Episode 25
…What the hell did that mean?
The statement was so incomprehensible that I couldn’t even laugh.
“Ah, that’s right.”
While I was frozen, he turned back towards the desk.
Then he tore a page from a random notebook and scrawled something on it.
“If you ever need to find me, contact me here.”
“There won’t be any…”
such need?
The unspoken words got stuck in my throat and then dispersed.
Kasha approached me again and placed the note on my palm.
The note had an address written on it.
“I think there will be.”
“…”
“You will need to see me again.”
“…”
Saying, he tapped the note on my hand.
Kasha, who had apparently decided to ignore you, yet still shows a meaningful response.
What could be the ‘need to meet again’ he spoke of?
Can you shed his doubts by avoiding his amazing sixth sense?
To be continued…
The system teasingly opened a new window.
Don’t tease me with a preview of a faraway sequel. Go away.
“Then, I’ll take my leave for today…”
Kasha, who had stopped mid-greeting, suddenly turned his head sharply.
What is it?
“Is there something on the window?”
This was the second floor. There was something here.
If there was, it must be a ghost. I’d heard many ghost stories like that.
“…”
He couldn’t take his eyes off the window.
As if he had discovered something interesting beyond it.
Curious, I glanced towards the window and then met Kasha’s eyes. He slowly lifted the corners of his mouth.
“I look forward to seeing you again.”
* * *
“Phew, that was exhausting.”
I sighed, massaging my stiff shoulders that had tensed up from the stress.
The investigation of a high-risk location and the conversation with an even more dangerous villain had drained me.
‘Come to think of it, I got quite a few clues while talking to Kasha. Why didn’t the newly acquired testimony collection system activate?’
With a curious mind, I pressed the buttons on the system window here and there.
The testimony collection system is designed to collect testimonies instead of evidence in the charging station to earn cash.
It doesn’t work on clues you’ve already obtained.
The system window displayed an explanation as if telling me not to be bothersome.
Although it was regrettable that I couldn’t get any cash this time, the system itself seemed quite useful. Instead of investigating dangerous places like just now, I could obtain cash by collecting testimonies.
I should make good use of it later.
Closing the system window, I slowly walked towards the garden.
‘I wonder if Damon went on his way safely.’
Because of Kasha’s words that seemed to hold a lot of meanings from a moment ago, a part of my heart felt heavy, as if a stone had been placed on it.
I remembered the gentle eyes that looked up at me while sitting on the bench.
‘Perhaps there’s someone out there that no one wants.’
Kasha’s low whisper replayed several times in my head.
It was probably about Damon, wasn’t it?
He was probably testing me to see if I had taken him.
A child shunned and abandoned by everyone.
It was a fairly common background for a rofan male lead.
You could tell he had a painful past just by looking at him.
However, there was a big difference between reading about such a setting in text and seeing it in someone next to me.
I couldn’t just pass it off indifferently, thinking, ‘Oh, that kind of setting?’
I hoped Damon would quickly return to his rightful place and be happy…
With a complicated mind, I entered the garden.
‘…’
The garden was filled with silence.
From time to time, only the gentle sound of waves could be heard.
There’s no one here…?
Damon was nowhere to be seen in the entire landscape that met my eyes. There wasn’t even a hint of his presence.
Really?
Did he really go this time?
‘…Did you run away?’
Go off to find a new life in your original place somewhere far away in my absence?
I quickly looked around every corner of the garden.
But the garden was so small and simple that there was no place to hide.
He was not here.
He was really gone.
‘He managed to escape well! Even taking his escape backpack diligently.’
As soon as I confirmed this fact, tears welled up in my ears and I raised my head to prevent them from falling.
Complex emotions melted away like snow in an instant, leaving me feeling refreshed as if nothing had happened.
I’d just gotten distraught by meeting with that villain out of nowhere…
‘Yes! If something bad happens, something good should happen too!’
Wiping away the tears of emotion, I walked towards the back gate connected to the garden.
Now that I’d finished my investigation, all I had to do was get back to the office.
To my own home where a new life would begin for me as well.
It was when I was about to leave the mansion with light steps—
“…Why aren’t you looking for me?”
Thud.
As soon as I heard the familiar voice, I stopped in my tracks.
I was so startled that my heart seemed to drop to the floor.
To respond calmly, I closed my eyes for a moment and took a deep breath.
“Are you going back by yourself?”
Sigh… This was bad.
I held back the sigh that was about to burst out and slowly turned around.
Naturally, Damon was standing there.
He was staring into my face with a backpack in one of his hands.
His usual expressionless face gave off a somewhat sinister aura.
What do I do now…
“Um, no, I was looking for you.”
“Oh, really?”
He slowly turned his head to look at the garden of the Relint Mansion.
The eyes that looked at me were darkly sunken.
“Where did you think I would be?”
That question shut me up in one go.
I needed to stay calm.
If I responded wrongly and he thought I was trying to abandon him, I’d really get on the bad ending route. I could survive if I kept my wits about me even if I fell into the obsessive male lead pit.
I tried to maintain my composure and opened my mouth as if it were no big deal.
“I didn’t see you, so I thought you’d left first. We almost missed each other.”
Of course, this excuse didn’t ease the tense atmosphere.
He just stared at me blankly without any change in his expression.
To break the tension, I needed to be a bit more brazen.
I needed to re-equip my obsessed fanatic persona.
“And where have you been? Gone saying a word like this.”
Now that it’d come to this, I had to play offense.
I crossed my arms crookedly and furrowed my brows as if dissatisfied.
“I told you to rest, didn’t I? I didn’t tell you to leave your seat.”
“……”
I could see his neat eyebrows furrow.
It seemed he didn’t have much to say about that either.
“But Director, you were the one who approached that man firs—”
Damon paused while saying something and then closed his mouth.
“…No, I just went for a walk.”
Sure, as if. He just said ‘that man’.
What was he up to while I was gone?
“If so, you must have gone quite far.”
I went on saying that it was his fault without giving him a chance to argue.
A slight crack appeared on his otherwise unruffled face.
He probably didn’t expect to be counterattacked like this.
“You left me first.”
Damon said, narrowing his eyes as if to protest.
“Yes, because there was someone there you shouldn’t have met.”
“……”
I thought he would ask who I was talking about, but he didn’t say anything.
He just rolled his eyes and looked somewhere in the Relint Mansion again.
In any case, I managed to regain the upper hand.
Since prolonging this tug-of-war would be troublesome for both of us, I decided to wrap it up quickly.
“I’m glad there’s no problem. Just be careful next time so I don’t have to worry.”
“Worry…”
He lowered his eyes in thought.
“Yes, I will be careful.”
Then, in a slightly lower tone, he quietly murmured.
“So that you don’t lose me.”
…Why was he speaking so ominously?
His face was the same as usual, dull, expressionless.
But the unease that had sprouted once was hard to shake off.
Until now, Damon had maintained a male lead’s characteristic pattern of indifference.
Seeing him like that, I felt reassured.
Because I believed that as long as he had no attachment to this life, I could send him back anytime.
But the Damon now…
‘There might be something wrong with the plan?’
even if you pretend otherwise, my girl, you can’t help the fact that he’s already a part of your family
