Merche opened her eyes just as the sun was rising. Beside her was a man sleeping face down.

Curly black hair, a back that rose slightly with each breath.

For a moment, it seemed peaceful. As Merche had once dreamed.

Sunlight streaming through a neatly arranged window, with someone who loved her by her side, in her own cozy home.

The sense of stability that washed over her was intoxicating, as if she had become a tree with deep roots in the earth.

She wanted to stay in this moment, forgetting everything.

Forgetting everything? Could she really do that?

She closed her eyes as if avoiding the incoming sunlight. No, she couldn’t.

She knew that pretending to be happy while ignoring all truths was like a sandcastle that would crumble at the slightest wave.

“…Rude.”

Her lips formed the name. Almost no sound came out.

She lowered her voice to a whisper, lest she wake the sleeping Rude.

She reached out to touch the ends of his black hair. It was soft and smooth.

That strand, the only part of this man without any sharp edges, unbelievably wrapped around her hand without any resistance.

As she blankly stared at the black waves entwined in her hand, suddenly, a large hand shot out and grasped her slender wrist.

“I must seem quite dog-like to you, young lady Merche.”

Even her other hand, which she hurriedly tried to pull away, was perfectly captured.

Merche looked at Rude, who was slowly raising his upper body, with slightly stiffened eyes of surprise.

He was still imposing.

His fierce gaze, which seemed like it could devour her if he wanted to, remained unchanged.

“Hasn’t this happened before? Touching me like petting a dog without permission, then stopping when you get bored? Even though you were once my tutor, what kind of trashy manners are those? Let’s be mannerly, shall we?”

He wore a smiling face, but somehow seemed urgent.

The grip on her wrist gradually tightened, and his twisted smile deepened.

“Come on. I’ll offer myself, so pet me in front of you. Let’s see how it feels to be properly treated like a dog.”

“……”

“I said pet me, didn’t I? Why are you resisting when I’m openly acting like a dog for you?”

Was he trying to hide his unpleasant feelings by smiling more fiercely on purpose? He kept grinning as he lowered his head.

The hair pressed against her fingertips tickled irritatingly.

“…Ha. ……I can’t do this.”

But suddenly, Rude raised his head.

“I really wanted to avoid asking this until my dying day, you know? But… I can’t do this anymore. I can’t hold back any longer.”

His clenched jaw vibrated.

The grip strength holding her two wrists gradually disappeared.

A pair of eyes looking up at Merche flashed red before fading.

“You. Were you trying to die?”

“…If you’re referring to the incident at the lake, I wasn’t trying to die.”

“Then why did you do such a thing? No matter how empty-headed I am, I can’t pretend not to see what’s so obvious. Please. Tell me everything honestly while I’m asking nicely.”

“Really, it’s not like that. I wasn’t trying to die. It’s just…”

“Just what?”

He brought his face close. As the distance narrowed, their breaths mingled. Merche unconsciously inhaled and retreated a step back.

At that instinctive gesture, Rude’s eyes sank darkly.

“Is what I’ve imprinted on you so horrible that you’d rather die?”

“……”

“Tell me. Is it so terrible that I hang around you, chuckling, and try to keep you by my side as a companion? Is that all so horrible?”

Ah. So that’s what you were afraid of.

Seeing his face trembling as he asked, she could understand.

What this man, who seemed so fearless, was so afraid of.

Why his mood would soar endlessly in front of her, only to plummet again, like someone suffering from neurosis.

He looked as if he might crumble at any moment. As if he might strangle himself to death at a single word from Merche.

“I’ll die anyway if it’s not you. You should know from being in that damned Lupinus mansion that a man without a companion either goes mad and becomes a beast, or dies. One of the two. So, …Merche.”

His lips trembled as they formed her name.

“If I’m unbearably disgusting and horrible to you, tell me so even now.”

“……And then?”

“What?”

“If I say so, what will you do next?”

His gaze, which had been stubbornly fixed on Merche, momentarily strayed.

That gaze, floundering and unable to find its bearings, swayed blankly before returning to her after he repeatedly rubbed his face with one hand.

“I’ll die.”

She was dumbfounded. As if she had been slapped by something, Merche stared at him without even blinking.

“Why. Is dying so shocking? Your eyes are wide open.”

Rude sneered. Then he silently gazed at Merche’s face for a long time.

Her eyes, widened in surprise, looked just like a rabbit’s. Or a deer’s?

…Anyway. Unlike him, they were just pretty and beautiful things.

Things so innocent and pure that he could never possess even if he died and was reborn, Merche had them.

“You mean… you’d choose death just because I dislike you?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“That’s… that’s absurd. Why would you make such a choice because of one person like me…?”

“What an idiot…, no, are you stupid? Where did you let all that I’ve been telling you until now slip away to?”

I told you I’d die anyway if it’s not you.

He told her to listen properly, to the woman who rarely let her guard down and wore a foolish expression.

Enunciating each syllable clearly, with all his might, without slurring a single pronunciation. Just as Merche did to him.

“I can’t live without you. Not even for a day. A day? What’s a day, at most two hours.”

“……Still.”

“You are my life.”

Yes. You are my life.

It was only after saying those words that he fully accepted his feelings for Merche.

Desperately trying to possess her, framing her with foolish actions, and even trying to drag her down to his own level. He had done everything.

All that he could do, all the desperation he had learned through his life so far.

He had poured it all out just to hold onto Merche.

But look at the result. Had any of it worked?

−Your love is harmful to me.

When he cried out that he loved her, she said it was harmful to her.

What he gave, that fluffy and fragile emotion that even he found unfamiliar and didn’t know how to handle, was no different from poison to Merche.

It wasn’t that he was trying to harm her, to hurt her deliberately.

He just… wanted to keep her by his side.

What could he do when he could only breathe and find the will to live in this wretched world with Merche by his side? He had no choice.

The heart that made his blood flow and sustained his life.

Not just a heart that beat inside his body, but a real lifeline, was in Merche, not in him.

“Without you, I can’t breathe, and even if I stuff my mouth with expensive and fancy things, I can’t swallow them. I’ve become a sick bastard who can’t live without you. That’s why I’m asking you to tell me honestly.”

Is he a terrible existence to Merche?

When Rude was at his lowest as a slave in the arena, he didn’t find anything terrible.

In fact, he didn’t even know what the feeling of something being terrible was.

He killed because he had to kill to survive, and he cut as naturally as breathing.

For some reason, he felt an inexplicable elation when standing on the blood of others.

Just that. That was the extent of his life, filled with base excitement.

Then he met Merche.

He met his birth mother who had been sad about losing him all along, and he also met the problematic birth father.

Genovefa. The bastard who deceived him and tried to kill Merche, not even worth the vomit of a drunkard.

Only after meeting him did he finally understand.

What it means to find something terrible. What it means to hate someone so much you want to kill them.

“If I’m… as terrible to you as Genovefa, that crazy old man… Well, what can I do? I’ll have to bash my head in and die.”

If he was no different from Genovefa to Merche, then there really was no other way. Then he really had to die.

After all, he would be a man whose eyes would be crazed with desire to possess Merche for his entire life, and if Merche found such a him terrible.

“……”

He stopped breathing as he continued his thoughts. Rude’s chest heaved greatly and then fell again.

After that, on his lips was a smile that was still fierce and twisted, but somehow choked with emotion.

“Tell me while I still have some sanity left. If you don’t, I’ll already be crazy-eyed and pouncing on you. A weak and frail thing like you won’t be able to do anything against a madman with rolled-back eyes.”

His Adam’s apple bobbed. Dry saliva pooled in his mouth.

Was this how those with a blade at their throat felt?

All the numerous lives he had taken flashed before his eyes.

Glaring with bloodshot eyes, pleading with tears, or smiling with relief as if they had given up everything. The expressions that passed by were diverse, but one thick emotion was the same.

Fear.

…Yes. He had finally become the same as them.

Rude was afraid. For the first time in his life, he felt chills of fear towards someone.

He roughly rubbed his goosebump-covered skin.

Whether he was afraid of being completely abandoned with nothing left to trample, or whether he was about to wet himself from trembling so much. There was no escape hole, just time to wait.

For the woman’s blade to fall upon him.

“……You’re the foolish one. How can you ask such a thing?”

“…What. How am I foolish?”

“How… could I possibly find you as terrible as the master?”

His hair stood on end again. His heart pounded crazily.

Unable to overcome the sensation close to a shudder, Rude hurriedly asked back.

“So…… you’re saying I’m not terrible?”