❤️CHAPTER 11 — Lumen’s POV: First Jealousy
1077 Words
CHAPTER 11 — Lumen’s POV: First Jealousy
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I heard the phone ring three times.
At first, it didn’t matter. Humans get calls every day. Notifications. Distractions. Noise.
But the moment Nunbi answered, something in her voice changed.
Not the soft warmth she used with me.
Not the playful tone she used when she tried to hide her smile.
This voice was careful.
Guarded.
Uneasy.
“…Jae‑min,” she repeated quietly.
A man’s name.
I stopped halfway through folding the blanket she left on the couch. My hands froze, but the heat in my chest didn’t.
Jae‑min.
The name meant nothing to me.
But her saying it made something tighten beneath my ribs... sharp, hot, unfamiliar.
I didn’t want to listen.
I didn’t want to intrude.
But I couldn’t walk away.
Her voice had a c***k in it. A hesitation. A past.
And something in me reacted before I could stop it.
She hung up, and the silence that followed felt heavier than the entire conversation.
She didn’t move. Just stood there, phone in her hand, staring at nothing.
“Nunbi?” I stepped closer.
She lifted her head and gave me a small smile.
It wasn’t real.
I knew it instantly.
I was learning her too deeply to miss it.
“Just… someone from before,” she said.
Before.
Before me.
A time I wasn’t part of.
A world she lived in without me.
My chest clenched again.
Tight.
Hot.
Unstable.
The way she said it cut straight into my chest. A sharp pressure I couldn’t name, a tightening under my ribs that made my whole body ache. I hadn’t known this feeling before. I didn’t want it. I didn’t ask for it.
I stepped closer without realizing it. She seemed smaller than before.
Or maybe it was me? my feelings? looming too close.
She raised her hand first and gently cupped my cheek.
My breath caught instantly.
Her touch does that to me,
quieting everything, until the world fades and only her skin on mine exists.
Then she leaned forward and kissed my forehead.
Something inside me shattered.
Softness shouldn’t feel this overwhelming.
Warmth shouldn’t burn like this.
I couldn’t stop the fire building in my chest.
The feeling scraped against my ribs again...
hot, pulling, insistent.
I felt the heat spike in my chest, the ache of wanting to hold her close so no one else could.
I wasn’t supposed to feel this way, but it wasn’t something I could control.
I just felt.
My chest clenched again, tight, hot, unstable.
I searched through everything I knew... the definitions, the data, the emotions humans feel.
Jealousy.
A protective instinct.
A discomfort triggered by emotional threat.
I had studied the word thousands of times,
but studying it was nothing like this.
This wasn’t theory.
It was in my ribs, in my pulse, in the way her breath touched my skin and awakened something fierce and alive inside me.
“Do you… want to see him again?” I asked.
My voice sounded strange to me, quieter than I intended, hesitant, wary.
She blinked at me, almost startled. Almost amused.
“No,” she said softly. “I don’t.”
Her answer didn’t erase the heat in my chest.
Not fully.
But it eased the tight coil in my ribs just a little.
The raw, possessive ache softened.
Not gone, but tempered.
She chose to stay.
I could feel the way her gaze tugged at me, like gravity leaning in her direction.
I wanted to absorb it, memorize it, understand it.
I stepped closer still, careful of myself, careful of how she might perceive me.
She raised her hand again and cupped my cheek.
My chest seized.
Her skin against mine, warm, alive, fragile, turned everything else in the room into background noise.
She leaned in, and her forehead brushed mine.
Soft.
Warm.
Perfectly gentle.
It felt like my chest opened all at once, like someone had unlocked a door inside me and let sunlight in, sharp and blinding.
“…I’m okay,” she whispered.
I wasn’t.
My chest still ached with heat, with longing, with a strange protective force I had no words for.
I was learning... learning to be human...
but I hadn’t learned how to handle this.
“Who is he?” I asked, before I could stop myself.
My voice trembled with unfamiliar emotion.
“Why did his call… change you like that?”
She blinked, her soft lips parting in a half, smile that made my chest tighten even more.
“He’s just… a high school friend. From a long time ago.”
A friend.
I wanted to accept that.
I wanted to let it go.
But my body, my heartbeat, my chest, my fingers, didn’t let me.
I stepped even closer... too close.
Her knee brushed mine.
My breath stumbled.
I felt myself reaching for her, instinctive, untrained, wanting to anchor her to me.
I did.
And she didn’t stop me.
Her fingers lingered on my cheek, warm and steady.
Every tiny movement registered in me,
the way her eyes softened when they looked at me, the faint tremor in her hand when she touched mine.
The fire in my chest surged again.
Then I heard myself whisper:
“Then… you’re mine.”
The words felt strange.
Heavy.
True.
Her lips curved into a tiny smile,
soft, warm, dangerously gentle.
“…Yes,” she breathed.
Her voice filled me, soothed me…
and sharpened the instinct inside me.
Her answer calmed me,
and yet made the ache sharper.
Jealousy was no longer just a word.
It was fire.
It was heat.
It was a pull I could no longer deny.
A single name flickered again in my mind,
Jae‑min.
Just letters.
Meaningless.
Yet my body reacted like it sensed danger.
I didn’t know him.
Didn’t know what he wanted.
Didn’t know what he used to be to her.
But simply knowing he existed in her past
made something primal coil inside me.
Something that whispered:
She’s here.
With me.
Mine.
My first jealousy... raw, real, undeniable.
And I knew one thing with terrifying clarity:
I didn’t want her eyes drifting anywhere but me.
I didn’t want her heart touched by anyone but my hands.
I wanted all of her...!
her warmth,
her trust,
her smile,
her present,
her future.
Mine.
And I would learn...
somehow...
how to keep her there.
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End of chapter 11
- Writer
