* * *
“Tsk.”
“……”
“Stop thinking about useless things and eat.”
Just as he was sinking into his thoughts again, Alice suddenly placed a dish in front of him with an almost dismissive motion.
It was a bowl of warm tomato soup.
He hadn’t said he was hungry.
He hadn’t asked for it.
But somehow, she had known.
Reality, which had been slipping away, suddenly came back into focus.
“…Thank you.”
Kaindel offered a faint smile.
It wasn’t hard to understand why Alice was looking after him like this.
From the very first day he met Isa, he had been acting strangely, and it must have bothered her.
Or maybe she just didn’t like how broken he seemed—how something inside him had come loose.
Then again, hadn’t she disliked him from the start?
Kaindel clearly remembered how Alice had frowned the moment she saw him that first day.
She had never been good at hiding her emotions, and what he had seen on her face back then was unmistakable hostility.
Of course, it was only natural.
If she knew what he had done to Isa, how could she not be hostile toward him?
He would have been the same, if the roles were reversed.
“What happened to put that look on your face?”
Alice watched as Kaindel slowly picked up his spoon, then sat down across from him.
Her expression was a mix of curiosity and concern.
She was deliberately keeping her tone light—she must have realized that pushing too hard could make things worse.
At her question, Kaindel hesitated.
He stirred his soup absentmindedly before setting his spoon down.
He had no appetite.
He had considered taking a few sips out of gratitude, but his stomach felt too unsettled to accept anything.
Even the water tasted bitter.
How could he possibly swallow the soup?
Letting out a deep sigh, he finally spoke.
“…I just.”
“……”
“I just feel like I don’t deserve anything.”
“Oh, please.”
“I’ve been begging for forgiveness all this time. I thought if I could do better, maybe he would give me another chance. But now, I don’t know anymore.”
While Isa was gone, he had thought about why he had left.
He had tried to understand his mistakes.
He had regretted them.
Hundreds, thousands of times, he had wished he could turn back time.
He had despised his own stupidity at every moment, and now, he suffered from sleepless nights, knowing that he and Isa would never go back to how they once were.
But one thing had remained certain—if he ever did get a second chance, he was determined to do better than before.
But not anymore.
“Maybe… maybe I never even deserved to ask for forgiveness in the first place.”
“……”
“Maybe I never deserved a chance.”
Their relationship had been doomed from the start.
He didn’t even know when exactly things had gone wrong.
Perhaps from the moment Isa had first come to him as “the fairy.”
Had this all been some twisted game played by the Seriel Lake?
But no—Isa wouldn’t have fallen into the lake in the first place if not for him.
If Isa hadn’t followed him on his quest to slay the great disaster, he wouldn’t have drowned in that cursed lake.
In the end, everything—the way Isa reminded him of the “fairy,” the way he knowingly took advantage of Isa’s feelings, the way he forced him to follow, the way he saw him as someone replaceable—
It had all been Kaindel’s doing.
No seed, no matter how pure, could grow in poisoned soil.
Their relationship had been tainted from the start.
Even if love had bloomed somewhere along the way, it could never have been something good.
This ending had been inevitable.
They had been riding in a carriage destined to fall off a cliff.
And yet, what had he expected?
What was he hoping to change?
What forgiveness had he thought he could earn?
This was the price of his arrogance.
Kaindel’s eyes, which had been clouded with the past, suddenly regained their focus.
His mind, which had been drifting, returned to the present.
“…Am I making things uncomfortable by staying here? If so—”
“Enough.”
Alice, who had been quietly listening to Kaindel’s story, eventually got up from his seat with an irritated sigh.
He had plenty to say, but he chose not to voice it.
There was no point—Kaindel wouldn’t understand anyway.
“Just stay here forever, then.”
Alice furrowed his brows deeply.
Ever since the great calamity had been defeated, the number of guests visiting the inn had dwindled.
These days, if the restaurant received more than ten customers a day, it was considered lucky.
The number was nothing compared to before.
Adding one more idler who did nothing but stare outside all day wouldn’t change much.
Besides, after hearing that kind of story, there was no way he could just throw him out.
“You pathetic coward of a hero.”
Kaindel let out a dry chuckle as he watched Alice’s retreating figure.
Alice’s face was twisted in irritation, clearly displeased with him.
And honestly, Kaindel could understand why—maybe to Alice, he really did seem pathetic.
He was foolish and was a coward.
That’s why, instead of going to see Isa, he was hiding in places where he could still find traces of him.
If he had courage, he wouldn’t just sit here waiting for things to change—he would do something.
He would try talking to Isa, seek advice from his comrades.
But Kaindel remained stuck in place.
Just like winter eventually gives way to spring, and then summer arrives… this, too, would pass one day.
And when it did, where would he be?
“This is good,” he murmured.
Probably still right here.
Three days later, the distance between Isa and Kaindel began to shift in an unfamiliar way.
“Kaindel.”
“…….”
Kaindel looked down at Isa, who was crouched in front of his room.
It was already freezing—what was he doing out here?
Snow was falling, yet instead of staying warm by the fire with the others, he had chosen to sit outside Kaindel’s door, his cheeks flushed red from the cold.
Kaindel’s gaze wavered as he looked at him.
A crooked smile tugged at his lips, but his eyes were filled with sorrow.
Hope, when foolishly grasped at, had a way of turning into learned despair.
‘Isa, what are you doing here?’
He wanted to ask.
He wanted to take Isa’s frozen hands and warm them in his own.
He wanted to brush the snow from his hair.
He wanted to pull him inside and let him thaw by the fire.
But they weren’t in that kind of relationship anymore.
They were no longer lovers.
No longer friends.
No longer comrades.
Kaindel had become the worst part of Isa’s past.
And he was painfully aware of it.
“Can we talk for a bit?”
“Talk.”
“Yeah, talk.”
Isa spoke first when the silence stretched too long, his determination unwavering.
It was clear he wasn’t going to step back this time.
If Kaindel refused to move, then Isa would take the first step forward.
Kaindel simply looked at him.
“Isa, I—”
“Should we go inside and talk?”
“……I—”
“I’m just cold, Kaindel.”
The words caught in his throat.
He had intended to send Isa away.
He hadn’t figured out what to say yet—he didn’t even know what he could say.
There was a time when he had certainty in every action he took, but now?
Not even the slightest trace of it remained.
He wanted to delay the conversation for another time.
Maybe that was just another form of cowardice.
But had Isa seen right through him?
Before Kaindel could retreat, Isa reached out and grasped his hand, offering him a faint smile—one meant to reassure.
When Kaindel hesitated, Isa knocked on the door.
Once, then twice, then three times when there was no response.
Eventually, Kaindel lowered his head, his gaze settling on Isa’s flushed face.
“…Alright, let’s go inside.”
“Thanks.”
“Do you need dry clothes?”
“I’m fine. Owen gave me these—didn’t get wet at all.”
“Owen has tricks like that up his sleeve?”
“Apparently. Cool, right?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
Their conversation drifted toward trivial things.
They both knew it was just a distraction—empty words to avoid the silence they feared.
And finally, the door opened.
* * *
