Why Is My Ex Like This? - Chapter 2

In our second year of high school, he was the spoiled rich kid who climbed the walls to skip class and sported a head of bleached-blond hair.

I was the model student who ranked in the top ten of our year.

Our names often went up at the same time: mine on the honor roll, his on the disciplinary notice board.

I was pretty full of myself back then. My personal motto was:

“Ten lotuses in the pond. I’ll pick one. You pick the other nine. →”

Unfortunately, my arrow pointed straight at the cocky asshole on the disciplinary board.

That evening, Lu Mingke and his friends cornered me after school.

“Hey, model student. Taking a shot at me?”

I blinked in confusion. “What?”

Lu Mingke mimicked my blinking.

“What do you mean, ‘If you suck, practice more’?”

Oh. I got it. The words about picking nine lotuses sounded like that insult.

I looked him up and down and gave a contemptuous little laugh. “I wasn’t talking about you.”

His expression changed.

His buddies whistled.

“See, Brother Lu? Told you the top student wasn’t insulting you. You wouldn’t believe me.”

After that, Lu Mingke mysteriously started being nice to me.

He brought breakfast. Lunch. Snacks.

I frowned. “What’s wrong with you?”

He shook out his blond hair, sat at the desk in front of mine, and propped his chin on his hand, smiling.

“Eat up, model student. Need a full belly to have the energy to study.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I don’t like bleached-blond delinquents.”

I could practically hear something shattering.

The next day, Lu Mingke appeared with short black hair. Eyes lowered, face expressionless, he asked:

“Like this?”

Sunlight fell over him. Summer cicadas sang. That young, defiant face appeared in front of me with a sudden, unfamiliar shyness.

To my shame, my heart fluttered.

“I have the college entrance exams to think about,” I mumbled. “Maybe go back and study hard first?”

Lu Mingke smiled. “Sure. When can I see you, then?”

“After evening study, I guess.”

My advanced class had mandatory evening study. His didn’t.

I’d said it casually. I hadn’t expected him to take it seriously.

He stopped going to internet cafés. Stopped getting into fights. Just leaned against the corridor railing and waited for me.

When I saw him, I shook my head again.

“Sorry. I don’t like boys with low IQs.”

He glared at me.

I thought he was going to hit me.

Sure enough, after evening study the next day, Lu Mingke and his friends cornered me again.

Trembling, I clutched my backpack straps.

He gave a little huff. “Hey, brainiac. How do you solve this?”

I stared at his math paper, stunned. “You got nine points?!”

Shock surged through me.

For one fleeting moment, I almost mistook it for my heart fluttering again.

After the entrance exams, something happened to my family.

From that day on, I was broke.

Somehow, Lu Mingke heard I’d rented a place and rented the room next door.

I asked what he was doing.

He leaned against the doorframe, black hair hanging so low it almost hid his eyes. His voice was careless.

“Dad said I was a disgrace to the family and kicked me out. I’ve got nobody to turn to but you.”

“What about all those friends of yours?”

“Those blond idiots? Can’t rely on them.”

“…”

That was how we became neighbors.

On the first day, he knocked with a bowl of noodles. “Made too much.”

On the second, he brought a bag of snacks. “Bought too much.”

On the third, he simply dragged me into his place. “I cooked. Let’s eat together.”

After that, he cooked and did the dishes, and we squeezed onto the sofa to watch movies at night.

Later still, the sofa became a bed.

I figured it was a passing whim.

He was a spoiled rich kid: handsome, wealthy, always out for a good time. How much could he really care about someone as broke as me?

Getting to sleep with him was already a win.

So the first time he held me and said, “Baby, I like you so much,” I assumed he was talking in his sleep.

He only ever said it afterward, anyway.

He buried his face in my neck.

“Baby, you smell so good. I love it.”

“One more time.”

At eighteen, he had energy to burn.

I got more exercise that summer than in the previous eighteen years combined.

I couldn’t keep up. Every day I was dazed, blissed out, and exhausted, so I broke up with him.

He cried until his eyes were red.

“You didn’t like it? Why didn’t you tell me while we were doing it? I thought you were enjoying yourself.”

I lowered my eyes. I had enjoyed it. But I also had to tutor during the day, and between all the running around, I was exhausted.

“Then I’ll cut it off. Would that help?”

What?

“I’ll change. Don’t go, baby.”

Once we started university, he really did change.

He stopped pestering me for sex and started pestering me to eat with him, go shopping, and watch movies.

But all I could think about then was making money, making money, making money.

The better he treated me, the more worn out I felt.

Hence the second breakup.

“You’re too possessive,” I told him. “I can’t take it.”

He was frantic, close to tears. “You’ve got all those people hovering around you. How am I supposed to not be scared? They’re all trying to seduce you! Can’t you see?”

I sighed. He’d done so much for me. He was always transferring money to me, too.

I liked him. But I couldn’t let myself cling to him and live off his money.

I still needed to earn a living and study. I couldn’t drift around without a care the way he could.

I didn’t argue anymore.

“Lu Mingke. Let’s cool off for a while.”

The next time we got back together, I was the one who made the first move.

I missed him too much.

Three months after the breakup, I went to find him at a bar.

He and his buddies had drunk a lot. He looked at me coldly.

“What are you doing here? Fuck off. I don’t want to see you at all.”

I stood helplessly in the doorway of the private room.

After a moment’s thought, I turned to leave.

He seemed perfectly happy without me.

He grabbed me.

“You’re actually leaving?”

“What?”

“Is asking to get back together really that hard for you?”

Lu Mingke hugged me tightly, his voice rough.

“Baby. I’ve missed you so much.”

“So, shall we get back together, Lu Mingke?”

“Only if you like me a little more.”