At that gaze, whose meaning was unmistakably clear, my chest tingled as if struck by electricity.
“What do you mean… ah…!”
Only then did I realize that I had undressed Rastan and had been staring intently at his bare body. My face instantly burst into flames.
“No, that is not it! I was just trying to check your injuries…!”
I was so flustered that I could barely speak properly. But Rastan easily brushed aside my stammering excuse.
“Since there are no injuries, what can be done? Since you have already exposed it, should you not at least look at my body.”
He lowered his eyes as if sorrowful, but the corners of his lips were playfully raised.
“That is not what I meant! Put your clothes back on, quickly!”
I waved my hands desperately, but he showed no intention of putting his clothes back on.
“Now that you have undressed me, was it disappointing?”
Of course, that wasn’t true.
I had never specifically imagined his bare body, but the upper body I saw in reality was far more beautiful and… seductive than I had expected.
“Th-that is not it!”
I forced myself to look away from him and turned my head to the side. But Rastan gently cupped my cheeks with both hands and turned my face back toward him.
“Evelyn. Look at me.”
At his suddenly serious voice, I unconsciously lifted my eyes to look at him.
“That day, did you not say that you love me?”
With eyes as blue as ice, he gazed directly into mine and murmured softly.
“You said that you loved me.”
Only then did I remember. Seeing him run toward me, believing it would be the last time, I had said those words.
‘I thought it was just a dream or a false memory…’
My face flushed bright red once again.
“At that time, I was not in my right mind…”
“So, it wasn’t sincere? I endured that entire week while you were unconscious by repeating those words over and over.”
When Rastan’s eyes grew slightly moist, I felt like I had become a truly terrible person.
‘Oh dear… really.’
In the end, I hesitated before answering.
“…When I faced the true nature of Marquis Pavel that day, and while I was fighting inside his unconscious, I kept thinking about it.”
‘If I could see you again, I wanted to make sure to say I was sorry, and also—’
“That… I wanted to say those words. So when I saw you, I must have said them somehow.”
It had come out immediately when I thought it was my final moment, but saying it while fully conscious made me too embarrassed, and the words kept faltering.
“Th-that is, it was not insincere. More importantly!”
I hastily brushed past Rastan’s question and brought up another one.
“You… Can you tell me why you were fighting the other demons?”
He himself was a demon, so I wondered why he had fought so fiercely against others of his own kind.
It wasn’t a minor dispute, but a brutal battle where the losing side faced complete annihilation.
“You said last week that the recent appearances of high-ranking monsters might be caused by other demons trying to summon you.”
“I did.”
“Are you… not on good terms with the other demons?”
Even though it was obvious that I was changing the subject because I was too embarrassed to say ‘I love you’ again, Rastan didn’t call me out and simply answered my question.
“That is correct. The curse placed upon me is also related to that.”
When I asked, it was half out of genuine curiosity and half to change the topic.
But when he mentioned his curse, my curiosity became completely genuine.
“It will be a story about demons you hate. Is that alright?”
It sounded like a joke at first, but looking at Rastan’s expression, I understood. He was watching my reaction, worried that I might feel uneasy again remembering what he truly was.
“Of course I hate other demons. But you… it does not matter what kind of being you originally were.”
I gave a small shrug.
“I decided to trust not the two words that others call you by ‘Demon God’, but you, who have never changed toward me…”
In truth, what I had said was, “I decided to trust you and love you.” But I couldn’t bring myself to say “love” out loud, so I lowered my voice sharply at that part.
Even though he probably hadn’t heard what I said, Rastan’s eyes had widened slightly, and he looked dazed.
‘Did he hear it? Ah, maybe because he’s a demon, he can hear even sounds as small as a mosquito’s?’
I hurried him along with a flushed face, deliberately looking elsewhere.
“So anyway, it is fine if you just tell me.”
Only then did Rastan seem to come back to his senses, smiling faintly.
“As you command.”
He, who had been lying facing me, slowly rose from the bed.
“It seems the story will be long. Would you like to get up and have a drink?”
“Sure. But…”
As I got up to follow him, I suddenly noticed a small problem.
“Um, could you fasten your shirt again…?”
The shirt I had pulled open was still completely undone since he hadn’t fixed it, leaving his tightly sculpted upper body fully exposed.
Following my gaze, Rastan glanced down at himself and replied calmly.
“You were the one who opened it yourself. It would be a waste to close it now.”
I couldn’t believe that this man, who had always been so proper, could say something like that.
“If you do not like looking at my body…”
“N-no, that is not it. It is just…”
“That is good, then.”
Rastan lightly took both of my hands and brought them to his lower abdomen, near his clearly defined abs.
“If you button it up yourself, I will wear it as it is. Otherwise, since it is bothersome to have it hanging open, I will just take it off.”
As he said that, the corners of his cold blue eyes and seductive lips curved slightly.
At the openly suggestive atmosphere he was giving off, my face heated up without realizing it.
“I-I will. I will do it…!”
I tried my best not to look at his body as I fastened the buttons of his shirt from the bottom up.
Even though it was just buttoning a shirt, my head spun, and my hands kept missing their place, so it took much longer than usual.
Rastan watched me struggle with a relaxed smile, then gently took both my wrists and stopped my hands.
It was a signal to stop.
“Huh…? But I’ve only fastened the bottom four. There are still a lot left at the top…”
“This is enough to keep it from fluttering and being bothersome. And if it is not unpleasant to look at, you may use this as something pleasing to your eyes.”
What he referred to as “this” was his firm chest and abdominal muscles.
“Pleasing to my eyes?!”
“You have not been able to take your eyes off it since earlier.”
With a grin, he stood up without giving me a chance to respond and walked toward the cabinet on the opposite side of the room.
By the time I pouted and got up from the bed to follow him, Rastan had already taken out a bottle of alcohol and two glasses.
“The night air is cool and pleasant. Shall we drink with the moonlight as our companion?”
Following him out and leaning against the balcony railing, the early summer scent of flowers and the slightly humid air filled my lungs. With the bright moonlight added, it felt as if I were standing in some world within a dream.
‘This is the perfect atmosphere to hear a story told directly by a demon.’
After handing me a filled glass, he slowly began to speak.
“I have been in the demonic world known as hell since the beginning and spent an immeasurably long time there. Since my nature originated from that place, it was naturally a place of comfort to me.”
To hear directly from him— not as a myth but from the being himself— about someone who had existed since the beginning and wasn’t human.
I listened intently, my eyes wide with curiosity.
“But at some point, hell, filled with pain and screams, began to feel horrifying. I do not know why.”
“What? But you are a demon?”
“It is something that should not happen to a demon, but nevertheless, it did. And so, I began to wish to spend the eternity that remained in heaven.”
At those words, a famous story I had once heard came to mind.
‘There was said to be a being who had been an angel and fell to become a demon.’
It seemed Rastan had chosen the opposite path.
“But of course, a demon cannot simply enter heaven. So I began to take on a human body and accumulate good deeds.”
Like saving up subscription deposits to receive an apartment allocation in Korea, one had to accumulate a kind of good deed score to enter heaven.
However, the amount of good deeds a demon—especially a high-ranking demon called a Demon God—had to accumulate to enter heaven was enormous.
“The man you knew, who was proper and strictly followed laws and rules, was nothing more than a demon desperately struggling to enter heaven.”
Rastan lowered his deep gaze and let out a faint, self-mocking chuckle.
