Chapter 10 …
Now that I think about it, Azel was actually too handsome.
The kind of face that would make all ten out of ten passersby turn back for a second look. To be honest, I had never seen anyone this good-looking in my entire life.
That was why I hadn’t realized it.
The fact that I was this weak to handsome men.
‘T-This is… overwhelming.’
Until now, he’d always worn an irritated or annoyed expression, so I hadn’t noticed.
A handsome man looking at me with an intense gaze—without disgust or irritation—was far more dangerous than I’d expected.
“……Azel?”
I called his name, meaning that’s enough, stop staring now, but his gaze showed no sign of leaving me.
And then, at that exact moment, an unexpected question came flying in.
“You’re nervous.”
“Huh?”
“You know you’re really strange?”
What was this—picking a fight?
I’d heard that before, but hearing it now felt completely out of nowhere.
‘If we’re talking about being strange, you’re not exactly innocent either.’
I wanted to retort, but the overwhelming handsome-man aura had already crushed my spirit. The timid side of me was pathetically weak.
“You come close to me without hesitation, but the moment our eyes meet, you freeze up with nerves.”
“……!”
“See? Even now. You don’t know what to do.”
The words he whispered softly somehow sounded incredibly dangerous.
“At first, I thought it was because you were afraid of me. But it’s different. The people who fear me don’t make expressions like that.”
“……Ah….”
‘That’s because you’re too handsome, you know…?’
It seemed Azel had already noticed my condition.
Though, somehow, he appeared to be misunderstanding it in a slightly different direction.
“That’s not it—”
At that moment, Azel’s face suddenly moved closer.
Closer than when I’d once rushed to his side just to tease him. From a distance of barely half a handspan, his bright red lips moved.
If this were a drama, it would’ve been the kind of scene where people scream, “Aaah! It’s a kiss moment!!!”
“W-What are you doing all of a sudden?”
“I’m curious.”
“C-Curious about what?”
“What kind of relationship did we have?”
His pleasant low voice dropped even lower.
Now, goosebumps rose all over my body for an entirely different reason. I hadn’t noticed before, but his voice was completely my type.
“Why did you go that far for me? Why do you look at me like that?”
“W-Wait! Time out! Hold on, just—move back a little—”
What kind of look do you think it is?!
I wanted to argue, but the sudden face attack had completely scrambled my mind.
I stepped back, thinking I had to escape somehow—only for a firm arm to suddenly wrap around my waist.
Startled, I looked up, and his red eyes locked onto me as if trapping me.
“I was… what to you?”
What was I supposed to say? My mind went completely blank.
The reflection of myself in Azel’s eyes looked unbelievably foolish.
But I couldn’t help it.
We were so close that even my face was reflected in his pupils. There was no way I couldn’t be nervous.
“And you—what were you to me?”
For some reason, my heart felt like it was about to burst.
“Th-That is, so, w-we were—”
I just stammered stupidly, unable to think of anything. At this rate, Azel might notice something was wrong.
‘Please, get it together!’
I felt like my head was about to explode from fear of saying something wrong, yet my mouth kept opening on its own.
“Actually—!”
Just as the words were about to spill out—
My mouth finally betrayed its owner’s will.
‘……?’
My shaking eyes caught sight of something pale beside Azel’s face.
‘What is that?’
Even my already-fragile rationality paused to question it. The thing before my eyes was extremely out of place.
Looking closely, it had the shape of a person.
Except it was half transparent.
Something wearing an oddly fascinated expression was watching me and Azel.
Floating in midair.
“……!!!”
That confirmed it.
It was a ghost.
The realization hit—and with it, a sudden heart attack of pure terror.
“What’s wrong?”
Around then, Azel noticed something was off and asked, but I could no longer hear his voice.
“Hey?”
The sudden appearance of a ghost had already knocked my mind completely loose.
“Hey! Get a hold of yourself!”
Azel shouted something as I collapsed limply, but I couldn’t hear it properly.
Yeah.
Sorry, but I was weak to the occult.
Azel caught the woman as she suddenly collapsed and held her tightly.
“Hey! Hey, wake up!”
There weren’t many words he could use to call a woman without a name.
So he had no choice but to call her by a word she disliked—but the unconscious woman didn’t respond at all.
‘Why all of a sudden? Why now?!’
He tried several times to wake her, but she showed no sign of regaining consciousness.
She had clearly been about to say something.
It was the first time the woman—who usually only smiled quietly at all of his questions—had tried to speak about herself.
And then she suddenly clutched her chest and collapsed. This was not a normal situation.
“Don’t tell me….”
All those times she subtly avoided answering.
‘What if it wasn’t that she didn’t want to answer—but that she couldn’t?’
A lightning-like realization jolted Azel’s dazed mind awake.
A woman who knew well about his identity and the regression stone.
And yet, someone Azel didn’t remember at all.
On top of that, she never spoke about herself.
Ominous thoughts swirled chaotically in his head, until the scattered clues finally converged into a single conclusion.
‘……Black magic.’
“This was it, then.”
The first time—when she realized Azel had forgotten his own existence and muttered those words.
“……All black magic requires a price.”
What if the price had been Azel’s memories?
And what if what just happened—
…was the backlash from her trying to speak about a forbidden taboo?
Suddenly, everything about her identity and behavior made sense.
“No. No, that can’t be.”
He tried to deny it, but a clear suspicion had already taken root inside Azel.
My entire body felt heavy, like cotton soaked in water.
‘Did I… faint…?’
When I opened my eyes, a familiar ceiling greeted me.
I forced my heavy body upright, and the sight of an empty room came into view.
This was the room I’d been staying in lately.
‘Even then, he neatly carried me back here. That good-hearted bastard.’
I was grateful—but it would’ve been better if someone had stayed by my side. Seeing a ghost for the first time in my life had been that shocking.
‘Damn it.’
Even now, my hands trembled when I thought about the moment our eyes met.
Even the ghost’s expression was still vivid in my mind.
It had been covering its mouth with both hands, wearing an excited, fluttering look.
“Creepy.”
That expression—like a romance drama fanatic—was still scary to think about—
‘—No, wait. It’s not scary. Come to think of it, why the hell was it making that face?’
Now that I thought about it, it was actually irritating.
‘Damn it. When mental stress piles up, you really experience all kinds of things.’
I was muttering complaints to hide my fear when, just then, a voice called out to me from somewhere.
[Are you okay?]
Absentmindedly lifting my head was a mistake.
I immediately met its eyes.
“?”
[Are you okay?]
“???”
[…I mean, are you okay? Can’t you hear me?]
By the time I came to my senses, my fist was already flying.
It was the ghost from before.
“AAAAAAAHHHH!!!”
Pow!
[Guuhk!]
The ghost went flying backward after taking my punch, but that wasn’t important to me.
I’d screamed with all the strength I had, so I was already out of my mind.
“G-G-G-G-Ghost!”
[Guuhk! Agh! Hngh! I-I can’t breathe!]
It clutched its solar plexus and rolled on the floor, looking genuinely in pain—but I was already in a full-blown panic.
There was no way I could notice that.
All I could think was that I had to get out of here.
“A-Azel!”
In the middle of all that, a baseless belief surged up—that Azel would save me from this crisis.
“Azel!”
I scrambled to my feet, but my body couldn’t keep up, and I fell to the floor.
Crash!
My whole body slammed into the ground, but I didn’t even feel the pain. I just wanted to escape this haunted room as soon as possible.
“Azel…!”
My half-sobbing voice was no different from a scream.
“Azel! Aze—el!”
Like someone who only knew how to say one word, I screamed Azel’s name over and over in madness.
Finally, the tightly closed door opened.
“You—!”
“Azel!”
Azel stood outside the door, looking utterly shocked.
I didn’t care. I just wanted him to save me.
I desperately reached out toward my savior.
Azel’s trembling gaze followed the tip of my outstretched hand, but I never came to understand what it meant.
