00 Liners Kpop

By the fifth year of my marriage to River Grayson, I had stopped checking his call logs and chat records. Instead, I spent my nights drinking and partying with my girlfriends at the poolside bar. When his ninety-ninth missed call lit up my screen, I let out a cold laugh and tossed my phone straight into the water. It didn't take long before he came storming in. The moment he pulled the strawberry-scented condom out of my pocket, he turned grim and banned me from leaving the house after 7:00 PM. "Joanne, you weren't like this before." I thought back to last month, when I had run into him at the hospital. He had lied about being on a business trip out of town, but there he was, holding Yvonne Sinclair's hand. I still remembered his words. "You lost your uterus from saving me back then. My sperm is perfectly fine. I'll give you a child—with your mother's help." Now, staring into his furious eyes, I said coldly, "Don't worry. There's no going back for us anymore."

My name is Ivy Lawson. At 3:00 am, I get a call from Christina McSpire, a parent of one of my students. "Hello, Ms. Lawson, I noticed Zoe only spent five dollars on her meal yesterday. Did she not eat any meat?" she asks. Pushing through my exhaustion, I reply, "Don't worry, Mrs. Street. I'll check on it tomorrow." Another half hour goes by, and she calls again. "It's supposed to rain tomorrow. Can you remind Zoe to bring an umbrella?" I can hardly keep my eyes open. "Got it," I reply absentmindedly. A few minutes later, my phone rings once more. "Please make sure Zoe brushes her teeth for three minutes. It's also important that she scrubs each side of her face at least three times." Suppressing my frustration, I calmly respond, "Zoe is in her senior year of high school. I'm sure she's capable of taking care of herself." I expect that to be the end of it, but when I wake up, my silenced phone shows over a hundred missed calls.

I've gone on a business trip. It's 3:00 am when my best friend suddenly calls me. He asks me why I didn't tell him that I already have a baby, seeing as we haven't met for a year. That question takes me by surprise. Josephine Bennett and I have been married for many years, but we've been using contraception all this time. Since when do we have a baby together? My best friend then sends me a screenshot of Josephine's social media feed. The caption shows, "This marks our 100th day together, my darling baby! I love you so much!" My heart goes tense when I see the screenshot. Immediately, I call Josephine to ask her what's going on. Her reaction is very cool and collected, though. "That's a relative's baby. I found the baby super adorable, so I decided to share the post. I didn't think I'd end up sharing the caption too." I just smile when I hear Josephine's answer. Later on, I call my older brother, Leonard Sterling. "Cut the funding for Josephine's research project. Turns out she's been cheating on me."

At 4:00 a.m., my husband, Rocco, gently shook me awake. His voice was a low murmur, . "Alessia, my love, could you do something for me?" But his next words shattered the illusion. "Scarlett is hungry. Go make her some seafood soup." Scarlett was our maid, and she was also Rocco's pregnant goomar. "I just had fresh seafood delivered. Get to the kitchen and make her a bowl of soup. Just for Falcone's heir." I refused, my voice cold. His anger flared in an instant. "Don't be so unreasonable, Alessia." "Is it really so hard for you to make some soup?" I shook my head, silent. He stroked my cheek, a patronizing smile playing on his lips. "Fine, Alessia. So you've learned to defy me now." "Think carefully, Alessia. Do you really want to keep your place as a Falcone?" "And your position as the family's lawyer? Think about whether you still want these… then give me your answer." Seeing the arrogance in Rocco's eyes, the last ember of love I had for this man died. I took out my phone and dialed a number I hadn't called in a long time. "I want out of the Falcone family."

On the day of my 30th birthday, my CEO wife, Sabrina Langford, leaves hurriedly at 3:00 am. She claims that there's something urgent going on at the company and that she won't be home the whole day. Later on, Timothy Cross, the low-income university student that Sabrina has been sponsoring, updates his social media feed. In the photo, I see Sabrina standing at the side of the road in a bikini. Two big apples are balanced on her 36D bust. The caption of the photo is, "The beautiful and hot CEO has personally come over to my house to help me sell the homegrown apples. You'll regret it if you don't buy these apples from me!" My brows are drawn into a frown immediately. When I call Sabrina, the call goes through rather quickly. "I told you I'm very busy at the company right now. If you disturb me again, I'm not going to forgive you this easily!" After that, Sabrina ends the call. But right before the call gets cut off, I can hear a car honking in her background. I'm not mad at her at all. She likes helping others to sell fruits, right? I might as well lend her a helping hand. So, I share the social media post to the company's group chat. The message I've drafted is, "Does anyone here want a batch of rotten apples? I'll even throw in a second-hand wife for free."

Nagmula si Yannie Ace Ruiz sa isang simple at payak na pamilya. Pangalawa siya sa limang magkakapatid. Wala sa bokabularyo niya ang pagkakaroon ng kasintahan, sapagkat abala siya sa kanyang pag-aaral ng mabuti, pag-aalaga ng mga kapatid, at pagtulong sa kanyang mga magulang. Bukod sa mga nabanggit ay abala rin siya sa pagiging fan girl ng 4SBLUE. Mahal na mahal niya ang nasabing banda at masayang-masaya siya sa tuwing napapanood ang mga ito. Kaya naman kuntento na siya at ayos lang sa kanya kung wala siyang nobyo 'di tulad ng kanyang mga kaibigan. But, not until he met Josh Rain Montez. Nakilala niya ang binata dahil sa naging online slash virtual friend niya na fan din ng 4SBLUE at iba pang mga kpop group. At mula nang ipagkatiwala niya ang puso niya rito ay nagbago na ang takbo ng kanyang buhay. Ang dating simple at payapa, ay nagkaroon na ng kakaibang gulo at saya. Malayong-malayo kasi ito sa inaasahan niya. Mayaman ang binata, nag-iisang anak, famous, habulin ng mga babae, gwapo, talented, sweet, at possessive pagdating sa kanya! Pakiramdam niya ay napakahaba ng kanyang buhok dahil patay na patay ito sa kanya. Na kahit hadlangan sila ng sibat o anomang bagyo ay nakahanda nitong ipaglaban ang pagmamahal para sa kanya. 'Yong dating sa mga libro lang niya nababasa, o 'di kaya'y sa mga drama sa telebisyon lang niya napapanood, ay nangyayari ngayon sa kanya. Will their love win overall?

The operation had just gone dark when the chatter started in the comms. “Easy, Zane. Don’t burn through another mattress.” A low laugh came through the headset. Relaxed. Careless. “I’ve been deployed for six months. I needed the release. And don’t let my wife hear that.” More laughter. “Right. Take care of the little mistress first, then call home and play devoted husband?” My phone rang. His voice when I answered was warm. Intimate. Soft in a way it never was on the field. He said he missed me. Said he counted the days until he could come home. I watched the live drone feed while he said it. What he didn’t know was that three months ago, I had quietly transferred into the family’s Strategic Intelligence division. Every operation his crew ran, I was the one behind the monitors—tracking shipments, rerouting safehouses, intercepting rival signals, listening to every word spoken over secured lines. The first night he slept with her, I logged the timestamp. 00:43 hours. When the call ended, I dialed another number—encrypted, family internal. “I’ll accept your offer,” I said calmly. “After this job, I’m stepping away.” The voice on the other end was steady. Controlled. Powerful. “You’ll leave after the Palermo Capture,” he replied. “I’ll personally see to your relocation.” A pause. “Three days.”

I get sent away to the countryside because my parents fear that I'll use my privileged background to lord over others. In turn, they're taking in Tina from that family to the city for her upbringing and schooling. In the countryside, I get up at 4:00 am daily to feed the pigs, then it's a grueling three-hour trek through the mountains to school. I'm also barely surviving due to constant malnutrition. I reach out to my parents for a mere 300 dollars for tuition, only for them to accuse me of spending recklessly. In the meantime, they're donating an entire building just to secure a spot for Tina at her preferred school. I finally make it into Tina's high school and earn a guaranteed university admission spot, only for my parents to order me to hand it over to her as they unleash their fury on me, yelling, "You're clearly bad to the bone, always trying to take things that belong to Tina." "Tina almost gave up on life because of what you did. You're indebted to her for the rest of your life." They, using their parental rights, forfeit my guaranteed university admission spot to fulfill Tina's wish. They then transfer all company shares and real estate to her for her future security, while the whole family makes arrangements to move abroad together. I take in everything before me, no longer feeling hurt. I calmly pack my belongings and walk away from the place where I don't belong.

During my night shift, I refused to help my adopted sister administer fluids to her patient. After the wrong drug is given, I watch a seven-year-old boy die after he suffers an allergic reaction right before my eyes. In my previous life, the boy's family stormed the nurses' station after I'd just finished administering his IV medication. The next thing I knew, I was violently beaten up. "You poisoned my grandchild by giving him the wrong medicine!" But the fluid I introduced into his bloodstream was a simple glucose solution. It couldn't have led to such a disastrous outcome. When I was on the brink of passing out, someone called the police. I thought help had finally arrived, but I was sorely mistaken. The police officer—my brother—pinned me to the ground. "We found your prints on the drug vial. You're a murderer." Then, my childhood friend, a forensic pathologist, held up an autopsy report and accused me of the same crime. "The patient's time of death is around 5:00 am. That's the same time you administered drugs into his system." Unable to prove my innocence, I was ultimately beaten to death by the boy's enraged family members. My brother and my childhood friend had always loved me. Even on the brink of death, I couldn't understand why they would do this to me. Now, I open my eyes and find myself back on the night it all began.

Late one night after getting off work, I was scrolling through my company group chat when a colleague shared a piece of news. The headline was horrifying. "Night-Shift Courier Murdered During Delivery, Police Suspect Robbery." I zoomed in on the crime scene photo that had been partially pixelated, and a chill ran straight down my spine. Lying in a pool of blood, the courier who had been hacked to death was unmistakably me. I had scrolled into news of my own death. Almost at the same time, my delivery app began vibrating violently. "Urgent pickup! Destination: Unit 704 Hawthorne Ridge Apartments, Building 7. Time limit: 15 minutes. Penalty for timeout: Death." As I stared at the notification that read "Pickup failed three times", the searing pain of my brutal death surged through my body. So that was it. I had already died three times. When I forced open the half-closed security door of 704 for the fourth time, a thin delivery envelope lay quietly inside. I tore it open. A photograph slipped out. It was a picture of my dismembered body. The timestamp showed tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. On the back was a single line written in fresh blood: "Next time, remember to pick it up on time." At that moment, the red indicator light on the hallway surveillance camera suddenly went dark. I looked up. From the ventilation opening in the exact same spot, a single eye was staring straight at me. The mole at the corner of that eye was identical to mine.