I Am The Game's Villain Chapter 789: Aurora SS [2]

AURORA

It was always difficult for me to know what to think of Edward Falkrona.

I first met him when I was still a child. He entered my life suddenly, introduced as the eldest son of Uncle Thomen and Aunt Oryanna, and from the very beginning there was something about him that set him apart from everyone else around us. My first impression was simple enough: he was intelligent, remarkably so, far more than most boys his age and there was something quietly unique in the way he carried himself.

He also seemed to care deeply for his younger sister, Elena. I remember noticing that almost immediately, and I admired it because I too had a younger sister whom I loved dearly from the moment she came into the world. That kind of affection was easy to recognize, and at the time, it made him seem all the more respectable in my eyes.

And yet, even then, there was something odd about him. I could never quite name it. It was not something obvious, not something I could have explained to anyone if they had asked. It was more like a slight distance hidden inside his words, a strange gap between what he showed and what truly lay underneath.

Most of the time, he was kind enough. He spoke well, behaved properly, and gave people little reason to openly question him. But every so often, another side of him would surface, something darker, something that showed most clearly whenever Elena or Miranda were concerned. When I was younger, I think that side of him frightened me a little, but it did not make me dislike him. If anything, it made me pay more attention to him.

I was very interested in him back then. Almost immediately, I had placed him in my mind apart from the other boys around us. He did not feel ordinary to me. There was something in him I did not understand, and because I did not understand it, I kept looking.

Then things began to change.

It started with the sudden death of Oryanna Orphan at the hands of Ante-Eden. That loss affected Edward more deeply than anyone could ignore, and at the time, I could hardly blame him for what followed. He had lost his mother, and whatever grief took hold of him seemed to sink into every part of his being. He began shutting people out, one after another, until even those who had once been close to him could no longer reach him. Even I was pushed away.

Back then, I believed he would heal eventually. I thought grief had simply changed him for a while and that, with time, he would learn to bear it. He was a noble, after all, and more than that, I had always thought of him as exceptionally intelligent. I had held him in high esteem for so long that when he truly began to fall, the shock of it was far worse than if I had expected little from him in the first place.

He became a pariah.

Little by little, he stopped resembling the Edward I had known. The intelligence and quiet grace that had once surrounded him seemed to rot away, until there was hardly any trace of them left. In their place came uglier things. He began behaving inappropriately toward women, and the way he treated those beneath him became cruel, arrogant, and tyrannical. The more I saw of him then, the harder it became to reconcile that person with the boy I had once watched so carefully.

He became difficult to like.

Then impossible.

At times I caught glimpses of the old him, or perhaps I only wanted to believe I did, but most of the time he seemed like a completely different person. Someone coarser, lower. Bitter in a way that consumed everything around him.

And yet, no matter how far he had fallen, he was still the son of a duke. So when I turned thirteen, an engagement was arranged between us. My father gave me a choice in the matter, and I accepted it.

I did so because I truly believed I could bring him back. I thought the Edward I had once known was still there somewhere beneath all that ruin, and that what he needed, more than pride, more than status, more than indulgence, was to be loved properly. I believed that if someone reached for him sincerely enough, patiently enough, he might take that hand and rise again.

But no matter how many times I tried, no matter how often I reached for him, Edward refused me. Worse than that, he continued to sink, turning into someone even more twisted than before.

At times, I felt as though he was afraid to take my hand.

I never understood why. It was not always visible, not something he would ever have admitted, but there were moments when his refusals felt too strong and desperate as if accepting kindness from me would cost him something he was unwilling to lose. And as time went on, those refusals only grew harsher. Day after day, his rejection became colder, more cutting, until eventually I reached the point where I could no longer endure it.

So three years later, I made the decision to break our engagement.

His reaction was exactly what I expected of the Edward he had become by then, bitter, ugly, rotten in a way that only confirmed I had done the right thing.

And yet, only month later, when I saw him again at the entrance ceremony of the Royal Eden Academy, I saw him changed again.

When I saw him after that, he had lost so much weight that for a moment he hardly looked like himself at all. But it was not only his appearance that had altered. His entire behavior had shifted so completely that once again I felt as though I was standing before a stranger. He resembled neither the boy I had first known nor the ruined version of him that had come afterward. It was as if Edward Falkrona had shed yet another skin and emerged as someone new, someone I could not place.

He was calmer, perhaps.

Or at least quieter.

But there was still something unstable in him, something that reminded me of the old Edward, only in a different form, less openly rotten, less visibly depraved, but no less difficult to grasp. His temper still came quickly. There was still danger in him, still the sense that his anger could rise without warning. And yet, for all of that, he no longer felt evil in the way he once had.

That was what puzzled me most.

And relieved me, too.

When I realized that change in him was real, I felt a strange mix of emotions I could barely sort through. Relief was one of them, certainly. I was relieved that he was no longer that hateful, fallen version of himself. But there was bitterness in me as well, and perhaps even resentment, because I could not stop wondering why.

Why now?

Why had he not changed when I was still there? Why had he not done so when I was still by his side, still trying to support him, still offering him every chance I could?

That question stayed with me longer than I liked to admit.

Even so, I had no regrets.

By then, I no longer wished to go back and change what I had done. If anything, I told myself I was simply glad that he had managed to change on his own. Glad for him, perhaps, though I would not have said it so openly then. Glad for Elena as well. Whatever bitterness had existed between them, whatever strain or resentment had once stood there, they did manage to make peace later on.

As for me, I never once imagined that life would bring Edward and me close again.

And certainly not in the way it eventually did.