I am not a Yandere chapter 123

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As Wonjin approached, Yeongdeok started walking slowly, and Wonjin quickly matched his pace.

“There was no need to run,” Yeongdeok chided.

“You could’ve come over at a leisurely pace.”

“I couldn’t keep you waiting too long,” Wonjin said with a smile. “You like it when things move briskly, after all.”

“True,” Yeongdeok acknowledged, “But you’re no longer my secretary, so there’s no need to go to such lengths.”

“I just don’t want to do anything else that might make you dislike me.”

Wonjin laughed hollowly as he said this.

“When did you start riding a bike?” Yeongdeok asked.

“Since my twenties… Ah.”

Walking alongside Yeongdeok at a leisurely pace, Wonjin suddenly dashed off toward a blue vending machine.

“Want some vending machine coffee, Yeongdeok?” he called back.

“Do you even know what time it is?” Yeongdeok retorted.

Past two in the morning was a terrible time for coffee.

Yet despite the rebuke, Wonjin replied cheerfully.

“You’re not going to sleep right now anyway, are you?”

He had a point—sleeping on a sidewalk wasn’t exactly feasible. A

s Yeongdeok’s eyebrows twitched at the spot-on remark, Wonjin pulled out a thousand-won bill from his wallet and bought a vending machine coffee.

“Here you go, Yeongdeok,” Wonjin said, handing him a steaming paper cup.

The smell wasn’t half bad, so Yeongdeok took a sip absentmindedly—only to feel a sharp, burning pain on his tongue.

Startled by the unfamiliar sting, he clamped a hand over his mouth, and Wonjin asked in alarm.

“Is it not to your taste?”

Unable to admit to something as pathetic as burning his tongue, Yeongdeok dismissed it.

Besides, compared to the coffee he usually drank, it did taste cheap.

“It feels like the creamer’s coating my mouth,” he complained.

“What do you expect from a 500-won cup? It’s not going to be gourmet.”

Wonjin laughed, his eyes crinkling into neat crescents.

Though disgruntled, Yeongdeok couldn’t help but finish the cheap coffee under the sway of that smile.

The dawn air was still, so quiet that even the sounds of crickets were audible.

Wandering aimlessly like this was surely a waste of time, yet a sense of calm settled in Yeongdeok’s mind, making him think that sometimes, this wasn’t so bad.

“Look, the moon,” Wonjin said, pointing.

Yeongdeok followed his gaze upward, spotting the moon hanging over the buildings, shining brightly as ever.

Nothing special.

Yeongdeok couldn’t understand why Wonjin found it worth mentioning.

“So what?” he asked.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Wonjin replied.

At that, Yeongdeok looked back at the moon.

It was just as ordinary as ever, not particularly bright or colorful.

But Wonjin, enchanted by the simple sight, began taking pictures with his phone.

Yeongdeok watched him snapping photos, his eyes fixed on the sight.

When Wonjin finally lowered his phone and turned back, he spoke softly.

“You’ve worked hard, running the store all this time.”

Though it was nothing extraordinary, the gentle words made Yeongdeok’s hands tremble.

“What’s next for you?” Wonjin asked. “A new job? Or now that you have more time, maybe some traveling?”

Neither a new job nor travel was in Yeongdeok’s plans.

All he had left was revenge.

A path that would likely drag him into ruin.

“Not sure,” he replied.

“Is there nothing you want to do? I have a whole list of things I want to do after quitting. Like traveling around Europe. I want to see the Eiffel Tower in France, the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy…”

Wonjin’s enthusiasm only made Yeongdeok more aware of his own emptiness.

Revenge was all he had ever desired, and even that had crumbled to pieces under the weight of a few written words from PetitRolang.

A grim feeling spread through him, suffocating him like indigestion.

As his brow furrowed, Wonjin reached out and took his hand.

“What are you doing?” Yeongdeok asked.

“I thought you looked angry before,” Wonjin said. “But I guess I was wrong.”

Usually feigning helplessness or naivety, today Wonjin faced him with an uncharacteristically strong expression.

His wide, dark eyes shone with clarity.

“What’s troubling you?” he asked.

“Troubling?” Yeongdeok echoed.

“It seems that way to me,” Wonjin said gently. “Care to share?”

But even if he wanted to, Yeongdeok didn’t know how to explain what he was feeling.

He couldn’t even identify it himself.

“I don’t know,” he finally admitted.

“Your heart feels unsettled, doesn’t it? Heavy, sad.”

The words resonated with him, as if a light bulb had gone on in his mind.

It was like finding the missing piece of a puzzle.

Yeongdeok was amazed that Wonjin had sensed an emotion he hadn’t even recognized in himself.

“Maybe… yeah,” he agreed.

“Why do you feel this way? Is it because you left the store? Or is there another reason?”

The question prompted Yeongdeok to reflect.

Leaving the store was unsettling, but what truly haunted him was PetitRolang.

His words echoed in Yeongdeok’s ears.

‘How do you feel now? Afraid of death? Scared of me?’

‘You don’t even know the feelings most people take for granted. I made you that way.’

‘That’s the nature of a character like you—doomed to live only for the main character, without a semblance of a real life. You’re just another obsessive trope.’

Yeongdeok’s lips parted slightly.

Straightening his neck, he looked at Wonjin, whose expression seemed ready to accept anything Yeongdeok had to say.

Although he knew this man wasn’t trustworthy, something was stirring deep inside him, making him want to share whatever was on his mind.

As his rising emotions loosened his grip on reason, words slipped out smoothly.

“Someone once told me that I’m not human, that I can’t even understand the feelings everyone else takes for granted.”

Yeongdeok let out a self-mocking laugh.

Seeing that, Wonjin felt a sharp, guilty pang, like a dagger piercing his conscience.

“Don’t you think the same?”

Yeongdeok suddenly stopped walking and asked.

Wonjin had once thought Yeongdeok was robotic, inhuman.

But after their chance meeting at the shopping mall, that perception gradually crumbled.

And now…

Their gazes met in the empty air.

Yeongdeok’s eyes were expressionless, yet Wonjin found them strangely sad.

Wonjin no longer saw Yeongdeok as someone devoid of emotion.
He just hadn’t learned to feel them because he’d been suppressing them for so long.

“Yeongdeok, did you know?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re more emotional than you think.”

Wonjin’s hand slipped from holding Yeongdeok’s and drifted to his chest instead.

Yeongdeok flinched at the sudden sensation pressing against his chest but didn’t brush Wonjin’s hand away.

“If you weren’t human, your heart wouldn’t be beating like this.”

Yeongdeok felt the steady, undeniable thump of his heart under Wonjin’s palm.

The pounding was loud and clear.

“You wouldn’t feel distress or confusion.”

“…”

“More than anything, you’ve changed so much compared to before.”

Wonjin added with a smile that the old Yeongdeok would never have let a single word from someone else make him look so dejected.

Maybe it was the moonlight or the madness from that PetitRolang encounter, but Yeongdeok found himself slowly drawn in by Wonjin’s words and smile.

The warmth in Wonjin’s hand slowly faded as he pulled away.

With the touch gone from his chest, Yeongdeok felt as if the tightness in his heart had eased, even if just a little.

“Is that so.”

Yeongdeok moved his legs, frozen in place, and started walking again.

Wonjin trailed closely behind, as if he’d never let Yeongdeok go far.

After a while of walking silently, Yeongdeok spoke to Wonjin, almost offhandedly.

“You’re a truly peculiar person.”

“Huh? Me?”

“I used to hate even looking at you. But you stuck around persistently, making it impossible for me to hate you.”

Wonjin abruptly stopped in his tracks, overwhelmed by the feeling that he’d just earned Yeongdeok’s acknowledgment.

His fingertips twitched, and his heart began to race.

Yeongdeok didn’t wait for Wonjin to catch up.

But Wonjin quickly ran after him, closing the distance he’d lost.

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