Chapter 80
It was already a time when moonlight, not sunlight, was seeping in.
*Blink.* Eyelids that had been still like a person submerged in a riverbed slowly moved.
Lying in bed, Celesto watched as the room was dyed in cool light.
He had thought this before, but this lodging was excessively quiet.
The hard bed, the room smaller than average—they felt trivial compared to this suffocating silence.
Celesto slowly lifted what he held in his hand. A letter with content so verbose it didn’t suit the neat handwriting.
He lowered his hand again. The strength left his fingers, and the letter he had been holding fell to the floor.
Several letters were already piled there.
Like most monks, Celesto’s room was empty. Aside from his military gear and minimal possessions required as a Holy Knight, there was nothing superfluous.
That was why the letters scattered on the floor looked particularly like eyesores.
‘And they’re also the most horrible.’
He increased the personal training time he had once neglected.
He also carried out every sacred duty assigned to him without fail. As if that weren’t enough, he even thoroughly searched the ruins beneath the old chapel—somewhere tied to unpleasant memories.
But it was useless. Even the traces of Leocel he had finally managed to find brought him no comfort now.
“…Crazy bastard.”
Celesto ground the back of his hand against his eyes.
At some point, he had thought he’d grown somewhat numb to Leocel’s death. He had even gotten used to living with that damned curse of lust hanging over him.
But he hadn’t expected that even when faced with the truth of how his brother had died, he wouldn’t be able to focus on the clues.
On the contrary…
“Ha, damn it.”
He pressed hard against his eyes.
Closing them didn’t change anything. If anything, the last conversation he had shared with Roarna became even more vivid behind his eyelids.
…To be honest, I was expecting something.
Thinking of Roarna’s face, twisted in embarrassment, left him with a sense of unfairness.
In truth, even at the moment he put his feelings into words, Celesto hadn’t expected Roarna to lose her composure to that extent.
So the instant he saw her flustered, at a loss for what to do, goosebumps ran all over his body. Hope surged all the way to the top of his head.
In fact, anyone who knew Roarna would have had the same expectation upon seeing that expression.
Ah, so I’m not the only fool. Roarna is shaken because of me too.
…or so he thought.
But that wasn’t the case. What came back was only a firm rejection: that she had never considered anything beyond friendship.
“Haah……”
Celesto let out yet another sigh—he had already lost count of how many. His lament dissolved into the cooled air.
In any case, the attempts that had continued for several days—‘stop acting like an idiot’ or ‘clear your head by forcing your body to move’—all ended in failure.
It truly felt as though everything had burned to white ash.
And this was the result.
Like someone lying atop a grave, he remained completely still, carrying out only the bare minimum of his duties.
In the past, he might have at least recited a prayer in moments like this.
But if he had wanted to be saved that way, he should never have learned the pleasure of mingling the most vulnerable membranes through a kiss.
If that had been the case, he wouldn’t have realized that he wanted to touch Roarna regardless of the curse.
Even so, he would have still thought of Roarna every time he closed his eyes.
‘At least I would have had enough conscience left to look at a prayer book.’
Celesto let out a dry laugh.
Even before he realized that he desired Roarna, his time spent in prayer had already drastically decreased.
Perhaps it was because, instinctively, he already knew. That the only prayer he could offer now would be to be saved from his desire.
And that he could not offer that prayer—because he did not want to be saved from it.
The fact that he didn’t even regret it now… maybe he had been beyond saving from the very beginning.
That was right. Even now, as he lay stuck to the bed like a corpse, he felt no regret.
Not for realizing that he had fallen for Roarna, nor for ultimately voicing it aloud.
That didn’t mean he felt proud of it either. That was why he was in such a miserable state.
Celesto buried his face into the blanket.
As time passed, the silence pressed down on him more and more heavily. Buried in this darkness, within himself was helplessly accepting that something within him was withering away.
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