I Married the Girl Who Used to Bully Me - Chapter 9

On the surface, my high school life was ordinary.

After everything that happened, I found my own apartment and somehow managed to scrape together rent and living expenses. It was tough, but I felt free like I was slowly building a life for myself.

Then, one day, I couldn’t believe my eyes. It happened when I arrived at school.

Standing on the other side of the door was my ex-girlfriend, my childhood friend, Misaki.

For a moment, time seemed to stop. All eyes in the room turned toward her. Many of the kids from my middle school had ended up at this high school, after all. Akiyama was there. Chinatsu too.

Everyone must have recognized her at a glance. Takatsuki Misaki, that was her name.

But she didn’t look the same as before. A black eyepatch covered her right eye, and bandages wrapped around her arms and legs. The beauty she once had was gone, hidden in shadow. Her hair was still smooth, but beyond that, there was almost nothing recognizable about her.

The murmurs in the classroom echoed distantly. Everyone’s attention was fixed on her, casting her as something special but not in a good way. Their gazes were filled with scorn, pity, or something even worse.

The moment she stepped inside, the air turned icy.

“Hey, is that Misaki?”
“No way! She’s totally wrecked now.”
“Serves her right, acting all high and mighty back in middle school.”

Whispers leaked from every corner, soon turning into laughter.

The girls who had been bossed around by Misaki in middle school were now pointing at her, sneering. Their faces twisted as if this was the moment they’d been waiting for.

Watching it all, something twisted in my chest too.

Honestly, I thought, Serves you right. I was one of the kids she bullied, after all. I’d been jerked around by her words and attitude, humiliated more times than I could count.

So yeah, she deserved to be laughed at. Some part of me believed that.

The murmurs in the classroom grew even more malicious.

“Also, I heard Misaki did some nasty stuff in class. Like letting some creepy loner touch her chest for money or something.”
“Seriously? Ew… she’s totally easy. Bet she’s doing sugar daddy stuff now.”

The moment I heard that, the photo flashed through my mind.

That photo, the one Misaki had let me take of her. The one where her chest was clearly visible, the one that got leaked online. My face wasn’t in it, but her cuteness was impossible to hide, which only made it spread faster.

It got deleted quickly, never becoming a huge deal, but to the people around us, it was undeniable proof.

“She was spreading her legs for some loser just to make cash.”
“Oh yeah, wasn’t Misaki some rich girl before? But then her dad’s company went bankrupt, now look at her. Karma’s a bitch.”

The waves of ridicule spread through the classroom.

But Misaki didn’t seem fazed at all.

Was she ignoring it? Or was she just desperately holding it in? Head down, silent, she tried to walk to her seat.

Misaki was smart. So why was she even at this school?

Then, in an instant, her legs gave out, and she collapsed.

Right next to me.

“Oops~ Sorry~”

The one smirking was Chinatsu, the girl who used to be her best friend in middle school.

But that smirk wasn’t playful like before. It was cold, cruel, dripping with the pleasure of stomping someone down.

Women are terrifying creatures.

At that moment, Misaki started muttering under her breath.

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

Like no one could hear her, she pressed her right hand to her chest, desperately repeating it. It was painful to watch like she was clinging to something for dear life.

“…The hell are you even saying? You’re creeping me out.”

With Chinatsu’s words, a water bottle was upended over Misaki’s head. Cold water splashed over her shoulders, freezing her in place for a second.

“S-sorry…”

Her tiny, trembling apology was nothing like the strong-willed girl I remembered. She hurried to her seat—right next to mine.

Bad luck, I thought. God probably didn’t exist.

But weirdly enough, Misaki didn’t seem to notice me.

No, that wasn’t it.

She wasn’t looking at anything. Head down, eyes lowered, she was completely shut off from the world. I couldn’t even begin to guess why she’d come to school in the first place.

Rumor had it her father’s company went bankrupt right around the time she enrolled here.

If that was the case, why not just drop out and work? Not that I was one to talk, I was in the same boat. Making money, surviving on my own, that was the only path left.

These days, you couldn’t get by with just a middle school diploma. That’s why I was still here.

This high school wasn’t prestigious. It was the kind of place anyone could graduate from, no matter how dumb they were. Tuition wasn’t too high, either. That’s why I chose it. When you’re renting your own place and scraping by, every bit of savings counts.

Maybe Misaki was here for the same reason.

“Hey, hey, Misa-chan. Glad you made it to school today. We were worried since you’ve been skipping so much. Oh, and don’t forget about that thing, okay?”

Chinatsu’s voice cut through the air like a knife.

Then she shot a glance at me.

Her eyes said, Stay out of this.

Stop looking at me. You reek.

The next second, Chinatsu shoved Misaki’s head down.

Caught off guard, Misaki could only let out a weak, “O-okay.”

“There, there~”

Chinatsu ruffled Misaki’s hair roughly, like she was teasing a cat. Her hands were violent, merciless. The same hands that had once been a best friend now carved nothing but domination and mockery into her.

No one laughed. They just watched.

I wasn’t about to stop it, either.

If anything, something dark and ugly was writhing in the depths of my chest.

The girl who had laughed at me, kicked my desk, snapped my pencils for fun. That same Misaki was now being shoved around, her hair messed up.

Serves you right.

I didn’t say it out loud, but the words echoed in my heart.

I had no sense of justice. No reason to help her.

No one remembered how miserable she’d made me.

But I hadn’t forgotten. The humiliation of that day.

So, this was payback.

If she was going to fall on her own, without me lifting a finger—then fine.

Now it’s your turn to be the one bullied, Misaki.