Why did I have to transmigrate as the Villain’s younger brother? chapter 110

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The duchess gave a bitter smile as she watched her son struggle to find words.

“Raizen, shall we go inside now?”

At her suggestion, he simply nodded.

∗   ∗   ∗

Dim lighting flickered along the darkened hallway.

As Raizen walked, he suddenly stopped in his tracks.

He turned around, a soft scoff escaping as he covered his lips.

Without thinking, he had walked straight to Sean’s door instead of his own.

‘Do I still have that habit?’

For nearly four years, every time he returned to the duchy, he had gone to Sean’s room first.

That had to be the reason.

There was no other explanation for his unconscious actions.

He stood still, staring at the closed door, then took a step closer.

“……”

Beyond the door, there was nothing but silence.

So quiet, he couldn’t even tell if Sean was inside.

‘He’s not… there?’

A sudden, sinking feeling overtook him.

His heartbeat pounded in his ears, his chest tightening with unease.

Before he realized it, his hand had gripped the doorknob.

The cold metal against his skin brought him back to his senses.

‘What the hell am I doing?’

Barging into someone’s room in the middle of the night was inappropriate.

He knew that.

And yet, he couldn’t let go of the doorknob.

His body wasn’t listening to him.

This wasn’t the first time.

Pheromones.

It had started the moment his secondary gender manifested—back when he didn’t yet understand how to control or conceal them.

Every time he went to see Sean, it was as if his body had been waiting for the moment to pounce.

In the end, he had smothered Sean in his scent.

It had been no different from marking him.

The memory of those uncontrollable urges was still clear.

Yet seeing Sean covered in his pheromones had brought him a sense of satisfaction unlike anything else.

He knew such things were usually done with lovers.

He knew that.

But he had never thought of his feelings for Sean as ‘love.’

Love was supposed to make your heart race just by seeing the person.

It was supposed to be bright, warm, and dazzling.

But what he felt for Sean was nothing like that.

With Sean, he felt safe.

At ease.

But at the same time, he felt restless.

Because he never knew when someone might take Sean away from him.

‘…It’s fine if I just check whether he’s inside, right?’

It was undeniably his own thought, yet it felt as though someone had whispered it directly into his ear.

Ever since Sean had fallen into that inexplicable deep slumber, the impulse to seek out Raizen had become far more frequent.

It felt as if, unless he acted immediately, Sean would be stolen away from him forever.

‘Does it really matter if it’s rude? Haven’t you already held back so much today? Shouldn’t you be rewarded for that?’

That was true.

No—at this moment, it felt like an undeniable truth.

So opening this door, stepping inside, and confirming that Sean was there shouldn’t be a problem.

Raizen couldn’t see himself, so he was unaware of the dark energy flickering within his crimson eyes.

“……”

And yet, why?

His hand was gripping the doorknob, but he couldn’t move.

He couldn’t let go, yet he also couldn’t turn it to enter.

Staring down at the doorknob, Raizen clenched his jaw tightly.

The moment he barely managed to suppress the impulse, he realized why he had been unable to do anything just now.

It wasn’t just the impulse—there was another, deeper instinct at play.

A gut feeling warning him that if he forced his way in, something would go terribly wrong.

That impulse could be directed at anyone, but at the very least, it couldn’t be toward his parents or Sean.

Even if, for now, it didn’t seem like such a serious matter.

If he crossed the line once, it would only escalate.

Eventually, that impulse would consume him completely, swallowing everything in its wake.

“……!”

At that moment, an illusion-like image flashed before his eyes and then disappeared.

Sean, collapsed before him, drenched in blood.

It wasn’t visible in the image, but Raizen instinctively knew.

The one who had stabbed Sean, the one who had killed him—was himself.

‘No. That would never happen.’

He strongly denied it, but the lingering déjà vu left him unsettled.

As if, at some point in time, he really had killed Sean.

Even though that couldn’t be possible…

‘Could it really not?’

A long-forgotten nightmare resurfaced—one that used to visit him without fail every year on his birthday.

A dream in which he killed and killed again, over and over, without even knowing who the victims were.

Could it be…

‘I should leave.’

Raizen decisively cut off his thoughts.

Turning around slowly, he treaded lightly as he walked away.

As he moved, he undid a few buttons on his tightly fastened shirt and exhaled a long breath.

‘The curse… has changed.’

For the past four years, the impulse had always been there, but now, for the first time, he was certain.
It had changed because Sean had finally returned to him completely.

In the past, the curse had a distinct form, carried clear malice, and caused strange phenomena around him.

It was true that its power had weakened.

And so—it had instead chosen to burrow into his heart, provoking him from within.

The problem was that this method was far too effective on him.

A sudden, unbearable thirst overtook Raizen.

“……”

How much longer would he be able to resist this impulse?

∗   ∗   ∗

After a long shower, Raizen returned to his room.

He had been gone for quite some time, but the space remained spotless, not a speck of dust in sight.

Scanning the room briefly, he perched on the edge of his bed.

Pushing back his completely dry hair, he gazed up at the ceiling.

“……”

His slightly parted lips pressed into a firm line.

What had he almost done in front of Sean’s door just now?

Now that the impulse had fully subsided, a wave of deep emptiness and shame washed over him.

‘I must be out of my mind.’

At least his head was clear now.

Pushing aside unnecessary emotions, Raizen methodically sorted through his thoughts.

The faces of the nobles he had encountered today and the conversations he had shared with them quickly flashed through his mind.

He categorized them based on their potential usefulness.

Since he had already decided their value the moment he met them, it didn’t take long to review.

His thoughts eventually settled on one person.

‘That’s right. I came from another world.’

Sharp and perceptive, Sean had instantly grasped the meaning of the hints Raizen had deliberately dropped.

But that wasn’t all—he hadn’t even bothered with pointless excuses.

He simply acknowledged it.

“Just as you suspected, that guy is like me.

But he and I have different goals.

I can say with certainty—I will never stand on the same side as him.

If you’re uneasy, we can make a ‘Wizard’s Oath.’”

The way he had stated it so clearly, without hesitation, had been so endearing.

That unwavering stance, as if promising not to cause him any turmoil, had made Raizen’s chest tighten.

“Don’t worry. I have nowhere to return to.”

“The original me… is already dead.”

The moment that memory resurfaced, a strained sound escaped Raizen’s lips.

He covered his mouth with one hand, stifling the laughter that finally spilled out.

“…Hah.”

‘I’m so happy.’

‘Sean. You have nowhere to return to. The world you must now live in is here, where I am.’

At the very least, there is no other world—one I can’t reach—where you might disappear to.

That dream.

The bizarre dream that had tormented Raizen for so long, right up until the day before Sean woke up.

In it, Sean, dressed in unfamiliar clothing, leaned on someone whose face he could never see, entrusting them with everything.

It had driven him mad. If he could, he would have reduced that unknown figure to dust.

‘But now, the Sean beside me is sound asleep.’

And yet, why—why had that stranger received Sean’s gaze, the one I’ve never been given?

Why had they been granted his full devotion?

That was why he had been so sensitive to Karon Luavis’s sudden approach.

He feared that man would try to steal Sean away.

But that wasn’t it.

Raizen lowered the hand that had been cupping his chin, his gaze dropping to his front.

The sight of his bathrobe tenting over his arousal made him scoff.

His mother had only ever worried about his obsession with Sean.

She never even considered the possibility that her son might desire him.

The moment his pheromones had mindlessly devoured Sean’s unconscious body, Raizen’s body had begun reacting to him.

The mere scent of Sean’s faint peppermint pheromones made his mouth water, sent shivers down his spine.

‘Yeah. How could something this filthy be love?’

With that thought, Raizen parted his bathrobe.

He stared at his still-unabated arousal before reaching out.

The moment his fingers wrapped around the thick, feverish length, his eyes fluttered shut.

‘Sean.’

Just murmuring his name in his mind was enough to conjure his image.

Those gemlike blue eyes—so impossibly clear, more so than anything else in this world.

Sean was skilled at deception, but he could never fully mask his gaze.

That was why—whenever Raizen looked into his eyes, he saw emotions he had never once experienced himself.

His small yet perfectly shaped nose was slightly rounded at the tip, making him even more endearing when he smiled.

In his imagination, Raizen playfully nibbled at that soft nose, then moved down to those lips.

Small yet plump, his lower lip would yield beneath his teeth.

If he bit it gently, Sean would surely startle and squirm.

Just thinking about it, he quickened his hands.

“…Hah.”

In his imagination, Raizen pressed his teeth against that lower lip, then parted them, sliding his tongue past and sealing their mouths together.

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