No Dark Secrets In This Book

Episode 61

“Why are you here?”

My voice came out hoarse. It’s embarrassing, but my throat was choked up. I tried to cover it up by pretending to cough lightly, but you approached me.

Without realizing it, my fingers gripped the bed sheet tightly, but he clearly saw everything and nonchalantly tilted the kettle on the bedside table to pour water into a cup.

“Drink and then talk.”

I knew I had to take the cup he held out. But I couldn’t muster the courage to raise my hand. I was half-trembling, and if I loosened my grip on the bed sheet, I would have shown a pathetic trembling.

Then Ryuseong looked down at me hollowly and drank the water himself. I thought he was provoking me, but he slightly lifted my chin.

Around then, I was about to get angry. An irritation with unclear reason or cause welled up and I wanted to push him away, but strength didn’t enter as I intended, so it ended with me placing my hand on his chest.

What followed was as expected.

Our lips touched. You didn’t seem to particularly take care of your lips. It meant they were dry and hot rather than soft and supple. But the moment you opened your mouth, it transformed into a moist heat, and that was your mouth, but this time it was different. Lukewarm water flowed into me. It was sweet. Whether it was because it was water I drank after a long time or it was water with sugar mixed in for the patient, it was so sweet that it was confusing, making me cling to you with an inexplicable desperation.

When the water was all gone, you also tried to part from me. I grabbed your hair to prevent that. I dug my fingers deep into the back of your head, binding you so you couldn’t leave. I wanted to kiss you. I had to kiss you.

In fact, I also knew.

‘This is a trap.’

Taking advantage of my weakened state, this bastard slithered in like a snake over a wall.

Just because of that fucking dream.

At that moment when I foolishly wanted to pity myself just for one day, you.

‘Why were you by my side at that very moment?’

At that moment when I wanted to beg anyone to hold me.

‘Why did you appear there…?’

I was dying for warmth and the only person who could give it was you.

But I also knew. If I cross the line now, I’m fucked.

That this is ruining something I had drawn as a line I should never cross.

So, fuck.

‘If I fucking fall in love with you like this.’

Then from then on, I’m fucked.

Forget the kiss, I should have pushed you away. If I push you away, you will obediently back off.

You, who is not even pressing down on me with your weight because I’m sick, and is even adjusting the angle so I can comfortably kiss you. The one desperately rushing in is me, and you’re just being mannerly. If I lightly push you away now, you will back off.

But fucking you, you slept on a chair until dawn just because I’m sick.

Even though there was a fluffy bed right next to you, you did that like an idiot on the wooden chairs you lined up.

You caressed and comforted me until I fell asleep.

‘Th, fuck.’

I must have gone crazy from studying too much. 

No, no. Be honest. I feel fucking shitty right now because I had a fucking dream. I feel like clinging onto anything and I was confident I wouldn’t fall in love no matter what kind of playing with fire it was.

But it had to be you who appeared.

‘If it’s you, I think I might fall in love.’

If you hold me at this moment. If you embrace me.

No, even if you just don’t push me away.

Just by that, I feel like I might fall for you.

‘Please, I’m begging you, get lost…’

But he stayed by my side until the end, and it was the first time someone stroked me like that.

Hey, you must have done this a lot, so why do I…

Why do I have to be shaken by something like this?

***

He thinks it’s idiotic that he can’t say a single word asking him to stay by his side.

Ryuseong was lying next to him who fell asleep. He thought he would be very displeased to share a bed since he was severely germaphobic, but he wouldn’t let go while shedding tears down his cheeks, so he wrapped the blanket only around him and lay down next to him.

He thought for a long time with his gaze on his profile.

You were still gritting your teeth and sobbing. You never cried out loud even the moment you fell asleep.

A person can get sick at any time. They can be lonely. They can be miserable and in pain. Everyone is like that. That’s why people rely on others to live. But you’re like someone who has never relied on anyone even once.

‘…’

Your gestures were closer to begging than seduction. It might have been begging.

Because you couldn’t say out loud to please not let go of me.

What you could express was only…

‘That kind of act.’

Then maybe even the things you’ve been clinging to so far were this sorrowful.

It certainly wasn’t the appearance of a person who grew up being loved.

The house of Cassice Demillang I saw that day when I barged into your house looked happy. They seemed to love each other and be affectionate.

Ryuseong’s eyes sank deeper.

Why are you so isolated?

Why did only you have to suffer like this? What did you do wrong?

You didn’t do anything wrong in this world, so why do only you keep having to stifle your cries?

‘It feels like looking at the bottom.’

But looking at your bottom is a process of confirming that my own bottom is to that extent.

So you don’t need to be wretched.

There’s no doubt that this moment is shorter than the countless nights you spent alone.

You will rise again and act like nothing happened.

“…Even if you, once again, destroy the world.”

Now I can’t even bring myself to kill you anymore. You made me like this.

You won’t disappear even if you don’t directly ask out loud to stay by your side.

‘You can sob out loud as many times as you want.’

Until dawn finally seeps in…

***

Uh, um.

Actually, I’ve been awake for a while, but I was embarrassed about crying, so I didn’t get up.

But I think I heard something strange.

Please tell me it’s a misunderstanding?

“…Even if you, once again, destroy the world.”

So, you…

Even if Cassice Demillang destroys the world once again…

Ryuseong said those words…?

‘…?’

My head is spinning. My vision is turning white and I feel a sweet taste in my mouth.

‘How does he?’

That’s right. How does the Ryuseong in the original work know that Cassice Demillang destroyed the world and spout such nonsense?

Destroys the world once again. Once again.

‘How do you know that Cassice Demillang is the final villain…?’

My whole body turns cold. I started rewinding and re-examining all my memories from the beginning.

One day, I suddenly possessed the body of the final villain in the original novel. The timeline is the beginning of the work.

But the protagonist in the beginning knows the identity of the final villain revealed right before the last volume.

…Why?

‘What is going on…?’

I’m not particularly dumb.

I really don’t think so, but I can’t think of anything, maybe because I want to deny everything.

Uh, so…

‘Could it be that Ryuseong is also possessed?’

Does it mean that the Ryuseong who is possessed and read the original work also knew the identity of the final villain…?!

‘No, that’s not it.’

If the other person was also possessed, he would have suspected if Cassice Demillang was also possessed when Cassice Demillang did bizarre things.

But the Ryuseong I’ve seen found Cassice Demillang’s character collapse strange, but didn’t consider me a completely different being.

‘Then?’

At this point, I swallowed my saliva. Another keyword flashed through my mind, not possession.

‘…What if Ryuseong is a regressor?’

A regressor. One who has returned to the world.

Let’s re-examine everything under the premise that Ryuseong is a regressor.

He said ‘once again’, right? Even if you destroy the world once again, he said.

In other words…

‘In the previous timeline, Cassice Demillang succeeded in destroying the world? Then to Ryuseong, I would be an enemy, right?’

According to the development of the original work, it was Cassice Demillang who killed Ryuseong’s friends, relatives, and acquaintances and scattered them in the wilderness.

Under this premise, all the turning points make sense.

Ryuseong acting as if testing himself during the entrance exam, the dormitory changing, harboring a desire to control and possess without love, the change in courses, bringing up the marriage talks not even mentioned in the original work, persistently following me wherever I go and whatever I do even to the point of using the strategy of contract dating and unwanted skinship, and obsessively asking about the relationship with Shin Myohan.

‘…I thought it was just jealousy.’

All of Ryuseong’s abnormal behaviors that I had been secretly ignoring were understood at once, and my head rang blankly.

That crazy bastard thought I was the villain who would destroy the world.

So he must have been following me around to keep an eye on me. He wasn’t jealous of Shin Myohan, but he must have been wary of what I might do.

‘Then when that bastard choked me…’

Was it not play but with real intent to kill?

‘…I almost died…?’

Then even now, is he waiting for the right time to kill me…?