EP: 85
“Muriel.”
Muriel was fidgeting at the door when she heard Kaiton’s voice. She was torn between whether she should stay put or run away while grabbing the doorknob. Kaiton’s wounds were severe, so she couldn’t bear the thought of leaving his side at all before, but as the time for him to wake up approached, she began to have other thoughts.
What face should she look at Kaiton with?
If he asked who the person with her was, who should she say?
How should she describe this place that was so different from the kingdom of Bulrion?
So when she was thinking of just running away, she heard Kaiton’s voice, which was low as if he’d just woken up.
“Come here, Mure. I won’t be mad.”
Kaiton sighed as he looked at the frozen Muriel, like a scared cat. His eyes were fixed on the clean skin of her back. The cursed mark that should have been on her left shoulder was nowhere to be seen.
Seeing that the mark he had left had disappeared, Kaiton became nervous. He did so even though he knew that all the fantasies created by Dream Butterfly were only illusions. The anxiety of Muriel disappearing into this unfamiliar world tormented him. He wanted to stride up to her and firmly grasp her hand so she wouldn’t, but then he couldn’t do that because he worried that no matter how hard he tried, Muriel might eventually slip away.
So Kaiton called her in a soft voice, pretending to be friendly, and waited for Muriel to come to him on her own. He anxiously observed her reaction, and did not realize he had called her by using their old nickname, ‘Mure.’
“Are you in pain?”
“No.”
“That’s… Why did you follow so recklessly? You can’t even use magic here… Did you think you were still a genius wizard here too?”
Muriel spoke with a flat voice, but her eyes were filled with concern as she looked at Kaiton. Kaiton’s throat felt dry, and his lips were parched. Muriel didn’t come any closer, staying at a distance where Kaiton couldn’t reach even if he stretched out his hand. Kaiton made another gentle gesture, holding back his desire to urge her to stop fretting and hurry up and come here.
“I followed you because you ran away. Come on, let’s get out of here. There’s nothing good about staying here for a long time.”
“Why? I think my pacio is fine…?”
Muriel instinctively brought her hand near her chest, where a fragment of Ur was kept. But once again, she did not come any closer to Kaitpn. Kaiton’s anxiety reached its peak. Even though he knew he had to tread gently, his expression involuntarily turned stern.
“The Dream Butterfly is a monster, you see. It steals life energy.”
“Ah… Then we need to leave quickly. How do we get out?”
“We just have to kill the Dream Butterfly. Who was your opponent?”
“…What?”
“The person the Dream Butterfly imitated. Who was it?”
Kaiton couldn’t hide his coldness as he saw Muriel’s expression rapidly hardening as he read her face. Naturall, his eyes fixed on Muriel sharpened.
Kaiton felt an unbearable impatience at the thought that Muriel’s opponent, created by the Dream Butterfly, might not be him.
“The dress you’re wearing… it’s a wedding dress, right? So, is your opponent your groom?”
Kaiton stared at Muriel, who remained silent, and slowly reached out his hand.
Go ahead and grab my hand, Muriel.
Say that the person standing next to you was me.
I’m the one you secretly love. That’s why I was always at the end of your gaze.
“Let’s go. We’ll kill your groom and escape from here.”
“Ah… That’s… strange?! I, uh, that guy earlier… I killed him? The… ah… that thing earlier, it’s called a car… He… he got into an accident and died. So, can’t we… can’t we leave soon? I, I think we just have.. To wait, a bit? A bit, right?”
Kaiton spoke sternly, retracting his hand that hadn’t been reached by Muriel again. In an effort to conceal his restlessness, his voice came out a little colder than he intended.
“If you can’t kill him, you can leave it to me. The reason people can’t escape from the Dream Butterfly’s grasp is because they can’t kill the person they love. They’re also trapped by the pleasure the Dream Butterfly provides.”
“What love!”
“Then is it lust?”
“Kaiton!”
Kaiton slowly pulled Muriel towards him as she smiled relaxedly at her scream. The movement, from rising from the bed to gripping Muriel’s hand, was very slow but at the same time concise and without any unnecessary movements. It was a cautious move, like an experienced fisherman carefully pushing the net to prevent the fish from escaping.
“Why do you need a fake when I’m here?”
“…!”
Muriel panicked and tried to step back, but she couldn’t. The grip on her hand by Kaiton had a subtle strength that prevented her from pulling out.
“What are you saying?”
“That thing in the closet… It’s me, right?”
Kaiton pointed precisely at the closet where the fake was confined. There was no sign of him looking closely at the closet, so she couldn’t even guess when on earth he’d noticed.
“T-There, who’s there, I don’t know..?”
However, just then, without giving her time to finish her words, a thud came from inside the closet. It seemed like the fake was struggling to come out. Muriel couldn’t bear to lift her head and touched her forehead to avoid Kaiton’s gaze.
“Then who are you hiding away from my eyes there?”
“That’s…”
“Yes, Mure. Tell me.”
Muriel wondered if the Kaiton in front of her was also a fake created by the Dream Butterfly. Just as the fake had tried to seduce Muriel, Kaiton lowered his voice and whispered as if provoking her, stimulating her hearing. Even the way he spoke was much softer and more affectionate than usual. He even gently stroked Muriel’s elbow with a soothing touch as if to reassure her.
But to Muriel, such a Kaiton looked like a carnivorous plant trying to lure a bee with its sweet smell. He was smiling in such a friendly way, but in his calm, subdued eyes was a fierceness he couldn’t erase. If Muriel landed on top of him unknowingly, he seemed like he would open his mouth and devour her in one bite.
Muriel wondered when that would be. Would it be when the dream butterfly hidden in the wardrobe takes on his appearance? Or when it acts like someone else?
“Did you dream of marrying me? Is that so, Mure?”
“It’s not like that… The dream butterfly just showed…”
She wanted to say that it was just showing it on its own, but her words got swallowed as Kaiton’s hand swept her messy hair behind her back. Even after tidying up her unruly hair, his hand didn’t fall off. Slowly, as if tracing the shape of her ear, he gently swept it down along her blood vessels.
His hand moved as if trying to sweep the feather-like hair, and then he pressed it firmly as if trying to find the position of the bone, causing a slight pain.
“…So… the dream… butterfly… showed as it pleases…”
“As it pleases?”
Muriel opened her mouth to finish her unfinished sentence, but she had to close it again as Kaiton slowly took off the ring on her hand and stared at her in the eye. Instead of answering, Muriel just nodded her head. Then Kaiton smiled with his eyes bent. Perhaps it was because the small light in the room reflected in his black eyes, but his appearance was quite charming. To the point it made her heart pound heavily.
“…”
Kaiton moved his hands gently, like a vine climbing a tree, and gradually got closer and closer to Muriel. He touched her exposed collarbone above the dress as if playing the keys of a piano, and gently brushed his hand along her shoulder as if trying to engrave the shape in his eyes.
“Then, besides what Dream Butterfly has shown you on its own… What did you imagine? What did you want to do with me?”
“…that sort of thing.. I didn’t… imagine, with you….”
Wasn’t this person more likely to be causing illusions instead of the dream butterfly?
Muriel realized that she had already been captured by him when she was unable to push away Kaiton’s hand, who was freely caressing her body. With each touch of his hand, her temperature rose little by little, and now it had become so hot that her mouth felt parched. Maybe because of the heat, her senses seemed to have become more sensitive.
“Sigh…”
A cloudy and intense heat clouded her mind. She couldn’t think properly. Muriel tried to calm down the heat by taking a deep breath, feeling her chest flutter, but nothing got better.
Muriel had to support her body. So, when Muriel wrapped her arms around Kaiton’s neck and pulled him closer, it wasn’t so much surrendering to temptation but an unavoidable choice. Her head was dizzy with heat, Kaiton was beautiful, and her heart was drawn to him… the decision was really inevitable.
Muriel rested her forehead against Kaiton’s shoulder. It was an attempt to cool off, but instead, the warm heat seeped through his clothes.
“I’ve noticed it for a while… Kaiton surprisingly has a high body temperature, huh?”
“Is that so?”
Kaiton answered nonchalantly, as if he was uninterested in such trivial matters, and casually brushing aside the stray strands of hair that had fallen onto Muriel’s forehead before gently asking,
“Is that why you like me? Because my body temperature is surprisingly high?”
Ah…
Kaiton had a tenacious personality. Much more so than herself.
Muriel knew that he would continue to pry persistently like this until he heard the answer he wanted. So she decided to just confess. Besides, it was a fact that couldn’t be avoided if she wanted to escape this cocoon.
For a moment, she considered tying up Kaiton for a while and killing the fake impostor hidden in the closet by herself… But it was enough for her to tie up one Kaiton for today.
“If that’s the case… well… what are you going to do? Are you going to get mad at me?”
Muriel couldn’t finish her sentence properly. Before she could even finish speaking, Kaiton urgently pressed his lips against hers.
Muriel realized only then that Kaiton had been hiding his nervousness. She hadn’t noticed it before because of his nonchalant attitude. She was sure that arrogant man was teasing her because he was convinced that she liked him. But now, feeling his arms holding her tightly, as if afraid of losing her, and his lips exploring hers as if seeking reassurance, she finally felt Kaiton’s anxiety and his relief.
“Look. You like me,”
Kaiton murmured joyfully. Muriel’s heart beat a little faster.
