Chapter 93
VIII. Drunken Truth
I had a dream. A dream filled with memories of my brother.
In my childhood, I was interested in commoners’ lives. I was walking simple streets with brother in plain clothes. When I was about to bend down after dropping my handkerchief.
‘How could you try to pick up something fallen yourself. You’ll ruin your delicate hands.’
He was someone who rarely bent down. Brother who always wore gloves due to mysophobia. Yet that brother, without hesitation, bent down and picked up the fallen handkerchief with his bare hands.
Thinking back, brother was always like that. Though cold to others, he was always warm and gentle only to me.
Tears rolled down my cheeks. I didn’t know why tears came. Then someone wiped my eyes with firm fingertips.
“Bro…ther?”
As I mumbled with a crinkled nose, the hand wiping my tears hesitated. Soon after, I felt the warm touch withdrawing.
…Who was that?
Psyche forcefully lifted her heavy eyelids. Though long awake, she couldn’t get up due to her heavy body. She also didn’t want to open her eyes as her mood sank endlessly.
…Why did I dream of that, of all things?
She stared blankly at the ceiling expressionlessly. After spending meaningless time just breathing like that for a while, the door opened with a knock. Psyche slowly turned her head. Serdin was striding toward her.
“…Serdin?”
Perhaps concerned by her nearly dying voice, unlike his momentum that seemed about to pull her out of bed immediately, when Serdin actually stood before her, he just looked down at her quietly with a dark expression. Just as he seemed to resolve something and was about to part his lips.
“Bring her out, without unnecessary talk.”
An overbearing voice came from the doorway. Serdin sighed softly and led Psyche outside. She followed obediently as Serdin guided. Though her body was heavy as if both ankles were caught in a swamp, she could somehow manage to follow. The problem was her dazed head. While her body followed Serdin, her thoughts were far away. She still felt trapped in that dream.
She didn’t regain her senses even as she arrived at the reception room and was seated on the sofa by Rezus’s hand.
“…Psyche.”
She didn’t hear Rezus calling from beside her. Psyche just blinked, then became bewildered seeing the calendar that suddenly entered her view. The date was strange. She looked up at Rezus with a dazed face.
“Um… what date is it today?”
No answer came.
“I don’t remember anything after June 4th… the date seems strange…”
The calendar pointed to June 7th. If the calendar wasn’t wrong, it meant she had no memories for three days.
‘Was I sick?’
Though waiting for an answer, no one present gave one. As she blankly looked back and forth between Rezus and the calendar, Rezus, who had been silently staring at her, grabbed her chin to make her look forward.
“Just look ahead.”
Psyche obediently followed his words. With her body heavy and head dazed now, she had neither the strength nor will to refuse. Click, a large screen appeared in front. Psyche’s shoulders trembled slightly. In the middle of what appeared to be a dark basement space, Ruon sat tied to a chair with a resigned expression. Before him walked out a handsome man with striking deep blue hair and eyes. It was Zephyros.
「Hello. Have you been well?」
He glanced at Ruon while prettily creasing his eyes.
「I’ve been well, but it seems Ruon hasn’t been? But what to do, things seem like they’ll get harder from now. Well, I don’t mind. I rather enjoy torturing. Then, enjoy watching this video too.」
As soon as those words were heard, a terrible warning arose that next, they would see a video of Ruon’s limbs breaking repeated five times.
Psyche stared at the screen in shock. Over Zephyros’s smiling face approaching Ruon, the gentle image of brother from her dream overlapped.
‘Why suddenly such a scene…’
The thought couldn’t continue. Before she could stop them, tears fell heavily.
“Huh?”
Psyche blinked with a dazed expression. Then tears began pouring more frantically. Though she hastily wiped her face, it wasn’t enough to stop the tears gushing like they were broken. The sadness and betrayal that followed were also beyond her control.
She couldn’t understand herself crying now when she knew through the original work that her brother was a bad person. Was it an illusion thinking she had abandoned all affection and expectations for her brother.
Ah- that dream seems to have been the problem. Why did she have to dream such a thing…
Though trying to suppress the welling emotions, it wasn’t easy to stop what had already burst.
“After caring for me so much…”
She mumbled unknowingly while crying sadly.
“When I’m… here how could you, brother…”
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