Becoming the Terminally-Ill Villain Who Torments His Disciples - Chapter 23.1
“I won’t awaken my trait.”
That night, after the celebration banquet had ended,
Oscar naturally took his place lying beside Cielo and spoke.
Cielo, who had been leaning against the headboard reading a book, turned to look at him.
“All of a sudden?”
“If I awaken, Master will have to marry that bastard… Ah—no, I mean—the Crown Prince.”
‘…Did I just hear a curse?’
When Cielo silently looked at Oscar’s face, Oscar lowered his gaze and muttered,
“Sorry. I’ll use proper and polite language.”
At that well-behaved attitude, Cielo reached out and gently stroked his hair.
“It’s alright. People can say bad words when they’re angry. But you shouldn’t use language like that in front of adults. Understood?”
“Yes, I’ll take your teaching deeply to heart.”
Cielo closed his book and lay down with a soft rustling.
Immediately, Oscar naturally slipped his arm under Cielo’s head and pulled him close, wrapping an arm around his waist.
As he was suddenly pulled in by strong arms, Cielo blinked, eyes wide.
He had expected that Oscar would be stronger now—after all, he’d grown taller and broader—but he hadn’t anticipated being pulled in so helplessly like this.
“…Time really flies. It feels like just yesterday that you were this small, falling asleep in my arms.”
“……”
“When did you grow up so much…”
Cielo murmured and raised his head.
Oscar, quickly growing into an adult, looked very different from the boy he used to be.
His facial features, growing sharper, no longer resembled a boy’s—they were becoming those of a man.
His large, round eyes were gradually turning sharper, and the baby fat was fading, shifting his appearance from cute to strikingly beautiful.
“So… do you perhaps not like it…”
“Of course not.”
Before Oscar could finish, Cielo cut him off.
He liked Oscar? No—he adored him.
“I think… you might be the thing I love most in this world, Oscar.”
At first, it had been sympathy, seeing someone who carried the same painful past as himself. He had believed that only someone like him could offer the love Oscar needed, in a self-righteous way.
But as time passed, Oscar slowly made a place for himself in Cielo’s heart.
“I just want you to be happy. Always.”
At those words, Oscar’s arms tightened around him.
The way he clung to him, like a child yearning for love, made Cielo feel a deep bitterness inside.
***
He had to step out of Oscar’s life.
No matter how many times he thought it over, the conclusion remained the same.
So first, he tried spending less time with Oscar.
Since Oscar always clung to him from morning till night, he started to create distance.
The first thing he tried was sleeping separately.
Cielo brought in a new bed to the room right away.
“…Master, the bed we have now is fine for us to sleep together in. Was it too cramped?”
Though Oscar had figured out exactly why Cielo brought in a new bed, he pretended not to know and asked anyway.
Cielo didn’t beat around the bush and answered plainly:
“Starting today, I think we should sleep separately.”
“…Why all of a sudden?”
Oscar’s voice trembled. He stepped forward and grabbed the collar of Cielo’s robe.
“Once your trait awakens, I’ll have to marry someone else, and I won’t be by your side anymore. We can’t sleep together then, can we?”
“…I don’t want that.”
“Oscar.”
“In two years, we’ll be forced apart whether we want it or not. I don’t want that. I want to sleep next to you.”
“……”
“I want to stay close. Please… please don’t take you away from me…”
Muttering in a pleading tone, Oscar repeated the same words again and again.
When Cielo didn’t respond at all, Oscar’s trembling voice began to shift into something close to sobbing.
With his head hanging low, Oscar bit his trembling lips. His eyes turned red, and tears started dripping silently down his face.
“I have to distance myself…”
But as Cielo made no move, Oscar slowly knelt down in front of him.
Oscar glanced up at him briefly, then bowed his head lower.
“It’s… it’s because I got too big, right? But if I do this—like this—I can still fit in your arms. See? Like this, I’m small again.”
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