CH 105.1

– Can you not do it with your mouth one time more, please?

A sentence spoken by Cloud that she overheard by chance.

Now, Neria knew she wasn’t too smart, but she wasn’t so stupid that she couldn’t understand what that meant.

The reason last night was quiet wasn’t because the two hadn’t made progress.

Oral s*x.

The act of a woman pleasuring a man’s genitals with her mouth.

For that reason, no sound reached Neria’s room.

She didn’t even know that, and she was consoling herself, full of hope.

Neria did not go down to the first floor.

Feeling sick, as if a load had stuck in her chest, she returned to her room, pulling the blanket over her. A cozy space that only she alone shared. It was as if she were disconnected from the cruel reality, and so she calmed down for a while, but that was only for a moment.

– Can you not do it with your mouth one time more, please?

His voice played in her ears.

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Scenes conjured in her head.

Inside a dark room.

A flickering candle illuminating two figures.

Cloud siting on the bed, with Katarina kneeling in front of him.

– Cheup. Churup.

With a lewd undulation, Katarina’s head bounced up and down. Cloud looked at her with loving eyes, warmth buoying in his gaze.

– Hoo… Haa… Cloud, you feel good..?

– Very good. Why, so good. Katarina, is it because you are doing it?

– Hah, really? Then I’ll make it better than before for you.

Katarina bobbed her head harder than before.

A scene she’d never seen before.

A scene she’d never heard of.

She was imagining it so easily.

Her heart felt like it was about to burst.

She didn’t want to imagine that scene. She would rather have her brain shut down.

She tried to erase it by pulling her hair. It didn’t work.

Rather, the imagination weighted on her.

Katarina licking Cloud’s thing while making obscene noises, and Cloud repeatedly mouthing how much he loved her.

‘Stop… Please stop..!’

She didn’t want to see.

She didn’t want to hear.

Neither did she want to imagine.

However, the scene did not disappear.

Neria couldn’t understand.

Why could she imagine a scene so vividly of which she was completely ambiguous to?

– Suck it straight, b!tch!

Then what she heard suddenly was not Cloud’s gentle voice, but a grating male voice.

Only then did she realize why the poses of Cloud and Katarina in her imagination were so familiar.

At the same time, she felt a touch on her lips that she didn’t want to recall.

– Cheuk…!

Unbearable disgust came over her.

Unbidden disgust.

She pulled her head out of bed and vomited, gastric juices lapsing out.

– Kkeuk…!

The more she retched, the clearer her memory became.

A mocking voice.

Eyes looking down at her. Condemning her lowliness.

Her feeling of powerlessness against him.

A disgusting feeling on her lips.

All of that.

– Uh… Kkeuk…Kuh…

Now not even gastric juice came out.

When she had nothing to vomit, the nauseousness that was engulfing her whole also stopped.

But even if the nauseating feeling vanished, it didn’t ease her.

Shame and guilt.

The blades of two emotions ripped through her heart.

She called a name mournfully, wiping her tear-stained face.

– Cloud…

The name of the man she loves.

She wished to see him.

Look at his face and apologize. She wanted to be forgiven. Even if it meant getting on her knees and banging her head on the floor.

And it was something that could be done right away.

All she had to do was to meet him outside the room and act.

But she didn’t.

How would he react if she suddenly stormed out to him, begging and crying?

He would probably be puzzled and ask why she was asking to be forgiven.

She would explain why and with a kind smile, he would forgive her easily.

Again she’d believe it and a smile would blossom in her heart.

Like a sicko.

It was not okay.

One word didn’t change anything.

Feeling stung in her nose, Neria vomited the juices from the pit of her stomach and wrung out tears. When she was in so much pain, how much pain would he have been in?

How pained must he have been when he saw it with his own eyes.

– Sorry… I didn’t know… I didn’t know it would be this hard…

The day she met Cloud again.

Cloud wasn’t angry with her nor did he scold her.

He just said he was glad they were back together and smiled.

So she thought it would be fine.

Even if it was awkward, she thought that it would be possible to go back to the way it was before. Before everything spiraled out of control.

Even when she overheard Cloud and Mars’ conversation, she believed it would only make it a little longer.

She just didn’t realize how selfish she was being.

– Sorry…

And now, no matter how many times she was to mouth a sorry, it wouldn’t reach him.

Wouldn’t touch.

Because that word would bring him back to the nightmare of that day once again.

The pendulum of guilt that hung heavy from her heart was the karma she would have to carry with her for the rest of her life.

…in fact, if she were to leave him, maybe she would easy the load on Cloud.

He surely felt pained every time she entered his vision.

But Neria… she couldn’t leave his side.

For Neria, Cloud was everything in her life.

From the past to the present.

Without him, she would fall apart.

She was terribly afraid of it, so she couldn’t leave him.

A selfish, ugly coward.

That was who was she.

“Are you both ready?”

Cloud’s voice broke her thoughts.

So much had happened. And so much had zoomed past in a blur. And she soon found herself standing in the dance hall of the collapsed palace.