But when he opened his eyes, he met the gaze of the woman still sitting in that same spot.

[Awake?]

Her quiet question still felt like a dream. And because that wasn’t so bad. He kept visiting that room whenever he felt his limits approaching.

[At this point, you really are just coming here to sleep.]

[I never said I wasn’t.]

Just from having his need for sleep satisfied, he became endlessly generous like a well-fed beast. Enough that it didn’t matter when Chartia talked back brazenly or glared at him sharply.

[…Next time there won’t be any tea or anything.]

She’d threaten him like that every time, yet still serve warm tea and naturally stay by his side.

He gazed steadily at the woman beyond the teacup—as transparent as the tea itself. How should he define his disciple? 

Right, she was harmless. If he closed his eyes, her colors imprinted on his retinas would quickly fade. That was the extent of her presence.

Was that why? Just being in the same space allowed him to sink into tranquility.

A warm sensation like lying still under gentle sunlight. If this was the ‘peace’ or ‘stability’ others enjoyed—

He readily admitted it. He could find peace by her side.

* * *

But while he gradually stabilized, Chartia grew increasingly precarious. Her feet injured and mangled, her insides slowly wearing away as she learned attribute magic, and finally collapsing on the cold floor, writhing in agony.

He’d believed he cared about this woman simply because she’d given him peace—a form of repayment. But beyond mere irritation, now uncontrollable rage surged.

[Do you not understand what I’m saying? You’re really going to die.]

[I know. That might happen.]

Before her will that wouldn’t bend even if her body broke down, even if she died in the end, Cain lost his words.

The women who’d whispered affection to him treated it as mere escapism or child’s play, just like he had. The affection he knew was that light.

But what was this heavy, blind affection?

Cain pressed his hand to the forehead of the woman who groaned in pain yet couldn’t even moan for fear of being heard in the next room. Only after channeling healing magic for a long time did her breathing become steady.

Now he grew curious about the emotion this woman harbored, beyond finding it disagreeable and strange.

What would it feel like to be the recipient of that emotion?

The vast, thick emotion was certainly far from what he preferred, but one thing was clear—he wouldn’t act like some idiot who didn’t even notice.

He’d recognize at once how tremendous and valuable the emotion this woman possessed was. He wouldn’t abandon her like that, wouldn’t let her hurt alone.

‘Wouldn’t have made her end up like this.’

Walking toward the carriage, Cain glanced down at the woman so fragile she might crumble if he gripped too hard.

Chartia seemed to have finally realized how futile waiting was. Without much resistance, she stared blankly with flickering eyes at a yellow butterfly engraved on one corner of the umbrella.

In his haste, he’d grabbed whatever was available and hadn’t known it had such a design. He clicked his tongue at the design a million years removed from his taste when Chartia spoke.

“…You know? Butterflies look pretty from far away… but up close… they’re really… disgusting.”

“What?”

The sentence she struggled to form while coughing finely was utterly random and pointless.

When Cain stopped in his tracks, her hoarse voice continued.

“It’s similar. When I saw it from afar… it looked beautiful… but it was actually just cruel.”

Though there was no subject, Cain easily understood what she was talking about.

The feelings this woman harbored, the great emotion people routinely praised, that awkward thing to even say—‘love.’ That’s what she meant.

“…No, is it just cruel to me?”

Her self-deprecating laugh tasted extremely bitter.

Cain had initially found Chartia’s transformation from being emotionless intriguing, but he wasn’t drawn to emotions like that. Instead, it unsettled him and soured his mood.

A foolish person who had nothing yet gave everything away instead of getting what she wanted, and even offered up her life on top of that. Yet a strange creature he absolutely couldn’t ignore.

If his disciple acted foolishly, as her teacher he just needed to show her the right direction.

“Then throw it away.”

“…What?”

“Throw away relationships that are only cruel to you. Only hold onto relationships that can’t hurt you, that you can hurt.”

Looking down at Chartia’s slender hand gripping his collar, he spoke firmly.

‘Don’t let go, keep holding on like that.’

He wouldn’t ask stupid questions like ‘since when’ or ‘why’ anymore.

‘Because from that d*mn moment he slept by your side—no, maybe from that past when he found you—you became something important to me.’

The man who finally admitted even that held the existence in his arms tightly. Firmly enough that she couldn’t dare let go.

* * *

Had the aftereffects of enduring caught up? The fever lingered longer and hotter than before. 

Several nights passed repeating cycles of sweating enough to soak the sheets, then trembling enough to chatter her teeth.

When she finally opened her eyes with a sound mind, it was dawn with the first light descending.

She immediately felt her body didn’t seem like her own, melted to the bone and hardened. It was exactly the same sensation as any day trapped in the hospital.

How strange. She’d thought if he became happy, she’d become happy too. Yet the more he grasped happiness, the more she broke down like this.

Having become such a mess, she suddenly thought—maybe she hadn’t wanted to think seriously about life. Maybe, exhausted in body and mind from such long suffering, she’d tried to endure with one clear reason that required no contemplation.

Chartia, who’d been self-deprecating, struggled to raise her upper body. When she turned her head at the weight felt around her arm, she finally saw the presence beside her. 

Right next to the bed, Olivia sat holding her hand and slumped over, and on the opposite side, Marie and Jane had fallen asleep curled in chairs in uncomfortable positions, holding wet cloths.

And by the door across from her, Cain with even darker circles under his eyes was quietly watching her.

“…Why?”

The single syllable that came out through her rough throat wavered unsteadily.

Every time she woke from illness, only silence and loneliness that could stop her breath were all there was. But now, whenever she was sick, someone stayed by her side.

It was an extremely unfamiliar and strange scene, so rather than understanding, only bewilderment surged.

Unable to bear the sense of incongruity, when she twisted her eyes, Cain strode over. When he pressed his large hand to her forehead, soon a refreshing energy spread to every corner of her feverish body.

“Because everyone’s worried about you.”

She chewed over the unexpected answer many times.

But after a long silence, what leaked through her cracked lips was only unremarkable acceptance.

“I see.”

So many people worried about me.

This life was completely different from my past life.

Things I could never have in the past were already all in my hands, and only I didn’t know it.

Chartia, who’d muttered blankly, soon turned her head toward the window.

Dawn was already breaking.

* * *

Dawn was extremely short compared to the night they must have stayed up. When the bluish curtain lifted about halfway, Olivia and the maids woke. Struggling to raise their stiff bodies, they immediately noticed the subtle incongruity.

That it was a quiet morning with the pitiful moans, eyelids showing no sign of opening, and cold sweat soaking the pillowcase all gone.

Facing Chartia leaning against the headboard, the drowsiness hanging heavily around Olivia’s eyes vanished in an instant.

“Tia! Are you conscious? Let me see, are you hurt anywhere else?”

The hot hand she’d been holding clasped Chartia’s shoulder. At the urgent and somewhat desperate reaction, Chartia immediately nodded.

That brief affirmation seemed to bring great relief to her mother. Olivia, who’d plopped back down, exhaled the breath she’d been holding while stroking her gaunt face.

“Really, I’m so relieved. I was worried about what would happen if you got worse like this again…”

A faint tearfulness seeped into her sunken voice. Just as Cain said. She’d definitely been terribly worried.

Looking back, her mother had always been like that. She worried about her daughter who didn’t know how to care for herself, was upset, yet still supported whatever she wanted even if it threatened her safety.

Just not pressing her about the pitch-black marks staining her whole body showed that.

Chartia silently pulled the blanket to cover her arms that had been nakedly exposed.

She’d actually known. That Olivia would worry if this body got hurt. But even though it was her own matter, that cause-and-effect relationship felt like someone else’s business, like the affairs of another mother and daughter she’d seen through the hospital window in childhood.

It wasn’t a matter of whether ‘I’ and ‘Chartia’ as two existences meshed perfectly. 

Through the records that said another soul couldn’t dwell in another’s body, the meeting with young Julian that wasn’t a dream, and memories that naturally assimilated from the beginning, she’d been thinking that maybe ‘I’ and ‘Chartia’ might share the same roots.

Even if that was just a delusion, the two had already mixed beyond distinction.

Yet she hadn’t truly grasped it because she’d treated this second chance at time like a bonus stage given after game over.

But this wasn’t a bonus stage, much less a game she could enjoy briefly wearing a character and then turn off. It was her new ‘life’ given like a miracle.

Only after recognizing that did she finally feel that her mother’s—and everyone’s—worry was truly directed at ‘me.’

It was such an unfamiliar sensation that Chartia had to chew over the relationships she’d taken for granted many times throughout the dawn. 

That this person more haggard than herself who’d been ill was her mother, that Marie and Jane who couldn’t put down wet cloths even while sleeping were her personal maids, and that Cain who’d poured out only healing magic and disappeared was her teacher.

‘My…’

How should she define this sensation, unfamiliar and strange yet heavily rising from the bottom of her heart? 

Chartia hesitated, unable to offer either apology or gratitude.

Meanwhile, Olivia, who’d barely collected her emotions, suddenly raised her head. Then, like remembering something important, she urgently looked for the maid.

“Oh, this isn’t the time. Marie, please call the physician right now. Tell them Tia has awakened…”

“Mother. I have something to tell you.”

Before Olivia could finish, Chartia lightly grasped and pulled her sleeve.