Chapter 97
“So you’re saying it didn’t hurt now, but it hurt back then. And you’re just fine with that?”
Noxia demanded in a voice that sounded as if she were holding back tears. Promeon’s wound deepened. It wasn’t that her anger hurt him—it was unbearably painful that her eyes were filled with sorrow.
“As long as you don’t get hurt, it doesn’t matter.”
This time as well, Promeon confessed honestly. Noxia’s breath trembled faintly.
“……Thank you for stopping me from getting hurt. I really mean it. But from now on, I wish you would value your own body a little more too.”
She whispered stiffly. Promeon blinked slowly. At last, he made a promise.
“I will.”
Countless other words rose to the tip of her tongue, making her lips tingle. But Noxia swallowed all of them and turned her head away to avoid Promeon’s gaze.
“Let’s go home now. I think we’ve eaten and looked around enough.”
“Okay.”
When Noxia suggested it in the same stiff tone as before, Promeon nodded without a word. Noxia took the first step, and Promeon followed like a shadow.
After that, there were no more incidents until they reached home. And there was no more conversation either.
Several days passed after they went to the night market. During that time, the relationship between the two remained steady. Noxia diligently ran the teahouse, and Promeon devotedly took care of her.
Then one day, a summer rain poured down.
Click.
“……?”
The sound of the door opening downstairs was heard. Promeon, who had been immersed in a kind of meditation in the upstairs room, quickly came to his senses.
He opened the door at once and went outside. Looking down over the stair railing, Promeon’s eyes widened in surprise.
“Hermaine?”
There was still a long time left before she would normally finish work, yet she was here. Moreover, her shoes and the hems of her pants were completely soaked.
“It’s raining too heavily, so I closed early today. There weren’t many customers, and on a day like this, I didn’t feel like staying there either.”
Outside, a torrential downpour was falling. In the morning it had only been drizzling, but before they knew it, thick streams of rain were striking the window with loud thuds.
Perhaps because it had been a while since such rain had fallen, even though it was summer, a rather chilly feeling lingered. Promeon asked gently,
“Would you like some warm tea?”
“Yes, please.”
Noxia nodded. Without immediately changing her wet clothes, she went into the living room and sat on the sofa near the fireplace.
Promeon did not need to use the stairs like ordinary humans; he moved downstairs in an instant and headed to the living room. Noxia, already accustomed to his way of moving, did not even blink.
As Promeon approached the fireplace, the stacked firewood inside ignited on its own. Bright orange flames cheerfully chased away the damp air.
“Wait, I’ll bring the tea.”
“Thank you.”
Recently, she had been saying thank you more often. When she first left the capital of Hermeon with him, she had often withheld her words on purpose out of resentment toward him. But these days, words of gratitude came quite naturally.
“……Alright.”
Promeon replied softly as he looked at her for a moment. He turned and went to the kitchen. Left alone in the living room, Noxia warmed her hands by the fire.
Soon, Promeon returned carrying a tray with a teacup and a teapot. He set the tray down on the table in front of the sofa.
“Drink.”
“Thank you. ……Will you drink with me too?”
“What?”
“……If you don’t want to, forget it.”
Promeon looked down at the tray. As usual, there had only ever been one cup. Until now, Noxia had never once raised any objection about it.
“I don’t mind.”
Promeon said gently. He went back to the kitchen. Soon he returned with another cup and, moving carefully as if stepping on thin ice, sat across from Noxia.
“Hermaine.”
“Yes?”
“May I ask why you’re suddenly acting like this?”
Depending on the situation, it could have sounded quite ambiguous. But Noxia immediately understood what he meant, and instead of pretending to misunderstand and dodging the question, she answered quietly.
“I just thought… I should have been like this much earlier.”
Promeon’s expression froze without emotion. His hardened gaze could even appear chilling at a glance, but Noxia was not afraid because she knew why he wore such a look.
“The day you erased other people’s memories, it’s true you put me in a difficult position. But you were also the one who saved me that day. And it’s true that because of you I was unwillingly reincarnated, but it’s not that I don’t understand why you did it.”
Promeon, who burned a person to death before her eyes. Promeon, who dragged her soul from peaceful rest in paradise back into this world. Promeon, who drove her second life to end in suicide.
Despite committing so many wrongs, he still loved her. And he had been lonely for far too long. Noxia understood that.
She had only turned away because she did not want to accept it. There had never been a time when she truly did not know.
“I resent you. But I don’t hate you.”
Pretending awkwardly as if she held no lingering bitterness toward him would be useless. She did not want to wound him further with such clumsy deceit. Especially if that wound would return to herself intact.
“It’s not only you who doesn’t want this life to end the same way as the last one.”
Last time, she poured all her strength into resenting Promeon for ruining her present life.
She had been so busy desperately thinking about how to escape from him that she never even had room to consider or imagine another path.
In the end, her choice had been to catch him off guard and slit her own throat. It had been the most effective way to escape captivity, but it was an ending where neither of them found happiness.
A soul that ends its own life does not die a natural death and thus reincarnates again, and an immortal being who drove his beloved to death suffered for ages, circling back to arrive here.
“Just as you changed your attitude this time, I want to show a different side of myself too. Both of us have to grow for this life to end differently.”
Certainly, Promeon had shown improvement compared to before. He was different from when he barged recklessly into the afterlife, and different from when he lost his senses upon hearing that the young lady he served was discussing marriage with another man.
This time, through his actions, she could see that Promeon truly wished to witness her peaceful natural death. Noxia felt sorry for him.
“Promeon, I don’t want to be reborn anymore.”
She confessed honestly in a weary voice. It could not have been more sincere.
“I want this to be the last time. So I will live this life as fully as I can, and when my lifespan ends, I will close my eyes peacefully.”
To make that wish come true, improving her relationship with Promeon was essential. Unless she attempted to escape into death again, it seemed there would be no way to break free from him in this life either. So rather—
“And after I die, you should somehow break your curse and come to me. Don’t keep trying to forcibly hold me in this world.”
Once the time they could share in this world ended, only the afterlife would remain. Because Promeon had gone against that natural order until now, their relationship had become so twisted.
“Anyway, my point is… from now on, I’ll try too. So that this life will be the last one we share together.”
Since being with him last autumn, it was the first sincere conversation they had shared in months.
“There’s no one left for me but you.”
The lover of this life had forgotten her, and the person she thought was her friend in this life turned out to be the reincarnation of a god connected to her from a previous life. The ties of this life had fallen apart so futilely.
“There’s only you left for me now, Promeon.”
So the only place she could lean on now was not a bond of this life, but one from a past life. Whether it was a destined bond or an ill-fated one.
No matter how much she cried and refused, Promeon would never leave her side.
Even before her memories of her previous life returned, he had constantly lingered nearby, protecting her without her knowing.
When she almost fell at the train station, and when she stumbled while being chased by criminals one Sunday evening, he had always been there by her side.
A few days ago, when she saw him willingly endure pain to prevent her from spilling hot soup over herself, Noxia realized it. He would never leave her until the day she closed her eyes in natural death.
“If we can’t live apart anyway, then it’s right to try so that the time we spend together isn’t painful.”
Noxia explained her resolve in detail. After finishing her words, she took a sip of the tea Promeon had brewed. As always, it was warm and fragrant.
Promeon continued to gaze at her with an expressionless face. Noxia guessed that he was that shaken. Enough that he needed such an emotionless mask to hide his inner self for a moment.
Promeon watched as Noxia drank her tea, then lifted his own cup and took a sip.
“How does the tea taste?”
Noxia asked as she set her cup down. Promeon answered gently,
“It’s delicious.”
It was the truth. It had been a very long time since he had felt taste.
Outside, the rain continued to fall, and they quietly drank tea while listening to the heavy rain striking the windows and the cheerful crackling of the fire.
The summer rain lasted until night. It poured down as if it intended to submerge the whole world in water.
Perhaps because of that loud sound of rain, Noxia tossed and turned for quite some time. She did fall asleep, but she kept crossing the boundary between consciousness and unconsciousness, repeatedly slipping into a restless world of confused dreams rather than deep sleep.
In her dream, people called her Hermaine. They looked up to her, wise and benevolent, and to her strong and brave companion, praying that their future would be filled with blessings.
The two were deeply in love. Every moment they held each other in their eyes was filled with happiness.
Sometimes their opinions clashed and they argued, but each time they could not bear to remain angry for long and somehow adjusted their thoughts through conversation, reconciling warmly.
At times, that reconciliation was not merely warm but even hot. Damp moans flowed from the lips of the lovers entwined naked. Their intertwined legs tingled with heat. It felt as if a fire had been lit beneath her navel…….
“Haak.”
The dream, embarrassing beyond words and almost shocking, ended, and Noxia snapped her eyes open, breaking into a cold sweat. The familiar ceiling of the bedroom filled her vision.
