# Chapter 94
“That is…”
As Ion hesitated to answer, Levi roughly pulled his wrist away from Ion’s grasp. A coldness unlike anything he had shown to “Iellin” until now froze the air in the bedroom.
“I’ll admit it. You’re that child from my memories.”
The words of the young boy in his memories and the stories Ion had told connected point by point, like drawing a line between dots.
But something was off.
Some of the words from the young boy that Levi remembered didn’t connect with Ion’s story. It felt as if parts of the story had been deliberately polished or certain points between the dots had been skipped over.
“That child never lied to me. But you lie with ease.”
Feeling an uncontrollable sense of emptiness and helplessness, Levi caressed the wrist that had been in Ion’s grasp. The chill of the densely packed white rings traveled from Levi’s palm to envelop his entire body.
“I’m not generous enough to trust someone who lies to me, Ion Verdit.”
Finally, Ion’s name flowed from Levi’s lips.
He had recognized that Iellin was Ion right away yesterday.
The way he stroked his head, the affectionate gaze, how he paid attention to Levi’s reactions with every word he uttered, focusing all his senses only on him.
Everything was exactly like Ion Verdit—how could he not recognize him?
Even so, the reason Levi didn’t name his identity and pretended to be fooled was because his instincts kept reaching out toward Ion Verdit. He wanted to get closer to him.
But no matter what his instincts cried out, he still couldn’t trust Ion Verdit. Wasn’t he the one who had been toying with him and Raziel, attacking them all this time? He absolutely had to avoid trusting him too easily.
He doubted and doubted again.
But all that flew away the moment Ion entered the room pretending to be Iellin and stroked his head.
The life of the woman who remained in his memories flowed from Ion’s lips. Throughout it all, he became convinced that Ion was truly her son and the young boy who filled his mind.
It didn’t matter whether he sincerely tried to kill him or considered him an enemy. He was simply happy that the boy was before his eyes, so nothing else mattered.
Though he couldn’t show it because Ion had created the character “Iellin” and approached him with that false appearance, he eagerly hoped the boy would tell him his—their—story.
The story he finally heard kept jarring somewhere throughout. Like an unpleasant sound of gears running with important parts forcibly removed, the noise grew louder, and an extreme sense of betrayal that he didn’t want to think about approached.
He had thought the false appearance was borrowed to tell him the truth. He believed that Ion had unavoidably chosen this method to be completely honest because he wouldn’t have believed him as Ion Verdit.
What he got in return was just an incomplete story with false grains of sand embedded between numerous holes.
He’d rather have Ion just pretending to be that child. If that were the case, he could coldly curse himself for having believed him, even for a moment, turn his eyes away, and that would be it.
For Levi, who clearly remembered fragments of the conversations he had with that child, the more Ion spoke, the more convinced he became that they were the same person.
His chest felt constricted, as if gripped by something.
That child, who uniquely called him an equal “person,” would never put holes in their story, distort it, or insert lies.
‘You’re not that child.’
All of Ion’s actions toward him until now seemed like lies.
‘That child doesn’t lie to me.’
The images of Kalvern, who had treated him with falsehoods, and Ion began to overlap. Kalvern’s sneer was drawn over the black mask, and on the dull mask, a disturbing crescent moon that looked down on him endlessly took its place, pretending to be the truth.
—You just need to trust me and follow my words well.
It was as if Kalvern’s voice flowed through Ion’s mask. It was so similar to the voice he had heard just before his rampage when he had massacred humans in the past.
—I really like you, Levi.
Kalvern’s voice back then was so sweet.
That’s why it became frightening.
Because Ion’s voice also felt too sweet.
Just like his voice from childhood…
“Just believe in what I say, Levi.”
“I like Levi. I like you so much. So if Levi dies, I’ll definitely cry.”
Levi’s face gradually distorted, then quickly erased all expression as he bowed his head deeply.
“Get out.”
“Levi…”
“I don’t want to talk anymore. Get out.”
“…”
Ion couldn’t say anything. Knowing why Levi was hurt, he felt sorry even to open his mouth further.
With his head bowed and eyes tightly shut, Levi felt Ion’s presence, which had been close to him, moving away. That presence gradually receded, eventually reaching the door, and the door that had seemed so firmly closed that no one could open it made a small sound as it opened and then quickly closed.
The room was extremely quiet.
In that silence, Levi retraced the faint memories from 15 years ago, and then recalled the painful days when he was exploited by Kalvern.
During those days, not a single day passed without Kalvern mocking his suffering. Kalvern’s laughter, which was almost refreshing, was always accompanied by those who saw him as a “monster.” Yet despite that, he repeatedly said he liked him.
The words “I like you” were invisible shackles.
With just that one phrase, a vague silhouette of the young boy would flicker before his eyes, and Kalvern’s sneering face would look as if it contained a tenderness unparalleled in the world.
Foolishly clinging only to the young boy’s voice and his words, Levi had no strength to resist the intangible shackles that Kalvern had placed on him.
Those shackles were handed over to the brother with the black hand in a different form.
The shackles, which had become even more solid and powerful, gradually grew cold and heavy like those Kalvern had placed. Still, it was tolerable because without even those shackles, he felt like he would wither and die somewhere barren.
He tried to endure using the bond he felt for the first time under the pretext of “for his brother.” It seemed like he could somehow endure and stand if he pointed his sword together in anger at those who threatened him.
But Ion Verdit’s shackles were different from even that.
They weren’t heavier than the intangible ones, nor were they as cold as ice pillars on a winter night, and thanks to the soft cloth that was lined, they didn’t chafe his skin.
Maybe that’s why.
On the night when Levi could have removed the shackles and escaped, all he did was touch the chains and quietly look at Ion Verdit’s face. Even then, Ion released him freely after just one day of putting on the shackles.
A strange human. A suspicious person. An incomprehensible man.
And that man was the longed-for child who remained in his memories.
‘There was something I wanted to ask…’
Raziel had told him to forget the remnants in his memory. He said that the more he remembered, the more he would be swayed, and that he should forget everything since he would “remember in his place.”
Nevertheless, Levi shook his head. Even if the day came when he would wake up having forgotten all his memories, like when he awoke in Kalvern’s stone chamber, he didn’t want to forget that child’s words and voice.
He wanted to hear directly why he said he liked a monster like him, so he wanted to meet him somehow.
‘I don’t need it anymore.’
He gave up everything, feeling as though he knew the answer without asking. If he heard the answer, something in the emotions he had barely built up seemed like it would crumble, so he couldn’t bring himself to ask.
If those words had meant something to him, he wouldn’t have told lies and hidden parts of the story like that.
Levi slowly opened his tightly shut eyelids.
‘I want to go back.’
There was no reason to stay here any longer.
He thought he should return to Raziel, who had promised to protect him. To ignore this complex and painful emotion that was difficult to define, he felt like he needed to use that as an excuse.
‘I can endure for a day or two somehow.’
Thanks to the bracelet, a restraint that Raziel had put on him, his body, which had entered a state of starvation, could sleep deeply instead of rampaging in search of sustenance. If he left this place and crossed the border, even if he fell into a sleep so deep that he couldn’t wake up, Raziel would find him and take him away.
As he raised his head with that thought—
Levi discovered Ion standing in front of the closed door.
He had been standing by the door, his gaze fixed on Levi the entire time. Despite the unavoidable gaze and anxious presence that had been in the room all along, Levi had only now noticed it, buried in his own emotions.
As if making an excuse, Ion moved his lips with difficulty.
“If I leave like this… you’ll never see me again, will you?”
Ion, whose eyes met Levi’s, spoke in a low, sunken voice, as if he had swallowed several times.
“I’m sorry. I couldn’t bring myself to tell you everything because I was afraid it would hurt you.”
“Why do you care about my pain?”
Ion pulled down the mask that had been covering his face frustratingly, down to his chin. The sunlight that had begun to shine showed his pale face and bloodless lips.
“Because I like you.”
Following that, he removed the dull mask that had been covering his eyes and let it drop to the floor. He began to walk slowly toward Levi.
“Because I love you… I hoped that at least I wouldn’t be a source of pain for you.”
Ion’s dull eyes resembled those of a small animal terribly afraid of being abandoned. Though those unfamiliar and strange eyes of Ion were enough to make one keep their distance, Levi couldn’t come to his senses because of the word “love” that had come to his mind without warning.
‘Huh…?’
It wasn’t just his mind that was out of sorts. The heart that imitated humans and the black core in his collarbone each pounded painfully.
