He Only Wanted His Foster Sister, Yet Burned For Me Instead Chapter 01

He Only Wanted His Foster Sister, Yet Burned For Me Instead Chapter 01

My best friend was online-dating two guys at the same time.

When she got tired of juggling them, she handed the hotter one over to me.

I was on my way to the hotel, buzzing with excitement for our first real-world meetup, when a flood of glowing text—a floating livestream chat—suddenly flashed across my field of vision:

[Is the second female lead insane? The male lead is already going to be pissed when he sees the wrong girl showed up. He’s looking for someone to take it out on[润色] right about now.]

[What are you even thinking? Sure, the male lead has intense feelings, but he only opens up to the female lead.They’re foster siblings, so he’s hiding behind a fake username just to have a platonic, online-only relationship with her.]

[Actually, our baby[直译润色] girl knew the truth all along. She sent the second female lead to the meetup just to make him jealous. After tonight, everything between them will change completely…]

[Who knew the second female lead had been secretly in love with him for years? Once she goes full villain and tries to ruin the female lead, the male lead ruins her back. She ends up freezing to death on the streets. Total karma trope[润色], love it!]

So, I was just a pawn in their sick little game.

In that case, there was no longer any need to suppress my twisted, borderline-morbid obsession with Tristan Sterling.

I arrived at the hotel right on time.

Tristan looked tense, his jaw tightly clenched, his breathing fast and uneven.

He immediately tried to push me out of the room, attempting to make me leave, but he couldn’t succeed.

I understood something in an instant.

I stepped in front of him, blocking his way, and raised my phone camera toward his flushed, strikingly handsome face.

A cold laugh slipped out of my throat.

“Aren’t you supposed to only see your foster sister as family? Then why are you looking at me like this?”

—

“…What?”

Tristan gasped for air, his gorgeous eyes wide with pure disbelief.

His sister’s best friend. The girl with the blunt bangs and heavy black-rimmed glasses. To anyone else, she was an entirely harmless, invisible nerd.

Yet right now, I stood over him, calling out the ugly truth he’d been hiding all along.

“Tristan,” I said, leaning down. “I asked—aren’t you supposed to love your sister? So why are you reacting like this to me?”

The floating text went dead silent for a beat[模糊处理没有叙事意义的时间] before erupting:

[What? What’s going on?]

[According to the plot, shouldn’t the second female lead blush, confess her love, and then, after getting rejected, maliciously let slip that the female lead has another e-boyfriend?]

[Yeah! And then the male lead gets furiously jealous, avoids her entirely, and shuts himself alone in the bathroom all night to clear his head.]

[Wait, so she didn’t leave… and she DRUGGED him?![润色]]

A flicker of raw discomfort crossed Tristan’s face as his deepest, darkest secret was dragged into the light.

“What nonsense are you talking about? Hilary and I are strictly brother and sister!”

He took a ragged breath, forcing himself back into the persona I knew best—the protective, reliable boy next door.

“Maeve, I never realized you were this calculated. You act so quiet, but you’re vicious.”

“Just step aside and leave. I can pretend none of this awkward mess ever happened. You and Hilary can stay friends.”

“Tristan, I don’t think you grasp the situation you’re in.”

I angled the phone camera closer to his face.

Leaning in slightly, I leaned closer without backing down..

The boy struggled to steady his breathing, a thin sheen of sweat breaking out across his forehead.

“You’re far too wrapped up in Hilary’s games to think clearly right now. Or rather… I am your only cure.”

“In your dreams!”

A flash of pure disgust tore through Tristan’s eyes. His palm was scalding hot as he wrapped his fingers around my calf and pushed my leg aside.

The chat cheered him on:

[That’s my male lead! He’s keeping his self-control[直译润色], a total king.]

[What a terrible person. She can’t compete with the female lead honestly, so she resorts to these disgusting underhanded tricks. Thank God the male lead’s morals are rock solid!]

[Oh, look! The female lead just posted an intimate photo on her close-friends story—set to ‘Only Tristan’—the timing is lethal~]

I caught that last comment out of the corner of my eye. I snatched Tristan’s phone off the nightstand and waved it right in front of his face. Face ID unlocked it instantly.

“Hilary doesn’t love you. She’s online-dating two guys at the same time,” I said, laying out the unvarnished truth.

“Impossible. Hilary and I have been talking for over six months. She loves me. We’ve done video calls—no faces, but she said I looked great. I even got her name tattooed right here…”

Tristan’s frantic, defensive rambling stopped dead the exact second his eyes hit Hilary’s feed.

In the photo, a man’s arm was looped loosely around Hilary’s neck, soft faint smudges streaked across her neck and collarbone.

The caption read: [Tonight is all yours.]

A photo that left little room for misunderstanding.”Hilary threw you away. She chose someone else.”

“Tristan, are you still too blind to see it?”

From eighth grade to the end of high school, I had been obsessively in love with Tristan for five long years. Even now, with fury clouding my mind, I was still willing to give him a few extra words of explanation.

But all I got in return was a low, strangled growl from deep in his throat:

“Don’t call me that! Hilary is my only sister!”

Still in denial, huh.

[润色]The next second, my palm struck his cheek with a crisp, sharp sound.

I lowered my hand slowly and let out a cold laugh.

“Fine. Someone who refuses to face the truth doesn’t deserve my softness anyway.”

“Maeve Vance!”

The usually gentle, polished boy next door was completely pushed over the edge by my sheer disrespect.

His raging frustration only amplified his chaotic, unsteady state of mind.

He was fighting for control, the veins on his forehead bulging under the strain.

Expressionless, I leaned down and hooked my fingers under Tristan’s chin, forcing him up.

I leaned in until we were only inches apart.

The sweet, clean scent of my perfume invaded his senses—soft, yet entirely unyielding.

Tristan’s eyes closed. In a sudden blur of motion, he flipped me over, caught me off guard and pulled me closer, and pulled me into an embrace.

The chat went berserk:

[Ugh, this manipulative second female lead is so hard to watch!]

[The male lead is so heartbreakingly pitiful. He looked completely shattered when he saw that story.]

[Wait guys, the female lead staged it! It’s a fake photo! She met up with the other guy, but he wasn’t her type at all. Our precious girl only loves her foster brother!]

[This is all her fault!]

[It’s fine, it’s fine. The male lead is just using her to get through the situation. Think of it as a practice run so he can take better care of our female lead later.]

…

My black-rimmed glasses were carelessly swept off the bed, clattering onto the floor.

I stared past him into the empty air where the chat flickered, and my lips slowly curled into a smile.