Chapter 135
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 135
Thump.
Her heart, heavy with a dull ache, sank.
“He is going to die. That is what I am saying.”
A chill shot down her spine.
Seo-ah bolted upright in bed, but Oscar didn’t even glance at her.
“Your Excellency.”
“…”
“Your Excellency!”
When she called out again, her voice sharp with fear, the man who had been staring at the empty pillow finally turned his gaze toward her. His eyes were still a burning blue, yet Seo-ah felt that while he was looking at her, he wasn’t truly seeing her.
“Your Excellency…”
Oscar, who had been watching her quietly, suddenly laughed. Covering his face with one hand, his shoulders trembled as a faint chuckle escaped him.
“It’s starting again,” he muttered.
“…What is?”
“It’s starting again.”
“…Your Excellency.”
“Seo-ah.”
Her breath caught in her throat.
Oscar slowly lowered his hand, revealing the stark expression beneath. His blue eyes, devoid of light, were filled with a deep despair.
“Smile.”
Suddenly, the memory of seeing him with a beard rushed back to her, unbelievably vivid. That space, filled with light, which she had believed to be the afterlife. Oscar, watching her quietly as she turned her head.
“Did you wait for me?”
“…Yes.”
“You waited for me?”
“Yes.”
The moment surged to the surface of her mind. As she remembered smiling at him then, she realized with a flash of lightning-like clarity what Oscar was seeing now—and why he kept telling her to smile.
Seo-ah parted her lips, hesitating before she finally asked, “Did you… wait for me?”
He looked at her with those lifeless eyes. “Yes.”
“While I was asleep… have you been like this the entire time? Without sleeping, without eating?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Tears spilled from her eyes before they could even gather. Seeing them, Oscar murmured, “Don’t cry. Smile.”
He slowly raised his hand, gently touching her cheek. His fingers slid to the nape of her neck and pulled her close. Drawn in helplessly, her head was cupped in his large hand as he closed the distance between them in an instant.
His rough lips pressed against hers. His breath, carrying the scent of a cold forest and faint smoke, mingled with her own as he pushed past her parted lips. As if determined to steal every last drop of air from her lungs, his desperate kiss swept through her mouth, leaving her gasping. Yet, she could neither turn her head nor pull away.
Her arms, which had been hovering uselessly, wrapped around him. With one hand, she clung to his firm, scar-etched body; with the other, she cradled his still-damp black hair. Only then did the desperate kiss finally halt.
Oscar slowly pulled back.
Before his eyes was the illusion he had created. The woman who smiled at him, faced him, and embraced him… she was dazzlingly beautiful. A fresh, green scent drifted from her, and as the delicate fragrance filled his blackened lungs, he finally felt alive.
If this was the only way he could feel alive, wasn't it better to just live inside this illusion?
“You need to sleep.”
“…”
“You’ll collapse if you keep this up.”
Seo-ah, who had been embracing him, sat up and tried to guide him to lie down where she had been resting.
“And what about you?” he asked.
“Your Excellency.”
“Where are you going to disappear to this time? And for how long?”
Her lips parted again. She hesitated, her mouth still tender, before she barely managed to speak. “…I will stay here.”
“…”
“I will stay by your side until you wake up.”
Those words tore down the walls he had built with ridiculous ease. He had thought she was the one tearing them down, but now Oscar wondered if she had ever even seen those walls in the first place.
“I’ll stay by your side, Your Excellency. So please…”
Yielding to a force as gentle as a spring breeze, Oscar lay down on the bed. But as she tried to pull away, he grabbed her, pulling her fragile, slender frame into his arms.
It felt as if the world were collapsing on top of him, or perhaps he was being sucked into an abyss. It didn’t matter. Not as long as he held this soft, small woman in his arms.
“You said you would stay by my side.”
“…”
“Why was that?”
There was no answer. Oscar blinked slowly, then cupped her cheek to meet her gaze.
“I’m asking you why.”
Her clear eyes trembled. At that slight tremor, it felt as if his heart had already plunged to the bottom of the abyss, but it didn’t matter. This woman was still in his arms. He would not loosen his grip, ensuring she could never run away.
Oscar whispered softly, “Say you like me.”
Her trembling eyes widened. He felt her soft body, held tightly against his, stiffen. Regardless, Oscar stared at her with an intense, almost glaring gaze and commanded, “Say you like me. Say it with your own lips.”
He felt the frantic pulse vibrating through their pressed bodies, a tremor whose owner he couldn’t identify. Their tangled breath and shared body heat felt like a hallucination. Oscar knew that her trembling and his own stemmed from entirely different reasons, but it didn’t matter.
Her clear eyes grew misty.
Her pink lips parted, and her small tongue moved behind her teeth.
“…I like you.”
It was a confession barely whispered, almost soundless. The words brushed against Oscar more lightly than a fluttering spring petal, so light they didn't even leave a scratch, yet he crumbled with ridiculous ease at those few words—words he had forced her to say.
Oscar pulled her body, already as close as it could be, even closer. Cupping her slender cheek, he pressed his lips to her soft, delicate mouth, which felt like a flower petal. He swallowed her fragrant breath as if it were life itself, yet it was still not enough.
It felt as if she would disappear forever if he let go.
The reason he had rushed back so desperately after meeting the Tekan Ambassador was because he couldn't tell if seeing her awake had been real or just an illusion. What if she wasn’t there when he returned? What if he had already lost her back in the Rock Forest? His sleep-deprived mind felt as if it had already shattered.
But when he finally returned, in that moment when the entire world seemed to burn red—the moment his eyes met hers, standing firmly on the ground—the anxiety that had been pounding against his chest washed away.
“Stay by my side. As long as you are by my side, I…”
“…”
“I don’t care what you are.”
It doesn’t matter what you are. Even if your presence is a deception, I can turn a blind eye to it. Because that is more advantageous to me. Because that, at least, is less painful.
“Seo-ah.”
In that sense, even if the day comes when you say you want to leave, I will never let you go. You were the one who promised to stay by my side first. Shouldn’t you take responsibility for that?
Without loosening his grip on Seo-ah, Oscar closed his eyes. The moment he did, the ground beneath him seemed to give way, and he was sucked into sleep.
A dream unfolded.
In his dream, he was falling into an endless abyss. When he finally reached the deepest, bottomless pit, he met an unexpected person.
His father, Ernst, wearing a black military cap and uniform. The man who had died long ago was there.
“…Father.”
Ernst turned to look at him.
Oscar walked toward his father. In his memories, his father had been an incredibly tall and large man, but now, they stood eye-to-eye.
“Oscar.”
Ernst was holding something: letters adorned with delicate decorations, the kind a noblewoman might write. It was an unexpected sight. The fallen hero clutched not his country's flag, his family's insignia, or a longsword, but merely a stack of letters.
Oscar raised his eyes to face his father.
How long has he been wandering this place, clutching those letters? More importantly, what kind of letters are they that he couldn’t discard them even in death? They don't look like he wrote them, so who…
Oscar paused. He furrowed his brow, then lifted his head. “Could they be… from Mother?”
“…”
Oscar’s face instantly twisted into a grimace.
“Was it you?”
“…”
“You were the one who destroyed every last piece of evidence of Charlotte von Reinhardt’s betrayal.”
Only after stepping into the abyss where Ernst resided did Oscar realize the truth. A hot, nauseating surge of anger welled up inside him.
“Just what was she to you?! After you died, she ran to her lover without a second glance! She abandoned you, and she abandoned me, your son! As if that wasn't enough, she even had a daughter with another man and is living a comfortable life!”
“…”
“To her, you and I were nothing more than convenient tools! Do you even realize that?!”
Ernst, that foolish man, remained silent.
Oscar sneered at him with sharp derision. “You know everything. You know it all, yet you were foolish enough to endure it until you died? And even in death, you’re holding on to this trash? I don’t know what’s written in those letters, but I swear, there isn’t a single line of sincerity in them! Not a single one!”
His father, silent despite his son’s fierce accusations, merely stared back, his eyes shrouded in the shadows of his military cap.
Unable to bear it any longer, Oscar let out a roaring cry.