Chapter 108
Noxia looked at Elenon with a sadly distorted face, then carefully lowered her body and gently pressed her lips to his soft forehead.
The touch that brushed against his skin was light, but the affection contained within it was anything but light. With a heart heavy with love and worry, Noxia pulled her lips away and straightened her back.
“……!”
The next moment, she was startled out of her wits. The prince, who had clearly been asleep just a moment ago, was now blinking his hazy eyes and looking at her.
“Noxia.”
Elenon whispered with difficulty. His voice was perilous and rough, like someone who had barely survived.
Noxia’s heart was stolen by that voice. In that instant, her heart ached sharply, and she could neither run away nor turn around, only hesitate in place.
He grabbed her hand, and she flinched at the strength of his grip, too strong for a patient. At the same time, when she realized what Elenon had just called her, her heart dropped once more.
‘He called my name?’
He had clearly said Noxia. The voice was pitifully small and faint, yet the pronunciation was certain. Without a doubt, it was her name—the very name Prince Elenon should have completely forgotten.
Noxia reflexively pulled her hand away. The confusion about this situation was far greater than the relief that Elenon had regained consciousness, or the joy that he had miraculously remembered her.
‘What? How? How does he know my name?’
Prometeon had certainly erased everyone’s memories except for Carnen Holvi. Noxia had never separately confirmed whether he had handled it properly, but in truth, there had been no need to.
Would Prometeon really handle such a task carelessly? He would have erased the memories thoroughly, without even the smallest loophole. Not only did he possess the ability to do so, he also had a clear motive.
Prometeon wanted to keep Hermane by his side. So that he would not have to endure this dreadful immortality alone, he wished that no one but himself would remain beside the reincarnation of his lover.
With such feelings, would Prometeon have left memories only for Elenon? For him, whom he regarded as a kind of rival—the lover of Noxia Decan.
Elenon remembering her name and recognizing her face had not been expected. Startled, Noxia took a step back. As tangled as her thoughts were, her words came out just as entangled.
“Why… just now… how…?”
As she stammered and retreated, Elenon urgently reached out and grabbed her hand again. The abrupt movement brought pain, and he frowned, shrinking his shoulders.
“Ugh.”
“A-are you all right?”
She reacted immediately to his groan. Even amid her confusion, her heart that cherished and worried for him was sincere; to her, his well-being was the most important thing.
Noxia lowered herself awkwardly and examined his complexion, and Elenon looked at her with his face twisted in physical pain. Then he opened his lips.
“Noxia.”
A desperation stronger than pain was deeply soaked into his tone, his gaze, his gestures.
With the one arm that was not broken, he clumsily pulled her into an embrace. If he could, he wanted to bind her in both arms and cling to her so she could never leave.
He resented that his body would not cooperate. In his current state, he was so battered that a girl his age could easily push him away, and the fact that she could run from him at any time terrified him.
“Don’t go. Please, don’t abandon me….”
In the end, the only thing he could do was beg sincerely. The pride of royalty meant nothing. The pitiful tears welling up in his eyes were not an act.
Noxia’s eyes widened. The sight of him begging desperately, like a puppy afraid of being abandoned by its owner, tore at her heart.
“Abandon you? What in the world do you mean? Who is abandoning whom!”
“Because of me, you suffered and left me. I’m sorry, I was wrong, please don’t ever do that again. I’ll do anything….”
“Your Highness, wait. Sorry? You did nothing wrong, what are you talking about?”
“I remember everything. Only now do I remember. I don’t know why I forgot all this time, but because of me… because of me, you were kidnapped….”
Ah, I see. I don’t know how it’s possible, but Your Highness has remembered everything. That she had been kidnapped last autumn, that she had disappeared without a trace while returning home after a date.
After that, for nine whole months, people forgot the existence of Noxia Decan, and Elenon Hermeon had lived on as if nothing were wrong, until the day before yesterday when he suddenly regained his memories.
No, in truth, it had not been as if nothing were wrong. An inexplicable emptiness, an unexplainable longing, recurring dreams he forgot each time he woke up. There had been clues in all of it.
How he had come to forget her remained a mystery. That he, of all people, had forgotten Noxia Decan—no matter how he thought about it, it was absurd.
He had loved her that much. He loved her this much.
Even in the moment he had forgotten his memories, her absence had carved longing into his very bones.
“What on earth happened? I—I just can’t understand. Are you really all right? Are you hurt anywhere? Where on earth have you been all this time?”
Desperately seeking answers, Elenon fired off questions rapidly. Ignoring the sharp pain running through his injured body, he gripped Noxia’s hand with as much strength as he could muster.
Noxia looked at Elenon with a helpless expression. Where should she begin? From where should she confess so that he could fully understand? No, was complete understanding even possible in the first place?
“……Your Highness.”
She began in a thin voice. She could not even imagine what kind of ending awaited at the end of this confession. But she could no longer postpone it, nor avoid it.
“There is something I must tell you. About the person that I am.”
Noxia, the reincarnator who had hidden her secret, now had to share that secret.
A long night began.
Let me tell you a story.
Long, long ago, there was a man and a woman. A king who protected the people, and a hero who protected the king. The king and the hero loved each other. They became lovers, then bound themselves in marriage, and promised each other a lifetime together.
But the hero stole the fire of the gods for the king and, in return, was cursed with immortality. The king, longing for her lover who did not age, slowly grew old and eventually met a peaceful death.
That should have been the end of the story. But the hero refused the ending.
The lonely immortal eventually stormed into the underworld to reclaim his lover who was resting in paradise, and in doing so inflicted a deep wound upon that lover.
In the second life she was forced to live, the woman bearing the king’s soul was kidnapped by her lover from her previous life. The immortal wished for the reincarnator to look only at him, but the reincarnator instead took her own life.
And in the third life thus obtained, I met you, Your Highness.
You are my first love, the person who took my first kiss, my first lover.
At first, you were merely uncomfortable to me, but before I knew it, you gradually seeped into my heart. At some point, just thinking of you made my breathing quicken and my heart race.
I loved you knowing nothing. Without fully realizing that even in an era where class distinctions had blurred, a romance between a commoner and royalty could only be a path filled with thorns.
And without knowing that in my unconscious, my past soul and lingering attachments from a previous life remained like a stain that could never be erased.
That’s right, I was ignorant. I loved you knowing nothing. I still love you now. Even if that fact becomes a sin to you.
I do not wholly belong to this era, and the status given to me in this present life is lowly, and thus I have left wounds in your heart.
Please do not hate me too much. No matter what happened until now, I hope you will not doubt that my love for you in the present is sincere.
This is my story. A story that began in the distant past, one that should have ended as a myth or legend. Yet it has dragged even you, who live only in this era, into it.
Now, I await judgment.
The story, more unrealistic than myth, continued almost all night.
“I was kidnapped last autumn by mercenaries. I heard that Duke Veriton was the one who ordered it. There were six mercenaries in total, and it seemed like they were trying to pressure me into breaking up with you voluntarily by frightening me.”
Noxia was holding Elenon’s hand. Even after she confessed that she was the reincarnation of the ancient king, Elenon did not let go of her hand. His face was pale, and she continued steadily.
“Prometeon saved me then. He burned all six of them to death. He can control fire at will. I ended up being entangled in an incident where six people died, and I was exhausted from being kidnapped… Honestly, I wanted to run away. So when Prometeon said he would erase other people’s memories, I accepted.”
It was, in many ways, a cruel confession to Elenon. The story about the kidnapping would surely stimulate his guilt, and it meant that in the end, Noxia had agreed to erase his memories.
Noxia was afraid to meet Elenon’s gaze, but she gathered her courage and looked straight into his eyes as if biting down on her resolve. Turning away and avoiding it was no longer the answer. In a trembling voice, she continued.
“After that, I stayed in a seaside village with Prometeon. Then I saw an article saying you had been hospitalized, and that’s why I came here.”
She decided that she would never tell the prince, even on the day she died, that while living in that seaside village, she had once been swallowed by emotions from her past life and even kissed Prometeon.
“……I see.”
After a long silence, Elenon finally whispered. Noxia had been the one speaking the entire time while he only listened, yet his voice was as hoarse as someone submerged in icy water.
“So what you’re saying is, you are King Hermane, and Prince Lanon is Prometeon….”
Elenon muttered as if repeating the unbelievable story he had just heard. He could not believe it, but he had to. Only then could the blank nine months be explained.
