After posing the question to myself, I felt that it was a familiar one.
‘In Korea, when people are debating whether to date a certain man or not, this is the kind of thought they commonly use to test their own feelings.’
Of course, I wasn’t having this worry because I intended to date Rastan.
Still, if he truly wanted deeper physical contact with me, and if I wanted to help him as much as possible, then it was an issue I needed to consider as positively as I could.
‘In both my previous life and this one, I have always thought of Rastan as just a friend.’
Of course, unlike in my previous life, there had been many moments in this life when I had felt something strangely different, but even so, I had never concretely imagined doing anything beyond kissing him.
Perhaps because of that, the very act of imagining it felt awkward and unfamiliar. I had once dreamed of kissing him before, but that hadn’t been something I had intended.
‘No, I still have to try.’
I closed my eyes and pictured Rastan.
The image of his shadowed, slightly weary face I had seen earlier, all the more dangerously sensual because of it, was summoned instantly.
Since it was only imagination, I wrapped both arms around his neck without hesitation and rose onto my tiptoes.
Rastan stiffened slightly in surprise, but he didn’t stop or reject me, instead bending his waist a little to match my height.
When his high nose brushed against mine, and our lips were just about to touch, I hesitated for a brief moment.
‘Is it really all right to let it happen like this…?’
But the hesitation lasted only an instant. After all, this was my imagination. Including Rastan, no one in the world would know that I was having such thoughts.
‘Then there is no need to hesitate. Besides, this is exactly what Rastan asked for earlier.’
Having rationalized it in an instant, I pressed my lips to his.
The awkwardness I had worried over beforehand felt meaningless, because once it actually began, the imagined kiss flowed without obstruction.
Was it because Rastan’s presence was so captivating? In my imagination, I pressed my lips to his without any sense of resistance.
No, it wasn’t just that there was no resistance, honestly… it felt as though several fireworks were exploding inside my head.
‘So now I know for sure that I have been seeing Rastan as a man.’
With one hand wrapped around my waist and the other cradling the back of my head, he kissed me more deeply.
The deeper the kiss became, the more my lower abdomen seemed to tighten, and my head began to feel dizzy.
Then suddenly, a strange thought crossed my mind.
‘Huh? I’m only imagining this, so why am I feeling this in my body too?’
I pulled my lips away from Rastan, who was trying to press in even closer, and also separated our upper bodies that had been pressed tightly together.
“Haah…”
As I let out a slightly ragged breath and looked up at him, Rastan too was staring back at me with a slightly flushed face and a confused gaze.
“Evelyn…?”
The moment I saw his face, a huge realization struck me like lightning. This place was a dream…!
‘Then I fell asleep while thinking about Rastan with my eyes closed?’
Which meant that Rastan was dreaming the same dream right now. I had suddenly appeared in his dream and clung to him, kissing him.
This time, my head went dizzy with embarrassment.
“Evelyn?”
Rastan called to me again with a puzzled expression, but I couldn’t say a single word and slipped straight out of the dream.
The next moment I opened my eyes, I was still lying in the same position on the bed as before. I covered my burning face with both hands and muttered in despair.
“I am doomed…”
What on earth was Rastan, who must be just beyond this wall right now, thinking of me?
“Haahhhhh…”
Letting out a very long sigh, I berated myself for my carelessness, then came up with a cramped excuse.
‘Right, that dream wasn’t something I interfered with. It was just a dream Rastan had on his own! It has nothing to do with me.’
It was a cowardly lie, but I was too embarrassed. So there was no helping it.
After all, it wasn’t as if I had actually smashed my lips against his in reality, so if I pretended not to know, that would be the end of it.
The next morning, I went down to the dining room as usual.
Just thinking about seeing Rastan made my steps hesitate, but at times like this, I had to act exactly the same as always, as if nothing were wrong.
Sure enough, Rastan had arrived first and was sitting at the table, leisurely reading the newspaper.
“G-good morning.”
For some reason I couldn’t bring myself to look him in the eye, so I greeted him awkwardly without meeting his gaze and took my seat.
But no reply came. Silence settled over the dining room.
‘Why…?’
With no choice, I lifted my head and looked at him. Since he wasn’t saying anything, I wondered if he might be angry with me, but contrary to my expectations, there was a faint hint of mischief in his eyes.
“I was wondering why you were not looking at me.”
“Not looking? I am looking right now, like this…”
“If you are embarrassed, then—”
“Hk.”
It was obvious that Rastan was about to talk about the kiss from last night’s dream. I couldn’t let him say it, so I hurriedly cut him off.
“I-it is not like I would be embarrassed to look at your face!”
I deliberately opened my eyes wide and looked straight into his. He let out a small chuckle, as if he found me cute.
“I was going to thank you. Thanks to you, my nightmare suddenly turned into a blissful dream last night.”
All my effort to stop him was for nothing. He ended up saying it anyway. I had to tense the muscles of my face instantly just to keep my expression under control.
‘So it really was me who went into Rastan’s dream and did that. And he even remembers it.’
I tried to stay calm, but I couldn’t keep looking him in the eye, so I slowly averted my gaze.
“W-well, I am not really sure what you mean… I did not enter your dream last night, so…”
“Are you saying it was a dream I had all on my own?”
“I do not know what kind of dream it was, but… I am really glad to hear that you escaped from your nightmare.”
At that, one corner of Rastan’s mouth lifted slightly. It was a smile that looked a little mischievous, unlike his usual one.
“I have been plagued by nightmares from that curse for a long time, and not once have I ever escaped from them by my own strength. The only one who has ever changed my dreams was you.”
In other words, if his dream last night had suddenly shifted from a nightmare to a blissful kiss with me, then it could only have been because of me.
But at this point, there was no way I could admit that out loud.
Remembering once again the sad truth that telling one lie meant having to make up more lies to support it, I forced myself to speak.
“Uh… after being tormented for so long, could it be that you finally developed the ability to escape from your nightmares on your own…?”
“If it were something I could escape from on my own, it would not have been a curse in the first place.”
I didn’t know the exact mechanism of the curse, but in any case, Rastan neatly dismissed the logic I had awkwardly patched together.
“I… see.”
I thought that if I responded appropriately and changed the subject, I might be able to gloss over it and pretend I didn’t know.
But Rastan wasn’t such an easy opponent. He looked straight at me and pinpointed the dream precisely.
“I only said that deeper contact might be necessary. I did not expect you to come into my dream and kiss me first.”
“What are you saying…!”
I tried to deny it to the very end, but Rastan ignored my feeble rebuttal altogether and continued.
“Yesterday, my nightmare was just about to begin again. Even so, now that I was sleeping near you again, I believed that if I just endured a little longer, you would come and resolve it for me. But then you appeared earlier than I expected and suddenly wrapped your arms around my neck.”
‘You remember it too clearly, in far too much detail…!’
He glanced at my face, which had gone up in flames, and smiled a little playfully.
“I clung to you desperately, feeling like I could not let you go. As I focused entirely on you, the nightmare completely vanished, and the place turned into something as beautiful as heaven.”
At the time, I hadn’t even thought about changing the surroundings, because I believed it was just my imagination.
‘So now my dreams have reached the point where the environment changes to match my mood.’
To be honest, back then I hadn’t even noticed the surroundings changing. I had been trapped, almost imprisoned, in this large man’s arms, eyes closed, kissing him.
“Even after you suddenly disappeared, the world inside the dream did not turn back into a place made by the nightmare. Thanks to that, I was able to have a quiet, peaceful dream until morning. In other words, kissing you had a much stronger effect in suppressing the nightmare.”
