CH 42

Things went completely differently than intended. Considering my track record so far, it is natural for him to be suspicious of me, but now is not the time to slowly resolve the misunderstanding. I spoke in a voice mixed with sighs, with a stuffy heart inside.

“Simeon. Do you think I’m holding your weakness and threatening you now?”

“If not, then what?”

“I don’t want to…!”

The eyes looking at me filled with distrust, so I opened my mouth and closed it.

Let’s not beat around the bush. Baiting him for secrets would only drag me in. Yeah, maybe the way was wrong in the first place. If I want to hear his true feelings, I have to be honest first.

“I’ve always wanted to apologize for what I did on the cliff that day. I’m sorry I showed you something that must have left you traumatized. It sounds like an excuse, but I couldn’t help it because I thought it was the last resort. So I know I don’t deserve to say this. But…”

I opened my mouth heavily, exhaling a trembling breath.

“Simeon. I care about you.”

His narrow brows twitched. Simeon still seems to be convinced that I’m hiding my real intentions. Maybe we’ve come too far to trust each other again. I felt lonely for some reason, so I said with a dry smile.

“I know you’re suspicious of me. But I mean it. I was worried to hear that you might die. So, I’d like to hear exactly what it’s like right now.”

When I persuaded him calmly, the sharp atmosphere seemed to ease a little. However, it was far short of breaking the mask like that iron fortress. Simeon shook his head with a look of pity on me.

“The problem with you is that your heart is too soft.”

“What?”

“That’s why you’re being taken advantage of by someone like me.”

“I’m being…taken advantage of.”

“What’s the matter? You know it. That’s why you cut your neck and jumped off a cliff. You paid for your freedom with your life, isn’t that too much to give up for a little pity?”

A smiling voice flew like an arrow and stuck deep into the heart. I’m not hurt by the direct words. However, I couldn’t find any room to refute it because it was right. I clenched my fists and tried to speak in a calm tone.

“I may not have liked it then, but not now.”

“Because you feel sorry for me?”

“No, because I’ve come to… understand you.”

The left corner of his mouth, always crookedly upturned, twitched.

Seven years after fleeing from Jeongdong Cathedral. Heo-sang had become a completely different person, Simeon. When I first met him, his personality and tone changed, so he was unfamiliar like a stranger. And his plan to keep me tied to him by any means necessary made me shudder.

“I kept asking. Why are you doing this to me. But you ignored everything I said and acted however you wanted. Who likes someone who wants to imprison me without telling me why?”

But I didn’t hate it. That was the problem.

Sometimes when pure curiosity shines on my dark black eyes like the bottom of the lake, I even remember memories that I thought I had forgotten. So I ran away without paying back and forth. Unlike Heo-sang, who was alone when he was young, Simeon now, who has a colleague, thought he would live well without me.

“But now I understand why you were so obsessed with me, and I’ve changed my mind. I was worried that someone who seemed so amazing didn’t have anyone to turn to in times of need, so I thought I’d help you in any way I could.”

My head is in a uproar. In my world, where all questions are answered, only Heo-sang is blank. When I think of him, I can’t define it in a single word. I can’t imagine how much trouble he had to go through to come back here.

“If you still doubt my sincerity …yes. As you said, out of compassion, I forgot everything I had done on the cliff that day. Does this make sense?”

He gave a self-deprecating laugh, unwilling to deny it any longer, and a flash of regret flashed across his dark eyes.

“Shin Hajae. What I said earlier…”

“I don’t care how you see me or what meaning you attach to my actions, but since I’m here again, I need to hear what you have to say, and I can’t give way to that.”

When he firmly cut off his back, Simeon opened his mouth slightly as if he had something to say and closed it tightly. Before I knew it, the smile on his face disappeared and only the light of concern remained. Now that the vigilance has eased the most, the last thing to say has been decided.

“Simeon, please think of someone who cares about you.”

The old Heo-sang was a lot like me. I had parents and a home to return to. But now it was different. Unlike me, who isolated myself so thoroughly to avoid passing on the curse, Simeon has no blood relatives, no friends, and not even a few acquaintances. Someone who really cares about him.

“Raphael, even your bodyguard, ignored the order and came to my house. I want you to save me. Since you’re the head of a guild, you don’t want to cause any trouble…So tell me.”

I said, putting my hand carefully over his.

“Are you hallucinating about that person?”

Simeon remained motionless for a long time. He didn’t hit my hand, but he just looked at it without holding it. A few times when the black, long eyelashes would quietly flutter, Simeon finally responded.

“…….”

He closed his eyes gently and opened them as if he had endured the pain. It was a definite affirmation. Finally, the wall surrounding him collapsed. I immediately asked about the detailed condition in case he changed his mind.

“Have you been to a doctor for counselling?”

“A long time ago. But after the treatment, the hallucinations are no longer visible.”

“Of course, that’s what they’re treating you for.”

“So I gave up.”

“Why?”

I thought that if I kept talking to him, I could at least convince him to start treatment again, but I was sorely mistaken.

“…I feel weak when I see his face.”

As Simeon bowed his head and muttered, a younger version of himself flashed through my mind. For Simeon, who had already suffered for so long, the vision was not just an image. It was the living John, himself.

“It’s just a hallucination, but I can’t get rid of it. Isn’t it funny?”

“You can laugh at me as much as you like.”

The glance that looked up slightly seemed to want me to laugh. Sadly, however, there was not even a forced smile. Just looking at him with a firm expression, Simeon turned his eyes indifferently as if he had lost interest.

After a while, he calmly opened his mouth, looking out the window at night sea.

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

“What accident?”

“I got hit by a car downtown. I didn’t have any trauma considering I flew far away, but I came to consciousness in a week.”

I had no idea. At that time, I lost contact with all the people around me and was busy making a living by myself. It wasn’t until he’d settled into his own life that he started Googling to see if he’d become a hunter.

“I woke up and there was ‘him’ sitting by my hospital bed, and at first I thought he’d come back because he was worried when he heard I’d been killed. I was grateful he’d come back, but I felt bad that he hadn’t contacted me before, so I ignored him for a while.”

Simeon laughed bitterly, adding, “Well, it was when I was immature.”

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

The boundary between the dark night sky and the pitch-black sea, his profile looking somewhere, was bleak and beautiful.

“If I was going to get therapy, I should have done it then, but I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of the hallucinations because I thought he was going to disappear again, and it just got worse and worse. I felt like I was a crazy person, talking to myself, laughing and crying… No, it’s not the same thing, it’s true.”

I felt sorry for the detached appearance as if he was talking about someone else, so my hands overlapped with him were tense. Simeon, who suddenly grabbed my hand hard, turned this way with surprised eyes. Only then did he notice and hurriedly let go of my hand as if it were burned.

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

But Simeon followed my distant hand straight away and grabbed it. Even though it was never a small hand for a man, he simply wrapped my hand in one piece. Soon, he put it on the blanket and caressed the back of my hand and fingers with his fingertips. Even when I tried to get out of it because my hands were itchy, it seemed like an effort to distinguish reality from hallucinations, so I had no choice but to stay still.

When his cold hands were about to resemble my body temperature, Simeon opened his mouth again.

“Then one day, when I came to my senses, I was standing on a cliff.”

“A cliff…?”

“It’s where he’s always been standing.”