Freak Feel-Good Story の短編小説 & 小説

In my last life, my sister and I got adopted into two very different worlds. My mom? The "cool" type. Let me perm my hair in elementary school, signed off on a nose job in middle school, and shoved me toward one of Northport's richest heirs right after college. Ella's mom? Hardcore strict. Pulled her out of a fling with some delinquent and married her off to a quiet professor with a just-decent paycheck. Ella hated it. Wanted my life so bad. So when I ended up in the hospital pregnant, she used her shiny doctor title to kill me—and my baby. Then boom—I woke up, and we were back to adoption day. This time, she dove for the mom she thought handed me the dream. What she didn't know? That "cool mom" she worshipped was straight-up a monster.

To pursue the goblin prince Cole Hutch, I devoted five years of my life. However, on the very day I'm about to marry him, dressed in a wedding gown, I overhear a conversation between Cole and his friend. "Cole, are you really going to marry Lilian?" his friend asks doubtfully. A shadow flickers across Cole's eyes. "Of course. The Heroic Alliance has been eyeing our kingdom for a long time, and now that Shia is pregnant with my child, the alliance elders are displeased with me. Marrying Lilian is the perfect way to appease them." "Aren't you afraid Lilian will find out you've been seeing someone else and go after Shia?" The friend asks again. Cole replied, "She won't. She's madly in love with me. She'll keep the secret for my sake. She's gentle and easy to control. As long as I marry her, we can at least delay a war against our kingdom, and Shia will be safe." My entire world shatters at that moment. In my daze, I get ambushed and gravely wounded. And when I finally wake up from my unconsciousness, I remember everyone, except Cole. So, when the leader of the Heroic Alliance contacts me to ask me to return for an arranged marriage, I immediately book a portal back seven days later.

My best friend, Scarlett Throne, is diagnosed with cancer. After running away from home, she takes her own life. She leaves behind only a testament and a pair of eight-year-old twins, a boy and a girl. "You're the only person I can rely on in this world. I'm not asking you to adopt them, but just make sure they have enough to eat." Out of compassion, I take the siblings in. For the next 20 years, my husband and I have been working hard together to raise them, buying them cars and houses. But one day, my adopted daughter reports my husband for being abusive toward her. Even my supposedly dead best friend suddenly appears and testifies against him. I demand to know why she does such a thing. My best friend, filled with righteous indignation, says, "I see you as my best friend! I've never thought you adopted my children just to serve your husband's perversions!" My husband's reputation is ruined, and he's been thrown in jail. I desperately try to prove his innocence, only to be forcibly sent to a mental hospital by my adopted son. There, I wither away and die. When I open my eyes again, I find myself back on the very day my best friend was diagnosed with cancer.

It's Family Day at my daughter, Hannah Neel's, preschool, but my wife, Samantha Miller, says she has to work and tells both Hannah and me not to go. Seeing the disappointment on Hannah's face breaks my heart, so I bring her to school anyway. As soon as we step through the gates, I see Samantha. She's holding her childhood friend—Oscar Barnett's—hand, with a little boy clutching her other. The three of them look like a perfect family, laughing and chatting, as if they belong together. When Samantha sees us, her smile fades, and she lets go of Oscar's hand. "Zach, it's not what you think. Oscar's raising his son alone. Today's his fifth birthday, and he just wanted to give him a little taste of a mother's love," she says quickly. I study her for a moment, then kneel and gently take Hannah's hand in mine. "Sweetheart, say hello to the lady."

For the fifth time this month, a delivery driver knocked on my door looking for an order that wasn't mine. Fed up, I taped a note outside: "I never order takeout. Whoever keeps using my address for pranks deserves a lifetime of bad luck." A few minutes later, someone knocked again. I yanked open the door and snapped, "I didn't order anything! Can you please check the address before bothering me?" The driver scratched his head, looking confused. "That's strange... I always deliver to this address." Not wanting to argue, I slammed the door shut. Moments later, violent pounding erupted from outside. Furious, I flung the door open, ready to curse out whoever was causing trouble. The words died in my throat the instant I saw who was standing there.

When my husband and I drop by his childhood home for Christmas dinner, my mother-in-law, Melissa Potter, is the only one busying away in the kitchen. Everyone else is on their phones. I've just taken a seat when Melissa begins to lecture me. "What, are you just going to sit your ass down and wait for food to come? Don't you know when to lend a helping hand? Am I supposed to exhaust myself for your sake?" From time to time, she keeps rattling the pots and pans loudly. "I can't believe those with healthy bodies want a 70-year-old like me to serve them! Does anyone here have any conscience?" Feeling a little uneasy, I gave my husband a tiny nudge. "Why don't you help Mom out?" After Melissa hears my suggestion, she gets even more pissed off. Thinking that this is my first Christmas with my in-laws, I don't really want to cause a scene here, so I get up to my feet and help her out. But the moment I enter the kitchen, Melissa delegates all the tasks to me. I endure my fury as much as I can while finishing the Christmas dinner preparations. When I'm about to head back to the dining table and dig in, Melissa suddenly speaks up. "Hold up. We got scores to settle before dinner."

After I broke my leg, I hired a caregiver called Linda Sherman to look after me in the hospital because I didn't want my parents to worry. I started joking around with my best friend Wendy Sherman when I was lying in my bed, bored. I said, "I'm an orphan. I have to depend on your takeout to keep me alive." It was only a joke, but Linda took it seriously and thought I was a disabled orphan. She immediately started laying down rules. "You ordered takeout again today, didn't you? You're in no position to keep treating yourself to expensive food. Don't you know what your finances look like right now? You lie in bed all day. Why do you need all that makeup? A woman should behave." I stared at her in confusion. "What does that have to do with you? You're here to take care of me." The moment I finished speaking, she yelled at me. "You're just a cripple with no parents now! No one but me would ever take you as a daughter-in-law! You're already throwing money around like it grows on trees! Once you marry my son, you'll run our family dry! "Now to mention how are you supposed to give me a healthy grandson if all you eat all day is junk food? My family only had one male heir after three generations!" I gritted my teeth. I wanted to call the home care agency and ask for a replacement. But thinking that I was going to get discharged in two days, I decided to put up with her. I never expected her to kidnap me so that her mentally ill son could sleep with me and make me his wife.

A text message popped up in the class group chat. A student had been in a car accident and had been rushed to the hospital. She urgently needed a donor with a rare RH-Negative blood type. Wanting to help, I went to the hospital and donated 800 milliliters of blood. Afterward, I passed out from blood loss. When she woke up, she claimed she was pregnant and said the baby was mine. Everyone accused me of crossing a line despite being an educator and professor in college. They said I had slept with a student and got her pregnant. I went to confront her, but she acted like she was the victim. "Your blood is in my body now, and in the baby's body too. What's wrong with saying the baby is yours? From now on, my baby and I are depending on you. You'd better take good care of us and make sure we don't suffer, or I'll sue you for seducing me and dumping me!" Furious, I shoved her. She rammed her stomach into the corner of a table on purpose and miscarried. The internet decided I was a scumbag who had killed the baby on purpose. "How can someone like that exist? How can someone like that teach at all!" I lost my job. I was doxxed and harassed over the phone. Someone even threw acid on me and destroyed my face. I lost everything. My wife, who was eight months pregnant at the time, believed me and defended me, only for the internet to turn on her too. They accused her of helping a monster to hurt others. The stress caused her to have a serious hemorrhage, and she and the baby both did not make it. Crushed by guilt and grief, I jumped off a building and killed myself. That student, however, profited from my tragedy and became an influencer with a million followers overnight. When I opened my eyes again, I had regressed to the day I saw the message in the group chat.  

To win votes for the school's annual honors award, my stingy roommate picked rotten fruit out of the trash and made it into fruit cups for our classmates. The moment I found out, I rushed to stop them from eating it. Instead, they accused me of being jealous and tore into me for trying to ruin their chances. That very night, they were rushed to the hospital with severe food poisoning. Afterward, my roommate framed me, claiming I had deliberately poisoned the fruit because I did not want her to win the school honors award. She even hid a bottle of pesticide in my locker and convinced our other two roommates to lie for her. With no way to prove my innocence, I became the target of furious parents. In the end, they hacked me to death. My roommate, meanwhile, became an internet celebrity by publicly trashing me and made a fortune from the attention. Now, when I opened my eyes again, I was back on the very day my roommate had picked those rotten fruits out of the trash to make her fruit cups.

A young woman showed up at my door, saying she wanted to become my wife to repay me for saving her life. She drove my younger sister out of the house and wanted to transfer the family property to her parasitic parents in my name! I immediately reported her. How could someone be so bold as to commit robbery right at my home in a society governed by law?

I went skiing alone on Valentine’s Day to clear my head. I never expected that later that night, my younger brother, Mason Cases, would show up after running away from home following a fight with our family. The front desk stopped him and asked for additional registration. I explained, "He’s my brother. He ran out after an argument and didn’t bring his ID. He’s just staying one night. I’ll take him home tomorrow." After hearing that, the receptionist, Riley Rowe, gave us a suggestive once-over, winking at my brother with a look that said, "I get it." "Alright," she said with a flirty smile. "It’s Valentine’s Day. I understand. No need to be shy." Seeing how exhausted Mason looked, I forced myself to swallow the disgust and brought him upstairs. That night, I came across a local post online. "Girls these days have no shame. Bringing some random guy back to a hotel on Valentine’s Day. She got caught and still had the nerve to lie, saying he’s her brother. Like I can’t tell?" Some users questioned whether she might have mistaken them. "I’ve worked in this industry for over ten years. There’s no way I got it wrong! She didn’t dare register him. Obviously, she’s afraid her husband will find out she’s cheating! I’m going to go listen outside their door later and livestream how loud she gets!" I froze. It couldn’t be that much of a coincidence, right? Until I opened the photo she had secretly taken. My blood turned to ice. That was me. Wait. The "random guy" she was talking about… Did she mean the one lying on the floor? But he really was my biological younger brother.

I rush into work this morning and accidentally send the car photos meant for the dealership into the medical intern group chat. The new intern snaps at me. "Dr. Tyson, why are you sending me pictures of my car? Are you jealous and trying to steal attention?" I stop short and ask if she has mixed things up, because the car is mine. She fires back with a whole stack of photos of herself driving a G-class with one hand, plus videos to prove the car in my picture belongs to her. She even tacks on a snide little jab. "You're a shameless, broke wannabe. You want any spotlight you can grab. You think a picture of a car is going to make you the lady of the Reed family?" I frown and turn to my husband, Jackson Reed. "Since when does the Reed family have a second lady of the house?"

I'm scheduled to work overtime for all five days of the long Thanksgiving holiday weekend. However, I decide to just put up with it because I remember that I have a 200,000-dollar year-end bonus at stake. On the first day of overtime, the HR manager, Karen Beech, deducts 200 dollars from my pay, citing "lack of attention to personal image and affecting the company's overall reputation" as the reason. I look at my neatly pressed dress shirt and slacks and frown. "I've strictly followed the company's rules regarding my appearance. What's the problem?" Without saying another word, Karen grabs a cup of hot coffee and splashes it all over me. "Well, you've got a problem now." That day, an official message is pinned on the company's Slack channel. "Alex Sutherland violated our company's policy, affecting the company's overall reputation. Thus, he's fined 200 dollars." Nobody speaks up for me in the channel. That's because the newly appointed General Manager, Remy Lincoln, says that he wants to reduce costs and increase the company's efficiency, which would mean random layoffs. As a result, the entire office has been thrown into a state of panic, and everyone is looking out for themselves. As for me, I am the highest-paid employee in the company with a monthly salary of 10,000 dollars. On the second day of overtime, someone locks my front door from the outside, making me almost a minute late for work. When I reach the company, Karen writes me up for being tardy and fires me on the spot. I look at another sales associate behind her, Sandra Leach, who is pretending to be busy with work to avoid my gaze. She is the only person in the entire company who has ever been invited to my home. I refuse to leave without a fight and request to see the company chairman, Mr. Richard Lincoln. However, Karen scoffs disdainfully at me and says, "Don't think that you have any influence on the company's decisions just because you're a sales manager. "Mr. Remy Lincoln is Mr. Lincoln Senior's only son, which means his will is also the chairman's." She then glances at my chest and adds, "Did you seriously think that a woman with zero assets like you could even attempt to seduce the chairman into changing his mind? In your dreams!" I'm at a complete loss for words. For starters, I am a man, and Karen has to be completely blind not to notice that. And secondly, if Remy really were my dad's only son, then who am I supposed to be?

During a weekly meeting, a new intern suddenly swapped the projection. The screen lit up with my attendance records, and all my colleagues’ eyes turned to me. The girl lifted her chin, a mix of arrogance and ignorance in her gaze, then slammed a stack of photos onto the conference table. “Mr. Anderson, I’d like to report her! She’s been using the company car to shuttle her family around, treating company resources like her personal vehicle. This must be dealt with immediately!” The room fell into an eerie silence. I looked at the eager intern, feeling a trace of sympathy. The “company car” she was complaining about was my luxury car. Three years ago, I had lent it to the company for appearances in business settings. Yet, I never charged a cent.

I was a ghost hunter. My client had bought a haunted manor. Everyone who moved inside ended up losing their minds, so they paid me a huge sum to exorcise the place. However, I had a feeling that I had bitten off more than I could chew. After moving in and fighting against the evil ghost for half a year, I could not handle it anymore and decided to move out to rest for a bit. Before my mind even cleared up completely, Ronald Durkin, my uncle, called me. “Apollo, Jessica just finished sitting for her SATs. I want the entire family to go with her on her graduation trip, but hotels are just too expensive. I heard that you rented a huge manor in the capital. Why don’t you let us stay there?” He then gave me some money, saying that it was rent. When I checked, I found that he had only given me a single cent. My mouth twitched, but I still patiently explained the situation to him. “Uncle Ronald, the manor is haunted. No one can move inside. Why don’t I give you three thousand dollars so that you could book a hotel?” I certainly did not expect him to hang up on me without another word and tag everyone in the family group chat. [Guys, everyone will be going dutch for the trip this time. Apollo will be providing us free lodgings in a ten thousand square feet manor in the capital.] The family group chat went wild, and everyone praised me for being a good boy. I simply could not laugh along with them. That place was uninhabitable!

While on a business trip, I stumbled into my brother-in-law, Julian Zeller, mid-act with a male colleague in a hotel parking lot. Furious, I blew the lid off his fake marriage and helped my sister, Yvonne Sutton, escape that scumbag. But after the divorce, she lost his financial support. She spiraled, blaming me for destroying her perfect marriage. She even killed me for trying to stop her from going back to him. Then, everything resets. I wake up, and there he is—slipping into the car while hugging the same man. I pocket my phone. This time, I won't ruin Yvonne's happy ending.

My sister-in-law, Esmerelda Black, hates that her mother, Ruth Jennings, favors me. To make things worse, she has the ability to hear Ruth's thoughts. And she uses that gift against me. When I tell Ruth to have more vegetables to stay healthy, Esmerelda says, "Clara is such a cheapskate not to buy you meat. She doesn't ask her own mom to eat more vegetables." When I encourage Ruth to exercise more to build strength, she says, "Mom, you're already old. You should be taking it easy. Clara wants you to work yourself to death." Slowly, Ruth grows to hate me. In the end, Esmerelda acquires the family business, seizes the fortune, and trafficks me to North Maldia to die. However, when I open my eyes again, I have her gift too—I can also hear Ruth's thoughts.

My stingy childhood friend Shane suddenly invited everyone to an expensive meal and slammed the keys to his brand-new car onto the table. Everyone at the table started cheering. They said Shane had struck it rich and was finally going to help his friends out. I was the only one who felt something was off. How could the guy who never repaid a single loan suddenly be this generous? I didn't touch a drop of alcohol. I smiled and played along while secretly having someone look into Shane's company. Sure enough, right there at the dinner, Shane showed up with an investor and pushed a contract in front of me. "Bro, this project is a guaranteed money-maker. We'll split the equity fifty-fifty. It's a rare opportunity." I flipped to the third page of the contract. The truth was right there in black and white. I understood everything. That meal had never been free after all.

On Mother's Day, I take my mom to a hotel under my company for a vacation. We've just sat on a leather couch in the lobby for a short while when the supervisor-in-training, Jacob White, rushes over angrily and yanks us up to our feet. "This couch is meant for the guests who have applied for a VIP membership in this hotel! For broke tourists like you, you're welcome to stay in a cheap motel! Don't leech off the cool air generated by our air conditioners here!" My brows are knotted into a frown instantly. I'm about to declare my identity when Jacob shows me a bill and demands that I pay 1,500 dollars for a meal here. My expression goes dark immediately. "We've just arrived at the hotel, and we barely even have a sip of water here. Why should we pay 1,500 dollars for a meal here?" Jacob rolls his eyes at me before rapping his knuckles on the counter in an arrogant manner. "Those who stay at this hotel must pay this sum! We're serving fancy food here, you know! It's your business to consume it, but regardless, you still have to pay up!" Unable to endure Jacob's antics anymore, I tell him to call the manager over. But he sneers at me before pointing at his name tag. "This hotel belongs to my godsister! I'm the one who calls the shots in the entire lobby! No one can help you this time, regardless of who you lodge a complaint to!" I stiffen up on the spot. I'm the only son in this family, and my relatives never meddle with my hotel businesses. Who the hell is this so-called godsister that has usurped my position as the owner?

A parent in my son's preschool group chat tagged me out of nowhere. "Theo's dad, your son's lunches always look pretty nice. Starting tomorrow, pack one for my daughter too." "I'm not asking for free food. I'll give you ten dollars a day. That adds up. You can make a little extra on the side." I stared at the message, almost laughing from how absurd it was. My son has severe food sensitivities and a fragile stomach. Every ingredient in his meals is specially sourced, and a single lunch costs far more than five hundred dollars to prepare. And this man thought ten dollars could buy it? I replied with two words: "Not happening." The next day, my son came home crying. His lunch had been taken by another child, and the teacher had scolded him for being selfish. Fine. Since they wanted to push this far, I would show them exactly how far I could go.