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chapter 6
The ease he showed was clearly intentional.
It felt like a blow to the back of her head. Belita made a belated excuse for her mistake.
“I didn’t… mean to kill you.”
The man still seemed too distracted to catch his breath. A breathless, uneven laugh escaped him.
“I’d be disappointed if you said you did…”
Her chest rose and fell with her panting. Belita, sitting atop him, naturally moved with it.
She didn’t answer, only watched him. This small talk wasn’t what he wanted to hear.
He waited until she calmed down and he could finish the sentence he had left incomplete moments ago.
“Shhh… ha…”
The steady patter of rain echoed around them.
Even while breathing, his eyes rolled slightly, as if he still couldn’t comprehend the recent events.
Belita felt the same way.
“……”
Occasionally, a chilling gust of wind slipped through.
In that pause, the man finally spoke.
“Why….”
His voice was hoarser than when she first heard it.
“Why did you strangle me?”
“I… made a little mistake.”
“A mistake?”
“Yes. I apologize for strangling you.”
Belita observed him with an indifferent gaze. Haha… a mistake, he said. The man gave a hollow laugh.
His previously drooping eyes suddenly snapped open. A pair of intense golden eyes stared at her.
“Am I the first?”
“…What?”
“I mean, am I the first? To strangle you.”
He looked up at her with a strange mixture of anticipation. The yellow glow sent a chill down her spine. Why would he ask something like that?
It was a question that needed no answer. Silence stretched briefly.
Belita ignored his question and asked her own.
“Who are you?”
“A commoner living here.”
“Not that. Your name.”
The man furrowed his brow slightly. From his narrowed eyes, she could tell he was hesitating whether it was safe to reveal his real name to someone he had just tried to strangle.
Or maybe he simply disliked being asked a question when she didn’t answer his.
After a moment, he moved his lips reluctantly. A forced confession slipped out.
“…Sylvester Rigel.”
Ah, she thought. Another unfamiliar name.
“I see.”
Belita quietly moved off the man. She extended her hand.
He stared at it for a moment before grasping it firmly and rising. His grip was stronger than she had expected.
“And you are…?”
“Belita. Ever heard of it?”
“…Ah. So it’s read as Belita.”
“That?”
“Yes. It might sound strange.”
“Sound strange?”
“To me, you seem just like you popped out of a frame.”
“……”
“There were letters written behind the frame. The characters were different, so I thought it said Bellica.”
“You’re saying I came out of a frame…”
“Well, I don’t entirely believe it myself. If not, I have no idea where you came from.”
“Where’s that frame?”
“Over there.”
Belita followed Sylvester’s finger to a frame lying upside-down on the floor.
She couldn’t tear her eyes away. She whispered, almost hypnotized.
“…You’re right.”
“What is?”
“That I… came out of that frame.”
Out of a frame.
Yes, out of a frame.
From the portrait of Kessis, trapped in that painful seal. Finally.
“……”
A portrait she thought she would never see in her lifetime.
Belita confirmed it just by looking at its back. It was truly freed from the seal.
Of course—it was a portrait Kessis had spent months creating, dedicated to her. How could she not recognize its back?
“Ahh…”
Yet stepping out, her feelings were hollow. She felt no elation, no overwhelming joy from fulfilling a long-desired wish.
She did not feel the urge to take revenge on Kessis and Rastavan.
She simply could not process it. Belita walked toward the frame calmly and crouched in front of it.
“It’s exactly the same…”
The wooden frame hadn’t changed at all from long ago.
Its polish hadn’t faded, its edges weren’t damaged. In the right corner, familiar characters were engraved unchanged.
Belita ran her hand over the letters. She read the words beneath her fingers: To my eternal Belita.
She flipped the frame over. Inside was still her portrait.
“…What?”
Yet the portrait, identical to her, was not a work of Kessis she had known.
“Oh, that.”
At that moment, thunder and lightning struck. Boom, crash.
A flash splintered across the window.
The world whitened instantly, and shadows poured overhead in layers.
Amid the intersecting shadows, Belita lifted her head.
Sylvester smiled, cheeks flushed.
“I drew it.”
The sharp yellow gaze was soft.
‘…Why?’
Belita knew the emotions behind it well—they were the ones he had always shown Kessis: joy, innocence, satisfaction, confidence, affection, gratitude, hope…
“……”
Gradually, the room returned to its normal lighting.
The brief brightness faded, leaving Belita and Sylvester alone in darkness.
She felt confused.
The portrait Sylvester drew replacing the vanished Kessis painting—the absence of that presence—was disorienting.
Kessis’s portraits had been the guardians of her past. Now, a man with eyes like Kessis was present instead, but it wasn’t Kessis.
Belita was overwhelmed by delayed shock.
To my eternal Belita.
The man who had written that was gone. The portrait he drew was gone too.
She didn’t know what expression to make, how to respond.
She had finally escaped the tedious seal, yet wasn’t as happy as she thought she would be.
The chains that had trapped her were gone, but those chains were the last traces of the world she had known.
Nothing remained to long for. She had finally broken free, but all she had were the shattered pieces of that shell.
Suddenly, a warmth gathered in her eyes.
“But these are truly hard to understand.”
Tears welled up against her will.
“These aren’t ordinary events.”
In the darkness, she heard footsteps—two steps, the rustle of movement.
“Why my portrait ended up in that frame, why you appeared—it all feels like a fairy tale still…”
From the sounds, Sylvester seemed to squat beside her. The voice floating above her descended to near her.
Belita replayed Sylvester’s expression in her mind.
He smiled, innocent joy, as if unaware of what Kessis’s portrait had meant to her.
She couldn’t be angry; he had saved her. She couldn’t be grateful; he had destroyed the last remnant of her world.
Her emotions were unsteady. Tears continued to rise.
“So… to sum up.”
She despised how a single painting could evoke such sadness.
Kessis had long sealed and forgotten it, yet she alone suffered still.
“Because of my painting, you popped out?”
“……”
“I don’t know what magic it is, but it seems my painting replaced it. I drew this on another canvas. But now…”
Sylvester trailed off. He placed his hand on the frame, feeling its weight.
Ironically, Belita sensed another’s presence through the portrait.
Sylvester asked softly,
“……Are you cold?”
The question came out of nowhere. Belita slowly turned toward him.
And she felt something strange.
Unlike the portrait, her eyes gradually adjusted to the dark. Her vision slowly cleared.
She could sense Sylvester’s presence, his form, his outline.
Their yellow eyes met.
Something trickled down her cheek. The flow of sensation from the frame stopped.
“I…”
Drip.
“You’re trembling a lot.”
A drop fell.
“Shall I give you a blanket?”
From chin to chest, not forehead.
As Sylvester said, Belita’s hands holding the frame trembled.
“Are you hurt?”
Once begun, tears flowed faster, wetting her collar. She could only watch Sylvester.
“This is troubling…”
Flustered, he awkwardly fumbled, trying to comfort her.
Short phrases brushed past her ears: Are you unwell? Fever? Did I say something wrong? Should I give warm tea? Why are you crying? No, don’t say anything, sorry, do you want a handkerchief…
“Ah…”
He rummaged through his pockets, embarrassed.
“Not sure if I should, but…”
With the lightest touch, like a guilty person, he wiped her tears.
“Sorry, I forgot to wash it…”
Sylvester’s thumbs moved busily, and Belita watched every movement.
Now Kessis, his touch, even the painting that had bound her—their influence—was gone.
The man who rescued her from the outside world had erased that cursed portrait, Kessis’s last trace.
She couldn’t believe it. She didn’t know how to react. And so, tears fell.
She didn’t know if it was proper to cry, or why, but the tears came nonetheless.
Belita stared at Sylvester.
Unlike Kessis, this man had saved her.
Unlike Kessis, he was grim, dark, uncanny—a beastly man with only a large frame.
“You….”
He gave no good impression, seemed to own nothing.
“…You don’t resemble him at all.”
“This is my first time comforting someone, so I’m clumsy. Sorry. I… sorry for not resembling him.”
He grabbed Sylvester’s hand firmly and pushed it away.
“Huh?”
The hand she held was damp.
“I said you don’t resemble him.”
“Who…?”
“……”
“You should rest a bit first.”
“……”
“You seem unwell.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Well… you’re crying.”
“I’m not hurt at all.”
“Then why…?”
“…You said you drew this portrait.”
“Yes.”
“What did you do after drawing it?”
“Whatever I did…”
“You must have done something after, that’s why this happened.”
“Well, it was just…”
The man, still trying to soothe her, slowly avoided her gaze.
“Just?”
“……”
“Just what?”
“Sit and talk, please.”
Sylvester stood awkwardly. His large hand gripped her shoulder.
The other hand carefully lifted the portrait onto the table, then helped Belita stand.
She obeyed his guidance, led by his hand.
“It’s nothing. I just drew a painting.”
After a few steps, she was seated on the worn couch.
“Wait a moment.”
He seemed to avoid the topic. Sylvester disappeared behind her line of sight.
Belita glared at his retreating form in disbelief.
Then she took in the room around her. He had hastily wiped her tears.
