A whole week passed in the blink of an eye—so quickly, so lightly, so quietly that it almost frightened .
I would sotis sit in the corner of my room, staring at the window and wondering whether ti had truly moved forward or whether everything around had blurred together into one warm, golden dream.
Perhaps it felt so fast because it had been a wonderful week for soone like —soone who had never, not even once in her life, tasted sothing called happiness.
I had never known the softness of living without fear, or the comfort of having soone who cared about simply because they wanted to—not because they needed sothing from .
So for , a week of real affection... a week of not feeling like a burden or an afterthought... a week of not crying myself to sleep... it felt unreal. Impossible. Like a stolen miracle I wasn’t supposed to touch.
Maybe that was why I didn’t feel the passage of ti. I didn’t feel boredom, or loneliness, or any negative emotion at all.
And yet outside that dreamlike villa, this world—this apocalyptic wasteland—was overflowing with negativity, fear, and despair.
Every ti the teams went out to search for supplies, the number of injured and dead increased.
Every day, the zombies grew stronger, more violent, more intelligent.
Rumors of mutated creatures and new horrors reached us constantly.
People cried in the streets, starved in their rooms, clung to thin blankets as they prayed for one more sunrise.
But none of that touched us.
Despite the broken cries that echoed through the ruined buildings... despite the poverty and the constant lack of food... despite the maddening fear that plagued the base as the outside world collapsed into chaos—none of it reached us.
Inside our warm villa, we lived like people who had slipped out of reality itself.
We had everything: shelves stacked with food, a kitchen that never went cold, electricity that humd softly day and night thanks to Cassel’s power, and endless clean water thanks to Joe and Sebastian.
We lacked nothing—not even the smallest comfort.
It was as if the apocalypse outside was just a faraway story soone had told once, a ghost of a tale that didn’t concern .
Sotis, when I leaned against the warm wooden walls or curled up under the soft blanket Cassel placed over every night, I wondered if all of this was actually real.
Everything felt so unbelievably perfect that I often doubted whether I was truly awake.
Maybe this was a dream.
A long, beautiful dream.
A dream in which I lived beside my one and only villain—the man I had cherished from afar for so long, the man whose na alone had once made my heart race.
A dream I didn’t want to wake up from.
A dream I would never regret abandoning my real life for.
Cassel, my terrifying, flawless villain, spent most days leading the others outside the safe zone to gather supplies.
He stored extra items in his personal space, organized routes, handled negotiations, and coordinated with General Zan as they worked together—quietly, relentlessly—to seize control of the safe base bit by bit from the shadows. Sotis Cassel went to the general’s villa next to ours and stayed there for hours, sotis for nearly an entire day.
But I no longer clung to him every mont like before.
I no longer hovered around him like a desperate ghost.
I simply let him do everything he needed to do.
Not because my love had lessened.
Not because my obsession with him had faded.
No—if anything, living under the sa roof with him had worsened everything.
My obsession grew deeper.
My affection grew heavier.
My attachnt, my longing, my love—they all expanded until they filled my entire chest like a storm that refused to settle.
But ever since I heard that Mary and the others had left the villa, sothing inside had shifted.
The tension that had wrapped around my heart—the suffocating dread of Cassel’s destined tragedy—finally loosened.
With the danger around Cassel gone, I beca calr. With the original heroine and hero out of his life, the story could no longer follow its original path.
The fatal knots that tied Cassel to his dood ending were unraveling before my eyes.
Now that the troubleso pair had disappeared, everything should continue smoothly.
We should be able to live happily ever after.
And despite all the responsibilities a leader should bear, Cassel never failed to care for his lover—who was, of course, .
Ever since I agreed to officially beco his girlfriend, Cassel had been acting strangely... warm in a way that didn’t suit his cold personality at all.
Almost childish.
Almost proud.
He had beco a man eager—no, desperate—to show off.
He would walk around boldly declaring, "I’ll take this for my girlfriend," or, "I’ll take that for my lover," as if the entire base needed to know who I belonged to.
Every ti he left the villa—especially when I went with him outside the base—he returned with sothing for .
Costics, clothes, rare brands that had all but vanished from the ruined world, snacks and sweets that were practically extinct, toys he thought were cute, even mobile phones and tablets simply because I once ntioned wanting to watch a movie.
Anything I thought of—Cassel brought to before I could even say the words out loud.
For the first ti in my life, I felt like a pampered little princess born with a golden spoon in her mouth.
Soone whose wishes beca reality the mont she whispered them into the air.
Cassel even brought flowers yesterday—real flowers, delicate and soft despite the harsh world outside.
Rumors of a beloved canary kept by the strongest man in the base spread like wildfire after that.
People whispered about "the woman who tad the lightning god" or "the mysterious lover of the strongest superhuman."
Their words made embarrassed, but also... strangely proud.
Of course, not everyone welcod Cassel’s growing influence.
Because the four generals sent their n to our doorstep every day to stir up trouble and provoke him, Cassel eventually entered a combat tournant held in the base.
The real purpose of the tournant was to recruit powerful ability users under the generals’ control.
To make participation tempting, the prizes were beyond generous—heaps of food, rare supplies, and various valuable resources.
Our team didn’t need any of it.
We had enough to last for years.
Cassel alone could keep us fed and comfortable indefinitely.
But to keep those annoying people from constantly harassing us, he had no choice but to participate—along with so of his n.
And what he did during that tournant... left the entire base speechless.
Reviews
All reviews (0)