Chapter 128: A Date with the Villainess [Part-6]

After a long, quiet stroll, they walked through the edge of the square and sat on the bench.

Neo remembered that it was the exact same place where he had sat back then, during the festival, and watched the fireworks with Nora. Even though today wasn’t a fireworks night, it still felt nice to return to this place together after so much time had passed.

Back then, they were just kids sneaking out of the mansion to visit the festival together, but now they had grown up together into fine young adults. Both of them now had enough maturity to make their own decisions and take their own steps. Neo looked at the dimming sky with blank eyes as the evening began to fall and the sky slowly darkened.

As the coldness of winter began to settle around them, even his breath started to fog the air. He looked beside him at the girl who was staring blankly at nothing in particular.

Her face was still as blank as ever, without even a flicker of emotion, as she remained completely unresponsive to the world around her.

As Neo continued to look at her, she finally sensed his gaze and turned her head towards him, meeting his eyes with her blank ones, which made him feel slightly intimidated by her for a second.

Neo just pulled his gaze away and turned his face to look into the distance, but Nora’s gaze remained fixed on him alone, as if she was waiting for something.

Neo sighed and finally looked back at her. "Nora, there is something I want to ask. Can you answer me honestly?"

Nora stared at him, reading the movement of his lips to understand what he had just said, and she remained silent for a moment, as if thinking about how to give a proper answer that would satisfy him while still being careful not to reveal her feelings.

"I don’t know..."

Neo pursed his lips, feeling disappointed by her words, but he shook it off for now, as he had a more pressing matter to ask.

He had only been checking whether she would tell him the truth or lie to him, and her answer was actually in the middle, which proved that she wasn’t planning to tell him the truth, but she wasn’t planning to lie to him either. That was at least better than making him falsely believe that everything was okay.

Neo took a breath, looked at her fully, and said, "Tell me something. Are you still in pain? And can you tell me what kind of pain it is? Please don’t say that you don’t know, because I already know about it, and I only want to hear the truth from you. Spill it!"

Nora stared at him, unresponsive for a moment, and Neo felt that she was definitely not planning to answer his question. But before he could press her more, she suddenly reached her hand to the back of her head, pulled her hair slightly aside, and tapped at her nape.

Neo suddenly noticed something he had never seen on her.

A pitch-black, complex runic circle was imprinted on her nape. He couldn’t sense any magic emitted from the tattoo, but he already knew what it was. It was the curse she was suffering from, the Curse of Inverted Fate, which had rested on her nape for God knew how long. He had never found out about the mark, and even though he knew about the curse, he had never known that such a mark existed on her body. Even so, he couldn’t understand what the mark exactly entailed or what it was doing to her.

"Can you tell me... Please..."

"Why do you want to know?" Nora asked, her voice flat but filled with curiosity, wondering what he was planning to do with it, and whether he was planning to help her reduce it. It was simply impossible. She had already tried several different methods to lessen the pain, and to no one’s shock, instead of reducing it, every trick had backfired on her, increasing the intensity of the pain to almost double.

"I... I just want to know... Tell me, just..."

Nora narrowed her eyes, remaining silent for another moment, before finally parting her lips.

"I don’t know what it is exactly... From my childhood, my late parents used to say that I never cried since birth. After I grew up and was able to understand things, I learned that the feeling buried inside me, the constant disturbing force which was making me feel weaker, was pain... From that point on, I began to get used to living with it. At the start, just after I realised what it was and how other people were afraid of it, I also began to feel that spark of fear, but because of that, the pain began to intensify more."

"The more I began to feel afraid, the more intense the pain I felt, and the more it continued, the more of my emotions I began to lose."

Nora looked at his face, meeting his eyes.

"Do you want to know when my pain actually began to increase?"

Neo looked at her silently for a moment, as if considering whether he could bear her answer or not. But he still wanted to listen to her. He still wanted to know everything she could tell him.

"Yes..."

"Since the time you began to stay by my side, the pain has only intensified more and more..."

Neo’s hand trembled slightly as he couldn’t help but say, "Why?"

Nora looked at him and answered, "You make me feel afraid again..."

"Afraid of losing what I have left... Afraid of being alone... Afraid of no one being left to listen to me... Afraid of no one writing a letter for me..."

Nora’s hand reached forward to grab his, and she covered his palm with her own, intertwining her fingers with his, while focusing her gaze solely on him.

"Will you leave me again?"