“You’ve been struggling because of that dragon all this time. Five years ago, and also…”

Yuphe spoke with a calm voice containing a hint of a smile as he looked at Jella and Cail standing beside her.

His gaze slowly descended toward the hands of the two that were almost, but not quite, touching.

“Until just now, when that dragon was parasitizing the heart of the man you care about.”

It was an outwardly plain voice.

“This is really good, truly.”

Yet at the same time, it sounded as if he was repeating it to himself.

“Thank you, Yuphe.”

“It’s nothing.”

Jella stared at Yuphe’s smiling face for a moment before speaking.

“Yuphe. I have something to tell you.”

“Um… now?”

Yuphe scratched his cheek with an awkward smile.

“Can’t we talk later? Today is a good day, and we’ve just reunited after a long time…”

Seeing Yuphe seemingly trying to avoid conversation with her, Jella spoke in a firm voice.

“No, I think we need to talk now. I want to give you a clear answer.”

“…”

The faint smile that had remained on Yuphe’s face slowly faded away.

***

Yuphe walked with Jella through the garden outside the abandoned palace.

From the very beginning of his memories, he had always walked beside her, but this was the first time it felt so suffocatingly uncomfortable.

Under a large tree, Jella stopped walking and turned to look at Yuphe.

“…I’m sorry, Yuphe. For never acknowledging your feelings. For saying I hated you. For cruelly telling you never to appear before me again. For everything.”

At her quiet confession, Yuphe’s heart painfully sank.

He instinctively knew that her apology now was the answer to his confession.

And that this moment, talking face to face with her, might be the last time to settle their relationship.

If so, he too had something to say to her.

So Yuphe slowly closed and opened his eyes, organizing his grating emotions.

“Don’t apologize to me, Jella.”

Then, with a gentle smile toward her, he spoke in a more articulate voice than ever before.

“It’s natural that you didn’t know, since I never showed my feelings to you. And those cruel words you say you said to me, they weren’t cruel at all compared to what I’ve said to you.”

Yuphe’s eyes, which had been gently curved with painful memories, subtly contorted.

“I said many worse and harsher things to you. I hurt you by saying the words you hated most in the world.”

The witch of Shunaibel who ate her parents.

Yuphe remembered her reaction when she first heard those words.

At seven years old, the day they ran away from class together. While hiding in the bushes and giggling, passing apprentice priests gossiped about her.

She pretended not to care, but Yuphe saw it.

Her trembling pink eyes, her clenched fists, her quivering lips.

She was upset.

She was lonely, desolate, and sad.

Just as he had been before meeting her.

He had always thought she was a strong person who had miraculously come to him, removed his darkness, and given him light.

He thought she was someone who didn’t know weak emotions like loneliness or desolation.

But that wasn’t true.

Jella was stronger and more solid than anyone, but at the same time, she was lonelier and more desolate than anyone.

That’s why the young Yuphe always held her hand firmly as they ran together.

To tell her she wasn’t alone. That he would always be by her side. He wanted to return to her the salvation-like touch she had shown him.

Yuphe, who had cried bitterly that day because her pain hurt his heart, had to utter those exact same words that hurt her the most eleven years later.

What was her expression like then?

Her face, stained with hurt, still pierced his heart and tormented him even after all this time.

“So it’s natural for you to be angry and feel betrayed by me. I’m more sorry for not explaining properly. I knew you would oppose my plan if you heard it, so I hid it thoroughly.”

“But Yuphe, you…”

Jella, who had been quietly listening to his apology, spoke with a distressed voice.

“You must have been even more upset than me after saying those things to me.”

Pause.

At those words, Yuphe hesitated, then smiled gently.

“Why do you know me so well? You don’t let me say anything.”

“I know. I wish I knew a little less.”

Jella followed his smile with a small laugh as she replied.

Jella knew Yuphe. She knew him too well.

If he hadn’t had a change of heart, if he was still the same Yuphe from her childhood memories, even when saying those cruel words to her, then he must have been even more upset than she was when he said them.

Because the Yuphe she knew was always like that. He was a child who would cry more bitterly than she did when someone insulted her.

Would it have been better if she had known him a little less?

It was such a meaningless supposition.

Jella stared at the left side of Yuphe’s chest.

It was the place where a god’s core now beat instead of a human heart.

Yuphe had given up his human life to save her.

Her heart ached because there was no way to repay his profound and deep feelings.

But love, unlike debt, couldn’t be returned in equal measure.

“Yuphe. I have so many things to apologize to you for. I think I need to say sorry one more time.”

Although it pained Jella that she had to cause more hurt to someone who had already suffered so much because of her, she parted her lips for the sake of a clear conclusion.

“I have someone I like.”

“…”

“I didn’t realize it myself, but I think my heart has been gradually flowing toward him for a very long time.”

Whenever she thought of Cail, her heart always felt full and excited, but why did she feel so sorry at this moment when she was telling Yuphe that she liked him?

“So, Yuphe, I won’t be able to accept your feelings…”

“Yes, Jella.”

At this point, Yuphe abruptly cut off her words.

“It’s okay.”

He said in a soothing, affectionate voice.

“I already knew. That you liked that man.”

“Huh…?”

“So you don’t have to speak so painfully.”

Jella looked at him with a surprised face.

Yuphe giggled and explained to the bewildered Jella.

“Just as you know me well, I know everything about you, too. Since we were very young.”

“Ah…”

“Cail Aleret. From the first time I saw him, I could tell you would come to like him. You don’t know how envious I was.”

From the moment he first saw that man, he sensed it. That someday, that man would take Jella away from him.

“Actually, I said some nasty things to him when you weren’t around. Ah, please don’t get too angry about this. I wasn’t even chosen by you, so it’s okay for me to be a little spiteful, right?”

The spite he felt on the day he first saw Cail Aleret was probably because of that.

But if he had known that this moment of rejection from her would be so painful and agonizing, he would have tormented that man a little more that day.

“In fact, you’re rather insensitive in that regard, so just as you never realized my feelings until the end, I hoped you wouldn’t realize your own feelings either.”

“…”

“But you figured it out. Ah, what a shame.”

Yuphe added jokingly with a broad smile.

“…”

But Jella couldn’t smile along with him.

Because Yuphe looked as if he might cry at any moment.

Swoosh-

A cold wind shook the branches.

Yuphe, who had been staring at the leaves gently falling over her head, suddenly said to her.

“I have one favor to ask, Jella.”

“What is it…?”

“I’m going to live for a long time now. A very, very long time.”

He, who could no longer remain human, would have to live through an eternity of time.

After countless years pass, mountains and rivers change, dynasties shift, and even the story of the last Emperor of Shunaibel and the three heroes becomes dim in the distant future.

Even in that far-off future when only he will remember, with lonely solitude, that there once were two mischievous children who tightly held hands as they roamed the Grand Temple.

He will live through that long time alone, remembering just one person.

It was still a vague and distant future, so Yuphe deliberately avoided thinking about it.

However, if there was one thing he wished for in the endless life ahead of him…

“Later, when you’re reborn and we meet again, could you like me then?”

In that moment, a numb light spread in Jella’s eyes.

“No, just like me then.”

“…”

“I’ll really do well. I’ll prepare and practice a lot to become the man you like. I won’t look at anyone else and I’ll wait for the day we meet again…”

“…”

“So next time, like me instead of that man, okay?”

Why did Yuphe’s voice, begging her to like him, sound so wet?

Why was it so painful and sad?