Chapter 137 - An Unsettled Agreement

“Since what I truly want would be impossible, I was going to ask you the second best,” Rhema said.

“The second best? What is…,” Azriel asked.

“To ask you not to talk about other people when you’re with me.”

It was a request that Azriel had never imagined. She asked another question she squeezed out of her brain. “If that’s the second best, what is it that you really want, Rhema?”

“It is that you don’t care about other people and abandon all the people in your fence,” he said.

Azriel’s face turned pale. A smile that did not seem real disappeared from Rhema. He calmly added. “I wanna have you to myself, Azriel.”

It sounded like a confession. Nonetheless, fear was the first thing that came to Azriel’s mind.

“…Rhema, that means…,” Azriel said.

“But that must be something you won’t be able to bear,” he made an assertion towards bewildered Azriel. His assertion was as firm as ice. “Even if I don’t make a pig of myself, you won’t be able to bear being by my side someday.”

Azriel reflectively protested. “Why do you always say that I will be miserable? How do you know when you haven’t even tried? I clearly said that I prefer to be by your side…”

“Azriel,” Rhema’s expression disappeared from his face. The color of his eyes that turned cold was similar to that of a frosted blade. “Can you not hate me even if I kill every person in the outhouse?”

She was lost for words. It was not an empty talk. She could not say that it was just a supposition. Even though Rhema had been kind to them, had not taken any cruel action, and acted to help others, he was someone who could kill others if it was necessary. And if he willed, no one could stop him. Azriel looked back at the outhouse in spite of herself. Warm orange lights were coming out of there. Could she not hate Rhema even if he killed Maylie’s family? She did not want to imagine it. She felt faint. His familiar voice continued from behind. “Even if I kill the girl you defended earlier, can you not be miserable by my side?”

Azriel felt as if questions turned ice and poured down. Chill came down from the nape of her neck to her back. Getting an answer from her facial expression, Rhema quietly continued. “I can give you anything. I can also suppress my desire. If you can be happy, you can get close to any person as much as you want.”

“…”

“Even so, you’ll be miserable if you stay by my side,” he added.

It was what he said before. It reached her more heavily and deeply. He continued. “I need to fulfill my duty, and you won’t be able to stand me.”

Azriel felt as if the Rhema Reshith right before her was awfully far away-like the inside and outside of a fence.

“It will be so as long as you won’t give up on all other people except me. And I don’t want to force you such a choice,” his facial expression while saying so, looked terribly sorrowful for a moment. His lips twitched. “It would’ve been better if you were a more selfish and greedy person.”

Azriel could not hear his last words well because they were too small like the sound of wind. When she blinked, Rhema had already turned back to his usual, dry self.

“Can you…,” Azriel barely spoke. “Can you not do such things? Is there no way to avoid that duty?”

“I shouldn’t avoid it.”

He should not avoid it, not that he could not avoid it. ‘Couldn’t’ and ‘shouldn’t’ had completely different meanings. Azriel understood that in spite of her confused mind and laid that to her heart. And continued on asking. “Are you trying to… kill Sophinea because she’s a nameless wizard?”