Okuda X Karma Novels & Stories

As I'm unable to get a ticket for my return trip after the Thanksgiving holiday, I specifically booked a first-class seat home. Just as I find my seat, I see an unruly child jumping around on it. I patiently smile and say, "Kid, this is my seat. Where is your seat?" He makes a face at me. "It's mine now, old hag!" I grab him by the collar of his shirt, wanting to lift him out of the seat. At that moment, a woman's piercing voice sounds behind me. "What are you doing? Let go of my son!" I release my grip and say as gently as possible, "Please control your child. This is my seat." Suddenly, she raises her voice. "He's just a child! Can't you, as an adult, give way to him? You're young and dressed decently. How can you have no compassion at all?" I'm so angered by this distorted reasoning that I laugh. "If you're so compassionate, why didn't you spend the money to buy your child a first-class seat?"

My child-free husband went back to his hometown for a funeral, and after he returned, he suddenly wanted me to have a baby. He was one of the best obgyns in the state, so he handled my IVF procedure himself. After more than 160 hormone shots, we finally heard the baby’s rhythmic heartbeats for the first time, which made my usually calm husband tear up. Soon, he tightened every part of my routine, from a strict diet to my schedule, and once my belly started showing, he barely let me get out of bed. I thought he was just being overly protective. But then, right by my ear, I heard a nasty little boy’s voice. [Which player starts their mission inside the womb? And she’s not even my mom!] [Just four more months. My dad will make sure she dies on the operating table so he can keep only his son.] [After that, he’ll bring my real mom back, and my mission will be complete!] I canceled my afternoon checkup immediately as soon as I heard this. Did the system forget to tell him that he wasn’t the only player in this world?

I've gotten into an accident. When my childhood friend, Jason Patel, drops by to visit me, I feel like pulling a prank on him all of a sudden. So, I ask, "Who are you? I've lost my memory." He's left feeling stunned for a moment before he reveals the fake smile that he often wears whenever he pulls pranks on others. "I'm your boyfriend, Jason Patel." My heart begins pounding wildly in my chest. I decide to go along with this little prank. That summer of us playing pretend has to be the happiest time of my life. But when Giselle Ford returns to our lives, Jason immediately clears the air between us. It turns out that he and Giselle have had a crush on each other during their high school days. Unfortunately, they missed the chance to date each other. What am I to them, then? So, I can only grant their wish of wanting to stay together. That's why I laugh and call Jason out for being an idiot because he can't even tell that I faked my memory loss. Unexpectedly, I get into another accident some time later. When I wake up, I ask Jason who he is again. Impatience flickers across his expression. "Don't you feel lame for using the same trick twice?" What he doesn't know is that I've truly lost my memory this time.

After my best friend, Penny Hallmark, found herself a wealthy man, she suddenly became a different person. I had done nothing more than glance at her husband, Martin Rembrandt, yet she slapped me hard across the face. “I treated you as my closest friend, but you dared seduce Martin right in front of me. He’s Chris’s brother! Have you no shame at all?” Her accusation brought tears to my eyes, but Penny resorted to locking me inside a reservoir. “What are you playing at anyway? Fine. Let me give you something to really cry about!” I nearly drowned, and she uploaded photos of me soaked to the skin, claiming online that I was behaving indecently. I became the target of cyberbullying, my boyfriend, Christopher Rembrandt, proposed a breakup, and in utter despair, I decided to end my life. Yet my best friend mocked me coldly. “Do you really think I don’t know your little tricks? You’re just pretending to be pitiful to gain sympathy, aren’t you? “That won’t do at all, Rose. Let me give you a hand!” She pulled out my breathing tube, and only when my life completely slipped away did she smile in satisfaction. “Good. Now I can enjoy both Chris and Martin’s affection.” When I opened my eyes again, I had transmigrated into the body of Chris’s mother, who had just passed away. Given a second chance at life, I was determined to make Penny pay. After all, the man she loved most was nothing more than a hopeless mama’s boy.

Years after graduation, someone suddenly tags me in the class group chat. "Mr. Warren is gravely ill, Mira. Aren't you going to do anything? You really are heartless!" I only realize what's going on when I click on the fundraising link in the chat. Our high school homeroom teacher, Joseph Warren, has late-stage cancer. Thus, Lyra Fairfield, the class belle, is leading a fundraiser and patient-donor matching process. "I'll donate ten thousand dollars. My husband is the director of Waverly General Hospital, and I've already asked him to arrange a VIP ward for Mr. Warren." Right after I send that message, the group pounces on me. "Mira, you contracted an STD back then and tried to pin it on Lyra. She didn't even hold it against you, and now you're trying to steal her thunder? You're unbelievable!" "I can't believe you're still lying through your teeth during such a serious situation. You never change, do you?" Lyra immediately defuses the tension. "Mira, I don't blame you for what happened in the past, but you really shouldn't impersonate the director's wife. I've already arranged the ward and surgery, and I'm donating another 100 thousand dollars to Mr. Warren!" I'm this close to laughing out of sheer anger. She's the one who scratched her name off the diagnosis report and framed me for having an STD all those years ago. I never even confronted her about it, and now she's playing the victim? Lyra soon posts a photo in the group chat, showing off her husband's car. Yet, when I see the man in the passenger seat, I guffaw. Isn't that my husband's driver? When did he start running a hospital?

On my wedding night, I was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance after a tampered condom left me in excruciating pain. The surgery took over twenty-four hours, and the story spread like wildfire. My husband, Alexander, let it be known that anyone who managed to photograph me in my post-surgery state would be rewarded with ten million dollars. Overnight, I went from being a billionaire's new wife to the laughingstock of every elite circle in New York. The next day, Alexander's childhood sweetheart Dahlia showed up at my door. That was when I learned the truth: she'd coated the condom with industrial-strength adhesive as part of what she called a "social experiment." She didn't show a shred of remorse. Her tone was flippant and cruel: "It was just an experiment. I mean, how was I supposed to know you'd react like that? Besides, we both know you were never good enough for Alexander. So drop the act." Alexander stood beside her, his gaze cold and dismissive: "If it weren't for the marriage contract, no one would've touched you. You know that, right?" What he didn't know was that the woman he was calling a slut had saved his life more times than he could count.

My pup Asher had been sick for six months. Every time I personally cared for him, he became even sicker. I finally believed the witch's prophecy: I was cursed. My very existence would harm my own pup. I went to the moon temple and prayed that the moon goddess would lift the curse and ensure my pup's safety. From then on, my Alpha mate Damon brought Asher up the mountain every day to see me. Hundreds of miles of mountain road. They made the trip over a thousand times. Our bond never faded with the distance. Until today. A group of rogues broke into the Sanctuary and pushed me down the stone steps. I called Damon all night. No one answered. Then I received an anonymous video. Damon knelt in front of a woman, kissing her swollen belly. Asher stood next to them, grinning ear to ear. "I'm gonna have a brother! Aunt Serena, your pregnancy must have been so tough. Me and Dad will be your knights forever." He turned to Damon, his young face bright with pride. "Dad, I faked being sick pretty well, right? Pretending to feel awful every day, tricking Mom into taking me to the Healer over and over. They never found anything wrong, and she really believed that curse stuff. Went up the mountain all on her own." "But what if Mom finds out? Won't she be mad?" Damon didn't seem worried. "Don't worry. I've got the whole mountain sealed off. She won't find out." Only then did I understand. Everything had been a lie, planned by my mate and my son. I turned around and knocked over the Hope Flame that I had lit for Asher without hesitation. This flame was lit at the cost of my wolf’s strength, offered to the Moon Goddess so that she might bless Asher with health. Through the flames, a familiar figure sprinted toward me.

After being released from my three-year sentence, Zoe Sanders finally found me in an underground fight club. The moment she saw me, she grabbed me by the collar and punched me across the face, her eyes burning red with fury. "Henry Goldman, who gave you the nerve to disappear like this? "And what the hell have you done to yourself?" I wiped the blood from the corner of my mouth and laughed carelessly. "One punch, one hundred thousand. "If you’re still angry, feel free to keep going. I could use the money for this year’s rent." Her fists trembled uncontrollably, but her voice softened. "Come home with me... apologize to Ronald Green. "He’s always been kind-hearted. He already forgave you for framing him." Her gaze swept over the scars covering my body, something unreadable flickering in her eyes. "Look at yourself. Covered in blood like this... what’s the difference between you and a stray dog digging through garbage?" My body stiffened. Then I turned and walked away. What she did not know was this: In prison, blood and violence were the only ways I learned to survive. "Don’t forget," she shouted after me, "I’m still your fiancée!" My footsteps stopped. How could I forget? Three years ago, on the night of our engagement, Ronald drugged me and sent me to a black-market auction. I was stripped of all dignity and sold like merchandise. That night, I became the laughingstock of the entire city. And the person who signed the papers that sold me… was my fiancée herself.

Five years after my death, my ex-husband, Adrian Shaw, came home with his childhood sweetheart, Hannah Reed, on his arm. They were preparing for a new mating ceremony. His only wish before the ceremony was to find me and make me pay for severing our mate bond and betraying him all those years ago. To force me to show myself, he destroyed my family's company, drove my father out of his mind, and burned down the home we had once shared. What he did not know was that I was already dead. Five years earlier, desperate to pay for the treatment he needed after a car accident badly injured his inner wolf, I signed up as a test subject at an underground clinic. It was an illegal clinic that used live subjects to test experimental silver-derived compounds and wolfsbane antidotes. I died in its basement. Later, my grandmother, who had dementia, ran into Adrian in the neighborhood. My grandmother's face lit up with joy. "Adrian, you're back? Grace has missed you so much. Come with me. I'll take you to see Grace."

I gave out my special rat poison for free, trying to fix the complex's rat problem. And my neighbor Brenda turned right around and reported me. She demanded I pay out of pocket to have the rats disposed of humanely. I looked around at the neighbors. "I know a place that'll do it at cost," I said. "Extermination plus sanitizing runs about thirty grand. Split it across every unit and that's maybe twenty bucks a household—" Brenda cut me off before I could finish. "Nora, honey, you're the one who decided to trap those rats." "Why should everyone else foot the bill for that?" "And come on, it's a few hundred rats. You really need that kind of money?" "We're all neighbors here. Don't go shaking us down." I looked up at the neighbors, every one of them dodging my eyes. I couldn't help but smile. Fine. They all just want a free ride. Just don't come crying to me later.