You! Don’t Press that Button! - Chap 62
At that, Liras smiled lightly and took another sip of wine.
By Karhan’s lover, does he mean Doel? Karhan must have already told Liras. Thinking this, I nodded lightly.
“I’m not sure, but… maybe?”
I answered with a hint of uncertainty. At that, Liras’s green eyes shone brightly, and his pupils elongated into slits. I wasn’t yet used to a person’s eyes suddenly changing shape, so my body involuntarily flinched.
“Who might that be?”
“Uh… even if I tell you, Liras, you probably won’t know. Or maybe you would…”
“Do tell me.”
He urged me to answer with a nod. Although I had an ominous feeling for some reason, I thought it was just needless worry and opened my mouth.
“There’s a friend named Doel who we met when resolving the Sabon region incident before.”
At that, I heard a thoughtful hum. In the moment I hesitated, a cheerful laugh followed.
When I looked at Liras, he was rubbing his face with the hand not holding the wine glass. He took off the glasses perched on his high nose bridge and placed them on the table. With his eyes closed, he pressed his brow for a moment, then stopped moving and slowly opened his tightly closed lips.
“Karhan said they weren’t in any kind of relationship.”
“Huh?”
“I wonder why you’re so certain…”
Maybe it was because the transparent lenses that had somewhat shielded his fierce pupils were gone, but his gaze felt even more piercing. As if his thin pupils were a noose, I couldn’t turn my head away. My hands involuntarily clenched into fists, and beads of sweat formed on my palms.
Why am I so certain, he asks. Just… just, I think that’s how it was in the book.
Of course, I had only read the beginning part, so I didn’t know the ending in detail, but those two were the main characters. So it was natural for them to become lovers. But I couldn’t say this, so I kept my mouth shut tight.
As I was quietly observing the situation, suddenly a transparent barrier rose from the floor and enveloped us both. I jumped up in surprise, pushing back my chair. Looking behind me, I could see my personal attendant on the other side of the transparent barrier. He was standing blankly, not doing anything. As if he couldn’t see this situation.
Ah. I opened my mouth slightly. As I stood frozen, not knowing what to do, Liras, who was still sitting comfortably, spoke to me.
“I’m not sure if you’re interested in my story, but I’d appreciate it if you could spare me a moment.”
“What kind of story…?”
I asked in a somewhat timid voice. Liras then pointed at the chair that had fallen to the floor due to my hasty standing.
“First, sit down.”
With those words, the chair stood up by itself. Swallowing hard at the suddenly incomprehensible situation, I sat down on the chair that I assumed Liras had raised. I folded my hands neatly on my knees and mustered the courage to meet Liras’s eyes. As if trying to intimidate me, his pupils were still sharp enough to pierce something.
“I had a dream a few days ago. It was a dream about Karhan. Together with a man named Doel.”
At those words, my clenched hands tightened. Why is he suddenly telling me about his dream? In my mind, I only wished for this uncomfortable situation to pass quickly.
“Karhan seemed to be on very good terms with that man. They smiled at each other, held hands, and touched each other’s faces – they appeared to be very close.”
“…”
I looked at Liras without saying anything. My eyes glistened with mixed emotions. What does he want to say? I wiped the sweat off my palms by rubbing them on my pants.
“During the dream, every person I knew appeared in my mind. It felt like I was living another life. Unfortunately, I couldn’t dream it to the end.”
“…What are you trying to say?”
Feeling frustrated and uncomfortable with the way he was dragging it out, I blurted out the question. Liras didn’t seem to mind my behavior and nodded gently. He took a sip from his glass to wet his throat, then paused for a moment to choose his words before speaking.
“I don’t know this person called Doel.”
“Huh?”
“Dragons are creatures that live for a long time and remember every moment. There’s not a single moment we forget. However, the person who appeared in my dream moved vividly despite being someone I don’t know at all. As if… it wasn’t a dream. And I confirmed it when I came here. That he’s a living, breathing human.”
He was a human exactly the same as in the dream, he said. Liras, who was lightly swirling his wine, continued in a low voice.
As Liras continued speaking, I gradually understood what he was saying. And why he was telling me.
“Interestingly, there was also someone who was the opposite of this Doel person. Despite knowing and having seen them several times, there was just one person who didn’t appear. Judging by your expression, it seems you have a rough idea of who didn’t appear. May I ask?”
Without needing to say more, it’s me. I wouldn’t have appeared in Liras’s dream. Because the dream he had would be the same as the content of the novel.
Liras, who had the dream, must have felt something was off and came to the Barthes mansion, and he must have come to the dining room because I, the only one who didn’t appear, was suspicious. And now he’s indirectly asking me who I am and what this dream content is about.
My parched lips felt rough. Feeling I shouldn’t show signs of nervousness, I couldn’t drink water or moisten them with my tongue. I just quietly lowered my gaze and looked down at the meat that had gone cold.
I couldn’t understand why Liras suddenly dreamed of the novel’s content. I don’t even know what character Liras appears as.
I couldn’t say much to Liras, who was staring at me with shining eyes, because I didn’t know anything either. To escape this uncomfortable situation, I could have said, “This world is already determined by the content of a novel, and you are a character appearing in it,” but strangely, my lips wouldn’t part easily.
As we filled quite a long time with silence like that, suddenly the round barrier surrounding us started to wobble and dissipate. As if being sucked in, it gradually shrank towards Liras’s back until all traces of it disappeared.
I stared ahead with wide eyes. Liras, who had been emitting an overwhelming aura, was now wearing the same gentle smile as usual. His gaze was slightly averted from me. As if there was something behind me.
Behind?
Following Liras’s gaze, I turned around to look behind me. Karhan, whom I hadn’t seen for a long time, was standing there. With wide eyes, I called out in a dazed voice.
“Karhan…?”
Karhan’s gaze briefly turned to me before fixing on Liras. The two of them looked at each other without saying anything. As complex gazes intertwined and silence was about to begin again, Liras broke eye contact first, smiling lightly.
“I was bored, so thank you for being my conversation partner.”
“Huh?”
“Thanks to you, I learned that Karhan is more cold-hearted than I thought. Not even meeting properly for days.”
“Huh?”
No, what are you suddenly saying? I looked at Liras with my eyebrows twisted strangely. Meeting my eyes, he smiled deeply as if he knew nothing.
“If you’re going to be treated like this, why don’t you come to our mansion instead? I’ll treat you preciously.”
“What?”
No, what has this person been saying? Why would I go to your house! As I was about to jump up at his creepy words, I had to stop moving because of the voice coming from behind me.
“It’s mine, so I’ll keep it.”
“Yours? I thought it had become unnecessary since you weren’t even seeing each other’s faces. I thought you had gotten bored, as you always have.”
At those words, my face hardened. So that’s how it looked to Liras… My tightly set lips began to tremble with hurt. Although he said we were friends, I was an animal Karhan had adopted for money, so he could get bored. Sadly, that’s what animals are in this world.
My shoulders sagged, and my head lowered involuntarily. I bit my lip slightly.
When both Karhan and I didn’t say anything, Liras slowly got up from his seat. Only the sound of the chair being pushed back echoed in the quiet dining room. Whether he knew or not that he had dropped a bomb between us, Liras spoke in a voice that seemed unburdened.
“It was enjoyable to come to the dining room and eat after so long. It also made me think of your father.”
He had said he’d been watching Karhan since he was a baby, so it seems he knows his parents too. Well, although Liras looks young on the outside, he’s a dragon, so he must have lived for an incredibly long time. I wonder what kind of relationship he has with Karhan to maintain it for so long. I was curious but didn’t open my mouth as it didn’t seem like the right situation to ask.
“I’ll go to my room now. And…”
His gaze, which had alternated between us, settled on me.
“I’ll come again later.”
That meant he would hear the rest of my story later. I kept my mouth shut tight. I didn’t have much to say anyway, and I didn’t want to bring up the fact that this was inside a novel. I quietly avoided his lingering gaze.
As Liras left the dining room, now only Karhan, my personal attendant, and I remained in this vast space. Karhan was still standing behind me. Earlier, I had been solely under Liras’s pressure, so I was simply glad Karhan had come, but now I couldn’t express that. As I was fidgeting with my fingers without saying anything, a low voice came from above my head.
“Are you alright?”
At those words, I almost burst into tears. Honestly, until just now, I had been a little scared. It was terrifying to see Liras, who had always treated me brightly, change his attitude and look down at me with sharp eyes. Being surrounded by an opaque barrier, cut off from all space and unable to receive help from anyone, had pushed me to the edge.
If Karhan hadn’t appeared, I might have spilled everything to Liras. That I came from another world, that this place is inside a novel, and that they are characters from it. I didn’t want that. It felt like if I said it out loud, they would truly become mere characters.
Thinking like that, I could rather realize something. That I had been arbitrarily judging Karhan and Doel, treating them as characters in a book acting according to a predetermined future. I thought that perhaps it was me who, while calling them friends, wasn’t truly treating them sincerely.
