I Married the Girl Who Used to Bully Me - Chapter 11

This was the worst.

I truly thought so.

Of all people, Misaki and I had to end up living in the same apartment.

As I climbed the creaky, rundown stairs, I froze when I saw her hand reach for the doorknob of the neighboring unit.

The rumors about her father’s company going bankrupt, I’d dismissed them as baseless gossip. But this sight confirmed it.

Misaki, who had lived in luxury without a care in the world, was now holed up in the same kind of shabby wooden apartment as me.

It wasn’t just her changed appearance, it was the sheer scale of her downfall that stirred something dark inside me.

Serves you right, I sneered somewhere in the depths of my heart.

But on the way back…

Misaki kept muttering something under her breath.

“One chocolate, one happiness… One chocolate, one happiness…”

Like a broken music box, she repeated the same words over and over.

It wasn’t just pitiful, it was unsettling.

I muffled my footsteps, keeping my distance as I followed her.

Same apartment. Same stairs.

We reached the second floor—her room to the right, mine next to it.

When reality hit me, I couldn’t even muster a bitter laugh.

—There is no God.

Muttering that, I silently closed my own door.

My room stank.

Nicotine stains on the walls, empty beer cans scattered across the floor, an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts.

Even with the window open, the damp air just mixed with the stench of smoke. Proper ventilation was impossible.

My dividends had long since dried up.

Back then, I’d barely scraped by with them. Now, they were just a memory.

Instead, I squeezed money out of guys like Akiyama.

No guilt.

They’d laughed at me, beaten me, trampled on me.

They’d stripped me in public, pinned me to the ground, made me feel nothing but humiliation every time they called my name.

So, this was just payback.

Taking back what was stolen from me.

In my mind, that was only fair.

A faint voice cut through the silence of the night, seeping through the wall from the other room.

“Sniff… Hn… Ugh… It hurts…”

At first, I ignored it, unnerved.

But the more I listened, the more certain I became, that voice was Misaki’s.

A thin, trembling voice, choked sobs carrying through the walls.

As the night deepened, the sounds never stopped.

“Shut up! I can’t sleep. Just shut up!”

I raised my voice without thinking. Even as I clenched my fists and glared at the dimly lit room beyond the curtains, she probably couldn’t hear me.

“…Why the hell do I have to be the one telling her to shut up?”

The words caught in my throat. My grip on the ashtray on the desk didn’t loosen.

The night was long. Misaki’s sobbing didn’t stop.

And the frustration inside me only grew deeper.