Ficorpio
Chapter 1
Chapter 1
Sweet enough to be unforgettable.
I was secretly dating an ice-cold professor.
Then I found out that behind the polished, untouchable facade, he was absurdly clingy—the kind of man you couldn’t get rid of once you started dating him.
Later, he lost his memory in an accident. I quietly tested him by calling him “husband,” only to be publicly shut down.
“Ms. Carter, there’s no negotiating a makeup exam. And your personal charm is not enough to justify this particular shortcut.”
The moment I confirmed Adrian Sterling had really forgotten me, I was ecstatic. I went straight to a bar to flirt with a handsome guy.
And then, out of nowhere, he appeared behind me like a shadow, his voice low and chilling.
“There were too many people on campus just now, so I got on my knees for you in private instead. Please… I’m begging you. The second I see you with someone else, I feel like I’m dying.”
The eighth time I tried to break up with Adrian Sterling, his eyes went red without warning.
Which was deeply unfair, because at school he was usually the one making other people cry.
The sudden reversal threw me completely off balance. All my momentum collapsed, and I stammered, “C-crying doesn’t change anything. We’re still breaking up.”
He looked even more aggrieved.
His long, thick lashes were wet, and tears the size of pearls slid down one after another. While he cried, he wrapped his arms around my waist and buried his face against my chest, nuzzling into me as he mumbled in a wounded voice, “Baby… sweetheart… don’t say those words. My heart can’t take it.”
Remembering the lessons I’d learned the last seven times, I forced myself to stay rational. I could not let a pretty face ruin my judgment again.
Ignoring Adrian’s pitiful act, I pulled out the ultimate move I’d learned from TV dramas.
“Let go,” I declared. “I’m hopelessly in love with someone else.”
Adrian gave me a look like he’d always known this day would come. The corner of his mouth lifted slightly, but the smile was dark enough to make my scalp prickle.
“Who is he?” he asked softly. “Tell me. Which shameless bastard outside is it? That upperclassman who helped you carry your books last time? Or that jock from the basketball court?”
Since I’d already gone this far, I doubled down and claimed the imaginary lover as if he really existed.
“None of your business,” I shot back. “Whoever he is, he’s better than you.”
Adrian fell silent.
His long fingers moved like elegant little snakes. The cool touch of his fingertips made me shiver, and my lips parted before I even realized it.
He took the opportunity instantly, crushing his mouth over mine. His eyes were so dark they were almost frightening.
“It’s late,” he murmured. “And there’s nothing a night together can’t fix… right?”
It lasted until two in the morning.
Chapter 2
Chapter 2
By the end, I was folded into a warm embrace, too drained to even curse at him. My eyelids were so heavy I couldn’t keep them open.
His rough, husky voice brushed against my ear.
“Chloe Carter,” he said, “abandoning a puppy is illegal. You know that, right?”
Then he picked up my phone and turned off my alarm. “I’ll call in and get you excused for the morning.”
I had changed my lock screen password countless times, but Adrian could always get into my phone with ridiculous ease.
That night, I had a long, messy dream. In fragments, I remembered all the previous breakups.
Every single one of them had ended the same way—derailed by Adrian’s tricks, manipulation, sweet talk, or outright shamelessness.
Back in the beginning, our department professor had suddenly been called away on an overseas trip, and the school was short-staffed. To make sure the rest of the course could continue smoothly, the department arranged for Adrian—a rising research star at Hawthorne University—to sit in on the final class before taking over.
And I, being spectacularly clueless, thought he was just a student from another section auditing the lecture.
I was completely bewitched by his untouchable, icy aura and that absurdly beautiful face.
So during the last break, I finally worked up the courage to say the sentence I would regret for the rest of my life:
“You’re really, really handsome. Can I get your number?”
Adrian had replied in that cool, unreadable tone of his, “Tomorrow.”
And then the next day, the cold, unreachable campus god transformed into our new instructor. He walked straight up to me—while I stood there blushing so hard I thought I might combust—pulled up his contact QR code, and said, “Class rep, add me. It’ll make future communication easier.”
One reckless moment of courage had bought me a lifetime of social anxiety.
Much later, I found out that the day Adrian came to our classroom, he’d actually intended to reject the department’s request in person.
Then he accidentally made eye contact with me while I was staring at him like an idiot, completely lovestruck.
And for some reason, Adrian changed his mind on the spot and took the job.
Worse than finding out your flirtation had turned into your professor?
Realizing, only after we started our secret affair, that beneath Adrian Sterling’s cold, ascetic exterior was an outrageously clingy disaster of a man.
Without asking me, he bought a luxury villa near campus in my name.
Then he coaxed me into moving in with him and immediately started acting like twenty-four hours a day wasn’t enough. He wanted to stick to me for a fictional twenty-fifth hour too. He even followed me into the bathroom when I showered.
Chapter 3
Chapter 3
He insisted I use the bank card he gave me for everything.
One time, I accidentally paid with my own money. He sulked for ages afterward and kept asking, over and over, if that meant I didn’t need him anymore.
Once, I snuck out to a class reunion without telling him. I didn’t reply to his messages for two hours, and he actually tried to call the police.
And when the truth came out, he carried my drunk self to bed, quietly took off his glasses and watch, and said, “Baby, lying comes with consequences.”
My throat seemed to ache on reflex.
Completely unlike his buttoned-up, abstinent vibe, Adrian was an absolute beast in bed.
By the time all those contradictions and little grievances had piled up to the breaking point, even I—pathetic, spineless me—finally asked to break up.
What I hadn’t expected was that I wouldn’t be able to break up with him at all.
I slept straight through to the afternoon, right up until class time.
Then a notice popped up in the group chat saying our class had been postponed. Apparently Adrian had slipped and fallen on the mountain road while heading back down.
I opened our pinned chat. His last message to me had been sent at six in the morning.
Because of that imaginary lover he’d made up in his head, Adrian had insisted on going up into the mountains with a colleague to pray for divine help cutting off all my “bad romantic ties.”
And instead… had he cut himself off instead?
What kind of shrine was that? Disturbingly effective, apparently.
Since I’d already decided to end things, I hesitated for a moment, then forced myself not to reply to him.
It wasn’t until evening that I heard he’d been discharged from the hospital.
The diagnosis said he’d taken a blow to the head, and there was a possibility of memory loss.
But after his colleagues, friends, and even family all tested him in turns, everyone came to the same conclusion: he hadn’t forgotten anything.
He even scored a few points higher than last time on a cognitive assessment.
And since the scans showed there was nothing seriously wrong with him physically, the doctors had no choice but to release him.
That night, as class representative, I went to deliver the final batch of assignments from our class to Adrian.
On the way there, I’d already braced myself for him using his injury as an excuse to cling to me and drag things out.
Instead, Adrian lazily lifted his eyelids and didn’t even look at me. His tone was flat, indifferent.
“The grades are already out. Pick up the makeup exam list on Friday.”
“Oh.” I nodded, feeling a strange, indescribable discomfort.
The way he was treating me was exactly like the beginning—cold, distant, untouchable.
And then a thought suddenly flashed through my mind.
What if the memory Adrian had lost… was the part about me?