Chapter 106: I am afraid of you – 4

“…It must have been hard. Wasn’t it?”

I opened the conversation.

Vivian lowered her head slightly, biting her lips tightly.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could sense her.

Vivian stood there for a long time, as if suppressing her tears.

Soon, she forced a smile and answered.

“…”

A short answer.

Yet, I understood the weight behind it.

We had grown up under difficult circumstances.

The hardships others saw in us were merely the tip of the iceberg.

The scars on my body were just fragments of the pain we had endured.

Only we knew.

What we had overcome, how much we had endured.

We were comrades who had crossed the same battlefield.

The only ones who had held onto each other to survive.

Every day, we trembled on the boundary between life and death.

Without a single adult to rely on, growing up protecting each other was a weight too heavy to put into words.

Though the war-like days had ended, the hope for happiness afterward was perhaps nothing more than an empty dream.

Survivors must live with the wounds they bore in battle.

It was true during the war between the Eastern Kingdom and the Delrum Kingdom…

And it was true for us now.

The aftermath of the war between her and me was overwhelming.

Vivian couldn’t hold back and spoke to me.

“Ka… Kailo, I-I’m sorry. Because of me… you suffered more.”

“When did you find out?”

I couldn’t hold back and interrupted her.

Her answer was crucial to me.

Unintentional sharpness seeped into my tone.

Vivian stammered, as she used to in the past, answering me.

It felt as if the young girl from back then had reappeared before me.

“I-I only realized recently. That day, when I found out Nestor was on our side… The day he told me…”

“So it hasn’t been long.”

“Y-yeah…”

Vivian clenched her fists tightly, continuing in a trembling voice.

“I’m r-really sorry, Kailo… I…”

“Don’t apologize.”

I cut her off.

Her eyes widened in surprise.

“What?”

“It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t know.”

I calmly conveyed to her the thoughts I had mulled over for days.

“You didn’t act intentionally. You thought I was the enemy of your family, so you did what you thought was right. The one who was at fault was Robert… not you, who acted out of anger.”

Vivian couldn’t say a word.

“If it had been me, I probably would have done the same.”

She gripped her trembling arms tightly.

“But… but Kailo…”

“It was my choice to protect you.”

I continued, without looking directly at her, unraveling the thoughts I had sorted out.

“Yes, there was guilt, and there was definitely shame, but… there were other reasons too. Protecting you was the result of my complicated emotions. I don’t want to blame you for a decision I made. I refuse to be so pathetic. No matter how much I want to blame someone else… I can’t stoop so low.”

Vivian covered her face with her hands.

Even without looking directly at her, I could feel her actions from the corner of my vision.

Having spent so much time together, I could infer her behavior from just the sound.

“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry…”

Relieved, or perhaps overwhelmed with guilt because I wasn’t blaming her, she expressed her aching emotions.

She seemed to be using all her strength to hold back her tears.

After a while, Vivian approached me with her arms outstretched.

As if seeking to confirm our affection, as if to reconcile, she approached me with a forced smile.

“…I’ll do better from now on. It’s all over now, right? Only happiness awaits us, right? Do you need anything? I’ll do it all for—”

Tap.

But I still had something I needed to say.

“What?”

Vivian stopped mid-step as my hand lightly reached out.

Only then did I look at her.

Her eyes were filled with disbelief.

And for the first time, she looked at me with wounded eyes.

“Ka-Kailo?”

I had to muster all my strength not to release the tension in my arm.

“I don’t want to blame you, but… now I’m curious.”

“…Ka-Kailo… why…”

“Was this truly my choice?”

For the first time, I voiced the fundamental question I had always felt.

It was something Vivian didn’t know until now.

“Wh-what do you mean by that?”

She asked, her voice trembling.

Looking into Vivian’s red, tear-filled eyes, I calmly continued.

“A long time ago. On the day I first arrived in this land. The day I first set foot in Loctana… There was an old woman among the people who criticized me.”

“Why… why are you suddenly bringing up such a strange story?”

Vivian’s expression resembled that of a child yearning for parental love.

Fear and anxiety clouded her face, yet she trembled as if longing to embrace me.

It felt as though I was finally facing the honest Vivian who truly needed me.

But I didn’t let my arm loosen.

This was something that had to be said face to face.

“Listen. That old woman said she had lost her son to soldiers from our family. And that her son visited her every night… tormenting her. He pleaded for revenge on our family… to teach us a lesson…”

I could still vividly picture the scene from that day, as if it had just happened.

Back then, I pretended not to be scared, but the memory had lingered, showing how deeply it had affected me.

“People called her a witch.”

At the mention of a witch, Vivian’s complexion changed.

She knew very well how much I despised witches.

Through this story, she would come to understand why.

“A… witch?”

“And that witch cried out in rage.”

I recalled the words the witch had uttered to me, words that still echoed vividly in my mind.

I whispered those words to Vivian.

“You will never have a child.”

Vivian’s face stiffened in an instant.

Her eyelids trembled slightly.

She carefully placed a hand over her lower abdomen,
as if instinctively trying to protect a child not yet conceived, a future that hadn’t yet been decided.

Then, she rushed to embrace me again, but I did not lower my arms.

I continued.

“You will not live past thirty. You will die young.”

“No…! No, Kailo!! That can’t be true—”

“And the most important thing…”

I let out a laugh, utterly at a loss.

Emotions surged.

Faced with overwhelming anxiety, I couldn’t help but laugh.

They say laughter comes when you face emotions too intense to bear; that was exactly how I felt.

It was absurd that I believed it, that it was shaking me to my core.

The only shield I had to endure this wretched situation was laughter.

“…You will fall in love with someone you must not love.”

“That’s what the old woman said.”

I could feel the strength drain from Vivian’s body.

Her legs trembled.

The anxiety Kailo had been carrying all this time seemed to seep into her.

She could sense why he had kept this story hidden until now.

It must have been his way of protecting her.

“…I love you, Vivian.”

Kailo made his feelings clear.

“It’s like a curse… From the moment I first saw you.”

But for Vivian, Kailo’s confession was only painful.

If his feelings were a curse…

She felt as if she already knew too well who it was that he shouldn’t have loved.

Vivian’s eyes began to redden with bloodshot anger.

As if seeking confirmation, she asked stiffly,

“…You call your feelings a curse?”

Now she too was gritting her teeth, struggling against emotions too intense to manage.

“You’re telling me…! Treasuring me…! Was a curse to you…? Kailo, to me, your feelings are…!”

Vivian clenched her fists.

A curse?

A curse?

…His feelings had been salvation to her.

And yet Kailo was dismissing them as a curse.

“Your… feelings…!”

…Loving me was a curse?

She looked as if tears would spill at any moment.

When she couldn’t find the words to continue, Kailo spoke in her stead.

“I can’t let go of the possibility… No matter what. When I still can’t hate you… Now, I fear you.”

Vivian’s chest hurt so much she thought there could be no moment more painful than this.

It hurt physically.

As if someone were pounding on her chest with their fists.

The very foundation of the trust they’d built, even while growling at each other,

Kailo was now doubting it.

“Don’t be ridiculous!”

Vivian finally shouted.

“Do you think…! Do you think it’s that easy to cast a curse that powerful!?”

“Maybe it is.”

“No, absolutely not, never! You just love me, that’s all!!”

She cried out as if throwing a tantrum.

She didn’t believe in the idea of a curse.

Curses weren’t cast so easily.

The more complex the curse, the more intricate the magic circle needed.

But Kailo wouldn’t know that.

“And how would you know that?”

Vivian couldn’t answer.

Ah.

She instinctively realized it now.

If Kailo ever found out she was a witch, there would be no turning back.

Though he hadn’t said it outright, she could see how much this issue had tormented him.

She understood immediately where his hatred for witches stemmed from.

So, she could never reveal she was a witch.

For now, he doubted it was a curse, but if he discovered the truth, that doubt would turn into certainty.

That could never happen.

Kailo suddenly clutched the fabric over his heart with his fist.

“Don’t you think… this is strange?”

He shook his clothes in frustration and spoke desperately.

“What on earth is it about you…! That drives me this mad..!”

“…Ah…”

…It hurts, Kailo.

Vivian swallowed words she could never say.

She was afraid that if she became honest now, he might grow tired of her.

In such a precarious situation, she couldn’t afford to reveal how burdensome she might be to him.

But realizing she had been hurt, Kailo gritted his teeth even harder.

Yet, as if to unleash the pent-up irritation, he closed his eyes tightly and shouted:

“Explain it to me…! How my childhood was ruined because of your family…!”

Vivian bit her lip hard with guilt.

“I was torn away from my family and had to live…! And to even make sense of my own existence…! Why is it so hard…! Why do I still… even after everything you did…! It was all meaningless…! Why can’t I even hate someone as insignificant as you!!”

Kailo finally murmured quietly, as if his strength had been sapped.

“…Explain it to me.”

Vivian still saw herself as pathetic.

No matter how much she had revived her estate or corrected her family’s wrongs, it was all the same.

If anyone admired her, it was only because she wore a mask.

Kailo knew the girl behind the mask.

He always knew how fragile and foolish she truly was.

That was why she couldn’t refute his words.

With a pleading heart, she spoke.

“I… I’m pathetic… I… I have nothing… But, but we have memories we’ve built together, don’t we…? Kailo… Can’t you find it in your heart from there…?”

“Our memories together?”

Kailo shook his head lightly, wearing a hollow expression.

“All we’ve ever done… is fight, isn’t it?”

Only recently had physical contact increased between them, but their relationship had always been fraught with arguments and conflicts.

They laughed while doing things they knew would annoy each other, and they found joy in hurling insults.

There were far more memories of growling at one another than smiling together.

Vivian especially knew how much she had treated Kailo that way.

She hated him so deeply, and they both knew it all too well.

That’s why it hurt so much now.

She also knew how much of a monster she had been in the past.

“I created excuses not to leave you. At one point, it was because you wouldn’t let me go… and at another, it was because I couldn’t leave you unsafe…”

“…But my heart always knew…”

Kailo’s tone carried deep resignation.

And sensing that, Vivian felt as if she might lose her mind from fear.

“…Why do you keep talking as if you’re going to leave?”

Vivian asked with a shaky smile, trying to lighten the mood.

But that smile trembled at the corners of her lips and soon vanished.

“I’ve run out of excuses, Vivian.”

Vivian softly called out to him, almost as if anticipating his next words.

“…Kailo.”

She wanted to soothe him.

To stop him.

She reached out her hand, trying to place it on Kailo’s cheek.

She wanted to touch the person she cherished most.

But Kailo gently pushed her hand away.

And then he spoke.

“…Our hardships are over now.”

Vivian stared blankly at her hand, which had been pushed aside.

It was the first time Kailo had so firmly rejected her.

The coldness she felt from Kailo was chilling and terrifying.

Vivian looked up at him, her mind going blank.

Kailo whispered.

“…So let’s end our ill-fated connection here.”

“…What?”

Vivian weakly asked back.

End it?

She couldn’t understand his words.

She remained silent, staring at Kailo.

Kailo also remained silent.

Where could there be an end between her and Kailo?

Hadn’t they promised to stay together for a lifetime?

Hadn’t Kailo repeatedly said he wouldn’t leave her?

Vivian asked quietly, her voice trembling.

“…You’re saying you want to break up with me?”

She couldn’t believe the question coming out of her own mouth.

Since her hardships began, Kailo had always been by her side.

He was like thread and needle, always there when she turned her head.

Whether eating, walking, or resting, he was always there.

At some point, she felt empty without him.

His presence became a given.

But now, was he saying he wanted to end it?

That he would disappear from her side?

That they wouldn’t stay by each other’s side anymore?

“…Break up… with me…? You?”

Her voice was thin and weak.

It seemed like she couldn’t even manage to speak properly due to the shock.

She had only vaguely imagined it, never believing it would become reality.

She hadn’t thought the relationship they’d maintained for seven years could end.

“You… You said… you still don’t hate me…”

Clinging to the only positive thing he had said, Vivian asked.

Kailo nodded slowly.

“If the curse is real… I won’t be able to have children, and I’ll have a short life. So…”

He made it clear to Vivian once again.

Removing the leash, he said:

“…Let’s stop before we regret it any further.”