Chapter 80
‘…I’m sorry.’
The primordial hero whom I loved with a blazing heart, giving my entire first life to you. I’m sorry that I can no longer feel the same way.
‘I’m really sorry… that I’m the only one living on like this….’
But in this life, I want to escape from you.
I couldn’t keep clinging to a life that had already ended once. No matter how tightly you tried to grasp the sand of an hourglass in your hand, it would slip uselessly through your fingers.
So now, it was time to open my palm and let it go completely.
In this life as well, Noxia Decan chose her present identity rather than being Hermane. Unlike Promeon, who had carried the same memories for a long time and stagnated in eternity.
Though they coexisted in the same era, they lived in different times, so they could not forcibly stitch together a love that had already ended in a past life.
After work, Noxia had dinner with him at Elenen’s villa. This time as well, he had sent a carriage to match his lover’s time off work. She gladly boarded it.
After dessert, lazing around in the room as usual, Noxia told the prince honestly about what had happened at the library that day.
When Elenen heard about the bright-eyed children who had asked if she really was the prince’s lover, he smiled a little awkwardly. But when she told him about the university students who had been caught badmouthing her, his expression hardened completely.
She had ended up looking like a tattletale, but Noxia was confident. She didn’t want to create secrets from her lover just to protect such rude people.
In any case, it wasn’t even proper tattling. Noxia didn’t know exactly who those students were or where they belonged, so she couldn’t report their identities in detail to the prince.
It was closer to a lover’s sulking—telling him that something like this had happened today, that she was tired and annoyed, and that she wanted him to comfort her a little.
After getting angry for a long time upon hearing Noxia’s second story, Elenen suddenly slumped his shoulders like a puppy caught in the rain and wore a gloomy expression.
“I’m sorry, Noxia. If you weren’t dating me, you wouldn’t have had to hear things like that.”
“Why does the story suddenly turn that way? Please don’t say that.”
Noxia immediately grew serious. She hadn’t expected the conversation to flow like this and was inwardly flustered. Quickly, she took Elenen’s hand and kissed his cheek.
“If you think about it that way, the prince has heard bad things too just because you’re dating me. Do you want me to apologize to you?”
“No! You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“See, Prince. I feel the same way. Why are you blaming yourself? We don’t need to apologize to each other because of those loose-mouthed people who only spread gossip.”
Noxia admonished him firmly. Gently cupping Elenen’s cheek, she kissed his lips this time. When her tongue made a soft, wet sound as it slipped inside, the boy’s breathing grew ragged.
“Hah.”
In the brief moment their lips parted, he barely managed to breathe out, wrapping his arms around Noxia’s waist and pulling her closer.
Their lips met again. Their bodies pressed together without any gaps. When the girl’s soft chest rubbed against the boy’s firm upper body, his face turned bright red.
“Hng.”
Instinctively placing his hands on her shoulders to push her away, Elenen flinched when Noxia lightly bit the corner of his mouth, his body stiffening.
Noxia stuck out her tongue and licked the reddish mark she had left at Elenen’s lips. Her half-lidded gaze was languid and relaxed, making her all the more seductive.
Elenen’s cheeks burned hot. At the same time, heat gathered in his peripheral nerves, spreading embarrassingly to other places. He screamed internally.
“No, Noxia! W-wait, just a moment.”
Elenen pleaded pitifully. His red-faced, teary-eyed 모습 was cute enough to stir a wicked impulse in Noxia, but out of consideration for her lover, she barely suppressed her desire and slowly widened the distance between them.
It was a kind of side effect that had appeared after she regained her memories. The eighteen-year-old girl who, like her partner, was shy and clumsy in everything because it was her first romance, was now handling the innocent boy with striking ease.
As she took in her lover’s lovely face, a thirst rose from deep inside her stomach. Did this boy even imagine that she wanted to swallow him whole in one bite, like a starving beast?
“I’m sorry.”
Noxia muttered. Her face, like Elenen’s, was as red as a fully ripened plum.
“No, it’s not that I wanted an apology.”
Elenen stammered. When he swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbed. Even that small movement set Noxia’s burning passion ablaze.
“…Come here.”
Elenen whispered. He pulled Noxia’s neck, which had retreated slightly, and closed the distance again. Their lips overlapped once more.
The kiss, resumed after being interrupted, slowly began to heat up again like before. It was as if they had swallowed sugar water—every place that touched was sweet.
The sensation of their tongues rubbing softly and the feel of their lips fitting together tenderly stirred a dense longing. She wanted to go deeper, hotter.
With her eyes closed, Noxia unconsciously wrapped her arms around Elenen’s waist. When she leaned her body against his firm chest, she could feel his heart pounding like a drum.
Elenen naturally moved the arm that had been around her neck to cradle the back of her head and gently pulled her in. His long fingers tangled in her chocolate-colored hair, pleasantly pressing against her scalp.
“Mmm….”
Noxia let out a languid moan. Elenen panted and slowly pulled away. Longing clung thickly to his rose-tinted face.
“Noxia, breathe now.”
“Hah.”
“I’m sorry for pushing you away earlier. Back then, the situation was just….”
The indecent part of his body, stiffly raised, embarrassed the boy who still had an innocent side. Finding him cute, Noxia let out a small laugh. Her eyes curved gently.
“It’s okay. You don’t need to apologize either, Prince.”
Noxia wrapped her arms around Elenen’s waist and rested her forehead against his shoulder. Even just embracing warmly like this, without overlapping their lips, filled her with a sense of completeness.
Elenen also hugged Noxia back, resting his cheek against her head. The lovers sat like that for a long time, bodies touching, peaceful. There was no need to cover the silence with forced conversation, and it wasn’t awkward at all.
“Noxia, I thought of something I want to do with you when winter break comes.”
Elenen spoke first. Just as the silence had been comfortable, continuing the conversation felt natural as well.
“Summer break hasn’t even ended that long ago. You’re already making plans for winter break?”
Noxia chuckled. When she lifted her head to look at Elenen, he met her gaze with a gentle face, drawing a playful smile.
“Students survive by counting the days left until the next break as soon as the semester starts.”
“Well, I get it. I start dreaming about getting off work the moment I clock in. So, what do you want to do with me during winter break?”
“I want to go see the sea with you.”
“The sea?”
“Yes. We haven’t gone on a long trip together yet, have we? You could say it was because we had to keep things secret until now, but since everything’s already out in the open, there’s no need to keep sneaking between restaurants and the villa. Let’s go on a trip together, Noxia.”
“Hmm, even so, isn’t the seaside in winter a bit much? It’ll be even colder because of the sea breeze.”
“The winter sea has its own charm. It has a color unique to that season. And walking along the beach in winter, then going somewhere warm to eat hot soup dishes—do you know how delicious that is?”
“Sounds like you’ve been often. The winter sea.”
“Yes, I usually go once or twice a year. There’s a royal villa by the coast. Next time, I’ll definitely take you with me.”
Another promise. What had begun as a relationship driven purely by present feelings was gradually turning into one where they thought about the future, making plans and setting new schedules.
It became more real with each passing day that they weren’t a pair who would meet briefly and part ways, but a relationship that would continue for weeks, months, even years.
Perhaps those years would pile up and become a lifetime. Imagining that new possibility made Noxia’s heart race. Her emotions swelled, and her eyes stung.
“Thank you, Prince. I’ll look forward to it.”
Instead of crying, Noxia smiled softly. She gazed at the boy—her first love in this life, perhaps her last, the one who might become her partner in a third life—with eyes full of love.
The two kissed again. Like children deeply immersed in the love of this moment alone, boy to girl, person to person, with no worries or lies.
When she tilted her head at a slightly misaligned angle, their noses crossed, and their two pairs of lips met sweetly without any interruption.
At least in this moment, neither the shadow of a past life nor the joy of the present could be disturbed. Even the guilt toward some distant being, bound alone by the curse of immortality and wandering in loneliness, was forgotten.
The king’s soul trapped in a girl’s body trembled with love, and the choice had already been made.
And then, a few days later, Noxia Decan, an assistant librarian at the Academy’s central library, vanished without a trace.
Most likely, it was a kidnapping.
The hollow name Jade Lanon lost its effect. Promeon once again cast off his human mask and departed quietly, so that he would never again fall into the temptation of selfishness.
If, in this life, he distanced himself from Noxia Decan like this—if he no longer interfered in the human life that carried his old love’s soul—then Hermane’s reincarnation would be able to meet a proper death this time.
When he kidnapped the soul of his old love, already severed from this world, and forcibly stuffed it into a new body, Promeon knew full well that he was causing Hermane pain.
Knowing that, he still shattered her rest. He wanted to be together even if it meant that—back then, he was already mad.
Even now, Promeon felt that he was not in his right mind. The fact that he felt emotionally unfazed despite thinking that was even stronger proof of his madness.
However, after Hermane’s second life ended so miserably, and after hearing Noxia Decan in her third life pour out words of resentment at him, Promeon suppressed his madness and made up his mind.
‘In this life, you must die a natural death.’
A natural death—peacefully, not dying young in misery due to someone’s malice, but calmly stopping breathing on the day fate had decided.
Only then would Hermane’s broken soul be able to escape the cycle of reincarnation and become whole again.
