Her body felt light. So light that it felt like she was flying rather than walking.

However, the soil touching her soles was cold enough to freeze her skin, and the piercing wind was chilling.

She heard the sound of someone sobbing sorrowfully from somewhere. Helena soon realized that it was herself who was crying.

More precisely, Helena from her childhood.

“I can’t stand to look at your face! How can you not do even that simple task properly! Is it so hard to just sit and keep watch?! Don’t even think about coming home tonight!”

Matilda slammed the door shut fiercely. Young Helena crouched down, leaning against the shabby outer wall. Red liquid flowed from her forehead.

“He said he’d come, *sniff*, he said he’d come if I wait, *sob*, I just have to wait.”

Young Helena kept muttering with her head buried between her bent knees. The pronunciation was unclear due to her crying.

“He promised, he must find me, –.”

As she was straining her ear to listen more closely.

The surrounding scenery began to ripple. It distorted and condensed severely, and as soon as it became a single point, her body suddenly felt heavy.

‘…Was it a dream?’

Helena finally managed to open her eyes after several attempts.

The first sensation of stepping into reality after crossing the boundary of reverie was extremely heavy. Her whole body creaked and her head throbbed. It took quite some time before she could move her muscles at will.

When she finally came to her senses, there was a man beside her.

It was the man she had last seen at the beach.

“Are you conscious? How do you feel?”

He hadn’t changed. He still acted as if she were his lover, with an anxious face and voice.

“The doctor said fortunately there’s no danger to your life, but you shouldn’t overexert yourself for a day or two. Still, if there’s any discomfort, please tell me anytime. I’ll call the doctor right away.”

“…”

Helena swallowed to suppress the uneasiness rising inside her. The man’s kind voice irritated her. It irritated her because it was too kind.

Instead of answering, she turned her gaze to the ceiling.

The plain patterned wallpaper commonly used in inns was monochrome. There wasn’t much to see, but she just stayed like that for a while.

She didn’t feel the dampness that should have been in her clothes. As she slowly raised her arm, a dark green linen cloth came up with it. It wasn’t the clothes she had been wearing originally.

This too was irritating because it was kind. She could only laugh bitterly.

“…Do you feel proud for saving someone who was stupidly trying to throw away their life?”

Helena finally sat up with a faint groan. Ian reached out to help her, but she coldly brushed him off.

Before he could say anything, her anger burst out first.

“You must feel like you’ve done something good and be proud of yourself. I saved a precious life, my altruism saved this ignorant woman. Isn’t that right?”

“…”

“Don’t even dare to have such delusions.”

Helena poured out her resentment fiercely, but Ian didn’t even blink.

“…Rest. I’ll bring you medicine.”

He just turned away with a gloomy face.

Helena roughly pulled off the blanket and stepped out of bed.

Her legs wouldn’t support her due to standing up so suddenly. For a moment, she felt dizzy, but she gritted her teeth and endured it.

As she staggered a few steps like that, Ian turned around just in time. He caught her as she almost fell on him.

The momentum pushed Ian’s body slightly backwards, and as he bumped into the nightstand, a medicine bottle fell.

In the silence, pills spilled out of the bottle as it rolled on the floor.

Helena gripped Ian’s collar tightly and began to shout.

“Nothing ever goes my way. Who are you to save me as you please? Did you think you’d receive thanks for saving me? I’m so tired I can barely breathe now, everything just hurts and exhausts me. Do I have to struggle to live again because of your ignorant goodwill? Can I not even decide about my own life?”

“If you suddenly get up, it’ll strain your body. Go back to bed.”

Ian gently persuaded her, but her mouth that had started pouring out words like a bursting dam didn’t stop.

“I never asked to be saved. I wished even less to open my eyes, unable to die properly. You should have left me alone like everyone else. Then I wouldn’t be this miserable. At least I wouldn’t have felt this way knowing that the person who saved me wasn’t family or husband, but a man I’ve never met before…!”

Tears welled up and her vision blurred. Helena had to swallow several times to forcibly suppress them.

She was angry. She was angry but couldn’t cry. That would be too foolish.

In the tense atmosphere, Ian soothed her as if to break it.

“…It’s alright. You can resent me as much as you want.”

Helena was irritated by his calm tone, unlike her own. And he seemed determined to keep making her feel that way.

“But I’m not sorry. I don’t want to regret it either. And still, I don’t hate you.”

Looking at him spouting incomprehensible words.

Helena raised her head again, which had been gradually lowering. Disheveled hair obstructed her view, but she clearly saw that face.

He really wasn’t sorry.

He didn’t get angry back at the woman who was upset after he had saved her.

He just reached out to support her waist as if she might collapse. He remained steadfast without wavering.

It was herself who became more enraged at his wooden expression. She couldn’t bear the kindness that came relentlessly.

Her finger joints turned white from gripping Ian’s collar so tightly.

“How much more plainly do I need to say it for you to understand? There are people for whom living is hell. You haven’t saved a person, you’ve killed them.”

“I will save you.”

“I said you killed me. You killed me.”

Helena obsessively repeated her cry.

“You killed me again in the most miserable way, in an unbearably miserable way!”

Crash! Bang!

A dry thunderbolt left a deep shadow in the space as it struck like a scream. The oil lamp went out with a flash of lightning.

In an instant, darkness enveloped everything.

Only the sound of rough, heated breathing intermittently echoed in her ears. It was so loud, as if her heart had moved next to her ear.

Thump thump thump. It sounded like someone was pounding on the door fiercely.

In the flawless solitude, a heartbeat of unknown origin whispered to her.

You too, leave me now. Leave as if nothing happened.

So that I can hate the world without regret, so that you can abandon me again without hesitation.

Go away.

Helena blinked slowly until her eyes adjusted to the darkness. Her small shoulders that had been breathing up and down gradually settled. It was around then that her head cooled down.

The strength in her hand gripping his clothes slowly faded as well. She just exhaled with a desperate wish in her flowing breath, as if collapsing.

‘Please go away.’

Helena hoped he would just turn and leave the room. She hoped her outburst had hurt this man.

She hoped he would leave because she was an ungrateful and hopeless person.

Not because he was tired of her, not because he was sick of her.

But from their first meeting until now. He had never done what she wanted, not even once.

His large hand passed her elbow and slowly moved up, caressing her arms. As if soothing her with his body heat, Ian stopped at her wrists with gentle pressure.

“I’m not used to losing precious people. Even if I experience it dozens or hundreds of times, I won’t get used to it.”

He carefully detached Helena’s hand from his clothes and met her gaze.

Then he rubbed her pale knuckles with his thumb. Again, Helena thought he was being kind.

“Just as death is your desire, this is my desire. So even if you come to hate me for the rest of your life because of this, I will save you again and again. Even if you call it an obsession born of fear of loss, I can’t help it.”

Helena felt a faint trembling transmitted through her captured wrist.

After a brief pause, Ian continued.

“I want you to live until the very end.”

Even in the darkness, his purple eyes were clear. They were stubbornly fixed only on her.

So Helena turned her head away. She didn’t want to know a man who spoke like that, with eyes like that, with a voice like that. She should never know him.

But why.

‘Do I feel such longing.’

Helena pulled away from him as if escaping. It was only one step, but a little space was created.

Only after confirming that she could stand properly on her own two feet did Ian release her wrist.

As soon as she was free, Helena unnecessarily gathered her hands. It felt as if the warmth of his large palm still remained.

She tried her best to maintain composure as she opened her mouth.

“…I understand. I’ll consider myself unlucky to have run into someone as meddlesome as you. But I am not your precious person. Or is your preciousness so light that you develop affection from the first meeting?”

“…”

Ian was silent for a while.

Nevertheless, Helena could clearly feel his gaze fixed intently on her. She couldn’t bring herself to look up at him.

The silence gradually lengthened, and she, who had no intention of waiting in the first place, moved past him towards the door.

However, as soon as she turned the doorknob and opened the door slightly, the thick wooden panel closed again with a bang.

She sensed a heavy presence behind her back. A hand with bulging tendons was pressing on the door.

“I said, don’t, overexert yourself.”

Now he seemed a little angry.

So was she. Helena immediately turned to face him.

“Just because my anger has subsided doesn’t mean I want to be with you. You said you don’t hate me, but I still hate you.”

“It’s just that there’s no harm in following the doctor’s orders well.”

“What right do you have?”

“If you really want to know, I could answer as your temporary guardian.”

“It seems you have a hobby of seeking out trouble.”

“…Because you did too.”

Again, again.

Helena inwardly groaned.

Though it was so brief she couldn’t notice, he kept making that face in between their conversation.

Some emotion that he couldn’t suppress no matter how hard he tried to.

It couldn’t be explained with just a few words. Turning away seemed like the only answer.

‘Or confronting it head-on.’

Dry saliva passed down Helena’s throat.