The American Roommate Experiment

While studying abroad, I move into a shared apartment. Not a single day goes by without my housemate, Stuart Harper, calling himself some variation of a sweet, brave, and responsible guy. On the very first day he moves in, he hires workers to take out the insulation from the walls. I confront him about it, but he simply grins at me and proudly boasts about his decision. "That was all just some shoddy foam that the construction workers padded the walls with. Not only was it useless, but it was even taking up so much space. The fact that I forked out my own money to get rid of it proves that I'm such a sweet and responsible guy!" With a scowl on my face, I explain to Stuart the purpose of having proper insulation. He immediately leans in close with an admiring gaze. "I'm so sorry. I had no idea! I just wanted to do something nice for us. What should I do now? You have to help me think of something!" I naively assume Stuart just lacks common sense and doesn't act with malice. Thus, I willingly enter into a cycle of always cleaning up after his messes. One day, I get a fever. He ends up buying a secondhand electric slow cooker and declares he's going to take care of me by cooking me soup. My head throbs as I quickly put a stop to his attempt to heat the electric slow cooker on the induction stove. I tell him to let me catch a nap before I teach him how to cook later. But not long after I fall asleep, he secretly sticks the electric slow cooker into the microwave to heat it up. The microwave explodes. As the flames start to spread, Stuart screams and dashes out of the apartment at once. The fire alarm wakes me up. I try to evacuate the burning building, only to find that Stuart has locked the door from the outside. In the end, the fire burns me to a crisp. After that, however, he starts twisting things around. He goes online and says with a helpless expression, "My housemate set the apartment on fire while cooking. I'm the one who had to call the fire department on his behalf, and I even had to compensate the landlord for him. I'm definitely the sweetest, bravest, and most responsible guy to ever live!" As the online community proceeds to condemn me, Stuart uses the attention and publicity to go viral as a content creator. Some time later, my eyes open again. This time, I'm going to roast him good.

Calla Wynter is in for a ride and she doesn't even know it yet. 18 years old Calla Wynter thought rejecting her fated mate would free her. Instead, it trapped her in a dorm room with three wolves, each one tied to her past and her secrets. Three irresistible boys that are all attracted to her, three irresistible boys that she can't decide between. Especially when each of them makes her heart beat faster, and throws her wolf into a frenzy. When a professor’s murder exposes a curse linked to her rejection, she’s forced to fake-date the mate she swore off to save the academy… and maybe her own heart.

On the day I decide to quit the game, multiple comments suddenly streak across my vision. "Great news! The female supporting lead is finally quitting the game!" "Stacy no longer has to worry about getting exposed for using the supporting lead's game account to get into online relationships with others!" "Stacy is really smart! Every time she uses the supporting leads account, she always uses the in-game voice chat function! That supporting lead has no idea that Stacy has been doing this behind her back!" "Wow, Stacy really is blessed to have reeled in such amazing men!" "I can't believe she used the female supporting lead's max-level account to flirt with four of the best players on the server!" "At 2:00 pm later, she'll be meeting her first target, Lewis Johnes, the cold and aloof campus heartthrob, at Riche Cafe!' "Tomorrow, Stacy will be meeting the best assassin in person. The day after that, she'll meet the rich scion who's also ranked second on the list! She really is amazing with her time management skills!" The "Stacy" that the comments mention is Stacy White, my roommate. She actually impersonated me to flirt with four top-tier players on the server, huh? More comments streak across my vision once again. "Why isn't Heather leaving right now? Lewis is already waiting for Stacy!" "This is their first sweet date as a couple! Oh gosh, I can't wait to see it unfold!" I turn to look at Stacy, who's touching up her makeup in front of the vanity mirror. Only then do I understand that I'm the female supporting lead the comments are talking about. A small smile appears on my face. Since Stacy is impersonating me to become a Casanova, then it's not wrong of me to attend those meetings and reap the reverse harem she has prepared for me, right?

They were never supposed to be family. And they were never supposed to fall in love. Stephen has it all, he was the football captain, campus god, and dangerously charming. Hayden? He's the rival to his stepbrother, one who stole his girlfriend out of pure spite. After an explosive fight lands them both in detention, one impulsive kiss sets off a chain reaction of forbidden desire, brutal self-discovery, and secrets too dangerous to share. Stephen is bisexual. Hayden is homophobic, or so he claims. But when their mom forces them to share a dorm, the hate turns into heat, and the rivalry into something far more complicated. They can’t stand each other. They can’t escape each other. And the worst part? They don’t want to. Sneaky kisses, heated tension and jerking off to each other when the other can't hear, they end up in a maze of forbidden desires. But in a world where football is king and image is everything, loving each other might be the most dangerous play of all.

Isolde Vancrest had witnessed the ultimate betrayal. Her long-time fiancé, Alan Princeton, had gotten his own sister-in-law pregnant, and he had the audacity to defend it. Alan: "You can't have children. The family can't end with me." How ironic. This was the same man who had once knelt nine times to propose, swearing he would rather be sterile than ever hurt her. If love was a joke, then pride had lost all meaning. That night, Isolde called the one man in Southbridge whose name most people feared to speak. By morning, she was his wife. When Alan saw her again, it was at her wedding. He dropped to his knees, eyes red. Alan: "Honey, I was wrong. Please… look at me." Isolde took a step back and fell into the arms of the man behind her. "The Prince," the ruthless ruler of half the city, wrapped an arm around her waist. "Seems you've forgotten your place." His voice was biting cold as he looked down at Alan. "Now she’s someone you don’t deserve to even look at."

I, Alpha Lake Rush of the Rush Pack, hereby reject you, JoJo Wyatt, as my mate. However, you will need to keep working to pay off your debt." "Wait, what?" At the tender age of eleven, JoJo Wyatt had been forced to grow up faster than most. Coming from a challenging family background with a distant father and a fragile mother, JoJo realized early on that she had to take responsibility for herself and her younger sister. Her focus was solely on survival—love and romance held no appeal for her, especially after a devastating experience. She swore off relationships with men, but that changed when she began working for him in an unconventional role, trying to pay off roughly 7.8 million dollars for her mother’s hospital treatments. Alpha Lake Rush, 30, was known as the most formidable Alpha in the country. Though burdened by his own struggles, he had learned to be strong and decisive. His past experiences had led him to reject two of his mates. But when fate brings him JoJo, who is working to pay off her debt, everything changes. What happens when his destined mate turns out to be the one person he never expected—his third chance mate?

It was about time because my dad got a new girlfriend and said he wanted us to have a meal together to introduce the new woman into our lives. On the day we met, my college roommate saw my chat background, which had a photo of me and my dad, along with a series of transfer records. She lost her mind. She enlisted the support of our other roommates, who rarely paid me any attention and began to attack me, insisting that I was a side chick who deserved to die. I did not expect that my roommate would soon become my stepmom. Before I could explain, she accused me of trying to seduce my dad behind her back, shouting, "Shameless side chick! Going behind my back to seduce my boyfriend! All those times you said you were out studying?! Who knows if you were just meeting up with him?" I was once physically assaulted, stripped of my dignity, and forced to the restaurant for a public confrontation wearing ragged clothes. Then my dad came running to where I was hardly breathing and barely moving on the floor, bruised to the extreme. “Sweetheart, who did this to you?!”

When my roommate learned that getting pregnant in university came with special treatment, she brazenly posted on the campus forum, openly recruiting a "baby daddy." [Requirements: over 5'11", eight-pack abs, handsome, assets in the millions, no bad habits.] Afraid she would ruin her life on a moment of reckless impulse, I snatched her phone, deleted the post, and gave her a serious rundown on the risks and consequences of early pregnancy while still studying. After much deliberation, she was finally persuaded. But a month later, a classmate struck it rich by getting pregnant. She not only married into a wealthy family, but also received a million-dollar childbirth bonus from her in-laws. My roommate was driven mad with jealousy. She stormed into the dorm, shrieking at me at the top of her lungs. "If it weren't for you, I'd be a rich wife by now! You owe me my life!" As she screamed, she stabbed me over and over, venting her rage until I was dead. When I opened my eyes again, I was back to the day she first posted on the forum, brazenly searching for a baby daddy.

In my dormitory, there was a poor student. With all the good intentions in the world, my roommates and I were eager to help her, not realizing how much our help would cost. She wasn't impressed by the hairdryer we offered, insisting on borrowing a branded one instead. The skincare products we gave her? They were applied to her feet. And, as if that wasn't enough, she specifically demanded luxury face cream. One day, I lent her my tablet to look up some information, and to my surprise, she secretly opened up my gaming app, spent all the diamonds and reward tickets I had saved for half a year, and left me empty-handed. When I asked her to pay me back, she turned the tables and posted a public message online, accusing me. "I'm just a poor student from the countryside, never played games before. Are the materials in the game really worth this much?" Before I knew it, the comment section was flooded with criticisms of me. In a fit of frustration, I fired back with a post of my own, throwing her into the spotlight. "Well, I suppose you've never tasted the bitterness of being cyberbullied, have you?"

My roommate beamed with pride as she told me a horrifying secret: she had allowed a wealthy businessman to "remove" her unborn child, claiming he absorbed the baby’s fortune in exchange for a hefty payout. Chills ran down my spine. I urged her to stop meddling with such dark dealings before it destroyed her, but she wouldn’t listen. Instead, she threw herself into it, addicted to helping people "transfer luck" for money. Her luck ran out when she contracted a mysterious disease. When her boyfriend found out, she turned on me, tearfully accusing me of tying her to another man’s bed. Before I could even defend myself, an enraged man ran me down with his car. The next thing I knew, I woke up to find myself back in time. My roommate was leaning in close, her eyes glinting with excitement as she whispered, asking if I wanted to join her "luck transfer" schemes. This time, I wasn’t taking any chances. I noticed the slight swell of her belly and immediately sent a text to her boyfriend: "Congrats! You’re going to be a dad!"