, just like Faye.
If what Ricky said was true, then Aemerus had committed racial discrimination….
‘Aemerus?’
The Aemerus I knew was not that kind of person.
He had never looked down on me or displayed any sense of superiority, and he had always been respectful to my parents.
‘I can reserve my disappointment until I’ve confirmed the facts.’
I held my tongue.
I neither hastily sided with Aemerus by insisting he wasn’t a racist, nor did I side with Faye and Ricky.
Faced with my neutral response, Faye grew even more passionate in her attempt to convince me.
“You have no idea how hard Ricky worked to become a starter. He attended training every single day without fail, but Aemerus never gave him a single chance. He clearly looked down on him because he’s Chinese!”
“So that’s why you started sending messages to Aemerus?”
Faye flinched and nodded weakly.
“Did Ricky ask you to do it?”
“No! Ricky did nothing wrong.”
“Really?”
When I responded with a skeptical tone, Faye desperately defended Ricky.
“Ricky cried and told me to break up with him. He said he wasn’t in a position to date me right now, that he didn’t even have enough time with hockey alone. So I just got so angry on my own….”
I understood Faye’s position too.
Your boyfriend, whom you’ve been seeing with good feelings, cries and asks to break up.
It was only natural that resentment would pour out toward the person who had made your boyfriend suffer enough to resolve to end things.
However, that was only if Ricky’s claims were true.
“Faye, I understand what you’re saying.”
“So you’re forgiving me?”
“Forgiveness isn’t something I need to give.”
I took Faye’s hand and spoke as gently as I could.
“But wouldn’t you feel terribly wronged if Ricky’s story is true?”
“Yeah…. But what can I do about it?”
“There must have been other ways besides secretly sending messages from behind the scenes. For example, raising the issue properly.”
“Huh?”
“I’ll help you.”
Rather than getting angry, I offered to help Ricky, and Faye looked reluctant.
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah. So contact Ricky. Let’s all talk about this together.”
As the saying goes, strike while the iron is hot—I had no intention of dragging this problem out.

***

After school, Harry headed to the School Hockey Team’s strategy conference room with Aemerus.
It was a space where the Coach and players gathered to devise and share tactical plans, situated directly adjacent to the hockey Coach’s office.
“Thank you for making time for us, Coach.”
“Not at all. If there’s any misunderstanding among the players, we need to resolve it, even if it takes time.”
Riverside School stood on the precipice of the North American Youth Hockey League semifinals.
They couldn’t afford to let team cohesion fracture over such an unfortunate incident.
That was why the Coach had agreed to Aemerus’s request.
Moments later, as commotion stirred outside, Faye and Ricky arrived.
The moment Ricky spotted Aemerus, he shrank into himself like a turtle retreating into its shell.
“Oh, Faye just asked me to come by for a moment… but it seems like you’re in the middle of something important, so I’ll just go—”
“Ricky, come and sit down.”
“Me?”
At the Coach’s summons, Ricky grew anxious, yet harboring a glimmer of hope, he pulled out a chair and sat.
Perhaps there had been a major shake-up in the semifinal roster, and he’d been included.
Of course, his hopes were dashed spectacularly.
“Running a High School Hockey Team means dealing with plenty of disgruntled parents. That’s why I evaluate each player’s training performance and assign scores.”
The Coach handed over a file that had been lying before him.
“Why are you suddenly showing us this…?”
Unlike the bewildered Ricky, Faye immediately opened the file and examined the performance sheet.
Among all the players, Ricky ranked in the lower tier.
Below him were only a handful of other players.
“Ricky, are these guys Asian too?”
“No.”
Faye’s brow furrowed.
She’d thought the lower rankings were deliberately stacked with only Asian players, but that wasn’t the case.
“And this is the attendance log. Frankly, nothing’s more objective than this.”
The Coach produced an additional attendance sheet.
Ricky, fidgeting beside her, tried to stop Faye but was overwhelmed by her momentum and gave up.
“The slash marks indicate attendance, right?”
“No. They indicate absences.”
“…”
Ricky’s name was surrounded by nothing but slash marks.
In contrast, Aemerus had missed training on only a handful of occasions.
Faye’s hands trembled as she examined the attendance log.
Aemerus, who had been watching her with an expressionless face, suddenly posed a question.
“You didn’t realize this would happen while dating Ricky every day?”
“What?”
“We can’t put a player on the field who doesn’t show up for training. That’s just obvious.”
“No, not that. Ricky was dating someone every day? Who?”
Faye’s eyes flashed dangerously as she fixed her gaze on Ricky.
Ricky was now visibly trembling, his entire frame shaking.
“What did I say wrong?”
Aemerus blinked in confusion, but Ricky could have bet his life that he’d deliberately let those words slip, pretending it was an accident.
In the suffocating silence that followed, Harry answered in Aemerus’s stead.
“Ricky and Faye broke up last summer.”
But Ricky had stopped attending training long before last summer, and he hadn’t been dating Faye either.
In other words, it meant he’d been dating another girl while still with Faye.
“Since the misunderstanding about me showing favoritism and discrimination seems to be cleared up, I’ll take my leave.”
The Coach, unwilling to get entangled in high school melodrama, grabbed his files and fled the scene.
“Who is she?”
“Faye, please don’t get angry—just listen calmly.”
“You said you wanted to focus on hockey, so who were you dating?!”
“Just calm down for a moment….”
“Do I look calm to you right now? Is it someone I know? A girl from our school?”
The moment Ricky uttered the girl’s name, Faye looked ready to charge forward and tear her hair out.
Reveal his new girlfriend’s name, or die here on the spot.
Caught at this crossroads, Ricky could only stammer helplessly.
“Ahem.”
Harry cleared her throat.
Faye, who had been shaking Ricky by the collar, turned to look at her.
“Don’t you have something to say to Aemerus first?”
Only then did Faye fully realize what she’d done.
She’d fallen for Ricky’s lie and was taking out her anger on an innocent boy.
The strength drained from her hands as she released her grip on Ricky.
“I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry, Aemerus.”
Watching Faye cry and beg for forgiveness wasn’t entirely comfortable for me.
But forgiveness was ultimately Aemerus’s decision, so I simply remained silent.
“At first, I started bullying you because of Ricky. But since you didn’t react at all, I got stubborn and kept escalating it. There’s no excuse from Ricky—it was all my fault.”
“Faye….”
Ricky reached out to comfort her but came up empty.
“You shut up, Ricky!”
Faye threatened him like a vicious dog snapping its jaws, then lowered her head before Aemerus once more.
“If you want to report this to the principal, go ahead. I’ll accept whatever punishment you decide.”

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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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