I Have Become The Heroes’ Rival

The cool breeze constantly brushed my skin and lowered my body temperature, but a blazing fire broke out everywhere he touched.

Perhaps, because the first kiss I had was so intense, I found traces of Felix here, too.

He constantly craved and longed for me until I was out of breath and my head became dizzy.

At that time, I was terrified by the unknown situation, the stimulation, and his desire.

But now that we were doing something like this, I was merely happy to share the moment with him.

Walter’s hand swept over my dress without hesitation. He then paused for a moment and carefully examined the embroidery on my dress.

“…Haa.”

A fleeting vain smile scattered across his lips. It was a reaction that seemed both happy and sad.

Before the sadness could leak out, I licked his lips and stealthily devoured them.

At first, I abruptly pressed my lips against his, but from some point on, my tongue clumsily grazed over his lips, probed it, and gently sucked it.

Rather than unskilled, it was a pitiful sight.

It was a similar movement to when I fumbled and stroked Walter’s face with my fingers to engrave it thoroughly into my heart.

You said it was the devil’s desire. You said you would plummet to the bottom where you might kill me someday.

Even if I shattered into pieces or worse, I had firmly prepared myself to endure it, but it felt thrilling and a bit sad, causing the rims of my eyes to tingle.

I felt like I was going to cry.

Throughout the kiss, my shoulders trembled, and I tried to swallow the tears. Rather than kissing, perhaps this was an act of comforting each other and ourselves.

The moment his lips fell away, even his voice dropped to a whisper. He pressed his forehead to mine for a while and took a deep breath. The corners of his unsmiling mouth were faintly shaking.

“After all this time… What on earth are we going to do now…?”

“Fel.”

“Why did you recognize me?”

Seeing him ask such a question, Walter, no, Felix, must have never expected this situation.

Was he too helplessly drawn to me so he couldn’t help it? If that was the case, the reason he appeared was because of a misconception.

He must have firmly believed that I wouldn’t recognize him. Was it because he was so different?

You unexpectedly underestimated me.

In reality, you probably hoped that I knew.

“If we hadn’t met at all, I wouldn’t have known, but even if we met in passing, there’s no way I wouldn’t recognize Fel was there.”

Felix, who had not shed a single tear so far, was suffering in such anguish that it caused the heart of an onlooker to throb.

I tried to spread my arms as wide as possible to hug Felix’s back tightly and pat him. He was crying without tears.

Felix buried his face in my neck and spoke in a thin voice that seemed to break at any moment.

“How can I even forget about this…”

There were times when I wanted to forget everything because it was too exhausting for me. As much as it was an empty wish to me, it must have been the same for him.

It was a forlorn hope.

“You don’t have to forget now.”

“It’s too late… I told you.”

I thought Felix’s words were resentful of why I didn’t hold onto him back then. So even though it was late, I opened my mouth to utter the words that I was good at saying.

At that moment, the clock tower chimed loudly twelve times, announcing that it was midnight, and my voice was naturally buried in the sound of the bell.

I briefly shot a resentful glare in the direction where the clock tower sounded.

And when I turned my head back to Felix, the look in his eyes suddenly changed.

“Huh? Where am I…?”

There was a sense of confusion as if he had no idea why he was here.

“…Larry?”

I recalled the name I had casually given the devil back in the old days when I was ignorant.

If it wasn’t Felix, the only thing left would be that devil’s fragment.

“Irene? Why are you here?”

Larry stuttered and commented that “It’s been a while.”

‘Are we going to greet each other warmly now?’

The only reason I gave the devil’s fragment the name ‘Larry’ and treated him relatively kindly was so that he would be in a symbiosis with Felix.

And it was also because that bastard told me that devouring a quarter of the soul was insignificant. I trusted the devil’s words.

Nobody wished for the worst-case scenario. Moreover, I hoped that Felix wouldn’t have any problems.

I desperately pushed that damn devil’s face away from me.

I swallowed my tears and frustratedly wiped my face with my palm and then asked in a voice filled with irritation, annoyance, and a little fear.

“Th-that’s what I wanted to ask. Where’s Felix? Why did you suddenly appear…”

“Ar-are you crying?”

Unlike when he spoke to me in the past, Larry didn’t seem to notice that he had interrupted me before I had finished my sentence. He looked very perplexed.

I clenched my teeth, strengthened my eyes, and enunciated my words.

“I’m not crying. Hurry up and tell me.”

The power of the devil was flustered and hesitant, but he opened his mouth.

“It’s time for him to change consciousness with me. We’re in a rather assimilated state, so we share our time every twelve hours.”

He explained that when one fell asleep, the other would wake up, but unlike before, they would not know what the other did during that period. That was why as soon as the devil opened his eyes, he questioned why he was here.

‘Cinderella…’

That’s right.

Was this how the prince felt when he searched for Cinderella after she disappeared at midnight and only found a shoe?

That devil remained the same even after all those years. Whenever I asked something, he would frown and act as if he hated it to death but would eventually say it.

Now that I was not in a position to choose, I decided to take advantage of it. I held onto the hem of the devil’s robe that currently occupied Felix’s body and earnestly asked.

“What happened all this time?”

I inquired about the complete story.

Larry confessed everything while making a childish expression of being forced to swallow food he didn’t want to eat.

The reason why Felix returned looking like this was similar to what I had expected.

But the first thing I learned was that Felix’s current appearance was the same as the original form of the devil ‘Leraze’. Perhaps that was why I thought the new appearance was beyond awe and felt strange for a human.

Moreover, I also heard the shocking fact that Felix truly lost his emotions. For the purpose of life, he only had the love for me and the hatred for the three useless brothers.

I was dumbfounded.

This damn devil, what the hell did you do to Felix?

“Why should I believe you?”

“Because it’s hard to lie to you.”

As expected, I knew it.

I asked with a cold expression on my face.

“Have you now eaten more than a quarter of Felix’s soul now, Larry?”

“It’s exactly half right now.”

Huuuu… That was why Felix said it was too late.

I buried my face in both hands for a moment to hide my guilty expression and eventually forced myself to strengthen my determination and look up again.

“Is there a way to return Felix back to how he was in the past?”

I thought it wouldn’t matter if Felix were Walter, but if I didn’t care, Felix would only continue to suffer terribly.

Even now, I wanted to watch over him until his wounds healed and let him live as he did so far. But only half of his soul remained. Furthermore, he had to share half of his time with the devil.

Then Larry, who had been relatively willing to respond so far, clamped his mouth shut. When I looked up with a desperate gaze, he pursed his lips for a moment and lowered his voice.

“You want me to say it with my own mouth?”

“Tell me, please tell me.”

I spoke as if I were pleading.

“Didn’t you say it was hard for you to lie to me?”

“You’re really…”

Larry closed his eyes tightly and spoke as if he was chewing over each word.

“I-I… If I die… If I disappear without a trace, he will return to the angel that you knew before.”

“Completely?”

“Yes, completely.”

“Larry, I want you to die. Can you please die?”

“…”

I asked sincerely, even though I knew it was a ridiculous request.

If it wasn’t for you, Felix wouldn’t have experienced such pain.

Of course, I was aware that the main culprits of all these misfortunes were the three brothers, but there were many things that the devil did wrong too.

If only you hadn’t existed.

I genuinely thought so.

However, the devil blinked with a shocked expression. And tears dripped down like beads from his wide-opened eyes.

The devil was crying. How absurd.

“Why are you crying with Felix’s body?”

The one who wanted to cry the most was Felix, so who entitled you to spill the tears that he had never shed?

I glared at the devil with eyes filled with pure hatred and disgust.

“I don’t know. I’ve never done this before”.

“… ”

“I-I don’t know things like this.”

The devil, who naturally thought he had no emotions, cried. Those without emotion never shed tears except for physiological reasons.

It was said that as time passed, Larry and Felix would assimilate with one another.

So, since nearly four years have passed, he possibly now shared the same senses as Felix. And, judging from that reaction, even the emotions.

“Oh, I remember now”.

“Huh?”

“You definitely told me not to smile before.”

It suddenly came to mind. Didn’t he say his heart hurt every time I smiled? Like a disobedient child, I mustered the prettiest smile I could ever make.

He must have experienced Felix’s feelings when he heard me tell him to go die.

‘Ah.’

‘That must have been really, really painful.’

‘How painful it must have been.’

I twisted my lips. A cruel impulse slammed the back of my head and seemingly wreaked havoc in my brain.

Sharp, blade-like words from the person, who had the upper hand in this relationship, rumbled from within and soared up like lava.

“I gave you the name ‘Larry’. Did you like it?”

The devil looked down at me with tears trickling from his eyes. As he said, it was difficult to lie to me, so he nodded his head very slowly.

He liked it. That was a relief.

“I almost regretted why I did such a thing, but when I thought about it later, even if it’s just a name, it’s a trace of one’s existence in the world.”

“Because you can’t kill someone who doesn’t exist. Right?”

I ended my speech like that and smiled brightly.

“So, please live. Stay alive for me so that you can die soon, Larry.”

Apart from criticizing others or swearing at the enemy in colorful language, I had never said such vicious words in my whole life.

It was the first time I realized that I had a talent for breaking hearts as much as comforting and caring for them.

But I hoped it would hurt more. I wanted it to experience tens of thousands of times more of the pain that it gave Felix.

“Hey… how can you say that, no matter how hard it is? I want to live, too. Me too. I also want to live…”

“That’s why I’m asking you to live.”

“Stop. Stop it.”

“It is said that a star shines the brightest and most beautifully just before it disappears. Please sparkle as radiant as that and live. To make it worthy of killing you.”

“I told you to stop!”

The devil shouted loudly to stop my cruel words and then grabbed me and trapped me in his arms. After that, he became restless because he didn’t know why he acted in such a manner.

‘Ha, I’m going crazy. It’s Felix’s body, so you can’t tell me to get lost or to not appear in front of you again.’

“Fel…”

It was hard to shake off Felix’s arms since I missed him so much. However, I briefly buried my head in his arms and then mercilessly pushed him away.

He would be able to hold out against my strength but I mustered all the power in my arms.

“Just prepare to die.”

I then grabbed the stupid devil – who was dripping with tears as if someone tore his heart out – by the collar and dragged him away.

To the Chamberlain’s mansion, we go.