Coloring (3)
Coloring (3)
The system told me to collect endings. It never said to hang myself.
Whether I put a bullet in my head or not, I wasn't in my right mind for a while there.
Maybe this is just an excuse I'm making because I don't want to die.
Dangling there, thrashing around—it hurt like hell.
Maybe it doesn't matter if I die or not.
I'm not the one who sees the endings.
I don't know how the world keeps turning after I'm gone.
A throwaway villain who shows up briefly at the start and vanishes without a trace—one dead wastrel isn't going to change anything meaningful.
Maybe I've been overestimating my own value all along.
'Ravin' was a man destined to be discarded by his fiancée and expelled from his family.
I doubt I'm any different.
In the end, if I want to see this through, I have to follow the original story.
So that the protagonist, Kyle, can reach some kind of ending—any ending.
But I couldn't exactly stick to his side.
I had no real way to get close to him.
I tried a few times, in the past.
Back when I'd first become 'Ravin,' I was brimming with confidence.
You know the type.
The kind who gets isekai'd into a game with a known plot and immediately runs around chasing useless items and dead-end NPCs, convinced they can do anything.
I was the same.
Because I thought I was the main character.
I thought I wasn't just some punk who shows up once and gets swept offstage—until my past caught up with me and chained my ankles together.
I believed that if I just used my knowledge of the original, I could do anything—and if people saw me turn over a new leaf, they'd reevaluate me and lend a hand.
I hovered around Kyle. Whenever there was a gathering, a chance to meet, I sought him out and lingered at the edges of his space.
Looking back now, the results speak for themselves.
Whenever we came face to face, we'd exchange a word or two at most before Kyle made himself scarce.
One day, I even managed to corner him and practically begged—apologized for the trouble 'Ravin' had caused and said I wanted to be friends. It was pathetic.
The only thing I got for it was an awkward reaction and a nasty rumor, probably started by someone watching, that the degenerate Ravin might be into men.
Even if I survive and claw my way through this, the engagement is beyond saving.
Serepina's family will do everything they can to pry me away from her, and Levina will be no different.
That woman probably thinks the very fact that I'm breathing next to another human being is a stain on the family's honor.
Still, I have somewhere to return to.
All I have to do is survive.
Hold on until Kyle reaches an ending.
Whatever that ending turns out to be.
The system never specified how many I needed, or what exactly I was supposed to do.
Even now, all I see in the empty air is that one message: Collect the Endings.
Whether Serepina breaks off the engagement, whether the family casts me out—none of that matters anymore.
As long as I don't get expelled from the Academy, I can endure.
And I haven't done anything worth expelling me over.
The Forbidden Archive case was officially cleared by Her Excellency the Student Council President herself, who declared there were no charges. No one's going to dredge that up again.
So I'll bury myself in a corner of the library, killing time with dust-caked books, or just lie in my room staring at the ceiling all day.
That kind of life—I was used to it.
Before long, demons or devils or whatever they are will appear, and students will get caught up in it and die for one reason or another.
Because this world is full of people who don't care who lives or dies as long as it isn't the protagonist or one of the heroines.
And unfortunately, I fall into neither of those categories.
Truth be told, I have serious doubts about whether I even qualify as human.
What can I do in a world like that?
Probably nothing at all.
If I tried to help—if I told them some demon's weakness—they'd decide I must be a demon-worshipper who'd been colluding with them all along. They'd tie me to a post and burn me alive.
I may have lived with a certain degree of noble privilege despite being a bastard, spared any real savagery up to now, but this world is more than capable of it.
Ultimately, one option remains.
At least I have an option at all. That's something.
Before I blew my head off with the revolver, I didn't even have that.
I had to get close to Estelle.
But how?
The only way I could think of to get near her was what happened last time—when Levina summoned her after my enthusiastic brawl with Marcus.
Just walking up to her out of nowhere and bringing up the Forbidden Archive when we've never even spoken... that didn't feel right.
Maybe it's because I'm an idiot, but just as she seemed to be my only option, there seemed to be only one way to reach her.
I picked up the half-empty bottle of liquor sitting on the table.
Then I tipped my head back and drained the whole thing in one go.
I let out a breath and slammed it down on the table.
Crash!
The sound of shattering glass split the silence of the room.
Sharp shards scattered, but I hadn't swung hard enough for them to fly far.
I bent down and picked up the largest, sharpest piece.
I stared at it for a moment.
The dim lamplight caught the broken edge.
I really do hate pain.
I set the glass shard back on the table and pulled a cigarette from my coat.
I lit it and dragged deep.
Bitterness spread across my tongue.
I stared down at the broken bottle for a long while.
The face reflected in the glass was a stranger's.
Because it was 'Ravin's' face.
It wasn't the face I'd be wearing when I finally went home.
All I needed was a scratch. Nothing big.
Nobody said to cut anything off. Just enough to draw blood.
Enough to make Levina call Estelle.
I picked the shard up again.
And without hesitation, I drew it across my arm.
A sharp pain bloomed through my whole forearm.
Skin split, and dark blood began to well up slowly.
A moment later, hot, sticky liquid ran down my arm and dripped onto the floor.
Red began to paint my arm.
First it traced the trails of blood, then it spread sideways in broad strokes—like someone had taken a brush to it.
It hurt badly enough to make me want to die, but I figured I could endure it.
I sat back down on the sofa, leaving my arm as it was, blood dripping steadily.
I put the cigarette back in my mouth.
I started chain-smoking.
Burned one down to the filter, lit another.
The room filled fast with cigarette smoke and the smell of blood.
A strange combination.
The wound wasn't a pleasant sight, so I pulled my sleeve back down.
Blood soaked into the fabric, but that was still better than seeing the cut.
And so I waited for Levina.
My half-sister, who would come bearing the letter of expulsion she'd deliver with something close to pleasure.
Knock, knock.
A flat, dry knock cut through the stillness and burrowed into my ears.
"Ravin! I know you're in there. Open the door."
A sharp, familiar voice.
I didn't get up.
She'd let herself in anyway.
I hadn't locked the door.
Soon enough, the front door swung open with a creak.
Levina strode into the room, pinching her nose.
Her heels pressed down on the unkempt floor, lifting at the back as if the very ground beneath her was filthy.
"...The smell. Even a beast lives cleaner than this."
"Just tell me what you came for."
Her uniform was immaculate, not a wrinkle on it, and her pure white hair was combed back with perfect precision.
Instead of answering, Levina pulled a thick envelope from her coat and moved to toss it onto the table—then her eyes met mine.
Her gaze dropped to the floor.
Blood from my arm had pooled slightly.
Levina's brow twitched, barely perceptible.
Her eyes swept back and forth between the bloodstained floor, the broken bottle shards, and me, sitting calmly on the sofa smoking a cigarette.
The expression that surfaced on her face was a complicated mix of faint bewilderment and irritation.
"What the hell is this insanity?"
Her voice was ice.
As if the scene before her was just another tiresome episode in a long string of problem behavior.
"Can't you tell? I'm hurt."
I shrugged, indifferent.
When I lifted my injured arm to show her, the blood seeped more vividly through the wet sleeve.
Her frown deepened.
She didn't approach.
She stayed by the door, keeping a safe distance, observing me.
"Proud of yourself? Is this your way of begging for attention?"
"If I wanted attention, I'd have gone for your throat a long time ago."
"...Your throat?"
Levina seemed at a loss for words, just for a beat.
"Just call someone who can treat this. It was an accident."
I stubbed my cigarette out in the ashtray and said it like it was nothing.
As if the arm weren't mine at all.