The Way to Love in the Place of Dead Chapter 12

That wasn’t what this was about. Unable to tell where the conversation had gone off track, Kay felt his heart lurch the moment he faced Aran, who was slowly bending forward at the waist.

“Or else…”

As if something had just occurred to him, Aran whispered from a distance so close their breaths nearly overlapped.

“You could just protect me.”

The unprecedentedly light tone blurred the weight of reality. The heartbeat pounding against his bones was not because of his beauty, nor because of a distance so slight that the slightest move might bring their lips together. Something that was neither tension nor excitement ran down his spine.

Kay realized it when he saw those glass-like, glistening eyes blink once and then meet his again.

That he was a different person from El. With stark, vivid clarity.

“You…”

He couldn’t finish his sentence and just stirred; Aran tilted his head, and Kay delivered his honest impression.

“Something’s wrong with your head.”

“My head?”

“Not that head.”

Aran straightened up and felt around his own head. Perhaps even this gesture was an act to change the subject—the suspicion began to sprout.

“…The math doesn’t add up.”

Kay repeated to himself over and over that he didn’t know this man well. Because he resembled the person he loved most, he had to rebuild the wariness that Aran so easily tore down, again and again, like a sandcastle liable to vanish in the wind.

“You, and the Center—you have the same goal, don’t you? Ending the war. If it’s about using me, wouldn’t just handing over my weakness be enough?”

“True. But just because the goal is the same doesn’t mean the process has to be.”

The process?

“From the moment the Center learns the terms of your deal with me, they’ll use you ruthlessly with ‘that condition’ as the price. They’ll drive you until you’re hurt, broken, and your mind is in shambles. Then, when you go on a rampage, they’ll toss you right into the middle of the battlefield and meticulously recycle you as a human weapon. Since they can’t give you information about ‘that person’ anyway, it’d be best for them if you died before the war ends.”

Knowing the Center’s track record, Kay couldn’t deny it. And that made it all the harder to accept.

“So you’re saying you’re different?”

“I staked my life on it so you’d believe that.”

Aran climbed back up the steps he’d descended and stood before Kay. His finger poked Kay’s chest—exactly over his heart.

“Don’t overthink it. I only told you the truth, and because I wanted this deal to be fair, I chose to become your safeguard.”

“Even if it puts you in danger?”

“Considering the circumstances, I got off cheap.”

His smile, which Kay had to look up at even though Aran stood one step below, sent ripples through him. Amid the spreading waves, more grains of the sandcastle slipped away. In a deal so unfair that he had no choice but to swallow it, Aran had balanced the scales solely for Kay’s sake.

The taste lingered in his mouth. Despite the terms being so favorable that suspicion took the lead, his head and his heart moved separately.

“You’re the one holding the blade now, too. The Center can’t push you around, and depending on your actions, you can determine whether I live or die. Isn’t that rather a good thing?”

“The former, maybe, but the latter gives me the creeps.”

“Why? Doesn’t it feel thrilling, holding the power of life and death over someone else?”

Still with a smile lingering at his lips, Aran turned away. His back looked leisurely and carefree.

“You seriously need to get your head checked. Go to a hospital.”

“No. If I go and they tell me I’m seriously messed up, that would hurt my feelings.”

Calling him crazy in the head was an understatement. He felt like a person who was wrong somewhere, broken in some fundamental way.

‘Because if not…’

There was absolutely no reason for him to make a deal that deliberately put himself at risk.

For the sole reason of earning Kay’s trust.

“…”

Regardless of his intentions, from the moment Kay recognized it as a sacrifice, his heart churned.

An act he could never like, and never bring himself to like.

Not wanting to accept the possibility that someone else could sacrifice themselves for him, Kay tucked away a third possibility he had nearly missed into a corner of his mind.

‘What if he has another objective?’

What if not sharing Kay’s power with the Center served some other purpose for him, and he was using Kay for that?

‘That, I can understand.’

Either way, the suspicion that there was some reason he couldn’t predict was more comforting to his heart than trust. He took a step toward Aran, who had turned back as if searching for the Kay who wasn’t following. The land where the sun existed made the golden hair before him glitter, yet at the same time, it was gradually staining it blacker.

With every step he followed, increasingly otherworldly buildings stretched on one after another.

Aran named each building they saw one by one, adding brief explanations, and among them, Kay spotted a building where construction had begun because of the one he had blasted apart.

They were all structures of different appearances and forms, but among them, one bluish building stood out, stretching especially high toward the sky. That was the “Residential Complex” where Center-affiliated ability users stayed.

[Welcome. This is the Residential Complex.]

When Aran held his bracelet up to the machine beside the entrance that displayed the guidance text, the door opened. Biometric recognition took place while they walked between the outer automatic door and the inner one. Past the security check, the interior beyond the door was…

‘Dazzling.’

Crystal ornaments and a massive chandelier hung from the ceiling. The diffusely reflected light stabbed at his eyes. With the spatial sensation so extremely opposite to the desert landscape, Kay followed Aran with all five senses on high alert.

It was while rounding a building pillar, looking at the sign marking the elevator.

“Whoa! Sorry!”

He nearly collided with someone who came running out. The person took in Kay’s attire with a startled expression and then, without an apology, rejoined his friends. Surprise and then realization flickered in turn across his friends’ eyes.

As he calmed his startled heart and stood before the elevator, Kay soon learned what the ones who had barely avoided the collision must have been murmuring about.

“Is that the one? The monster.”

At the provocative word, his ears pricked up.

“The Center’s really something. Even so, there’s no need to grovel to a bastard like that.”

“They say he’s S-rank. You saw him level a building while still in restraints.”

“And after all that, he just shows up now? His shamelessness is S-rank too, I guess.”

“Come to think of it, I heard Aran’s covering the cost for that building.”

“Seriously? Why?”

Kay grew curious, too, and almost turned his gaze.

“Who knows. Isn’t it liability costs? He’s the one who brought him here.”

“Or maybe he’s got it bad for him.”

“Hey. What would the great Aran Rapperd be so desperate for?”

“They say people from Willamere are killer in the sack.”

The man who had been repeatedly thrusting his index finger in and out of a circle he made with his other hand turned his back on Kay the moment their eyes met.

“Does it bother you?”

Perhaps because his nerves had been strained in that one direction, Kay hadn’t noticed Aran drawing close until his face was nearly touching his shoulder. At Kay’s flinch, his smile deepened.

“It’d be a lie to say it doesn’t bother me, but I can ignore it.”

When Kay pushed him away with a hand, he yielded easily.

“More importantly…”

“Yeah.”

“Do you have a lot of money?”

Just as he asked, the elevator arrived.

Everyone getting off glanced at Aran at least once, and even after they had all disembarked and the elevator stood empty, he just stood there, blinking his eyes.

“Hey. Are you listening?”

Only then did he snap back to his senses, grab the closing elevator door, and gesture for Kay to get in. They stepped into the elevator side by side, and it began to move.

“Ah. You startled me. That’s the first time in my life anyone’s asked me if I had a lot of money.”

He covered his mouth with his left hand, the one wearing the bracelet, and snickered.

“I wouldn’t normally ask either. But it’s a building. It can’t be just a small sum.”

Kay had asked quite seriously, but the guy buried his face in the corner of the elevator and his shoulders started shaking. He couldn’t help but think, ‘I shouldn’t have asked.’

“Fine, forget it. It’s not my money anyway.”

He didn’t understand why the question “Do you have a lot of money?” was funny in the first place. Giving up on further conversation, he watched the numbers climbing higher. They were already passing the 40th floor.

“Hah… I really haven’t laughed like that in a long time.”

Wiping away the tears that had formed as a consequence of his stifled laughter, Aran cleared his throat.

“You’re right. The building was incredibly expensive. So now I’m broke.”