Even if Your Regret Holds Me Back (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 121

Ian wanted to know what expression Helena had worn when she nodded her head back then.

But the chance never came. Her brother had bellowed her name, forcing Helena to vanish in a hurry.

A few minutes later, a spider dropped right onto Ian’s head. Soon after, a girl’s scream rang out.

“Go away, brother! Let go…!”

With jostling vibrations, a few more spiders tumbled down.

The gaps in the old wooden floorboards had widened enough for dust and insects to pass through—wide enough, even, to glimpse fleeting shadows flitting above if one stared hard enough.

Yet Ian didn’t bother looking up. He merely stroked Heidi’s forehead as she slept, resting against his knee, and murmured,

“What a hopeful thing that must’ve been.”

With his eyes closed, the pounding vibrations and commotion gradually subsided. Ian himself began to feel drowsy.

He opened his eyes again and pinched his thigh. His thighs were mottled with whip marks and self-inflicted bruises. The longer his exhaustion lasted, the darker those bruises grew.

Ian couldn’t sleep. Belzebuth had been right. Ian would never forget that day. Even in his dreams, Belzebuth came to him.

When he couldn’t strangle himself, he plunged a knife into his mother’s chest. Then she spat blood and told him she loved him, and Belzebuth ordered him to howl as he drank that blood.

Thirteen years of sleepless nights passed like that. The memory of having his heart ripped out no longer hurt as much as it once did—thanks to someone who had painted over what might have become an eternal nightmare.

Though everything else had been gloomy and damp, her presence alone in that memory made it love. Ian could willingly embrace his own recollection.

Her hair fluttering in the night breeze, her blue eyes, the scent of wet earth brushing against her nose, the cramped, damp cellar.

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