Your Girlfriend Calls Me Daddy-Chapter 38 | "I Have Evidence Of Your Crimes!" "That’s Nice, Now Come Here"

Chapter 38: 38 | "I Have Evidence Of Your Crimes!" "That’s Nice, Now Come Here"

Cheon Hae-Won stood in the doorway of Building C, blocking Rome D’Angelo’s exit with her entire body. Her heart hammered against her ribs. The hallway behind her was filling with students, and every second she stood here made this confrontation more public.

She needed to get him alone.

Somewhere private.

Somewhere she could actually say what she needed to say without fifty witnesses recording it on their phones.

Rome looked down at her with those mismatched eyes. Grey and green. Completely unbothered by her presence.

It made her want to scream.

"Move," he said. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

"Not until you tell me the truth."

"Already did."

He stepped around her.

Just walked past like she was furniture.

Hae-Won spun around. "I’m not finished."

Rome kept walking.

Down the hallway.

Toward the exit.

She followed.

Not running. Class representatives did not run through hallways like children. She walked with purpose. Posture perfect. Steps measured.

He pushed through the doors into the morning sunlight.

She followed ten seconds behind.

Kept her distance.

Watched him cross the courtyard.

He wasn’t heading toward Building D where his next class should be. He was walking toward the library quad. The quiet section of campus where students went to study between classes.

Or to hide.

Hae-Won stayed behind him. Far enough back that it didn’t look obvious. Close enough that she wouldn’t lose him if he turned a corner.

Her ability hummed quietly in the back of her skull. Active without effort. Passive monitoring that ran constantly whether she wanted it or not.

Rome’s Essentia signature glowed in her peripheral vision like lines of code overlaid on reality.

Yesterday it had been stable. Flat. A baseline reading that matched his file perfectly.

Today it was different.

Completely different.

Three distinct signatures layered over each other where there should have been one. His baseline reading was still there underneath everything else, but now there were two additional patterns woven through it like foreign code injected into clean software.

One of those patterns matched Mera’s spatial manipulation signature almost perfectly.

The other was something Hae-Won had never seen before.

It didn’t match anything in her mental database.

Rome turned a corner past the west wing of the library.

Hae-Won quickened her pace.

She reached the corner and turned.

The walkway was empty.

He was gone.

She stopped. Scanned the area. There were three possible directions he could have gone. The library entrance. The outdoor study area. The maintenance corridor that led to the old storage building nobody used anymore.

A hand grabbed her wrist.

Pulled her sideways.

She yelped.

The sound came out high and embarrassing. "Eep!"

Rome yanked her through a door she hadn’t noticed and into a dark room that smelled like old textbooks and cleaning supplies.

The door clicked shut behind them.

Emergency lighting flickered on overhead. Dim yellow glow that barely illuminated the space.

Storage room. Empty shelves. A few broken desks stacked in the corner.

Rome let go of her wrist.

Hae-Won stumbled backward. Her heel caught on something. She went down hard. Her back hit the floor with a painful thud that knocked the air out of her lungs.

"Ow."

She sat up. Rubbed her lower back where it had struck the concrete.

Rome stood over her. Backlit by the emergency light. His face half in shadow.

"Following me now?"

Hae-Won’s cheeks burned. She looked down.

Her skirt had ridden up when she fell.

All the way up.

Her underwear was completely visible.

White cotton with a cartoon dog printed on the front. Ears flopping. Tongue hanging out.

She yanked her skirt down. Scrambled to her feet.

Rome was grinning. Actually grinning.

"First panda panties. Now it’s a cartoon dog." He leaned against the door. "Cheon, you’re surprisingly cute."

"You’re a pervert."

"You’re a stalker."

"I’m the class representative. It’s my responsibility to monitor student behavior."

"Right. And stalking me across campus is monitoring."

"I wasn’t stalking you."

"You followed me from homeroom to the library quad and then around a blind corner into an empty section of campus."

Hae-Won’s face felt like it was on fire. "I needed to talk to you."

"So talk."

She opened her mouth.

Nothing came out.

He was too close.

Standing between her and the door. Blocking her exit. His presence filled the entire room like gravity had shifted and he was the new center.

Why did he have such a presence?

Yesterday he’d been arrogant and annoying and easy to dismiss.

Today he felt different.

Heavier.

Dangerous.

She took a breath.

Tried to steady herself.

"What is it you want to do, Cheon?"

His voice was low. Casual.

It made her knees weak.

"Why are you so focused on me?"

"I’m not focused on you. I’m focused on the rules. You broke them."

"Which rules?"

"The ones about unregistered Essentia."

"Already told you. Got it registered yesterday."

"Liar."

He pushed off the door. Walked closer.

Hae-Won backed up.

Her shoulders hit the wall.

Nowhere left to go.

Rome stopped a foot away from her. Close enough that she could smell whatever cologne he was wearing. Something expensive and clean and completely overwhelming.

Her breathing quickened.

Her heart was doing something weird in her chest.

Pounding too fast. Too hard.

She couldn’t think straight.

He tilted his head. "You’re breathing pretty heavily for someone who just wants to talk about rules."

"I’m fine."

"You sure?"

"Yes."

He stepped closer.

Six inches between them now.

Hae-Won pressed herself flat against the wall. Her pulse hammered in her throat.

This was wrong.

This was completely inappropriate.

She needed to leave.

She needed to report him.

She needed to stop staring at his mouth.

The words spilled out before she could stop them.

"Your Essentia changed."

Rome went still.

Completely still.

His expression didn’t shift. Didn’t react. But something in his eyes sharpened.

"What?"

"Your Essentia. From yesterday to today. It’s completely different."

She could feel her ability analyzing him in real time. Feeding her information faster than she could process it. The three overlapping signatures. The spatial manipulation pattern that matched Mera’s. The unknown third layer that pulsed like a heartbeat beneath everything else.

"I can see it. My ability lets me see changes in Essentia output. Composition. Type. Your baseline from yesterday was flat. Standard reading. Today you have three distinct signatures layered together where there should only be one."

Rome didn’t move.

Didn’t speak.

Just watched her.

Hae-Won kept going. The words tumbling out faster now that she’d started.

"And one of those signatures matches Mera. Almost perfectly. Spatial manipulation. Gate opening. The exact same pattern I read from her yesterday in homeroom. And not only that, her Essentia increased too. Between yesterday afternoon and this morning her output jumped by approximately fifteen percent."

She met his eyes.

"I want to know why. I want to know what you did. And if you don’t tell me, I’m going to the disciplinary committee with everything I just said."

Checkmate.

He couldn’t talk his way out of this.

She had proof. Evidence. Her ability didn’t lie.

Rome smiled.

It wasn’t the cocky grin from before.

It was something else.

Something that made her stomach drop.

"You have no idea what you’re asking me to do, Cheon."

"I’m asking you to tell the truth."

"No."

He stepped into her space completely.

Closed the last six inches between them.

His chest nearly touched hers.

"You’re asking me to show you."

Hae-Won’s back pressed harder against the wall. "Show me what?"

Rome’s hand came up.

Cupped her jaw.

Tilted her face up toward his.

Her breathing stopped.

Completely stopped.

"This."

He didn’t wait for permission.

He lowered his head and crushed her mouth with his, swallowing the accusation before it could leave her throat.