Ch.65Monopoly (4)

“No!”

“Shut up.”

With those words, she took away all my senses.

Her eyes suddenly approached, completely covering my vision with crimson.

Her hot, thick breath pushed away all surrounding smells and air, filling my lungs.

All sensation concentrated on my lips.

Her tongue entered my mouth.

We were kissing.

No, more precisely, I was being kissed.

When I didn’t give her the answer she wanted, Silvia wrapped her hand around my neck and pressed her lips against mine.

Perhaps because of the kisses we had already shared so many times.

My lips opened reflexively, regardless of my will, accepting her.

I could feel a satisfied laugh in the breath from her nose.

But today’s kiss was somehow different from the soft, loving kisses we had shared until now.

It was more like that first kiss we shared, that clumsy kiss that had left my lips bruised.

Her lips pressed against mine with more force than usual, and her tongue entered roughly like a dagger, forcibly prying my lips apart and stirring inside my mouth so violently it felt almost abusive.

That strange sensation made me hastily come to my senses.

“Mmph, st… stop,”

“Heh, no.”

I tried to push her away with all my strength, but she grabbed my shoulders, lifted me up, and slammed me down onto the table.

My head hit the table hard, making my vision flash.

Silvia, paying no attention to this, firmly pinned my shoulders to the table.

“You don’t want to?”

“Ugh,”

“Why not? What don’t you like? If you don’t like the bed, should we do it here?”

“Stop…”

“Wrong answer.”

Silvia firmly rejected my response and slowly climbed onto the table, one foot at a time.

Unlike ordinary tables with four flimsy legs under a wooden board, this table that Silvia had roughly carved from a large piece of wood was essentially one massive tree stump, easily supporting the weight of both of us.

I tried to resist somehow, but it was impossible.

My slender limbs struggled to exert strength, but Silvia’s sturdy hands subdued them effortlessly, as if sneering at my attempts.

In the end, I was completely deprived of my freedom, both arms pinned down.

As I gave up and gasped for breath, Silvia smiled with satisfaction.

Unlike me, whose forehead was damp with what might have been cold sweat or nervous sweat, Silvia hadn’t shed a single drop of sweat, and unlike my rough panting, her breathing hadn’t faltered even once.

Ha,

I felt deflated.

I was ashamed of my arrogance in thinking I could handle her in bed.

She had been accommodating me.

She had only been pretending to yield to my insignificant strength.

Of course, I had known this, but being so helplessly subdued made the difference in our strength painfully clear.

Silvia looked at my rapidly rising and falling chest with gleaming eyes, slowly climbing onto my pelvis and straddling me.

“Ash, you can just stay still. Big sister will take care of everything.”

“…Don’t do this.”

“I’m going to.”

I tried giving an order as a last resort, but it had no effect whatsoever.

How absurdly deceptive were her words claiming she couldn’t win against me in bed.

If she didn’t let me, I could neither subdue her nor make her move according to my will.

I shook my head and said:

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because I love you.”

“Love… ha, this is love?”

I looked alternately at my arms pinned by her and let out a pitiful snort.

Silvia seemed to sense something in my reaction, stopped abruptly, and slowly looked down at me.

“Ash, you love me too, don’t you?”

“Lo…”

Silvia spoke before I could finish my answer.

“Why don’t you want to? Why not? Why do you tell me to stop? I won’t hold back anymore. I know everything, you like me.”

“…I told you now is not the time.”

“…”

“Laila’s tomb—”

Silvia firmly covered my mouth with her strong hand.

“Laila, Laila, Laila.”

“Mmph!”

“To hell with her.”

“…!”

My blood ran cold at those words that escaped from her twisted lips in a low voice.

Laila,

She must have known what that name meant to me, yet she spat out my sister’s name with a growling voice, as if chewing it.

“Stop pretending it’s for Laila.”

“…”

“You said it yourself. That these things have no meaning.”

“…”

“Making graves, carving tombstones. You said they actually have no meaning. Because you can’t convey your feelings to the dead. Right?”

I had indeed said such things.

It was when I was in shock after learning I had killed five men due to a curse, and I asked her to take me to bury their bodies.

“In the end, it’s all just self-satisfaction. That’s enough. Just to masturbate yourself in that way,”

That was certainly true.

I clearly knew how selfish such meager self-satisfaction was.

And so would she.

After all, she was the one who had carved tombstones for all the people of Millwood Village.

‘What right do you have to try to be happy, brother?’

The image of Laila mocking me in my dream flickered in my mind.

I know that wasn’t actually Laila speaking.

I clearly understood it was just an illusion created by my guilt, nothing more than a bad dream.

That’s why I tried to deny that dream and be happy.

No, I had become happy.

Thanks to Silvia embracing me warmly.

But why?

She was undoubtedly the one who made me happy, and what she was saying now wasn’t wrong.

In fact, if I put aside all thoughts of tombstones and joined bodies with Silvia, I could escape all sadness and pain as if under anesthesia.

Why then, with each word she uttered, did my blood not only grow cold but seem to harden?

Until our first kiss, I had been trying to suppress my excitement, but now I wasn’t excited at all.

But contrary to me, Silvia’s blood seemed to be boiling hot as she shouted as if venting pent-up frustration.

“That’s all useless, I know because I’ve tried it. It’s all bullshit. Of course, if Ash wants to do it, that’s fine.”

“…”

“But, leaving me alone to think about your fiancée… that’s really bad, isn’t it?”

“No, that’s…!”

“While you’re carving stones and reminiscing, thinking of another woman… what about me? How long do I have to wait?”

Silvia slowly removed her hand from my mouth, brought it to her chest, and clutched at her breast area as she shouted.

“I hate hearing you carve stones while I comfort myself alone, and I’m sick of seeing you unnecessarily gloomy all day because you’re making a tombstone for your sister. Don’t blame me. You made me like this! Is this love? Is it love when you won’t kiss me or hug me, and won’t even answer when I ask why?”

“…It’s just se—”

“Don’t say ‘just’!”

Silvia’s voice cracked.

I was left speechless by the force of her words, filled with such sorrow.

To be honest, I was dumbfounded.

Of course, those nights with her had given me a happiness and affection that was difficult to describe even with the word “ecstasy,” but even so, this was too much.

I thought there could be nothing more unsightly than a man getting angry at his lover for not having sex with him, but it seemed equally unsightly when a woman said it.

“How much I… I really… when you held me… how much…”

“…Silvia…”

“When I’m alone… I’m lonely… I mean it.”

Silvia bit her lip with a miserable expression.

Perhaps because my body had grown cold.

Rather than finding such a Silvia lovable, I truly tried to understand her feelings.

In fact, I could quickly come up with an answer.

I had only been in this forest for about three months, but she had not.

I had someone to comfort my sadness, but she did not.

Without anyone to console her, she had to face her guilt alone for years, and her heart was already tattered by the weight of accumulated loneliness and solitude.

When Silvia was healing my body, I must have been filling her empty heart.

When she comforted me, I must have been soothing her torn mind as well.

Because of that, she couldn’t bear the loneliness of these past two weeks when I turned away from her.

Because she never wanted to go back to those times again.

In conclusion, it was my mistake.

It was the same two weeks, but the loneliness she and I felt was different, and there was a huge difference in the patience each of us needed to exercise.

I could endure it, but she couldn’t bear it anymore.

Because she had already endured and been patient enough until I came to her side.

But I didn’t want to back down this time either.

If Laila appeared in my dreams again to condemn me, I might strangle myself in my sleep just like Silvia did.

I gently took Silvia’s hand and said:

“…Silvia, you know.”

“…”

“That I like you very much.”

“Yes, that’s why I don’t understand. What’s the problem? If we love each other, why do we have to hold back?”

“…But not like this.”

“Bullshit, are you trying to claim some spiritual love that’s not physical now? That might make sense if we’d never done it before, but what meaning does that have after we’ve had sex so many times? Are you tired of me? Is it because I have too much muscle, because my body isn’t soft and feminine enough?”

“On the contrary, because we’ve done it so many times, you know well. How much I like you, Silvia… How much I like your… breasts and pu… ssy.”

When such explicit words escaped my lips, Silvia blushed and lowered her head.

“If you know I love you, you don’t need to be impatient. I’ve already carved tombstones for five people. Only Laila’s is left.”

“…I’ve been patient for two weeks.”

“Do you love me because of my body, Silvia?”

For the first time, Silvia seemed at a loss for words as she swallowed and moved her lips.

In that moment, a question I had long held suddenly came to mind.

Why would someone so beautiful and strong love a plain man like me?

Why would she, a hero no less, love someone like me with no abilities?

The question I had buried deep in my thoughts when I realized we loved each other began to creep back to the center of my mind.

Then as now, no matter how much I thought about it, only one answer came to mind.

“Would anyone have been fine?”

“What?”

“If it hadn’t been me who entered this forest, you would have fallen in love with them too, right?”

“…What are you saying?”

At that moment, I could feel her blood growing cold as well.