#101
A sobbing voice stopped Ruhak. Still, Ruhak only paused for a moment and did not bite his body. It was when the wind scratched the window that Ruhak started moving again.
The clothes covering my cervical spine began to tear apart. The cold wind seeped through my collar. Yet Sehyun didn’t even feel the cold.
This was because he was looking down at Sehyun with distorted, painful eyes. Sehyun’s gaze blinked shut. The more it happened, the clearer Ruhak’s sadness became.
“I am… .”
Sehyun looked at Ruhak and opened her mouth in a whisper. When the fingertips scratched the nape of her neck and pressed against the skin, the tight collar around her cervical spine was completely torn off.
And then, Sehyun’s words came to an end.
“… “I hate you.”
The hand that was tearing off the clothes stopped.
In an instant, everything became quiet. It was so quiet that it felt like time had stopped. In my blurred vision, there was Ruhak with a stern expression. His pupils twitched.
Sehyun continued speaking as if she was crying out loud.
“you… That’s what you said. Those were the last things you said to me. That’s why I didn’t come in… we… “That’s how it ended.”
So it was like that. Unlike my tear-soaked vision, my voice flowed quite freely. As I blinked, Ruhak’s tightly closed mouth caught my eye.
“… Say no. Tell me you never said that. It was something else… “Please answer me.”
The words that there was noise and external interference were taken away as if someone had erased them. I didn’t know that that was a limitation that Bill Will had imposed. In a situation where there were limited ways to let people know, all Sehyun could do was convey her sincerity.
They did their best to convey that there was a discrepancy and that each person’s answers were different.
Ruhak’s gaze sank deeply. The eyes, which had blinked several times, gradually took on an empty light. It looked as if it would disappear from exhaustion. Sehyeon held Ruhak’s hand tightly holding her clothes.
“… Now please… Let’s stop, Nell… .”
The empty gaze soon became heavy. The shadow cast over Sehyun’s body gradually disappeared. An emotion that cannot be described in one word remained on his face.
For the first time, I knew there was no going back. It won’t be as if it never happened. The spilled ink stained the paper black, and as if that wasn’t enough, it dripped down the desk and onto the floor.
It feels like the stains of ink have formed a river.
Still, Sehyun chose to erase it rather than leave it unattended.
So it was like that. Raising herself up on her elbows, she wiped her tears with her sleeves and faced Ruhak, who looked like he was about to collapse.
“… I am… .”
Sehyun bit her lip tightly for a moment. He was able to open his mouth only after he had let it sink in. The only thing that came out was breathing, but it felt like a lot of words had already been said.
Our lips, which had been sweet, shared that day’s secret meeting again.
“you… love.”
Last checked reliability. And meeting. It was a day when I felt the same cold, and there wasn’t even a moon. Sehyeon remembered with great sadness that night when his fingertips were cold.
So, he will remember that too. That cold, windy night.
It was a while later that Ruhak’s mouth opened. When his hesitant hand brushed Sehyun’s cheek and covered her ear, his low voice captured that day just like Sehyun’s.
‘I am.’
“me too… .”
The sound of breathing got closer. The hand covering her ear and the hand gently grabbing the back of her neck led Sehyeon slowly. The breath, which was always breathtaking, came closer, and Ruhak paused for a moment, leaving a small gap.
Each other’s breaths were intertwined with a narrow gap between them. My eyes blinked shut. In that brief moment, I felt like I was floating. It felt like I was back in time.
‘you.’
“you… .”
The hot sigh-like breath reminded me of the cold back then. Her shoulders were trembling as if she was suffering from pain.
There was silence for a long time. In the silence, Ruhak seemed frozen and did not open his mouth. Only Ruhak’s faintly trembling fingertips touching his cheek conveyed his fading emotions. He couldn’t even guess how much time had passed.
Only the shallow breaths of each other barely touched each other. My head was pulled a little further. Ruhak’s fingertips were still trembling slightly. And when the trembling suddenly stopped, Ruhak parted his trembling lips and spoke.
‘I hate you.’
“… “I love you.”
The answer I should have heard a long time ago came back with a sigh. Slowly, as if they were carving, her lips came in contact with her by tilting the bridge of her nose.
Before I realized it, our lips touched and my breath was swallowed. Even the hastily exhaled breath was fiercely swallowed by Ruhak.
It felt like my mouth was throbbing. It was deep enough to be scary, and hot enough to be scary.
A few times, Sehyun was pushed by a shoulder that was too strong to hit her, and through the heated air, she felt a hand groping her cervical spine. A tantalizing itching and chilling sensation came over the inside of his throat.
Every time the firm fingertips found a deep cleavage and pressed down, Sehyun had to flinch from the numbing sensitivity. It was only after his head was lowered that he realized his vision was blurring white.
A trembling body and weak fingertips.
I felt a cold, tingling sensation running down my spine. No, it was pure white.
“under… ha… .”
Even the sound coming out through heavy breathing was faint. Even the air felt thin.
It happened several times.
It was like that more than I could remember, and when it stopped, it was after I raised my head in Ruhak’s hand.
Ruhak was in the field of vision where the light spread. I tried to push his hand, but the shoulder I hit didn’t budge.
The sound of breathing was swallowed again into Ruhak’s mouth. As expected, it’s frighteningly deep.
Sehyeon persistently retraced his long journey back. It was a road so far away that it felt black. Maybe that’s why the pouring breath felt more urgent.
Ruhak did not back down until his vision began to fade. The field stayed chaotically in one space and then disappeared. Sehyeon’s gaze slowly closed. Everything was hazy. The feeling of being submerged in water came again when I closed my eyes.
I felt like I was being torn apart by an unfamiliar sensation. Still, her fingertips felt hot.
The action ended in silence. They were facing each other in silence, the sound of their breathing spreading.
For some reason I couldn’t open my mouth.
The moment Sehyeon’s eyes closed, everything disappeared without a trace.
***
“Sehyeon… I… “I finished it.”
“Already?”
Sehyun looked back at Yoo Si-woon with a surprised expression. Yu Si-un was scratching the back of her head with an embarrassed expression, with his eyes downcast. In front of him was a potion that had been completed through research and theoretical data.
The potion in the beaker had a light purple color. It was the color of the potion that was deduced during the theory course.
“… Yoo Si-un, you have a knack for manufacturing.”
Sehyun said with a slightly dazed expression. In fact, Se-hyeon is also quite good at manufacturing, so I’ve never heard him say that he can’t do it, but with Yu Si-un next to him, he seems to have fallen short by a long time. The talent itself was completely different.
Although he provided some research records and theoretical design data, Yoo Si-woon created the potion that Se-hyun had been struggling with in just a few days. The factory vassals were so surprised that they trembled.
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“that… The data given by Sehyun… There were so many of them and they were theoretically complete. me too… uh… I can’t go this far, but I have something built up… So I did that. “I’m definitely not that great!”
Yoo Si-un vehemently denied it, even throwing up his hands. To Se-hyeon, who had not succeeded even with that material, it only seemed like humility.
“What is the level of the factory in Yu Siun’s empire?”
“I am… I haven’t been able to grow the village much, so I’m only at level 2… “I couldn’t raise it.”
“… “And yet you’re this good at it?”
Sehyeon’s factory level was currently LV.40. This is only to balance the scale with other organizations, but if you look at the manpower involved in the manufacturing plant, it was significantly small. Moreover, because it was focused on research labs, mass production of potions was not even a dream.
“Yoo Si-un.”
“Yes, yes!”
“Try this too.”
“ah… I… That too… that… I finished it yesterday… .”
“Yoo Si-un.”
“… yes.”
“Would you like to just live with me?”
Yu Si-un’s face turned bright red at those words. He flinched backwards, hit his back against the bookshelf, and was startled again, squatting on the floor with his head covered. Only after Sehyun said it was a joke did Siwoon Yoo’s trembling shoulders quiet down.
“It seems that the Yu Siun clan is specialized in manufacturing. Or is it only possible with potions?”
“… sorry.”
Yu Si-un answered with a face that looked like he was about to cry. It meant she couldn’t talk. This clause is clearly stated in the contract.
The exploitation that Fen was talking about. It was said that Yu Si-un’s race belonged to a hostile alliance, and that he was currently being exploited by that alliance. This meant that Sehyeon’s cousin Park Seung-geon and his allies also belonged to the alliance.
Here, Se-hyeon guessed that Yu Si-woon’s characteristic was not limited to being good at making silk. This is because there is value and demand in tying and exploiting things like this. Moreover, if a king can touch an empire in his absence, it means that the empires are deeply tied to each other.
The targets of their exploitation were likely to be the Grand Duke and the people of the Empire.
