DKFTI 116

He was right. The milk mixed with saffron and honey was delicious. Just one sip was enough to make his hair stood on end.

It wasn’t only the saffron milk. Because of Leviathan, he came to know tastes he had never realized were his.

Silk rather than velvet. Cool air but a warm body. Bathwater heated to a near-burning degree. Morning walks without shoes. Candles scented like the forest.

Each day was full of wonder as he discovered things about himself he had never known.

“My head…”

He had fallen asleep three more times. Like a sick chicken, he kept falling asleep.

The memories that had once flooded his mind without order were now arranging themselves. From the nearest to the farthest, in reverse. Now, whenever new memories piled up, fear followed.

It was understandable.

‘Is everyone doing well? The hero too. Shanti will be angry since I haven’t returned without a word. Ah, has he recovered? He’ll need my magic. That… who was it again?’

Things he should have remembered naturally faded from his memory. After struggling for a while, he finally remembered the ice golem.

It must have been that his mind was overloaded.

‘This is driving me crazy.’

They were memories he had never wanted. What use was there in recalling a past life?

But Silvaren’s memories were somehow special. The result hadn’t been good, but from those vivid memories of wandering the edges of the world in search of paradise, he learned how beautiful this world was.

Perhaps this world was so beautiful because Silvaren’s gaze upon it had been filled with love. Because he was a god who had embraced even the lowliest creatures that everyone else despised.

Once, he had thought vaguely that gods were beings of greatness. But as he retraced Silvaren’s memories, he felt that something was missing. It was absurd to associate a god with emptiness.

Yet when he judged those memories through a human view, there seemed to be no joy, no anger, no sorrow, no pleasure. Maybe that was why Silvaren had envied the emotions of humans and demons. He must have wanted to protect the brilliance that he himself lacked.

Emotions, so natural that no one valued them, so fleeting that they changed with the mood, suddenly seemed beautiful and grand.

It was emotions, and nothing else, that made the world beautiful and also destroyed it.

“You’re awake. How do you feel today?”

Leviathan observed Sibel, who changed day by day. He entered the room with eyes shining like a child who had just found a gift under a Christmas tree.

He held flowers in his hand.

“Spring has come to Genzar. Isn’t it your season?”

“…I’ve told you many times, I’m not that person.”

Leviathan had no intention of sending Sibel back. Each time Sibel regained consciousness, ate, and exchanged a few words with him, he fell asleep after. He felt strangely lethargic.

Even when the worried faces of the Demon King’s castle came to mind and he felt he had to return quickly, his body remained heavy.

“You liked so many kinds of flowers that I had trouble deciding this time.”

Leviathan placed the flowers he had brought into a white vase standing by the wall. He could feel the vitality of the fresh flowers.

“Would you like to touch them?”

Was he really reading thoughts? Leviathan seemed to understand what Sibel wanted just by looking at him.

He brought the vase and held it before him. It smelled of fresh grass and sweet flowers.

Sibel reached out and touched the flowers. At that moment, something strange occurred to him.

“Do you feel it?”

It seemed he wasn’t the only one who sensed that subtle sensation. Leviathan asked quietly.

“It’s a force different from magic.”

How could life energy be felt in his hands?

This definitely wasn’t magic. As soon as he was startled by this phenomenon, his mind cleared a little. Then, he felt something was wrong with the energy within him.

‘My magic is changing.’

There was no doubt that something had changed. Could that be why he kept falling asleep?

“You, what did you do to me…”

“It’s something you could always feel. Don’t worry. Nothing harmful is happening to you.”

Leviathan placed the vase on the table beside the bed. Then he sat down and extended his hand. His fingers brushed through Sibel’s disheveled hair and moved down to support his neck and jaw.

His touch was cool. It felt good.

“It’s not a change. You’re only reclaiming what you originally had.”

“……”

His head began to ache again. The more memories he recovered, the more he felt as if he was becoming someone else. He worried he might lose the memories that were his own.

And more than anything, the obsession in Leviathan’s eyes and hands reached him through every sense. But he understood where that feeling came from. His heart lurched like a boat caught in waves, to the point of sea sickness.

‘I must not get close.’

The more he stayed on this land, or around Leviathan, the more he felt like he would be influenced by his past life.

“What memory came back this time? Can you tell me?”

At Leviathan’s gentle voice, Sibel opened his mouth without realizing it. It was as if he were under a spell.

“…I saw a meteor shower.”

It was a fragment of memory that had returned. It had been so beautiful that he wanted to recall it again.

“I was on a very high mountain peak. I lit a bonfire and was watching the meteor shower that fell like rain. I leaned on someone, and I offered my embrace.”

When he closed his eyes, the falling meteor shower appeared vividly. Even then, Leviathan had been right beside him.

“It was on the way to the port of Orbeon. That was the day we were supposed to board a ship for another continent. But I was so enchanted by that sight that I threw a fit, saying I didn’t want to go down the mountain.”

A voice laced with laughter rang in his ears. Leviathan loved listening to Sibels recollections. He mulled over the memories that came out of his mouth.

At first, he had asked questions about the broken fragments of memory, but now it had turned into listening to stories.

“You didn’t rush me. You always listened when I spoke, so you said we could stay.”

They had stayed on that mountain for several days. Sharing each other’s warmth…when the vivid image of that shameless scene rose up, Sibel opened his eyes wide. He didn’t want to remember anymore. Especially since it involved completely stripping the person sitting across from him.

The sensation of standing under the night sky just moments ago faded, leaving only the reality before his eyes. But like the afterimage left by a meteor shower, the emotions in his memory still lingered in a corner of his heart.

“Your face is red.”

Leviathan’s voice was laced with mischief.

“You didn’t seem this playful in those memories…”

Sibel sighed as he spoke. Leviathan nodded obediently.

“Doesn’t time change everything? I suppose I’ve become more flexible than I was back then.”

In Silvaren’s memories, Leviathan had shown a devotion so absolute that it bordered on blindness. If told to die, he would have burned himself without hesitation.

Was it still the same now? Among the things time changed, could Leviathan’s heart also be one of them?

When Sibel looked into Leviathan’s eyes that happily met his, he guessed that his heart hadn’t cooled but had instead moved toward the side of heat.

“It’s a futile obsession. That bond has already been severed.”

He had said it many times before. The one Leviathan sought no longer existed, and everything had changed.

“Do you know what became of the ship we boarded afterward?”

But Leviathan acted as if his ears were closed. No matter what Sibel said, he didn’t care.

“It’s not longing, it’s madness.”

He was no longer cautious. Even if he stabbed at the heart on purpose, he would not shed a drop of blood.

“The ship was swept up by a storm and went off course.”

It felt like he was talking to a wall.

“I want to return to Valheim.”

“And there, I killed a human for the first time.”

At Leviathan’s words, Sibel’s fingers twitched. His gaze fell to his hand. In that instant, Leviathan’s hand brushed across the back of his. When Sibel carefully lifted his eyes, Leviathan’s gaze was still fixed directly on him.

“Didn’t all of my firsts begin with you?”

His hand trembled.

“So touch me again like you did back then. You always did that whenever I was hurt.”

Leviathan lifted Sibel’s hand and pressed his own cheek against his palm, leaning into it. His gaze, which seemed as if it would never move, finally disappeared as he slowly closed his eyes.

His eyelashes fell, and his regular breathing was transmitted to Sibel’s palm.