I Refuse to Be Friends with Her

My next book, When My Cat Confessed to My Boss, is open for follows. Please add it to your reading list!

Thirteen years of friendship turn into love | bickering couple | extreme romantic tension

A clingy golden retriever who’s always trying to get the cat’s attention x a haughty cat who thinks the golden retriever is an idiot

During military training at the start of her first year of high school, Jiang Yu was invited by a classmate to go see the school heartthrob.

But the camphor-lined avenue was packed, and after wandering around for ages, she still couldn’t catch a glimpse of his face.

Only later did she learn that the heartthrob she’d craned her neck to see was the idiot sitting right beside her, Xu Muyuan.

Xu Muyuan was her closest buddy in high school.

He was also the secret crush she couldn’t bring herself to confess.

Her winter thermos was always full of hot water. She never had to take out the overflowing trash after cleaning duty. Fruit and yogurt were always there when she reached for them, and cans of Wangzai milk could be stacked into a whole wall…

Even though Xu Muyuan always said, “You’re my best friend.”

Jiang Yu, who received all his special attention, thought he liked her too.

After the college entrance exams, she gathered up all the courage she had as a young girl and wrote him a letter to confess her feelings. But then she heard Xu Muyuan, dead drunk, call another girl.

After that, Jiang Yu decided to disguise all her feelings, dig a hole, bury her secret, cover it with dirt, and pour a layer of reinforced concrete over it so it would never see the light of day.

*

Years after they parted, Jiang Yu returned from an overseas assignment and crossed paths with Xu Muyuan again.

Xu Muyuan was still an idiot, and she was still flawlessly playing the role of “best friend.”

Even his special treatment of her hadn’t changed.

Xu Muyuan replied to her messages in seconds and came whenever she called.

He took her to eat every delicacy under the sun, went out for barbecue in a suit, picked her up after work in the middle of the night, badgered her to meet him several times a week, and did everything he could to make her happy…

He even took her hand in an escape room.

But Jiang Yu, who already knew the right answer, wouldn’t believe it anymore.

A false impression was still just a false impression.

There was nothing wrong with being “best friends.”

But this time, Xu Muyuan didn’t think so.

“I’ve fallen for a really, really good friend.”

In the thirteenth year of their friendship, they crossed the Milky Way called “friendship,” and all the words they’d been holding back turned into a single “Merry Christmas.”

*

“If we’re both still unmarried at thirty, let’s just settle down together.”

Many people have probably made an agreement like that with someone during their school days, half sincere and half joking.

It isn’t giving up or settling. It’s a summer that arrived long overdue.

Blurb for When My Cat Confessed to My Boss

[I like you]

Pei Yuchen stared at Chen Moyiyi’s confession and slowly typed a question mark: [?]

Ten minutes later, he received a message: [Aaaaaah, I’m so sorry!!!! Mr. Pei, my cat just stepped on the keyboard!!!! I’m so sorry, truly!!!!]

Pei Yuchen typed another question mark: [?]

Did he look like an idiot?

*

Chen Moyiyi cursed Pei Yuchen eight hundred times a day.

Cold and distant, impossibly picky, always typing question marks, exploiting his employees. A textbook greedy capitalist.

Apart from having more money than he could spend, everything about him was awful, even his looks.

But ever since her cat confessed to Pei Yuchen, he’d stopped picking on her, stopped giving her all the troublesome jobs, and even avoided her gaze, keeping his distance at all times.

Nice! A blessing in disguise!

A dream job with plenty of money, little work, and no boss getting in her way was finally hers to enjoy.

*

Pei Yuchen was strict about keeping work and personal life separate. He absolutely would not tolerate office romances.

So as long as he and Chen Moyiyi were still boss and subordinate, he couldn’t return her feelings.

But one day, Chen Moyiyi said she was going on a blind date.

Without stopping to think, Pei Yuchen intercepted her halfway there. “You’re not going. I accept.”

Chen Moyiyi stared at him, baffled. “Accept what?”

“Your cat’s confession.”

Theme: Nothing is impossible for those who are determined.