Yuji Itadori Smiling Novels & Stories

My fiancee gets drunk the day before our wedding. While I'm taking her home, she mistakes me for my best friend. "Jackson, don't bring our child to the wedding tomorrow. I don't want Samuel to know about us." I slam on the brakes, causing Madelyn Wilkinson to hit the seatback and come to her senses. When she realizes it's me, she freezes for a moment before slowly explaining, "Since you heard that, let's call off the wedding for now. You don't have to worry. Jackson doesn't plan on getting married again. But I'm still that child's mother no matter what, so I need to help out. "Jackson's your best friend. You feel sorry for him if he has to raise a child alone, don't you? I'll marry you after my son starts school." I can't help smiling bitterly. "Alright then… I don't have a problem with that." When we get home, she packs up a suitcase and leaves without another word. Feeling a sting in my eyes, I suppress my emotions as I sit on the couch, falling into a daze. That's when my phone rings at the worst possible moment. My childhood friend, Hazel Parsons, says in a hoarse voice, "Sam, don't marry her. Please." I fall silent for a beat. "Alright."

At the Blood Oath ceremony, right as my mate Alistair leaned in to kiss me, a voice suddenly echoed in my mind. [Sex with Gene is electric. Fucking Carys is like fucking a corpse.] It was Alistair's voice. I stared at him in shock, only to find him still smiling at me without missing a beat. Gene was a newborn vampire, recently turned. She was Alistair's subordinate in the North American Vampire Council. Right now, she was clinging to her new boyfriend Silas, a low-level vamp. A second later, Gene's voice rang in my head too. [Silas, that filthy thin-blood, can't even afford a simple moonstone charm. He's good for fetching things and not much else. Once I dump him, I'm going to be Alistair's true mate.] Then came the conflicted voice of the "thin-blood" she was talking about: [The Progenitor's trial is almost over. How do I tell Gene I'm about to be crowned the Prince of the oldest vampire clan?] How amusing. I had unexpectedly awakened the gift of telepathy. Even more surprising: My fiancé got his Council seat because of me. Now, everyone treats him like a king. While the true Vampire Prince was being treated like trash. Holding my goblet of premium vintage blood, I gracefully walked toward the thin-blood.

Leah, Logan’s adopted sister, threw a tantrum at our first engagement party, an episode of her pup dependency anxiety. But after that night, I gave him an ultimatum: if he couldn’t bond me before I turned thirty, he’d have to choose—me or Leah. Logan believed I’d never walk away. After all, I was bonded by my dying mother’s last wish: to be bonded with the werewolf warrior who’d loved me for ten years. Ten years together. Twelve promises that he’d keep Leah in line. And then came my twenty-ninth birthday—our thirteenth engagement party. Leah locked me in a restroom, stole my gown, and stood beside Logan in my place. She was smiling, glowing, claiming everything that was mine. When I finally stepped out, my gown was tattered. I confronted Logan, but he only said, “Alison, forgive her. I promise, this is the last time.” I looked at the torn gown my mother had sewn through sickness and pain… and I laughed. Logan sighed in relief, thinking I’d let it slide again. But I didn’t. I turned and walked away without a word. After a decade together, he thought I belonged to him. Well, he was wrong. He didn’t know that there was someone else who could give me happiness and fulfill my mother’s wish.

As Gamma of the Creed Pack, I'd held the Northern Border alone for three full years. Every time I called in to ask when I could come home, my mate — the Alpha of Creed — picked up the phone himself. He told me the rogues weren't cleared. He told me the rival packs were still circling. He said, "Nora. One more year. Once we have completely eliminated all our enemies, I will hold the grandest mating ceremony for you. I swear it on the Moon." I believed him. When I dragged myself out of a pile of dead rogues with a silver arrowhead still lodged an inch from my heart, bleeding too fast for a medevac, my warriors had to shift and run me back in wolf form all the way to Creed territory. The moment we crossed the border, I saw fairy lights strung from every streetlamp along the road to the pack house. Pack wolves on the sidewalks were talking loud, smiling at each other. "The Alpha's Mating Ceremony is tonight. He's taking the Elder's daughter as Luna. Three years of peace on the border. It's a good time to be Creed." I coughed dark blood into the fur on the back of my warrior's neck and laughed, short and bitter. He hadn't needed me holding the border. He just hadn't wanted me home.

The day my husband, Eric Johnson, brought his foster sister home from overseas, he gave her our master bedroom. "Yvonne just lost her husband. She's heartbroken, so I want her to feel comfortable," he said. I nodded obediently. "Okay." The next day was my birthday. Yvonne said she was feeling down and wanted her brother, Eric, to go stargazing with her. Eric turned to me and said, "She really needs me right now. I'll celebrate your birthday with you later." Still, I smiled and nodded. "Okay." Ten years of marriage and I was ready to walk away from it all… Because I have lived this life once already. In my previous life, I made the mistake of asking Eric to stay with me on my birthday. I did not let him go stargazing with Yvonne. She ended up falling into the water in her sorrow and was rushed to the hospital. After that, Eric shoved my head into a bathtub and held me there until I drowned. In this second life, when Eric handed me the divorce papers and said, "I’m only marrying Yvonne to help her revoke her foreign citizenship and restore her citizenship here. Once it's done, we'll remarry." I did not hesitate. I signed my name without a second thought. By the time he came looking for me again, I was already sitting on his archenemy's lap, smiling like a flower in full bloom.

AUTUMN'S POV His voice was low when he said it — “You shouldn’t be here, Autumn.” “Then stop looking at me like that,” I fired back. He didn’t blink. “Like what?” “Like you’re about to do something you’ll regret.” He stepped closer, close enough for me to feel the heat off him. “I already regret it.” And then he kissed me. It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t sweet. It was the kind of kiss that felt like a secret we’d never escape from. The next morning, my mom came home glowing, flashing a ring. And beside her stood him. The same man who kissed me like I belonged to him. “Autumn,” she said, smiling proudly. “Meet your new stepbrother.” Everything inside me froze — except his gaze. He didn’t even flinch. Just stared, silent, daring me to say something. Now, we live under the same roof. Same walls. Same tension that hums like electricity every time we’re alone. He says it’s wrong. He swears he’s trying to stop. But when the house goes quiet, and his voice finds me in the dark, he whispers, “Tell me to leave, and I will.” I never do. Because this isn’t just attraction — it’s an obsession neither of us can break. And when the truth finally blows open, someone’s going to burn for it.

Leonard Burton and I are childhood sweethearts, bound by a family-arranged marriage. After we marry, we live a loving, harmonious life. In a terrible accident, he even gives up his only chance at survival to save me. After Leonard's death, we find a journal among his belongings. In it, he records the three years he was missing after falling off a cliff—years spent with another woman he deeply loved. But his parents had forcibly separated them and arranged our marriage instead. Unbeknownst to anyone, he had continued to protect that woman from afar, silently and faithfully. At the funeral, Leonard's mother, Charlotte Newman, is inconsolable. "Leonard, it's all my fault. Would you still be alive if I'd let you marry Yelena back then?" His father, Samuel Burton, glares at me with hatred. "He fell off that cliff saving you. He died in that crash shielding you. Why do you bring him nothing but harm? Why aren't you the one who's dead?" Yes, why is it not me who's dead? I look at Leonard's familiar, smiling face on his gravestone before running at it and smashing my head on it. When I open my eyes again, I'm taken back to when he just returned from that small fishing village. This time, I choose to let him go and give him what he wants. Finally, I see Leonard again.

Three years ago, my fated mate, Rex Hemmond, had personally signed the auction contract, resulting in me getting delivered onto the auction stage in the black market. That night, I was injected with aphrodisiacs, leading to me revealing my most debauched side in front of everyone. That was how I became the most hated harlot in the Moonshade pack. My sister, Daisy Russell, could be seen nestling into Rex's arms. She was smiling as she watched me fall into the abyss. During the years of my exile, I spent countless nights beneath bridges. Most of the time, I was chased around by others who wanted to beat me up. Eventually, I started earning money by slaving away in underground cage fights as a fighter so that I could buy back the estate that my dad had left me with. Three years later, Rex tracks me down with bloodshot eyes. "Come back with me and apologize to Daisy." I respond by punching him in the face. "That'll be 100 dollars per punch. If you're still unsatisfied, you can keep punching me." When Rex takes Daisy's hand at the estate's gateway and claims that it will be hers from now on, I finally fire a text message to an unknown number. "I need you." The moment that wolf steps into the Moonshade pack, Rex questions me with red-rimmed eyes, "Since when did you get together with him?" I just smile in return. "He was the one who saved me on the night you signed the auction contract."

Betrayed by her fiancé and left to burn alive in a lavish New York restaurant, Laura should have perished that night. Instead, she survives—faceless, broken, and reborn as Mia Carters, the cold, ruthless heiress everyone believed was dead. Now wearing the face of the city’s most hated woman, Laura steps into a world of obscene wealth, deadly secrets, and merciless power plays. Mia’s billions hold more than fortune; they conceal a flash drive capable of toppling empires—and every predator in the city wants it. Vincent Noir, the domineering head of the Noir family and Mia’s rumored fiancé, is the only man who knows the truth. Cold, possessive, and dangerously obsessed, he gave Laura a second chance at life… and a chance to finally make her his. But his protection comes with chains, and his touch ignites a fire she’s terrified to surrender to. As Laura hunts the people who destroyed her—starting with the man who set her ablaze—she must navigate a web of manipulation, stalking, and family betrayal. Old enemies wear smiling faces, new threats lurk in every shadow, and someone knows she’s an imposter. In a deadly game of revenge and desire, Laura will become everything Mia was and more. But when the real Mia returns and the ultimate betrayal is revealed, surviving her new life may cost her everything—including the heart she swore never to give. In a world where fortune is power and love is the ultimate weapon, one woman will rise from the ashes… and burn them all.

The old duke had gone to the palace three times and surrendered control over three Northmere estates before my father finally agreed to the engagement. Cassian Blackwell, Duke of Northmere, was young, powerful, wealthy, and apparently handsome enough to satisfy the entire court. To me, he was simply the man my brother had chosen because he was terrified I would lose my head over some man at the border and forget my family entirely. So he ordered me home for the engagement ceremony. Out of basic respect for the occasion, I went to choose the pink diamond necklace I would wear that night. The moment I stepped into the jewelry boutique, one necklace caught my eye. “That one is pretty,” a sharp, arrogant voice said behind me. “I’ll take it. Bring it here.” Before I could react, the sales associate pulled the box out of my hand. I straightened and kept my voice even. “Did no one ever teach you that customers are served in order?” The woman looked me up and down with open contempt. “The necklace costs three point two million,” she said, smiling as she tapped the crest pinned to her jacket. “Can you afford that? I grew up with the Duke of Northmere. In this city, I decide what I get.” Blackwell. What a coincidence. Cassian Blackwell was the fiancé I was supposed to meet that night. I took out my phone and dialed his number. “Cassian, your childhood friend is trying to take the necklace I chose for our engagement ceremony. How would you like me to handle her?”