Sinclair’s face showed no expression upon hearing Elaina’s words.

He just stared at her blankly, as if he had forgotten to even breathe.

“And on top of that, you shamelessly came back to deceive me, who couldn’t even recognize you, and now you’re trying to stop me from leaving?”

Sinclair no longer had the right to do that. No, to be precise, he never had that right from the beginning.

He had to let Elaina go.

If he didn’t want to break her even more.

Elaina’s lips trembled slightly.

For a moment, a tomblike silence descended between the two. Elaina just looked down at Sinclair without saying a word, while Sinclair, unlike before, was breathing painfully.

“…Yes.”

Then, as if groaning, he said,

“I drove you into the gutter. Into a hell worse than reality.”

He had destroyed Elaina’s legs and shattered her long-held dream of one day escaping the Aswald family. And he had abandoned her and disappeared.

As if that wasn’t enough, he shamelessly reappeared before Elaina and once again carelessly shook up her life. As if dealing with a cheap toy.

Knowing how much she resented and missed Ren, he couldn’t tell her what that boy’s true identity was. No, he chose not to tell her. Purely out of selfishness, fearing he would lose Elaina.

But there was never a moment when he wasn’t sincere.

Even if there were countless days when he himself couldn’t even recognize his own feelings.

“Should I cut off my legs?”

At Sinclair’s plainly spoken words, Elaina glared at him.

“Should I get broken in the same way for you, Elaina?”

If Elaina said yes, if she answered that she wouldn’t leave if he did that… he would have drawn his sword immediately.

And he would have cut off his legs without hesitation. Without a moment’s hesitation.

After all, if it was a life without Elaina, even his life had no value.

No, from the beginning, the one who should have been hurt, the one whose life should have been ruined, was him.

Not poor Eli.

“What meaning would that have for me?”

But Elaina did not give the answer Sinclair wanted.

“Would that change the fact that I’m in hell right now?”

My answer will tear through your heart like sharp shards of glass, over and over again. To the point it can’t even be mended.

Elaina thought to herself as she looked at Sinclair’s subtly disgusted, stiffening face.

I hope you get hurt beyond recovery. I hope it’s painful. I hope it’s agonizing.

And once again, as you look at my empty space, resent me, miss me, get weary, and resent me again. I hope you can never escape that cycle.

Just like I did.

“Then do as you’re doing now.”

But Sinclair’s answer, which came back like a sharp arrow, was enough to distort Elaina’s face.

“Tell me you’ve come to hate me, that you can never forgive me again.”

Sinclair’s low, cracked voice filled the room.

“Every day when you open your eyes. As naturally as breathing. Drive me to hell like that too.”

Yes, even if it’s like that, as long as you stay by my side.

If I can live taking your resentment as my breath, your anger as my sky, and your hatred as the ground beneath my feet.

If only that could be the case, Sinclair didn’t care if his life was thrown into hell.

“Just, by my side. Until we die, for a lifetime.”

If he had driven Elaina to hell, he was confident that he too would be driven to hell by Elaina’s hand.

Even if the scorching guilt of hell constantly devoured his entire body and eventually burned his heart to ashes without a trace.

Even if they would become each other’s shackles and helplessly choke each other’s breath…

Sinclair needed Elaina.

“Don’t leave me.”

It sounded like the sound of his heart crumbling. He hated himself for being shaken like this, even for a moment.

Perhaps the most ridiculous thing was not Sinclair, who was now sincerely speaking, but Elaina herself, who still hadn’t been able to become completely heartless.

Stupidly, even after going through so many things.

But that would be the last time too. Elaina clenched her small, white hand hidden under her long sleeves tightly. As if strongly grasping her own heart.

“I’ve never loved you, not even once.”

At that moment, ridiculously, she felt Sinclair’s hand grasping her ankle tremble slightly.

“I was just trying to use you. That was all it ever was.”

So Elaina spoke with even more force.

“And of course, even now, I don’t love you.”

I won’t be foolish enough to fall for Sinclair’s cunningness again and struggle in the swamp of despair.

Not being able to completely erase you, who left deep stains all over my life, and eventually choking myself in a pitiful and stupid way…

“And forever in the future too.”

She saw darkness as deep as the black night engulfing Sinclair’s golden eyes.

It sounded like his heart was falling to the dirty ground, shattered like hers before.

Directly facing Sinclair’s face, which had become as still as death, Elaina made up her mind once more.

Always, without fail, coming in the guise of salvation and choking her neck.

The one who was once her only friend, benefactor, and the man she loved.

And now the one she hated enough to want to kill, she would abandon in the most miserable way this time.

Just as he had always done to her.

Even if the sword that pierced Sinclair’s chest pierced and shredded her own chest as well.

“…How well do you think you know me?”

And Sinclair asked, looking at Elaina with eyes full of sadness.

“Whatever you expect, it will always be more than that.”

“……”

“I’ve always had you.”

Sinclair continued in a fleeting voice.

“Young Eli. Eli who became a girl… I imagined you growing up like that every single day. On the battlefield, in the Imperial Palace.”

Yes. Although not together, they were always together.

“Me, who has lived carrying you all my life like that… do you think I would fall for such a lie?”

Sinclair, who had been holding Elaina’s broken ankle, slowly let go.

Then, reaching out, he stroked Elaina’s noticeably withered cheek and continued.

“You weren’t just my bygone childhood, but the history that occupies my entire life. It’s no different now.”

“…What?”

“From the moment you greeted me in that valley. From the day you comforted me in a way no one else had… that’s when my life began.”

She stabbed the sharpest and most cutting words she had honed in her heart into Sinclair’s chest. But even as he bled invisible blood, he did not back down.

“My life was created from you. You might scoff at that again. Asking how I could abandon you despite that. Since I was the one who deceived you from the beginning, you can’t even trust me now.”

“……”

“But I can dare to say. The true first day of my life was not the day I let out my first cry, nor the day I was appointed as the Crown Prince… it was from the moment I first met you.”

There were more days when he thought he should have died than days when he didn’t.

But every time, the one who firmly grabbed Sinclair and pulled him up was that bruised girl.

It was also Elaina Aswald, half crippled, who became his only bosom and resting place when he had nowhere to run.

“If I lose you, I will lose even my reason to exist. I won’t be able to live a single day.”

That’s how it was only her.

“I won’t beg for forgiveness. I’ll just wait by your side.”

“……”

“I know better than anyone what kind of person you are. If you abandon me and leave like this… kind you will suffer endlessly. Just like right now.”

He wasn’t unaware. The dagger-like words that deeply pierced his heart had pierced not only his heart.

“Don’t suffer alone. Suffer in front of me instead. Taking out all your anger on me. You suffering alone… that’s enough now.”

Elaina’s dark eyes were seen shaking greatly. Her hand placed on her knee was also seen clenching tightly.

He saw her fighting a war of her own like that.

“I’ll give you my breath, I’ll give you my neck. Whenever you want. They were yours anyway. They were what you gave me.”

If it’s something you give, even pain will be meaningful to me.

Sinclair looked at Elaina with a sad face, then withdrew his hand that had been stroking her pale cheek.

“If you told me to go through everything I’ve been through until now to meet you again… I would do it. Losing my mother before my eyes, being abandoned and cast out by my father. I can repeat things like that as much as needed.”

Then, in a slightly trembling voice, he continued.

“I love you.”

“……”

“There was never a moment when I didn’t.”

Elaina’s lips, which she had bitten down on with all her strength, trembled slightly.

Sinclair was just like the waves.

No matter how hard she tried to escape, they kept engulfing her.

Don’t be stupid.

It’s just a rationalization to get through this moment.

Does hearing words like that change anything?

Ren abandoned you!

Sinclair deceived you from the beginning, knowing everything!

At the voice of Eli in her heart that kept echoing like that, Elaina tightly closed her eyes instead.

Eventually, Sinclair slowly reached out and took Elaina’s broken ankle in his hand.

And he gently kissed the subtly twisted ankle.

“Even if you really never loved me, even if you say you don’t love me, I don’t mind. If you want me to believe that, I’ll believe it and be hurt.”

Then, with golden eyes filled with tears, he looked up at Elaina and said,

“But the resentment in your ankle is entirely my share to bear. So give me my share.”

“……”

“That’s enough for me.”