Chapter 70.1

It was just one short question, but Yurina’s feelings once again sowed confusion inside.

Now Yurina barely moved her lips, unable to control her emotions.

“I say, what would I do without you? Is it okay if I’m alone? Have you forgotten to think about me? Do you think I’ll be fine in your absence? Do you think I’m okay now?”

Yurina finally grabbed his shirt and pulled him closer to her.

Tears rolled down to the floor again.

“Answer me now. Do you see what happened to me? I look good, do you think?”

Yurina spent the last two days neither dead nor alive. She couldn’t even calmly take a sip of water and couldn’t sleep from nerves.

If someone looked at her and asked if she was alive, she would confidently answer ‘no’.

During this time, Yurina blamed herself for what had happened countless times. And her whole worldview was shaken after the incident.

Obsessed Yurina’s body, Yurina believed all her life that there was nothing worse than her own death. And she had no choice but to judge like that. Her most terrible memory, both in her past and in this life, was the thought of her death in loneliness and agony seven years ago.

It’s been seven years.

Yurina barely remembered her former life in Korea. Even her mother’s face and voice faded and chased from memory.

But remembering the moment of her death was a different story. Although she tried to put it out of her mind, from time to time that image popped up on its own and got on her nerves. It was a terrible memory.

However, the moment she saw Reynard who was covered in blood and passed out, Yurina realized something for the first time.

An empty office, an unwritten notebook, a pile of dusty books, eating alone, silence and loneliness in the bedroom before going to bed.

The only reason she could bear that emptiness was because she believed that Reynard would return someday. She had been waiting for him for five whole years, and all five of these years she was overshadowed by an empty and quiet office, where there was no heat since he left.

‘But what if Ray dies now?’

It was so terrible that the mere thought of it felt like she was being pressed on her throat.

And if it turned out that Raynard would suffer because of her, Yurina would experience pain more excruciating than death agony.

“Ever since you’ve been like this, I’ve been having nightmares about your death. Did you say you had a nightmare that I couldn’t remember you? In my dreams I see you dying for me. You’re dying because of me. Look at it from my point of view. Do you think I’ll be okay?”

Yurina took a deep breath.

“Are you doing this for me? And I should be happy about that? How can you be so careless?”

Over the past two days, Yurina had accumulated a lot of questions that she had no one to express. Yurina’s legs lost strength and she sat down on a chair.

Raynard followed her and only stared at the floor the whole way. After a series of questions, there was not a single answer. Not that Yurina really wanted to hear them, so she didn’t get angry or upset at his silence.

Raynard looked at the crying Yurina, then knelt down and hugged her. Yurina tried to push his shoulder again, but she couldn’t as Reynard grabbed her tightly.

He was no longer the fragile child she could take down with her own strength. Yurina eventually stopped pushing and buried her face into his shoulder.

“Sorry. I shouldn’t have to do it.”

“Promise me. Promise me you won’t do that trick another time.”

“I can’t say that.”

“Why…”

“If this happens again, I would make the same choice,” Raynard whispered in a soft but determined voice. And there was no hesitation in this answer.

Yurina jerked back, feeling his hand caressing her hair gently.

“Don’t do that.”

“Yurina.”

“If you really like me, don’t do it.”

Raynard sighed quickly, as if frightened.

The hand stroking her hair tightened.

He only gave her an unintelligible hum, then pushed Yurina away and took a few steps back.

In an instant, his face and even his neck became hot and red.

Raynard looked straight at Yurina, who was wiping her tears with her palm, stared at the floor, then at Yurina again, again at the floor, and in the end he barely spoke:

“How…”

But he couldn’t continue and bit his lip.

‘You want to ask how I knew? Doesn’t this come through after lines like ‘without you there is no me’?’

“…Did you know?”

It would be strange not to know this. Yurina wasn’t stupid enough not to know what Reynard felt for her.

The meaning of his words and actions was clear as day. It would be a stretch to claim that his behavior came only from their closeness in childhood.

However, Yurina tried to ignore those feelings whenever he meekly revealed them. Because she thought she didn’t deserve his affection.

She searched Raynard out of her selfishness and enlisted him to help her for her own survival. She then played to win his affection.

She gave him a new name, raised him so he couldn’t do without her…

It was all for her, not for him.

As Yurina intended at the very beginning, he opened his heart to her and eventually developed feelings that went beyond mere sympathy. As his feelings for her grew, so did Yurina’s guilt.

She didn’t know if she could even accept his heart, because the whole story spun out of banal selfishness. So her own feelings for him were also unclear and repressed.

But this new incident forced her to sort out her thoughts. Her feelings for Raynard were much stronger than she thought. To the point where she feared his death more than her own.

She turned away from her heart, and indeed her own mind, because of the guilt of having used him from childhood until now. But since all the drama stemmed from her selfishness, why not turn the heat up now?

“If it’s really for me, don’t do it. You’re more valuable to me than myself. Just like you put me before your own welfare.”

“It means…”

“I like you, Ray.”