“Protecting you was my choice.”

Without looking at Vivian, I unfurled the thoughts I had organized myself.

“I had guilt and definitely felt remorse… but there was also another reason. Wanting to protect you was a complicated result of my feelings. I don’t want to blame you for a choice I made myself. I can’t be that pathetic. No matter how much I want to blame someone else… I can’t be that cowardly.”

Vivian covered her face with her hands.

I felt each of her actions even without seeing them directly.

The years we spent together were long enough for me to gauge her behavior from just sounds.

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”

Whether in relief or because my lack of blame made her feel guiltier, she wore a pained expression.

It was evident she was using all her strength to hold back tears.

After a while, Vivian approached me, arms outstretched.

As if to confirm our affection through a hug.

With a forced smile, she came closer, wanting to reconcile.

“…I’ll do better from now on. We’ve finished everything, right? Only happy things are left, right? Do you need anything? I can do it all—”

-Thud.

But I still had something to say.

“Huh?”

Vivian’s body stopped mid-movement, her hand raised lightly toward me.

Only then did I finally look at Vivian.

Her eyes were filled with disbelief.

She looked up at me with eyes wounded in a way I had never seen before.

“K-Kyle?”

“…”

I had to strain every muscle in my arm to keep from relaxing.

“I don’t want to blame you, but… now I’m curious.”

“…K-Kyle… why…”

“Was this really my choice?”

I finally voiced the fundamental question I had been feeling all along.

This was something Vivian also didn’t know about yet.

“W-What do you mean…?”

She asked.

While looking into her trembling, red eyes, I continued calmly.

“…It’s an old story. The day I first arrived in this land. The day I first set foot in Roktana… there was an old woman among those who condemned me.”

“Why… why are you suddenly telling such a strange story?”

Vivian’s expression resembled a child yearning for parental love.

Anxiety and fear cloaked her face, yet she trembled, wanting to lean into me.

For the first time, I felt like I was facing her honest self that longed for me.

But I didn’t relax my grip.

This was a conversation meant to be face to face.

“Listen. That old woman said she lost her son, a soldier of our family. And she claimed her son visited her every night… tormenting her. Asking for revenge for our family… demanding some punishment…”

I could vividly recall the scene from that day as if it were yesterday.

At the time, I was pretending it didn’t scare me, but it seemed I had taken quite a shock if I remembered it so well.

“People called that old woman a witch.”

The moment I uttered the word “witch,” Vivian’s complexion changed.

She knew very well that I despised witches.

Through this story, she would come to understand why I hated them so much.

“W-What? A witch?”

“And that witch shouted in fury.”

I recounted the tale of the witch that had been laid upon me.

I whispered her still-vivid cry to Vivian.

“You will not have a child.”

Vivian’s face froze in an instant.

Her eyelids trembled violently.

“…”

She cautiously placed her hand on her lower abdomen.

As if trying to instinctively protect our future child, who had not yet been born or determined.

Then she lunged once more to embrace me, but I didn’t lower my arm.

I continued.

“You will not live past thirty.”

“No…! No, Kyle!! That can’t be—”

“—And the last one is the most important…”

I spoke with an absurd grin.

Emotions swirled chaotically.

In the grip of overwhelming anxiety, I could only laugh.

It was ridiculous that I believed that and that it was shaking me so much.

In this shitty situation, laughter was my only shield.

“…You will fall in love with someone you shouldn’t love.”

“…”

“That’s what the old woman said.”

****

Vivian felt her strength drain away.

Her legs were shaking.

From Kyle’s expression, she could sense the anxiety he had felt all this time was now affecting her.

She could even feel the reason he hadn’t revealed this story until now.

That must have been his consideration.

“…I love you, Vivian.”

Kyle revealed his true feelings.

“Like a curse… I felt that from the moment I first laid eyes on you.”

However, for Vivian, Kyle’s feelings were nothing but painful words at that moment.

If his feelings were a curse… she felt she knew exactly who it was that he shouldn’t love.

In no time, Vivian’s eyes were bloodshot.

As if seeking confirmation, she asked, her expression stiff.

“…Your feelings are a curse?”

She too had clenched her jaw against emotions she could no longer bear.

“To… cherish me…! Was a curse for you? Kyle, I, I…”

Vivian clenched her fists.

A curse, really?

That was such a farce.

…his feelings were her salvation.

Kyle had dismissed his feelings as a curse.

“Your… feelings…!”

…was loving me a curse?

I felt like I would burst into tears at any moment.

And before she could speak, Kyle continued.

“I can’t let go of that possibility… Seeing you, who I still can’t dislike… now I’m scared of you.”

It hurt so much that it felt like Vivian’s heart was being crushed.

It physically hurt.

It felt like someone was pounding on her chest with their fists.

He, despite their mutual growling, had to trust her at the core, while he was suspicious of everything from the foundation.

“D-Don’t be ridiculous!”

Vivian finally shouted.

“Do you think such a curse could be placed so easily? That, such a powerful curse?”

“Maybe it could.”

“No! Absolutely not! You just loved me!”

She shouted like a spoiled child.

She didn’t believe in curses.

Spells weren’t so easily cast.

The more complicated the spell, the more intricate the incantation required.

But Kyle didn’t know that.

“How would you know?”

“…”

Vivian couldn’t reply.

Ah.

She instinctively understood now.

If Kyle learned she was a witch, it would be something irreversible.

Kyle hadn’t spoken about it until now, but she could see how much he had agonized over this issue.

The source of his hatred towards witches became clear to her in an instant.

So, revealing that she was a witch was off the table.

Now he was doubting the curse, but if he discovered she was a witch, that doubt would turn into certainty.

That couldn’t happen.

Kyle, at that moment, clenched the cloth near his heart into a fist.

“Isn’t this really… strange?”

Shaking his clothes in frustration, he continued earnestly.

“What could possibly make me this crazy about you…!”

“…Ah…”

…It hurts, Kyle.

Vivian swallowed the words she couldn’t express.

She was afraid that if she was too honest, he might grow tired of her.

In such a precarious situation, she couldn’t show him her troublesome side.

Yet, perhaps realizing she was hurt too, Kyle seemed to tighten his resolve even more.

Nevertheless, unleashing the pent-up irritation, he squeezed his eyes shut and yelled.

“Explain to me… my childhood… was shattered by your family…!”

Vivian bit her lips tightly in guilt.

“I was torn from my family and struggling to survive…! Everything I did was… meaningless! Why is it so difficult to be angry at you over something so trivial? Why can’t I still hate you?!”

Kyle spoke as if completely drained, whispering quietly.

“…Just explain it to me.”

Vivian still felt pathetic.

No matter how much she built her territory and restored her family, it remained the same.

If someone admired her, it was all because she was wearing a mask.

Kyle knew the girl beneath the mask.

He always understood how weak and foolish she was.

That’s why she couldn’t argue against his words.

With pleading sincerity, she said,

“I… I may be pathetic… I have nothing… But… we have the memories we built together, right? Huh? Kyle… there’s meaning in that…”

“Memories we built together?”

Kyle shook his head dejectedly.

“We… did we do anything other than fight?”

Recently, they had only increased their physical contact, but their relationship had always been filled with conflict and struggle.

They laughed while doing things they disliked. They had more moments of growling at each other than of smiling.

Especially Vivian knew she had been worse towards Kyle.

How much she despised him, they both knew all too well.

That’s why it pained her so much now.

She understood all too well what kind of monster she had been in the past…

“…In this heart, I’ve always made excuses not to leave you. Once because you didn’t let go… and another time because I couldn’t leave you when you weren’t safe…”

Kyle’s tone was thick with resignation.

And sensing that, Vivian began to fear for her sanity.

“…Why do you keep talking like you’re leaving?”

Vivian tried to lighten the mood with a laugh as she asked.

But that smile trembled at her lips and soon vanished.

“Now the excuses have run out, Vivian.”

“…”

Vivian anticipated his next words and gently called out to him.

“…Kyle.”

She wanted to soothe him. She wanted to stop him.

She reached out to place her hand on his cheek.

To touch the one she treasured most.

But Kyle gently pushed her hand away.

And then he said,

“…Our struggles have ended now.”

Vivian stared blankly at her hand that had been pushed away.

This was the first time Kyle had rejected her so forcefully.

For Vivian, the chill from Kyle was terrifyingly cold.

Vivian looked up at him, feeling her mind go blank.

Kyle whispered.

“…So let’s end our bad ties here.”

“…What?”

Weakly, Vivian echoed the question.

End it?

She couldn’t comprehend it.

She looked at Kyle in silence.

Kyle maintained his silence.

“…”

“…”

What end could possibly lie between us?

Hadn’t they decided to be together for a lifetime?

Hadn’t Kyle also promised not to leave her all this time?

Vivian gazed absent-mindedly at Kyle and quietly asked.

“…Are you saying you want to break up with me?”

The incredulous question slipped from her lips.

Since the beginning of her struggles, Kyle had always been by her side.

Like thread and needle, whenever she turned her head, there he was.

Whether they were eating, walking, or resting… he had always been right there.

Somehow, when he wasn’t around, she felt empty. It seemed so obvious that he was there.

But could he really be saying to end it?

Was he saying he would vanish from her side in the future?

Was he suggesting they not protect each other’s sides anymore?

“…You and me…? You?”

Her voice was thin and frail.

She was in such shock that it seemed she could hardly speak properly.

She only dared to imagine it, but never thought it would really come to be.

She had never considered that her relationship with him, built over seven years, could come to an end.

“I… I still don’t… dislike you…”

Clinging to the one positive remark he had thrown her way, Vivian questioned him.

Kyle nodded slowly.

“If the curse were real… I wouldn’t be able to have a child, and I would die young. So…”

He reiterated steadily to Vivian.

Throwing away the leash, he said.

“…Before regretting it any further, let’s end this.”