Kurzgeschichten & Romane

"Sorry, but we've oversold the seats in this flight. We'll give you a compensation. Please get off the plane right now." The manager of the airline company keeps a firm grip on my luggage. I look at him coldly before turning to look at the woman, who's covered in branded apparel from head to toe. After all, the manager has just welcomed her onto the plane. "Why does that latecomer get to board the plane? Meanwhile, I'm the one who's bought my own ticket at the regular price, am the one who gets kicked off the plane!" The manager chortles in return. He lowers his voice before mocking me, "That's because she's Kellie Castille, the heiress of the top-tier medical conglomerate in Jorleton! She's in a hurry to travel to Jorleton to hire the mysterious miracle doctor in order to save her life! "I don't care how urgent your matter is—there's no way it can be even more urgent than Ms. Castille's! If you cause any sort of delay to her business, nothing you do can ever make it up to her! Now hurry up and get off the plane!" A few security guards drag me off the plane forcibly. Just like that, I'm forced to watch the door close before my eyes. Fury courses through my veins at that moment. According to the manager, that Kellie woman is afflicted with a terminal disease. What he doesn't know is that I'm the "mysterious miracle doctor" who the Castilles have been begging for the past three months to accept their request. Today is the day I finally agree to fly to Jorleton in order to perform the life-saving surgery on Kellie. Since Kellie has already kicked me off the flight, I won't be going through with the surgery, then. Kellie can go to hell for all I care!

I was the exclusive seller of a special type of medicine. It had saved many cancer patients’ lives. After working hard for a year, I thought that I would have earned the patients’ gratitude. To my surprise, Peter Lorden, a doctor who also happened to be my rival, slandered me online and said that I was a pharmacist with no principles and scammed cancer patients. The patients who had once expressed their gratitude to me came forward as his witnesses and demanded compensation from me. My reputation was ruined overnight, and I was canceled by everyone online. So, I calmly terminated the distributorship for the special medicine and shut down my pharmacy to open a mini market instead. When their supply ran out, the lung cancer patients, who needed the medicine to stay alive, and Peter both called me while in tears. “Mr. Zimmerman, please continue selling the special medicine!”

"Kiara Hart, did you secretly hide some fresh milk? Hand it over now!" My boyfriend's younger brother, Matthew Chambers, pinned me against the wall and ran his hands over me, searching everywhere. He had no idea that the sweet scent was not milk, but...

On our son's birthday, a few aggressive and fierce dogs have suddenly barged into our home for no reason. But my wife, Jacinda Redmont, is quick to order for all doors and windows to be closed. "Our son's still in there! Hurry up and open the door!" I quickly stop Jacinda, only to get slapped in return. That's when I notice hatred and disgust written all over her face. "You weren't alarmed in the slightest when Benny suffered from a fright yesterday, and yet you claim that you'll treat both children fairly! You're filled with nothing but lies, Vincent Fuller! "Since you're that selfish, I'll personally teach you a lesson in fairness and just!" It turns out that Jacinda is exacting vengeance on her bastard son's behalf. Yesterday, her first love, Jaden Sutton, and his son, Benson Sutton, returned to the country without a warning. The dog that I've reared for five years did nothing but bark at them a few times, only for Jacinda to order her men to beat it. "By the way, Benny shall be the one replacing Timmy in the birthday banquet. We should use this opportunity to announce his status publicly." As I gaze at the heavily bandaged child in the ward as well as the hint of provocation in Jaden's eyes, I can't help but laugh. What makes them think that my son, Timothy Fuller, is the one who got injured by the dogs?

I, Julian Manning, am the top salesman at a car dealership, and I never refuse any customer's request. But today, I turn away a regular customer who comes in for a free maintenance service. My colleague is stunned. "Are you crazy? He's our biggest client who's about to buy the only 4-million-dollar top spec car in the store!" I nod and reply, "That's right. He's exactly the one I'm refusing." When the store manager sees the customer, Marvin Haas, angrily raise his phone to file a complaint, he rushes over to smooth things over. "Mr. Haas, please calm down. He's new and doesn't know better. Please come inside, I'll personally take care of everything..." I step to the side and block the entrance. "No. If you let him in, I'll resign right now." Marvin's face turns red with anger, and he points a trembling finger at. "I'm just here for a free maintenance. Is this really necessary?" I meet his gaze and say solemnly, word by word, "Yes, it is."

I, Lilian Newton, am the top luxury goods repair specialist. 90 percent of the store's revenue comes from me. Three years on the job, I turn a little shop that nearly goes bankrupt into a nationwide chain. Just because I am two minutes late to work, the new manager locks the front door and plans to take the staff on a trip. I ask her why I was not informed. She scoffs and says, "The capable should do more work. We are going on a trip. You stay behind to work overtime. If you can't handle it, then get lost!" I laugh in exasperation and call my husband right away. "I hear you're planning to fire me. Is that it?"

On our seventh wedding anniversary, my wife, Blair, the daughter of the city's richest man, straddled my lap, her kiss deep and intoxicating as she toyed with my lower lip. The same night, we just announced our pregnancy to the world. Just then, Blair's best friend, Chloe, asked in French, her tone suggestive: "Blair, you're absolutely glowing. But tell me honestly, how does it feel to get railed by another man while carrying a baby?" Blair let out a soft laugh, a familiar sound that sent a chill down my spine. She replied, also in French: "It feels absolutely incredible, Chloe. He's like a wild wolf. Just yesterday, he had his head buried between my thighs, using his mouth to bring me to tears before taking me so deep I forgot my own name." Her fingers were still toying with my collar, but her gaze was already distant. "But remember, keep this from Kevin. If he finds out what I've been doing behind his back while pregnant, it will be a disaster." The socialite sisters gathered around them shared knowing chuckles, raising their glasses and promising to keep the secret. The warmth in my veins turned to ice. My fervent passion to welcome a new life was instantly reduced to a pathetic joke. They had all forgotten that I spent my childhood in southern France. I understood every single syllable. I forced myself to remain calm, my face fixed in the perfect smile expected of a blissful husband about to welcome his first child, but the hand holding my champagne glass was trembling. I didn't fly into a rage. I didn't smash everything in sight. Instead, I took out my phone, found the invitation I had received a few days prior for the Aegis Agency, a highly classified organization on the other side of the world, and clicked "Accept." In three days, I would vanish from Blair's world.

In my past life, I was performing emergency pipeline repairs 300 meters beneath the ocean when my oxygen line ruptured. I swam back for help, only to have my wife, Summer Yates, and her first love, Zachary Gibson, lock me out of the diving bell. Not only did they ignore whether I lived or died, but they also started live-streaming an extreme no-oxygen endurance challenge to the entire internet. In the end, I suffocated and drowned. Even after my death, Summer and Zachary smeared my name, calling me a deranged saboteur, while they ran off together with my massive life insurance payout. When I opened my eyes again, I had been reborn to the exact moment I was banging on the hatch. Right on cue, Summer's sweet, teasing chuckle came through the comm. "All units, don't open the hatch. Carter wants to attempt an extreme challenge today. He's going to swim back to the surface without oxygen!" Immediately after, Zachary's voice followed, trembling with excitement. "Babe, the sponsors said if Carter succeeds this time, I'll be the lead director on next month's million-dollar documentary series!" In my past life, I had begged them through mouthfuls of blood, only to be met with Summer's impatient urging. "Stop wasting your energy. You should save your oxygen and start swimming up. You're such a strong swimmer. Just hold on for another half hour, and you'll make Zachary's dream come true!" Now, as I listened to this pair of scumbags plot against me, I sneered and cut the communication. I raised the highest-powered underwater cutting torch in my hand and aimed it directly at the main load-bearing cable connecting the diving bell to the surface vessel above. They wanted me dead, so none of them would be leaving alive either.

On the day I'm about to quit the game, I see countless live comments flashing across my vision. "Yay! The male supporting lead is about to quit the game!" "Now, the male lead won't have to worry about getting exposed for using the male supporting lead's game account to get into online relationships with others!" "Our darling male lead is too smart, after all! Whenever he goes on dates, he often uses the voice chat function in the game. That's why the male supporting lead is still kept in the dark!" "Holy shit, Henry really is lucky!" "To think that he used Vincent's max-level account to flirt with the four richest female players on the server!" "Later at 2:00 pm, he'll be meeting his first date partner, Yvonne Johnson the cold and aloof campus belle, at Cosmic Coffee!" "Tomorrow, he'll be meeting up with the top assassin in-game! The day after that, he'll go on a date with the second-highest paying player of the game! Wow, his time management skills really are amazing!" The "Henry" whom the live comments are referring to is Henry Luster, my roommate. So, he's been flirting with four of the top-tier rich female players while impersonating me, huh? More live comments streak past my eyes at that moment. "Why isn't the male supporting lead leaving? Yvonne is already waiting for the male lead right now!" "This is their first romantic date as the leads of this story! I can't wait to watch it unfold!" As I turn to look at Henry, who's styling his hair before the mirror, I suddenly realize that I'm the supporting male lead whom the live comments are referring to. My lips curl into a small smile. Since Henry has been using my identity to become a virtual casanova, then it's not wrong of me to attend each date in person on his behalf, right?

I've been drinking milk since young, so my body is far more mature compared to my peers. When I'm 18 years old, my protective older sister, Yvonne Gibson, is worried that I might get my cherry stolen by others via trickery, so she specifically asks her best friend, Jasmine Joyner, to take care of me. But during our first meeting, Jasmine's gaze never leaves my crotch. After my graduation, I lead a double life. During daytime, Jasmine is my boss. At night, I'm her bed partner. Throughout our four-year secret relationship, I'm slowly molded into the lover Jasmine likes the most. Four years later, Jasmine's ex-fiance, Ethan Sawyer, has returned to the country. She quickly jumps out of bed and hurries to the airport in order to pick him up. I endure my physical discomfort the best I can as I follow her to the airport. An hour ago, Jasmine's soft body is entangled with mine. But now, she allows another man to embrace her right in front of my eyes. "Marcel Gibson, you climbed into my bed and took advantage of my intoxication four years ago. You're being unreasonable right now, and it's really getting old." The way Jasmine gazes at Ethan is very tender. The way she looks at me while mocking me is also awfully serious. I also think that things between us are getting old as well, so I text Yvonne and tell her to accept the Roberts family's marriage proposal on my behalf. Then, I look up at Jasmine with a smile. "Okay. Goodbye, then."

It was my girlfriend's birthday. I took her to my family's newly opened restaurant for dinner. Since we were planning to have cake later, the two of us ordered a single set meal that included a pizza and a plate of pasta. Smiling, I handed the menu to the waiter. He took it with a fake smile. I heard him calling us paupers under his breath. I frowned. "What did you just say?" The waiter froze for a second. He then put on another fake smile. "I said I'll have your order ready shortly." I snorted and replied fluently in the same language he'd used. "You just called us paupers."

After returning to my in-laws' home for Christmas Eve dinner with my wife, Winona Zachary, only my mother-in-law, Jenny Stroll, was busy while the others were all on their phones. I had just sat down when Jenny started cursing, "They just sit there and wait to eat. They didn't even offer to help. Are they trying to exhaust me?" She would even slam the pots and pans from time to time. "How heartless for young people to let an elderly person like me serve them!" I felt a bit restless and nudged Winona. "Maybe you should go help her?" Jenny's insults escalated after hearing that. Remembering it was my first time spending Christmas at my in-laws' house and not wanting things to get too ugly, I got up to help. However, Jenny dumped everything on me as soon as I entered the kitchen. Suppressing my anger, I finished cooking dinner, served it, and got ready to eat. Jenny suddenly spoke up. "Wait, we need to settle some accounts before we eat."

"Don't pull it off… We're on the street. It's so embarrassing…" Outside a bar late at night, my boyfriend and I were drunk, slumped awkwardly on the curb by the roadside. What I never expected was that he would climb on top of me right there in public and start tugging at my underwear. I was wearing a short skirt, with only a thin layer of fabric underneath. If he pulled it off, wouldn't everything be exposed for people to see? I was just about to refuse, but when I turned my head, I realized— This wasn't my boyfriend at all.

Three years ago, during a critical moment of a business negotiation, the proprietary data I personally compiled ended up becoming the weapon that secured the victory for my business rival. I was taken away on the charges of leaking corporate secrets—and my girlfriend, Kelly Stone, smugly flashes the proprietary data at me, mocking me for my foolishness. After being given a five-year prison sentence, I suffered endless torture behind bars and died from the internal injuries. However, I got to witness everything that happened following my death. Whitney Evans, a college senior of mine who had a thing for me, did everything in her power to clear my name. She sold her company and pursued every avenue she could. In the end, after losing everything, she cried herself unconscious at my grave. Then, suddenly, my eyes opened again. I saw Kelly sneaking a USB drive into her handbag before turning to leave. I grabbed the USB drive from her and looked her in the eye, warning, "What you're doing is against the law, Kelly. I advise you to watch yourself from now on. Also, it's over between us. Don't even set foot inside my office again." Immediately, I went looking for Whitney. Three years have passed since then. In that time, I've managed to secure success in both career and love. It won't be long before I complete the acquisition of my company's business rival, Havenshire Group. Yet, the night before the official signing, I drink a glass of milk that Whitney gives me. My body swiftly goes weak, and I collapse on the couch. When I regain consciousness, I find myself lying on the floor with my hands and feet bound in metal chains. I can hear Kelly's and Whitney's voices ringing loud and clear. "No one will be able to see that you forged Caleb's signature for the share transfer agreement with Sam as the recipient, right?" "We'll just keep Caleb locked up here, so who's going to know that the signature is forged? His company has been expanding too quickly. We can't let him ruin Sam. It's all your fault, anyway, Kelly. I wouldn't have had to waste all those years on Caleb if you'd just stolen the data back then!" Taking in my restraints, I let out a self-deprecating smile. All along, I believed that Whitney and I loved each other. Turns out I've just been deluded this whole time. If Kelly and Whitney care about Samuel Gibson that much, they'd better spend every moment of their lives guarding him from now on. I'm going to do everything in my power to destroy him!

My long-term relationship has finally paid off. At the wedding venue, my fiancee, Dakota Young, has just begun sliding the ring onto my finger when her first love, Kyle Robinson, calls her all the way from the country he's currently studying in. All of my friends know of Dakota as the woman who loves me more than life itself. But this very same woman doesn't hesitate to bolt in the airport's direction with red-rimmed eyes after answering the phone call. My hand is left frozen in mid-air. That's when I suddenly start seeing live comments before my eyes. "Holy hell! I just took a glimpse at the profile picture of her first love! He looks exactly like the corpse who's delivered to my department!" "Seriously? Don't go around scaring me right now! I believe in the power of science!" "Either he has a twin, or you just got the wrong person! Stay calm!" My jaw goes slack, yet I can't utter a word after a while. I know who Kyle is. That man used to be her classmate back in college. But I also remember very clearly that he's the only child in his family…

My new patient, Lydia Baldwin, has called the police 99 times. Her voice trembles with fear as she says, "My son has a mole on his neck, but the one now doesn't! My husband used to throw up at the smell of cilantro. But now, he eats it every day and even enjoys it! "They are impostors! Why won't the police arrest them?" I am deeply shocked. Because just half an hour earlier, I met her son. He had dark circles under his eyes as he handed me Lydia's medical records. "My mom has Alzheimer's disease. She doesn't just forget things now. She talks nonsense too. Please, you have to help her come to her senses." But I specialize in treating Alzheimer's. Lydia's memory is sharp. Her logic is clear and well-supported. She isn't sick at all.

My boss, Walton Frazier, loves tricking me into wearing tight shirts and having the top three buttons undone before forcing me to entertain the female clients. Then, he drops hints to said that I'm young and have a great physique, only to wait with bated breath for the clients to start touching me. His excuse is that he wants to test the clients' characters to see if they really are worthy to work with. As soon as the clients fall for the trap hook, line, and sinker, Walton will rush out toward them in a righteous manner and slam his wine glass onto the table. After that, he'll start lecturing me as though I've done something awfully wrong. "Is there not a prideful bone in your body? Do you want to hit your sales target that badly that you're willing to forsake your pride as a man?" Walton chooses to trample all over me just so he can build his manly and righteous persona. This time, he specifically prepares a suit with a deep V-line that's made of light material. Then, he forces me to toast to a client with an extremely rich and powerful background in that suit. He even threatens to dock off three months' worth of perfect attendance pay if I don't do this. When I notice the familiar cold-looking yet striking face at the main seat, I can't help but smile. If my older sister, Mable Cobb, were to see me toasting to her in this kind of outfit, I have a feeling she'll clean out the trash for me and make me the boss of this company by tomorrow.

My father raised me on one principle: fair exchange. If I wanted anything, I had to earn it myself. Fifty cents for washing the dishes. A dollar for mopping the floor. Five dollars for a perfect score on a test. To buy the pair of white sneakers I had been dreaming of, I spent three months collecting recyclables. In that house, I lived like a pieceworker, paid by the task. It was not until my senior year of high school that everything began to crack. I collapsed during morning study, my body worn down by years of malnutrition. The doctor said I needed better nutrition. My father stood by my hospital bed and started doing the math. "Three hundred for the hospital stay. Two hundred for medication. Chester, this all goes on your tab for the future." I turned my head and saw a boy in a school uniform in the next bed. His father was feeding him spoonfuls of chicken soup, his eyes red with worry. In that moment, the world I had known for 18 years fell apart. It turned out not every child had to earn their parents' love. After I was discharged, I went home and saw the pair of designer sneakers on my brother's feet; it was worth thousands. That was when I finally woke up. I tore up the family photo and, without hesitation, applied to the college farthest from home. Ten years later, my father called me in tears. My brother had taken all his retirement savings, sold the house, and run off with his girlfriend. He was left with nothing. No home. No one. I smiled and tossed him a rag. "Want a place to stay? Sure. It's 50 cents per window. Earn your own rent."

My grandmother didn't have much time left. Before she passed away, she entrusted me to my boyfriend, Hunter Jones. As we held hands with our fingers interlaced, he promised to register our marriage in front of my grandmother's sickbed. However, the day after we registered our marriage, Sarah Moore, Hunter's female colleague, posted a picture of a marriage certificate with her and Hunter's names on it. There was a caption, stating, 'I know you have no choice but to agree to marry her. But as long as I'm the person you love most, I'm satisfied with only one month.' I went to find Hunter, intending to question him about what was going on. Instead, I overheard him chatting with his friend. "I'm indebted to Audrey's grandmother. I promised her that I would take care of Audrey for the rest of my life, so I have to take responsibility for her. As for Sarah, I can die without regrets if I can be her husband for a month in this life." His friend laughed and said, "Poor Audrey White. Aren't you afraid she'll get angry and run away when she finds out that the marriage certificate you got her was fake?" Hunter fell silent for a moment. "She will never find out. I'll just tell her that there was an error in the registration system and that we need to re-register. Audrey trusts me so much. She won't suspect anything," he added. However, his plans shattered when he tried to contact me to re-register our marriage. That was because he received my wedding gift for him, along with a wish that he and Sarah would have a long and happy life instead.

From the time I could count coins, my parents hammered one lesson home—if a boy did not start saving young, he would never have enough to win himself a wife. They opened a bank account in my name, vowing that money would only ever flow in, never out. And so, every birthday bill and crumpled allowance found a home in that card. I kept funneling every hard-earned paycheck into that same old account even after I moved to the city to chase my own future. At that point, that habit was done more out of reflex than reason. However, I was blindsided by acute kidney failure after years of working myself to the bone. Suddenly, that money was not just savings—it was my lifeline. My dad's voice trembled on the phone. He claimed he had forgotten the password and urged me to just take out an online loan for now. I hauled myself to the bank, my feet still shaky from my dialysis treatment. I clutched my ID, determined to file a loss report and reset the password myself. The teller's words froze me in place. "Sir, this account was emptied six months ago." Panic surged through me. I demanded a full printout of every transaction. The statement of the most recent transfer glared up at me from the paper, stating, "Wedding fund for our precious daughter, Natalia Callahan, plus the down payment for her luxury car."