Issues went fully in a different way than meant. Contemplating my monitor document up to now, it’s pure for him to be suspicious of me, however now isn’t the time to slowly resolve the misunderstanding. I spoke in a voice blended with sighs, with a stuffy coronary heart inside.

“Simeon. Do you assume I’m holding your weak spot and threatening you now?”

“If not, then what?”

“I don’t wish to…!”

The eyes me stuffed with mistrust, so I opened my mouth and closed it.

Let’s not beat across the bush. Baiting him for secrets and techniques would solely drag me in. Yeah, possibly the best way was incorrect within the first place. If I wish to hear his true emotions, I’ve to be trustworthy first.

“I’ve at all times needed to apologize for what I did on the cliff that day. I’m sorry I confirmed you one thing that will need to have left you traumatized. It appears like an excuse, however I couldn’t assist it as a result of I assumed it was the final resort. So I do know I don’t need to say this. However…”

I opened my mouth closely, exhaling a trembling breath.

“Simeon. I care about you.”

His slender brows twitched. Simeon nonetheless appears to be satisfied that I’m hiding my actual intentions. Possibly we’ve come too far to belief one another once more. I felt lonely for some purpose, so I stated with a dry smile.

“I do know you’re suspicious of me. However I imply it. I used to be frightened to listen to that you simply would possibly die. So, I’d like to listen to precisely what it’s like proper now.”

After I persuaded him calmly, the sharp environment appeared to ease a bit. Nonetheless, it was far wanting breaking the masks like that iron fortress. Simeon shook his head with a glance of pity on me.

“The issue with you is that your coronary heart is simply too comfortable.”

“What?”

“That’s why you’re being taken benefit of by somebody like me.”

“I’m being…taken benefit of.”

“What’s the matter? You recognize it. That’s why you narrow your neck and jumped off a cliff. You paid to your freedom together with your life, isn’t that an excessive amount of to surrender for a bit pity?”

A smiling voice flew like an arrow and caught deep into the guts. I’m not damage by the direct phrases. Nonetheless, I couldn’t discover any room to refute it as a result of it was proper. I clenched my fists and tried to talk in a peaceful tone.

“I could not have preferred it then, however not now.”

“Since you really feel sorry for me?”

“No, as a result of I’ve come to… perceive you.”

The left nook of his mouth, at all times crookedly upturned, twitched.

Seven years after fleeing from Jeongdong Cathedral. Heo-sang had turn into a very totally different particular person, Simeon. After I first met him, his persona and tone modified, so he was unfamiliar like a stranger. And his plan to maintain me tied to him by any means crucial made me shudder.

“I saved asking. Why are you doing this to me. However you ignored all the things I stated and acted nonetheless you needed. Who likes somebody who needs to imprison me with out telling me why?”

However I didn’t hate it. That was the issue.

Generally when pure curiosity shines on my darkish black eyes like the underside of the lake, I even bear in mind recollections that I assumed I had forgotten. So I ran away with out paying backwards and forwards. In contrast to Heo-sang, who was alone when he was younger, Simeon now, who has a colleague, thought he would stay nicely with out me.

“However now I perceive why you had been so obsessive about me, and I’ve modified my thoughts. I used to be frightened that somebody who appeared so superb didn’t have anybody to show to in instances of want, so I assumed I’d allow you to in any manner I might.”

My head is in a uproar. In my world, the place all questions are answered, solely Heo-sang is clean. After I consider him, I can’t outline it in a single phrase. I can’t think about how a lot hassle he needed to undergo to come back again right here.

“In the event you nonetheless doubt my sincerity …sure. As you stated, out of compassion, I forgot all the things I had completed on the cliff that day. Does this make sense?”

He gave a self-deprecating snigger, unwilling to disclaim it any longer, and a flash of remorse flashed throughout his darkish eyes.

“Shin Hajae. What I stated earlier…”

“I don’t care the way you see me or what which means you connect to my actions, however since I’m right here once more, I would like to listen to what it’s a must to say, and I can’t give strategy to that.”

When he firmly minimize off his again, Simeon opened his mouth barely as if he had one thing to say and closed it tightly. Earlier than I knew it, the smile on his face disappeared and solely the sunshine of concern remained. Now that the vigilance has eased essentially the most, the very last thing to say has been determined.

“Simeon, please consider somebody who cares about you.”

The previous Heo-sang was rather a lot like me. I had dad and mom and a house to return to. However now it was totally different. In contrast to me, who remoted myself so totally to keep away from passing on the curse, Simeon has no blood relations, no pals, and never even a couple of acquaintances. Somebody who actually cares about him.

“Raphael, even your bodyguard, ignored the order and got here to my home. I need you to save lots of me. Because you’re the top of a guild, you don’t wish to trigger any hassle…So inform me.”

I stated, placing my hand rigorously over his.

“Are you hallucinating about that particular person?”

Simeon remained immobile for a very long time. He didn’t hit my hand, however he simply checked out it with out holding it. A couple of instances when the black, lengthy eyelashes would quietly flutter, Simeon lastly responded.

“…….”

He closed his eyes gently and opened them as if he had endured the ache. It was a particular affirmation. Lastly, the wall surrounding him collapsed. I instantly requested concerning the detailed situation in case he modified his thoughts.

“Have you ever been to a physician for counselling?”

“A very long time in the past. However after the therapy, the hallucinations are not seen.”

“After all, that’s what they’re treating you for.”

“So I gave up.”

“Why?”

I assumed that if I saved speaking to him, I might at the least persuade him to begin therapy once more, however I used to be sorely mistaken.

“…I really feel weak once I see his face.”

As Simeon bowed his head and muttered, a youthful model of himself flashed by way of my thoughts. For Simeon, who had already suffered for therefore lengthy, the imaginative and prescient was not simply a picture. It was the dwelling John, himself.

“It’s only a hallucination, however I can’t do away with it. Isn’t it humorous?”

“You’ll be able to snigger at me as a lot as you want.”

The look that regarded up barely appeared to need me to snigger. Sadly, nonetheless, there was not even a compelled smile. Simply him with a agency expression, Simeon turned his eyes indifferently as if he had misplaced curiosity.

After some time, he calmly opened his mouth, looking the window at night time sea.

“A 12 months after he disappeared… I had an accident.”

“What accident?”

“I received hit by a automobile downtown. I didn’t have any trauma contemplating I flew distant, however I got here to consciousness in every week.”

I had no concept. At the moment, I misplaced contact with all of the folks round me and was busy making a dwelling on my own. It wasn’t till he’d settled into his personal life that he began Googling to see if he’d turn into a hunter.

“I awakened and there was ‘him’ sitting by my hospital mattress, and at first I assumed he’d come again as a result of he was frightened when he heard I’d been killed. I used to be grateful he’d come again, however I felt dangerous that he hadn’t contacted me earlier than, so I ignored him for some time.”

Simeon laughed bitterly, including, “Effectively, it was once I was immature.”

“So I didn’t know till I left the hospital. That particular person… It’s a hallucination that solely I can see.”

The boundary between the darkish night time sky and the pitch-black sea, his profile wanting someplace, was bleak and exquisite.

“If I used to be going to get remedy, I ought to have completed it then, however I couldn’t convey myself to do away with the hallucinations as a result of I assumed he was going to vanish once more, and it simply received worse and worse. I felt like I used to be a loopy particular person, speaking to myself, laughing and crying… No, it’s not the identical factor, it’s true.”

I felt sorry for the indifferent look as if he was speaking about another person, so my palms overlapped with him had been tense. Simeon, who abruptly grabbed my hand onerous, turned this manner with stunned eyes. Solely then did he discover and hurriedly let go of my hand as if it had been burned.

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

However Simeon adopted my distant hand right away and grabbed it. Though it was by no means a small hand for a person, he merely wrapped my hand in a single piece. Quickly, he put it on the blanket and caressed the again of my hand and fingers together with his fingertips. Even once I tried to get out of it as a result of my palms had been itchy, it appeared like an effort to differentiate actuality from hallucinations, so I had no selection however to remain nonetheless.

When his chilly palms had been about to resemble my physique temperature, Simeon opened his mouth once more.

“Then in the future, once I got here to my senses, I used to be standing on a cliff.”

“A cliff…?”

“It’s the place he’s at all times been standing.”