Chapter 245
Even the deepest, unfathomable ocean has a bottom. No matter how vast the hatred, if you keep drawing from it, someday it will run dry.
This man—this wretched human—was confident he could endure. He would bear all the hatred Jaha poured out until she hit rock bottom.
“Ha… haha.”
Jaha couldn’t tell if the sound escaping her was a stunned sigh or a disbelieving laugh. She just felt like she might burst—like a timed bomb inside her was about to go boom.
She wanted to lash out, but she couldn’t. Because that was exactly what this man wanted.
Even my anger brings him joy.
If she didn’t want to play into his hands, if she didn’t want to hate him, she’d have to kill herself again—just like before. Lose all will, become little more than a doll, barely breathing. But she had become human again. He had turned back time, fixed what had been irreparably broken, and restored her to humanity—all for the sake of his own forgiveness.
He rewound time on a whim, erased everything, and now begged for forgiveness?
Who gave him the right?
“Even selfishness has its limits…”
He watched silently as Jaha slumped to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut, muttering to herself. The reproach didn’t even sting—it barely registered.
Was there anyone in this world who wasn’t selfish?
Every act of tenderness he scraped together—gentleness that didn’t suit him, treating her kindly unlike before, leaving her unrestrained and free, choosing to place himself beneath her rather than above, preferring his own suffering over hers—all of it was selfishness.
Because her smiling, vibrant, happy self was more pleasing to his eyes than her withered husk. Because seeing her hurt pained him more than hurting himself.
He had always weighed profit and loss by his own standards, making choices that either minimized his suffering or maximized his gain. Not once had he ever acted selflessly.
The only difference was that people had agreed to prettily package this extreme, self-serving mindset—this willingness to do anything, even die, for someone if it brought him satisfaction—and call it love.
“Get up, Jaha. The floor is cold… Let’s sit on the chair and talk.”
He loved this woman helplessly, hopelessly.
Jaha shuddered. His unshakable blue eyes belonged to a fanatic, utterly devoted to his own absolute logic.
She didn’t want to obey him, but sitting on the floor would only hurt herself, so she braced against the wall and returned to her seat. Refusing to look at the man who had settled across from her as if it were natural, she lowered her gaze instead.
Half-eaten dessert. An empty teacup. A fork smeared with cream. A small dish of syrup.
As if entranced, Jaha picked up the fork. The cold bite of metal seeped into her fingers where she gripped it.
She raised it as if to eat—then, without hesitation, turned it toward her own throat.
But just before the tines touched skin, an overwhelming force stopped her.
The unfair disparity in their physical abilities was staggering. Even though she had moved first, his reflexes caught her. Even as she gritted her teeth and strained with both hands, he effortlessly restrained her with just one.
A crushing sense of defeat was just beginning to crawl through her when his face—twisted into something terrifying—filled her vision.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
A voice thick with rage. Eyes burning with fury.
As if her attempt alone was unforgivable.
Jaha laughed in disbelief.
“Who do you think you are?”
It had been impulsive. She wasn’t sure if she’d truly been ready to die. But for him to be angry? The sheer audacity—
“Not a single gram of me belongs to you. What right do you have? Do you still think I’m your slave? You have no authority to stop me from doing whatever I want with my own—”
“Then tell me!” he roared, his composure shattering for the first time. “What do I have to do? What more do I have to do for you to drop that fork? Huh? Say it! I’ll do anything you ask!”
His rationality had vanished. The man who had never once raised his voice, who had always maintained his dignity, was unraveling before her.
“Don’t—don’t bleed out and die in front of me again. Not once, not twice—how many times do I have to see it? How much more do I have to suffer before you’re satisfied? I’ve seen it even in my dreams—watching you die in every possible way, over and over! Every time, it felt like all the blood in my body drained out through my feet. Like my heart was being torn apart—I couldn’t even breathe!”
Jaha was stunned by the ferocity of his reaction.
He looked unstable, as if plunged into a panic—his gaze utterly unhinged. His terrifyingly dilated pupils swirled with an abyssal darkness, unfathomable and endless.
‘I pulled the trigger.’
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