CH 69

Yet before I could hear the answer, I had to add a word.

“Hey, breathe.”

And as soon as I said that, Dante hurriedly exhaled the breath that had stopped. With a bewildered expression, as if he didn’t know he was holding his breath.

He must have been very surprised when I suddenly pushed him against the wall.

“You, you…”

What. As I stared at Dante with narrowed eyes, Dante stuttered.

“How to make my heart drop… You know it all.”

“What kind of nonsense is this all of a sudden?”

“If you don’t know, this can’t be… No, how…”

Sparsely, barely speaking, his face was red all the way to his ears. He couldn’t see me completely and only glanced at me a few times, then eventually, his trembling eyes avoiding looking at me were something new.

It wouldn’t be easy not to change at all, as if it had changed so much.

I looked at the figure and moved closer to Dante.

“Wait a minute, you keep…”

“You haven’t answered me yet.”

“Huh?”

While making a stupid face.

“Did you hear what I asked?”

“…Sorry. I couldn’t hear it because I was distracted.”

“Yeah, how honest of you.”

I couldn’t help but laugh a little at the words that didn’t mix a single lie. Even though I smiled a little, I saw his face brighten.

“I, Dante.”

I had to say something. Even knowing how you would react.

“I asked how you decided to die.”

“…Huh?”

It took an instant for the blood to drain from Dante’s face.

The excitement disappeared, and you were looking at me with a pale face. As if doubting what he had heard, his purple eyes began to shake slightly.

Really, just as bewildered and surprised as I thought.

I was able to continue talking calmly without being agitated.

“I heard Kade asked if you were willing to keep loving me.”

“…Did you hear that?”

“I didn’t hear it myself, I heard about it.”

Of course, from Ivan. He happened to see Kade talking to Dante, and he watched the situation because he thought something was going to happen. Then he ran to me because he was surprised.

But it didn’t matter how I got to hear it. What matters now is what he thought when he heard that.

“After hearing that, I was curious about something.”

My voice was still calm.

“Have you ever regretted the past? To be precise, did you regret meeting me?”

“…”

“Did you even think of taking your life because it became so painful that you couldn’t bear it, things like that.”

Seeing him frozen with only me in his eyes, a smile came out inappropriately for the situation.

“What do you say. Can you answer me?”

“…”

However, unlike me who was smiling, Dante’s expression gradually distorted as if something in him was collapsing.

“…What he said.”

The voice that followed was also dangerous.

“Did it make you uneasy?”

“I’m not sure.”

In fact, I always felt uneasy. After hearing Kade’s words, it just came to the surface.

Does that matter now? I asked insignificantly, but it seemed important to Dante. If not, there’s no way he’d be more anxious about my ambiguous answer.

“I will never think of that again. Really.”

In the end, you, who said that, even looked like you were desperate and begged.

Seeing him waiting for an answer, it was as if he thought I wouldn’t believe him.

“I know.”

I didn’t doubt your feelings

“But the fact that you made that decision doesn’t go away.”

And if you regretted enough to even think about extremes, that regret won’t disappear as if you washed it just because you met me again.

“Are you not going to answer me?”

After saying that, I just looked at him, and Dante, who had made eye contact with me with a stunned look, eventually opened his mouth slowly.

As if hesitating to answer, really slowly.

“I…”

It sounded like your voice was trembling.

***

D12.

“I wanted to die not because I regretted the past…”

Rather, I missed you so much.

Dante wanted to say that. If he could just say one word, one word that he wouldn’t regret, that would have been enough.

Yet the moment he opened his mouth, his voice suddenly subsided. At the same time, the words that were about to come out stuck in the cracks in his throat and didn’t come out, and his tongue didn’t move as if it was frozen.

The one who was most bewildered by the sudden change was himself. Why are you doing this? If you can’t answer like this, isn’t it like you’re hesitating to answer?

He was just trying to answer as quickly as possible.

Fearing that the answer wouldn’t be enough, he even thought about the past times once again with the intention of explaining the matters of 10 years…

As soon as he thought about it, Dante realized why he had suddenly become frozen.

He wasn’t taken aback by her words, nor was he caught off guard. It wasn’t even because he wasn’t certain that he didn’t regret it. A much simpler reason than that.

Because he remembered the moment he lost Ei.

With that alone, Dante couldn’t even speak properly. Even though he just remembered it as if it was passing by, not going back to that very moment.

One who doesn’t answer without being able to be exact, and one who’s still waiting for an answer from the other person.

The moment she blinked her eyes staring at him.

“Sorry, I asked something stupid.”

“…”

As if he didn’t have to answer, there was a hand gently wrapped around his face. The body temperature felt from the place she touched was a bit low, yet it was warm, and kind enough to comfort him.

However instead of being comforted by that kindness, Dante felt more sorrow.

It was unavoidable. It was the warmth that he thought would never return, even in his dreams.

He was choked up by the warmth, and he couldn’t say anything again.

How did she interpret his silence? Ei was asking if he was surprised that she suddenly said this. As if she no longer wanted an answer, she put her hand around his eyes.

I, have to answer. He had to say that he had no regrets. If he kept his mouth shut like this, Ei would surely think that he couldn’t answer because he had regrets.

Dante felt uneasy about the pale brown eyes looking up at him.

And again.

“At least 10 years.”

Scary to sense her anxiety, the usual calm voice came.

“During those 10 years, you thought I was dead… If you didn’t even know I was alive.”

Saying that, she closed her eyes and smiled, yes. It felt like a fantasy.

“I think you could have regretted it.”

An illusion that would leave him at any moment.

Her words, as if she was trying to hide her own wounds, seemed to push him into the abyss.

Depending on what Ei said, Dante could go back and forth between heaven and hell at once. Ah, please. Whether or not she knew how he felt, she was still looking at him affectionately.

However, Dante had to see her calm eyes that passed by in an instant.

What is in those eyes? He couldn’t figure it out, yet Dante knew that he wasn’t to blame. She would rather blame herself, she herself for leaving him.

Ei doesn’t know. The fact that her blaming herself only made him sadder.

His whole world revolved around her, and she was unaware that what he resented wasn’t the fact that he loved her, but that he had lost her.

How could he resent loving her?

From the day she smiled at him, he couldn’t help but love her.

“No.”

At his hasty words, Ei’s hand, which was moving away, stopped.

“I have no regrets.”

I was suffocating in your absence, missing you every day, and despairing that you weren’t there, but I didn’t regret loving you.

He tried to say that, yet for some reason his eyes were blurred and he couldn’t say anything else. All I could barely say was one word.

It was just one word that contained all the emotions he had felt for a long time.

“I have never regretted it, not even for a second…”

Ei, who had been quietly listening to him, stretched out her hand to cover his head, and Dante ended up leaning against Ei’s arms as if he was collapsing.