# Chapter 37
Jiman cleanly ignored my worried nagging. Though Kadilen hadn’t noticed this time and things passed without incident, considering his power, Jiman’s behavior was madness. I was worried he might do something like this again.
“Don’t do that anymore. Okay?”
“You’ve taken your medicine, so your stomach should settle soon. When the medicine takes effect, try to eat some porridge.”
Seeing him not even respond to my words was frustrating. I understood Jiman’s feelings. Still, I couldn’t bear to see him get into trouble because of me.
“Promise me you won’t do it again.”
He silently organized the box containing medicine. I couldn’t tell if my stomach hurt from worry or if I was getting better. Despite my continued urging, Jiman, who hadn’t moved at all, suddenly turned his head to look down at me. He took a long breath as if suppressing his anger, then slowly caressed the place on my body where Kadilen’s hand had brushed with his own hand.
“How can you ask if I’m alright…”
The gentle touch surveyed my body carefully and delicately, as if treating wounds that weren’t even there.
“How could you be alright…”
His whisper was wet with emotion. Unable to even think of comforting him, I stared at Jiman’s reddened eyes. I only make you cry every time. I couldn’t blame him anymore. I didn’t avert my gaze from his heated stare until Jiman withdrew his affectionate hand.
When I met Devan last night, I realized I was losing my mind. I saw hallucinations and heard auditory illusions. Unable to shake off thoughts that suddenly seized me, I kept spouting words even I couldn’t understand. The feeling of being unable to control my own body was terrifying and frightening. I remembered Devan’s shocked expression too.
But no matter how much I become a madman, unable to understand anyone’s words, I would always be able to distinguish Jiman’s voice. As always, his voice would safely support my chaotic mind and never leave me alone.
“Let’s just run away. Jiman, let’s go somewhere no one knows and live quietly, just the two of us.”
The hasty words burst out. Knowing it was nonsense, I still begged him. Jiman’s eyes were tinged with pain.
“Later… once we find a way to cure the disease…”
“I don’t care. Even right now…”
“Then I promise I’ll take you and run away. I promise to go somewhere where the palace isn’t even visible.”
“…hic…”
“Forgive my selfish heart, Ludin.”
I collapsed into his arms, wailing. But he just stopped crying and patted my back. His energy had changed somehow. After that promise, I never saw Jiman’s tears again.
* * *
Each time I woke from sleep, the sun had risen anew, then set. I couldn’t remember how many days I had slept or what I had done when I opened my eyes. Sometimes I saw Jiman, and sometimes I woke within memories of the past. The boundary of consciousness was blurred, everything a foggy haze. Even revisiting painful memories, my head just felt numb. A state where I couldn’t regain light continued, like a broken switch that wouldn’t turn on no matter how hard I tried.
Then suddenly, when I came to my senses, I was looking at Devan.
More precisely, he was sitting buried in a chair, staring at me with bloodshot eyes. I was sprawled on the bed, my head turned toward him, but I didn’t know when our gazes had met. Devan slowly got up, noticing that my focus had changed somehow.
“Go back to sleep.”
He whispered as he walked toward me. Moving my stiff neck, I saw it was the middle of the night outside. How much time had passed? More than that, I wondered why Devan was in my room at this hour.
“Why did you come?”
“…”
At my question, he stopped walking and looked at me quietly. In his eyes that stared at me silently were several complex emotions. Having barely read one of them, I laughed hollowly.
“Ha, I told you I’m not dying.”
“…”
“I told you it was an accident. Did you come because you were afraid of that?”
The meaning of his silence was affirmative. I couldn’t believe Devan could be afraid of something. Even at my most fearful moments, he had seemed composed. When even darkness couldn’t frighten him, what was so scary about me being pulled toward the window?
He still stood without answering, looking uncharacteristically weak. The smile that was always full of composure and the movements that were light as if dancing were gone. Though just a few steps would bring him to my bedside, he was hesitating as if a huge pit of fire lay in front of him.
“…Aren’t you afraid of me anymore?”
The quiet man finally spoke. It was an interesting question. Once, when I unconsciously flinched, frightened by his boiling gaze, Devan had said with a satisfied smile:
‘You’re scared of me, Ludin.’
‘Then you’ll listen well from now on.’
There was clearly a smile on his lips at that time. I stared intently at his face again, trying to decipher even one of his emotions that I hadn’t read. A storm raged in his pitch-black eyes, and his sharp profile had grown even thinner. The black hair he had always kept naturally groomed was disheveled, covering his dark eyebrows. Whatever was contained in that face without a smile was unfamiliar to me.
“It’s been a long time. Since I was afraid of you.”
It wasn’t a lie. I truly wasn’t afraid of him. From the moment I decided to keep my promise to him, at the very moment when multi-colored paints covered my wounds, I let go of even my fear toward him.
“Seems that’s not the answer you wanted.”
Stopping my reminiscing and looking at Devan again, shadows fell across his entire body. Having nothing to say, I just closed my eyes. Though I had been sleeping continuously until now, it was night after all, so I wanted to slip back into the swamp of sleep.
He no longer tormented me with questions. I heard footsteps, unable to approach further, turning back and walking to the chair he had been sitting in before. I shifted my body, trying to ignore him and fall asleep.
But perhaps because I had been asleep for too long, my mind only became clearer. Devan seemed to sense my restless turning. After rustling the blanket several times like this, a voice like a whistle soothing a wild animal called to me.
“You can’t sleep, Ludin.”
“…”
“Every night, I’ve watched you sleeping here.”
“…”
“You had nightmares.”
“…”
Though I persistently ignored him and kept my eyes firmly closed, Devan continued to speak in a gentle voice, regardless. The sound he made was more like a song than speech.
“You screamed. So I tried to hold you…”
A moment of silence followed.
“I couldn’t touch you.”
Now I wasn’t even breathing, just listening to his voice. That lullaby-like rhythm told me more than seeing his eyes would. Though it wasn’t what I wanted, the time when I felt Devan only through sound had made me able to find more meaning in his voice than in his appearance.
“I just sat here… listening to your screams every night.”
His voice flowed to me along the slowly moving air in the room. In that sound, which was like a calm waltz or a sad funeral march, there was distinct pain.
“There was only one thing that came to mind when I heard that.”
“…”
“I wondered if I was in your nightmares.”
Finally unable to hold back, I threw off the blanket. Devan didn’t look surprised to see me sit up abruptly. He just whispered, unable to take his bloodshot eyes off me.
“If I was, what would I be doing?”
His bloodshot eyes moved slowly, carefully examining my entire body. I remembered how hot his hands had been. But at this moment, the temperature of that gaze was even higher, making me feel like I was burning wherever it touched.
Unconsciously, I got up from my place and walked toward him. It felt like walking straight into a fire. Still, I didn’t stop and grabbed his arm, which was buried in the chair.
“Why can’t you touch me? You, of all people?”
My head was filled with heat. My hands and mouth moved on their own.
“Ah, should I turn off the light? Then you could touch me like before, right? We even kissed. You forced yourself on me. You said it was all my fault. But now suddenly you can’t touch me?”
“…Ludin.”
“I don’t understand. Why…”
He still looked at me desperately, not even pulling away his hand that I had grabbed.
“Stop looking at me! I feel like I’m going to vomit…”
I thought I wasn’t blaming him because my own fault was involved, but I didn’t know why I was acting this way. I was just making noise because I couldn’t suppress something boiling inside me. I didn’t understand my own emotions. It was terrible.
No matter how much I tried to fall asleep to avoid it, the truth wouldn’t change. I had used Devan to save Kadilen, and he couldn’t quell his affection even with the feeling of betrayal. So he said he would possess me. I was prepared to do anything for him, but he wanted me to be unable to do anything. So he could take me as he pleased. In the end, Devan achieved his determination, and I was emptied. Nothing remained.
Kadilen. He would know my emotions that even I didn’t understand. I wanted to go to him right away and ask why I was like this, what exactly my feelings were. That’s why he made me swallow the crystal. But even if he told me, could I believe those emotions myself? Kadilen wouldn’t believe it anyway, and I was already so emptied that I couldn’t even feel whatever it was as my own. What could I believe?
Why couldn’t Kadilen believe me? Yes, there was Ludin’s reputation, and I deliberately acted badly. Then why did he insert the crystal? After catching me when I fled, sensing something strange about Zendal’s letter, why did he ask me to prove my affection even in such a situation?
“Ludin?”
“What’s happening?!”
“Jiman, I think…”
“Why are you here? Get out right now! What are you trying to do again…”
I was going mad.
All kinds of questions choked me. I clutched someone I presumed to be Jiman and gasped. It felt like if I lost my mind now, I would never return. I felt like I would become a complete madman, spouting nonsense for the rest of my life. As a cripple who couldn’t control either my body or my mind. For the rest of my life.
