I Abandoned the Male Lead Who Cheated with the Villainess - Chapter 182

Yet, his throat tightened with anticipation. Sweat gathered in his palms as they touched the floor. The girl’s small lips began to move.

‘Say my name.’

His body grew hotter. His breath became shallow, and his exhales were hot.

‘Say it in your sweet voice, now.’

Aiden’s longing reached its peak, and then, the girl spoke.

“Who… are you?”

“Ha-ha.”

Aiden chuckled dryly.

“Don’t joke with me.”

He staggered. It was after the girl had suddenly lifted her upper body from where she was sitting. Aiden fell on his rear in surprise at the moving girl. Her green eyes gently fixed on him as she watched.

“Who are you, Brother?”

However, the words coming from her small, delicate mouth were anything but gentle.

‘Who am I…?’

Aiden froze with the same smile on his face. The girl, staring at Aiden without receiving an answer, muttered as if puzzled.

“Where did Mom and Dad go?”

The pink hair of the girl fluttered as she turned her head swiftly. It looked no different from what he had seen in spring. Still, she didn’t recognize him.

“Wow, my hair turned pink!”

She even grabbed a handful of her hair and marveled at it. What could this mean?

“Stop joking around!”

Aiden shouted. The girl got surprised, gasped and looked at him, but he was oblivious to her presence.

Aiden, who had jumped up from his seat, was shaking uncontrollably. Like a trembling aspen in the winter wind. His previously rapturous expression had turned pale.

It was the same terror he felt when facing Herix with a sword five years ago.

That girl, who was delighted by her hair, wasn’t Novnie.

‘Novnie… disappeared?’

Could there be a more terrifying story? To get more of Novnie, he had put the soul of a god into a human child’s body. But the god’s soul, which should have awakened, was nowhere to be found, and only the body’s original owner stood before him.

Aiden truly felt like fainting.

‘This… this wasn’t what I expected…!’

What has gone wrong? Why had things turned out this way? Aiden couldn’t understand. No, the truth was, he didn’t know—was it that he couldn’t understand, or that he didn’t want to?

— Aiden, my words—

— Let’s meet again.

What were Novnie’s last words, which Aiden had cut off? What had she wanted to say to him? Did the story he dismissed hold the answer to this chaotic situation?

‘Did Novnie… expect this?’

Now, no matter how much he thought about it, the question seemed futile. Aiden sank down again.

It was empty.

Even if he couldn’t touch her, if Novnie awakened, he had planned to find the answer together. He believed that Novnie would certainly know something. No, even if there was no answer, he would have been okay with that.

‘As long as she calls me back…’

If only he knew Novnie was there… Aiden’s wish had become simple, as humble as just being called by name, now that he had given up on reaching her. Yet, the world wouldn’t even allow him that.

‘I became a god.’

But that doesn’t matter.

‘I became a god because I wanted to be on equal footing with Novnie.’

But there’s no one to be equal to anymore.

No longer.

Nothing.

“……”

He buried his face in his palms. Then, something bubbling and boiling from deep within his heart surged up.

The vast, unfathomable abyss, something Aiden had never seen before, was startling to him. In the darkness he created by covering his face with his hands, Aiden felt like he was about to be consumed by that abyss.

At that moment.

“Brother, are you crying?”

A small voice, like a ray of light piercing through the darkness, reached him. It sounded as if a bead was rolling or a precious bell was ringing—clear and bright.

“Ah…”

Tears fell from the gaps between his hands that covered his face. His fingers were damp, and his face, smeared on his wet palms, seemed like it would feel less soaked if it were in water.

“I’m crying.”

Only after hearing the girl’s words did Aiden realize he was crying. Slowly, he lowered his hands. His face, soaked with tears and still holding the sorrow pooled in his palms, looked a mess.

“Why are you crying so much?”

The girl, who had somehow come closer to Aiden, placed her small hand on his thigh and asked. There was no trace of malice on her innocent face as she looked up at him. She was just pure. It had been a long time.

‘Someone… who doesn’t hate me.’

Ever since Herix was born, the way people looked at him had changed.

Arnold became almost impossible to find, the last image of the Empress was one of worry for Arnold, and his birth mother, the Queen, had never shown her face while holding him close. Only her trembling shoulders revealed that she was scared.

The basement, with no light to speak of, rarely allowed him to see his sibling’s face. The faces of the once jovial servants had lost all expression. Whenever they looked at Aiden, they were always terrified. Specifically, when they looked at his green eyes, which resembled Arnold’s.

That was how the boy lived. So, seeing a human face without hostility toward him was nearly the first in 15 years.

“Do you not remember Brother too?”

“…What?”

“I’m here, but you don’t remember.”