To You, Who Will Die Alone in Paradise Chapter 57

Kellewen chuckled and kissed Dandeleon’s forehead. At the touch of his soft lips, Dandeleon relaxed slightly. At that moment, as if he had been waiting for it, Kellewen’s penis drove into him from behind.

“Heueuk!”

The long-awaited pleasure erupted from within like a lightning strike, spreading throughout his body. Dandeleon’s mind went distant.

Kellewen moved his hips roughly, as if unleashing all his pent-up desire at once. The huge, weapon-like thing repeatedly pressed into him as if to tear him open, then pulled out. Dandeleon sobbed, swept away by the waves of pleasure.

Ever since their first night at Céleste Domaine, Kellewen had been like this. That day, Kellewen had ejaculated inside Dandeleon five times. By the end, Dandeleon’s voice was hoarse, barely able to breathe, and his body was covered in bite marks and bruises. It was a miracle he didn’t come down with an illness from the exertion the next day.

Kellewen also admitted that he had been too harsh that day. He sincerely apologized to Dandeleon, saying that it had been so long that he had lost his reason.

Counting the days, it hadn’t even been that long, but Kellewen’s sex drive seemed stronger than he had thought. Dandeleon, too, had found it difficult, but it hadn’t been an unpleasant experience; in fact, if he had to choose, it was closer to being good, so he decided to graciously accept his apology.

But after that, Kellewen’s behavior became utterly inconsistent. One day, he couldn’t even properly touch him, as if he would break if touched, and then another day, he would cling to Dandeleon like a madman.

He didn’t physically exhaust him like he had on the first day, but the frequency with which he pushed him mentally actually increased. He would torment Dandeleon relentlessly until the words “I want it” came from his lips.

As if that itself were the goal of the act.

Sometimes, Dandeleon would wonder when Kellewen had changed so much. The answer was always the same.

The dawn when he had a terrible, yet unremembered, dream. Dandeleon remembered Kellewen coming to find him that day and weeping sorrowfully.

Clearly, a lot had changed starting from that day. Dandeleon’s life, Kellewen’s personality and behavior. But he still didn’t know the reason. That was what frustrated him.

His days at Céleste Domaine always felt like that. Peaceful, yet strangely unsettling. It felt like walking on a frozen river. Not knowing how thick the ice was, or which parts were thin, Dandeleon tensed with every step, imagining the cold water lurking beneath the river.

Was it because of that anxiety? Strange dreams continued without end. It had been the same kind of dream ever since he had collapsed, vomiting blood.

“Apsara!”

Now, the woman in the dream appeared much more clearly.

She was definitely not his mother. She was much taller, and her features were sharp, the complete opposite of his mother’s. But in her violet eyes, around her nose and mouth, and in the shape of the fingers she extended toward him, Dandeleon caught glimpses of his mother. Even though his mother had almost never reached out a hand to him.

“Where are you? Apsara!”

She wandered the beach, searching for his mother. Dandeleon wanted to tell her. That his mother was already dead and buried in the ground.

But his voice wouldn’t come out. Dandeleon moved his lips, shouting with all his might. But instead of a voice, a large air bubble burst from his mouth.

“Apsara!”

The woman wailed.

“Come to the sea…!”

The dream always ended there.

When he opened his eyes, it was the ceiling with the beautiful mosaic. The ceiling mural depicting brilliant flowers, cloaked in a layer of darkness, quietly looked down at him.

“Haa….”

Dandeleon let out a sigh.

The dreams were becoming more and more vivid, to the point where it was now difficult to distinguish them from reality. The voice searching for his mother was so desperate and sad that his heart ached when he woke from the dream. Dandeleon turned onto his side and reached a hand toward the spot where Kellewen had been lying.

“Kellewen.”

But one side of the bed was empty. There was no indentation, no warmth. He was sure they had lain down together, so when had he gotten up? No, had he even fallen asleep in the first place? Dandeleon frowned.

“Not again.”

When he had woken up the day before yesterday, Kellewen hadn’t been in bed either. Dandeleon, who had been depressed that day too from being plagued by the dream, had wandered around looking for him and found Kellewen in the study. He had put down the book he was reading and returned to bed with Dandeleon. And he had held Dandeleon in his arms and patted him until he fell asleep.

Thinking he must be in the study today as well, Dandeleon got out of bed and lit a candle. He took the candlestick and knocked on the door of the study, which was two doors down from the bedroom.

“Kellewen?”

There was no answer, so he opened the door to find the study empty. Dandeleon entered the room and looked around, but there was no trace of Kellewen. All there was was a half-read book lying on the desk.

Dandeleon brought the candlelight closer to the book. It was difficult to understand, full of complex medical terms, but he could guess why Kellewen was reading such a book.

“I told him so many times that I don’t have any particular illness….”

Dandeleon gave a bitter smile. He wondered if this was the reason Kellewen had been cooped up in the study lately.

A feeling of tender affection washed over him, and he terribly missed Kellewen.

He had planned to just go back if he wasn’t here, but he changed his mind. Dandeleon left the study and checked the next room. Kellewen wasn’t there either. Not in the next room, nor the one after that.

Finally, after searching the entire second floor, Dandeleon still couldn’t find Kellewen.

“……”

He felt a strange sensation. Dandeleon cast an uneasy gaze at the stairs leading down. He was reluctant to go down to the first floor in the middle of the night. It was too dark and quiet everywhere.

There are no resident servants at Céleste Domaine. All servants came to work at sunrise and returned to their quarters at sunset. Kellewen’s explanation was that he wanted to be comfortable at night, away from the eyes of others, but Dandeleon had a suspicion bordering on certainty that he regarded the servants as potential assassins.

‘Zellos was always here before.’

Dandeleon thought absently, then flinched. He hadn’t even said the thought out loud, and Kellewen, who would hear it, wasn’t even beside him, but he felt guilty as if he had committed a sin. Realizing that he was being needlessly self-conscious, his already sunken spirits sank further into the mire.

‘…I’m allowed to just think it, aren’t I?’

The reason he couldn’t even voice this protest that no one would hear was because Kellewen was particularly sensitive about the issue of Zellos.

After returning from being kidnapped, Dandeleon had asked Kellewen various things about Zellos. But Kellewen didn’t give a clear answer to any of them. Instead, he showed his displeasure and only repeatedly emphasized the fact that Zellos had kidnapped him with malicious intent.

So Dandeleon couldn’t confide his honest feelings to him.

That he was upset and confused because he had been betrayed by his one and only family, the person he had trusted most in the world.

That it was still hard to accept that Zellos had kidnapped him….

Dandeleon’s reaction was perfectly natural, but it was hard to bring himself to say such things to Kellewen.

So, in front of Kellewen, Dandeleon acted as if he had completely forgotten about the Zellos incident. In the meantime, the unresolved, frustrating emotions only festered inward, and inward.

‘I can’t let this go on.’

Dandeleon steeled himself and started walking downstairs. He suddenly wanted to find Kellewen right now and honestly confess his complicated feelings.

It wasn’t necessarily about Zellos. He could at least say that he was frustrated with this situation where he couldn’t even go out properly. It had already been over two weeks since he started living cooped up here as if in seclusion. Hadn’t he been patient enough?

“Kellewen?”

But Kellewen wasn’t on the first floor either. Dandeleon opened every door and checked the bathroom, the kitchen, and even the storage room. At first, it was dark and quiet and scary, but as time passed, his feeling of bewilderment grew stronger.

‘Where did he go at this time of night?’

The clock indicated it was two in the morning. It was not a suitable time to go out or to meet someone.

‘I hope nothing has happened, right?’

Dandeleon grew anxious and paced the narrow first-floor hallway. Every time he turned, the flame on the candle swayed. After wandering like that for a while, Dandeleon decided he had to check the second floor again and walked toward the stairs.

It was the moment he placed one foot on the stairs.

“…mash…!”

A strange strand of voice tore through the night’s silence and pierced Dandeleon’s ears.

“Kellewen?!”

Startled, Dandeleon spun around.

No matter how far he extended the candlelight, there was no one in the dark hallway. But he had definitely heard a voice. It was a voice he had heard somewhere before, but it was a little distant. Which room had it come from? Dandeleon furrowed his brow and focused all his attention on his hearing.

A long time passed in silence. Just as he was beginning to suspect the voice might have been a dream.

“Zarmash…!”

The voice came again, a little clearer than before. Dandeleon’s head turned downward as if pulled by a magnet.

Dandeleon was standing right in front of the stairs. An ornately patterned carpet was laid out in the hallway, so long that it covered the entire hall and continued all the way up the stairs.

Dandeleon hesitated, then crouched down on the floor. He set down the candlestick and pushed the carpet aside with his hand, revealing the floor inlaid with a mosaic pattern. Dandeleon felt the floor with his hand. The tiles that made up the mosaic were smaller than the tip of his finger and were coldly smooth.

But among the countless tiles, there was one that felt different. It was a tile that was rough, as if it hadn’t been properly polished like the ones on either side of it. Dandeleon rubbed the tile, then pressed it firmly.

His finger sank in with a sound like gears interlocking. At the same time, a section of the floor slid open.

“……!”

Dandeleon hastily sucked in a breath. His heart was pounding violently. He had thought the sound came from below, but he never imagined there would be a hidden door.

Beyond the open door, a long staircase was visible. The light from the candle Dandeleon had brought was too weak to show more than the entrance to the stairs; the area below was buried in pitch-black darkness.

Dandeleon was about to call for Kellewen, but then closed his mouth. He had a bad feeling. He felt that something terribly shocking and dreadful was waiting for him.

‘Close the door.’

Dandeleon told himself.

‘Just close this door, go back to bed, and go to sleep. When I open my eyes tomorrow morning, Kellewen will be next to me. I’ll tell Kellewen I had a scary dream and forget all about it….’

Dandeleon looked down into the endless, deep darkness.

‘Then, things will stay just as they are now, forever….’

His hand gripped the candlestick.