His physique felt as heavy as soaked cotton. Not desirous to elevate a finger, introduced again disagreeable reminiscences of that dilapidated inn room, the place a shard of glass had caught in my throat, however now I didn’t know why my total neck was tingling.

I slowly opened my eyes and was greeted by a pure white ceiling. I’m in a very unfamiliar place, not the flower store the place I handed out on medicine. An ominous feeling of foreboding settled over me. I rapidly raised my higher physique and felt a heat.

“What the….”

Why am I mendacity in mattress? I’m even dressed. A free, short-sleeved tee and shorts are white throughout. My pockets are, in fact, empty. My cellphone was gone, too, and I didn’t know what to do.

That’s after I heard the sound of distant laughter. I appeared up and noticed an surprising face.

“Good night time.”

He was so black that I questioned if he had stolen my shadow. Jet-black hair, black eyes, black swimsuit. Solely his pores and skin glows white, like a midwinter frost. His thinly lidded eyes look chilly, however they curve into a delicate smile when he smiles.

Nonetheless lovely. Much more so than I remembered.

The boy who was so fairly seven years in the past has taken on an air of maturity that one way or the other provides him a harmful attraction. If he provided me the fruit of the tree of the data of fine and evil, I’d gladly take it. My gaze was momentarily distracted by his reddened lips, and I snapped out of it. He smiled softly at me, trying like one thing was damaged.

“What’s mistaken? You seem like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“No…….”

I hadn’t needed this reunion. No, we weren’t supposed to fulfill once more. However the water was already spilled. I have to react as nonchalantly as attainable to keep away from any misunderstandings. Okay. Like a stranger.

The person in entrance of you is simply a picture of another person. Hee swallowed laborious and opened his mouth.

“That is… The place?”

“The place you needed to come back.”

Is it the bottom of the Apostle. The room I’m in is as clear as a mannequin home.

“However you sound like you already know me.”

“We’ve met earlier than.”

“I’ve by no means met you earlier than.”

I swallowed laborious, and he tilted his head barely and laughed.

“Haha, you’re a superb jokester.”

He’s by no means been an enormous smiler, so I’ve all the time needed to ask him if he likes it or not, or simply discover. However in entrance of me, his smile simply gained’t go away. I used to be extra afraid of him smiling for no motive than I used to be of his expressionlessness.

Is he smiling as a result of he is aware of I’m John? No approach. Then a minimum of he’d be offended. I can’t inform what blackness lies beneath his mild smile.

I blink uneasily, and he speaks, as if to ease the stress.

“You’re hungry, aren’t you?”

“What?”

“Eat this.”

He picked up a plate on the bedside desk and handed it over. It contained a sandwich, reduce into 4 bite-sized items. I appreciated the gesture, however I didn’t really feel like consuming something proper now, not after the lengthy day I’d had.

“…I don’t just like the filling.”

I rapidly declined, however he didn’t again down.

“You’d higher eat.”

Regardless of his easygoing voice and smiling face, his demeanor is unusually forceful. It made me conscious of the fact of my state of affairs. I’m the one who’s been captured right here, and he’s the one holding my lifeline, not me. He was in no place to refuse favors simply because he felt sick.

I take the plate and attempt to take a chunk of my sandwich, however I stiffened. There can’t be any medicine in right here. As I stared on the contents of the sandwich, he smiled, as if studying my anxiousness.

“Don’t fear, there’s nothing in there.”

I do know I’m going to should eat it anyway, even when it’s laced with capsules, however I’m grateful for the reassurance.

I compelled myself to place a sandwich in my mouth, and each time I swallowed it, one thing touched my Adam’s apple. I cautiously stroke my neck, and sharp thorns prick my fingertips. I questioned why I had a tingling sensation round my neck, and this was it.

”That is… What’s it?”

“It’s a leash.”

He smiled coyly.

“I don’t know what Mr. Shin Ha-jae will do.”

Is that this actually the Heo-sang I do know…? He crammed a row of thorn vines round somebody’s neck as a result of he couldn’t consider me. It was so tight that I might barely match my finger between the vine and my neck.

The extra I considered it, the extra uncomfortable I turned, and I complained.

“I’d moderately put a softer collar on a beast than this.”

“So?”

“So…what”

I used to be considerably embarrassed that he had the audacity to ask me what the issue was with a leash round a person’s neck. Whether or not he realised it or not, he strode ahead and stopped in entrance of me. The shadow over his head made him look unusually massive and tall.

“Are you asking me to be good?”

“No, it’s….”

I appeared down at it, questioning when he had gotten so massive. He was once a foot shorter than me.

I appeared up and stared, then appeared away, feeling one way or the other intimidated. Then he lifted my chin with the tip of his index finger and compelled eye contact. His chilly eyes, narrowed, held a touch of displeasure.

“Eye contact, don’t keep away from it.”

The low voice despatched chills down my backbone.

I remembered Heo-sang…. that the shy baby had issue making eye contact with others. Even when he was my greatest buddy, he usually ran away after I made eye contact. However he was totally different. He first took offence at my avoiding eye contact.

It’s not Heo-sang, it’s Simeon along with his face. That’s all it seems like.

“You seem like I’m bullying you.”

Heo-sang. No, Simeon’s expression rapidly relaxes and he laughs, as he all the time does. His fingers, pressed firmly towards the tip of my chin, moved as effortlessly as water. His fingertips travelled down my neckline and stopped on the bulge.

“Does it damage a lot?”

Simeon stroked his fingers insistently over the pores and skin that had turn out to be delicate from the thorns.

“However I can’t assist it, it’s crucial if we’re going to speak.”

The contact was cautious and ticklish. I swallowed dryly, nervously, and the chilly fingertips slowly moved up the size of my neck. The lengthy, sleek chess-like fingers squeezed my windpipe.

My head grew fuzzy from the dearth of oxygen. The feeling, each scary and unusually erotic, made my eyes flutter shut. Simeon’s mouth curved right into a darkish smile as I accepted his contact with out protest.

“You’ve gotten a skinny neck, huh.”

It was the look he’d had as a toddler when he’d been given a brand new toy.

Simeon’s eyes flashed open as quickly as he loosened his grip. I coughed dryly, my throat nonetheless burning from his grip. Simeon watched with amusement as I gasped for air. I glared at him, demanding to know what he was doing, however he didn’t bat an eyelid.

“In case you disclose any details about the Apostle, the leash shall be tightened and also you’ll be decapitated similar to you had been simply now.”

“What’s that….”

“You’ll be able to test it out when you’re curious.”

I requested, stunned at how simply he spouted murderous phrases….

“You’re not going to die anyway, are you?”

Simeon already knew my secret.

“Uh…”

I ought to have pretended to not know, however the directness of the query caught me off guard.

Nobody however my mother and father know that I’m cursed with immortality, and now that each one my blood relations are useless, the key is mine alone. And but, after solely assembly me a handful of occasions, he has managed to understand my deepest buried secrets and techniques.

“That… How do you know?”

“I attempted it fairly just a few occasions when you had been sleeping, and I couldn’t injure you.”

I gave him a puzzled look, however he continued.

“You’re the primary particular person I couldn’t injured, Shin Ha-jae. You’re the primary.”

Simeon checked out me with curiosity. His darkish eyes appeared to lick me like a tongue. I stiffened, feeling utterly bare regardless of my garments. Simeon will need to have observed my nervousness, as a result of he chuckled softly.

”We’ll save the explanations for not dying for an additional time, however let’s get to the purpose.”

I didn’t even have time to consider what the purpose was. The again of his neck tingled as Simeon abruptly hooked his index finger in a thorny vine and pulled. The nook of his mouth lifted barely as he frowned.

“You’d higher be sincere with me.”

“What….”

Simeon slowly crouched down to fulfill me at eye stage. His darkish eyes had been eerie within the absence of sunshine.

“How far are you aware?”

“What?”

“Don’t faux you don’t, as a result of I do know you’ve been tailing us currently.”

You’re attempting to coax info out of me. Simeon whispered softly, like a leaf within the wind. However his face remained grimly set, and not using a trace of amusement.

“Which one do you belong to? What did you ask for as a situation of extracting info?”

“What are you speaking about… Ugh!”

When he protested that he didn’t know, Simeon tugged tougher on the leash. He might really feel the sharp barbs digging into his delicate flesh. Quickly it could be sizzling blood operating down his backbone.

Earlier than I knew it, his face was inside inches of mine. My face was mirrored in his clear eyes, simply because it had been the day we first spoke, seven years in the past. But it surely was totally different, full of pleasure and curiosity.

“Don’t make me too upset,” I mentioned, “I’ve grown fairly keen on you.”

My face, mirrored in these piercing eyes, was pale and drained.