THE TRUTH BEHIND LUMI
A few days had passed since the final exams ended. The campus was strangely calm now. Students were celebrating their freedom from tests, while teachers looked equally relieved.
But outside the school, a different storm was building.
News about the upcoming engagement between the Lee and Yue families had already begun spreading through business circles and media outlets. Articles praised the "strategic union" of two powerful companies.
To everyone else, it looked like a perfect future. To Ruan, it felt like a cage.
That evening he stood with Akari near the quiet riverside park. Akari leaned against the railing, staring at the water flowing slowly beneath the bridge.
"You shouldn't meet me so openly," he said quietly. "Not now." Akari said.
Ruan shrugged. "They already think I'm a problem child anyway."
Akari didn't smile. His eyes were tired.
"The engagement news is everywhere," he said. "Your family… the media… everyone is celebrating."
Ruan turned toward him. "I'm going to stop it."
Akari looked at him immediately. "How?"
Ruan hesitated for a moment. "I'll find a way."
Akari sighed. "Ruan… your father already forced this arrangement. Breaking it won't be easy."
Ruan leaned back against the railing beside him.
"West found something."
Akari frowned slightly. "What kind of something?"
Ruan's voice dropped. "Something about Lumi."
Akari's expression hardened.
"Ruan…"
"Don't get me wrong. I'm not doing this to destroy her," Ruan said quickly. "But if she's using you to control me, I have the right to fight back."
Akari stayed silent. Ruan looked at him seriously.
"I'm calling off the engagement."
Akari studied his face for a moment. There was no hesitation in his eyes.
"How?" Akari asked quietly.
Ruan looked toward the distant city lights.
"We start with the truth."
Two nights later, the four boys met behind the gym. Kev kicked a loose pebble across the ground.
"So," he said, "tell me this wasn't a waste of my sleep."
West leaned against the wall, arms crossed. "It wasn't."
Est stood beside him, reading something on his tablet.
Ruan watched them both. "What did you find?"
West took a slow breath. "Lumi Yue wasn't always like this."
Kev raised an eyebrow. "Meaning?"
Est turned the tablet around so they could see the screen. Old news clippings appeared. Family scandals, corporate lawsuits and police reports.
West spoke quietly. "Her father's company almost collapsed eight years ago."
Ruan frowned. "I know that."
"You don't know why," West replied.
He looked directly at Ruan. "Her mother tried to expose her father's illegal business deals."
Ruan blinked.
Kev leaned forward. "Wait… what?"
Est scrolled down. "According to the reports, she later suffered a mental breakdown."
West's voice dropped slightly. "She was institutionalized. But it was not long after that she passed away."
Kev scratched his head. "Okay… her family is messed up, we get that. But how does that help us?"
West didn't answer immediately. Instead, he swiped to the next photo.
"This," he said.
The screen showed Lumi. She looked different, softer somehow. She was smiling. Not the cold, calculated smile they knew. A genuine one.
But she wasn't alone.
She stood beside another girl, their shoulders pressed together. The girl had her arm loosely wrapped around Lumi's waist, and both of them looked happy in a way that felt… real.
Kev frowned. "Is that her sister?"
Ruan leaned closer to the screen, trying to understand what West was implying.
West shook his head slowly. "No," he said.
He zoomed slightly into the picture.
"That's her girlfriend."
Silence fell.
Kev blinked. "Wait… what?"
West leaned back against the wall, crossing his arms.
"This picture was taken before she transferred cities," he explained. "Before everything with her family exploded."
Est nodded slightly, connecting the pieces. "Her father found out."
Kev stared at the photo again, his confusion slowly turning into realization. "And he separated them?"
West gave a small nod.
"From what I found, the Yue family moved away soon after Lumi's relationship scandal because it added flames to the scandal that was already trending. Different city. Different school. Completely cut off."
Kev let out a low whistle. "That's… brutal."
Ruan hadn't said a word. He was still staring at the photo. Suddenly things started making sense. Lumi's obsession and her bitterness. The way she looked at happiness like it was something fake.
Ruan finally spoke, his voice quiet. "So she's doing all this because her father discovered who she really was… and destroyed it."
West shrugged slightly. "Looks that way."
Est folded his arms thoughtfully. "In simple terms," he said calmly, "she wants revenge for the happiness that was stolen from her."
Ruan scoffed softly, shaking his head in disbelief.
"So because she lost hers…" he muttered. "She wants to ruin everyone else's."
Kev looked between them. "So this is her weak point?"
West nodded. "This is the truth she doesn't want exposed."
Ruan stared at the screen one last time.
Lumi in the photo looked… peaceful. Happy. Like a completely different person. He sighed and looked away.
"Then this is where it ends."
***
The weekend air around the empty tennis court felt strangely heavy, as if the sky itself was waiting for something unpleasant to unfold.
Ruan stood a few steps away from Lumi, with Kev and the twins beside him. None of them spoke immediately. The quiet tension between them stretched for several seconds, long enough for Lumi to notice the seriousness in their expressions.
She folded her arms, clearly irritated.
"If this is another conversation about the engagement," she said coldly, "then you're wasting your time."
Normally Kev would have thrown back a sarcastic reply, but this time he stayed quiet.
West stepped forward instead, holding his tablet. "This isn't about the engagement."
Lumi's brows pulled together slightly. "Then what about?"
West didn't answer right away. Instead, he slowly scrolled through several files on the screen. Old photographs and articles flashed by until he finally stopped on one picture.
He turned the screen toward her.
The moment Lumi saw it, something inside her froze.
The girl in the photograph was unmistakably her, only younger, softer, untouched by the bitterness she now carried. Her smile in that picture looked genuine, the kind of smile that came from a place of real happiness.
But she wasn't alone.
Standing beside her was another girl, their shoulders pressed close together. The girl's arm rested naturally around Lumi's waist, and the way they leaned toward each other made their relationship obvious.
For a brief second, Lumi couldn't breathe.
"Where did you get that?" she asked quietly, still keeping herself composed.
Her voice had lost its usual confidence but she played stoic.
Kev shifted his weight uncomfortably. Even he hadn't expected her reaction to be this strong.
West spoke calmly. "That's Maxin, right?"
The name echoed like a stone dropped into still water.
Lumi's fingers slowly tightened around the tablet. She tried to keep her expression controlled, but the shock was already spreading across her face.
"You had no right to dig into my past," she said, her voice low.
Ruan stepped forward. "But you had the right to destroy ours?"
His words landed harder than she expected. Ruan chuckled melancholically.
For a moment Lumi looked away, as if the ground beneath her suddenly demanded more attention than the people standing in front of her.
Est spoke next, his tone calm but serious. "Your father found out about you two."
The silence that followed felt painful.
"And he separated you," West continued quietly.
Something inside Lumi cracked. She let out a short, bitter laugh, though it sounded more like a broken breath. Then she sniffled, trying to hold back the tears that already made her eyes red and glassy.
"You think you understand what happened?" she muttered.
Her eyes slowly lifted to meet theirs.
"You don't know anything. And if you think, this gang up, and all this is going to stop everything then you are mistaken."
But the words lacked their usual sharpness. Ruan looked at her carefully, studying the way her composure was slowly slipping.
"So that's why you're doing this," he said quietly.
Her gaze snapped toward him. "You think this is about you?"
"You lost your happiness," Ruan replied. "And now you want to make sure nobody else gets to keep theirs."
That was the moment everything collapsed.
Lumi laughed again, but this time the sound trembled with something dangerously close to despair.
"You all talk about love," she said, her voice shaking as tears began filling her eyes. "Like it's something everyone deserves."
She wiped her face angrily, as if the tears themselves were insulting.
"My mother believed in love too you see." Her voice cracked. "And look where that got her."
Images of hospital corridors and quiet, sterile rooms flashed through her mind. Years of watching her mother disappear behind medications and silence had left scars Lumi never talked about.
"For years," she continued, "I watched her rot in that place while my father pretended everything was normal."
Her shoulders trembled now.
"And Maxin…" she whispered.
The name alone was enough to reopen wounds she had spent years trying to bury.
"She was the only person who ever looked at me like I mattered."
Tears slipped freely down her cheeks. "And they took her away like it meant nothing."
The boys stood there quietly, unsure how to respond. Even Kev felt his earlier anger fading into something closer to discomfort.
West finally spoke his voice softer. "You can still move forward."
Est nodded slightly. "You don't have to stay trapped in that anger."
Kev awkwardly added, "Yeah… you should try to let it go."
But their words didn't comfort her. She had heard this multiple times. If anything, they only made the emptiness inside her chest feel larger.
"You don't know anything. So don't you ever try to barge in between what's mine." She said. She wiped her tears once more and left the place in a hurry.
The boys wanted to follow her, but that could have made it worst. They were guilty themselves for they reopened someone's past trauma. But at this point that was the only way to cease everything. And they had no choice but to.