I Am The Game's Villain Chapter 842: Gathering in the Veyra’s Forum Crown Terrace [5]

"Why did you come all this way, Myra?" Amael asked after a moment, his expression returning to something lighter. "I thought you would have already met up with the Saintess."

"Oh, I have already met her," Miranda answered with a small smile. "I only came with my uncle. He will be accompanying the Saintess during the reveal, so we ended up coming together. Besides, I wanted to see Veyra for myself."

"I thought it was more because you wanted to see Amael," Christina said teasingly.

Miranda’s eyes widened.

"I did not," she replied far too quickly, her cheeks faintly flushing again. Then she glanced at Amael beside her, her expression softening. "It was simply a coincidence. Though... I will not say I am unhappy that I got to see him. And you too, Christina."

"I see," Christina said, nodding as though she completely believed that explanation.

Her smile only grew more amused. Miranda’s embarrassment was far too adorable for her to leave alone.

Before Amael could say anything else, a sudden loud voice drew Christina’s attention toward another row. Rodolf, John, and Victor were seated together, apparently continuing one of their usual arguments. Rodolf’s voice rose above the soft conversations filling the Crown Terrace, and even from a distance, it was clear that John had no interest in backing down.

Yet the instant Christina’s eyes landed on John, the brightness in her face faded.

She turned away immediately.

It was not because she hated him. She did not hate John at all. But every time she saw him, she was reminded of someone else. The resemblance was not in John’s face or his mannerisms. It was simply the painful connection that existed between him and everything that had happened.

It hurt to remember how it had ended.

Since then, Christina had never truly managed to hold a proper conversation with John. They spoke when they needed to, and they remained polite, but there was always something distant between them. John himself had become colder and more withdrawn around her, even more than he used to be. Perhaps he did not know what to say. Perhaps he carried pain of his own. Either way, every interaction felt restrained, as though both of them were afraid of touching the subject neither could bear to name.

Amael noticed his sister’s expression darkening once again. His eyes followed the direction she had looked, though they did not remain on John for long.

A short distance away, Simon sat by himself.

Amael’s expression became complicated.

"You do not have to act so awkward around Simon, you know," Miranda said gently, following his gaze.

"I have been very hard on him," Amael replied quietly.

Ever since Simon had been adopted into the family, Amael could remember how cold he had been toward his foster brother. He remembered the resentment, the spiteful remarks, and the distance he had intentionally created. Even after the truth had come out, even after they had spoken and Simon had made it clear he no longer held those things against him, an invisible barrier remained between them.

Simon had moved on, at least as much as he could.

Amael had not.

"He does not hate you," Miranda said. "You know that, right?"

"I know," Amael nodded.

His hands slowly curled into fists over his lap.

"It is just..."

He could not quite finish the thought.

Elona had been deeply important to both of them. In many ways, she had been the one person connecting Amael and Simon, even when that connection was twisted by resentment and pain. She had been their little sister.

Now she was gone.

The absence she left behind made everything between them stranger.

Amael did not even possess the memories Simon carried. He could not remember the time they had spent with Elona before her death. He could not feel the same grief Simon had felt when she died, because he had not truly been there in the same way. Simon had lived it. He remembered her voice, and the loss that followed.

Amael only knew that he should have remembered.

There was also Thomen’s death, an even more sensitive subject for Simon. His feelings about it were tangled and painful, impossible to reduce to something simple. Between Elona and Thomen, there were too many wounds that neither Amael nor Simon knew how to approach without reopening them.

In the end, they had silently chosen to keep some distance from one another.

For now, it was easier that way.

Miranda could only feel saddened as she watched Amael’s expression. She understood more than either of them might realize. Elona had felt like a little sister to her as well. The grief she had endured after Elona’s death could not be put into words, and because of that, she could understand why Simon remained so distant.

Yet she did not want to involve herself in the space between Amael and Simon. She knew there was little she could truly do. While she was close to Amael, she had never been as close to Simon.

Ironically, aside from Lyra and Elona, the person who had understood Simon best had been Edward.

Edward would have known what to say. He would have understood the loneliness behind Simon’s silence and the hidden guilt he carried.

But Edward no longer existed.

Miranda’s expression turned a bit gloomy at that thought.

She looked back at Amael, who was alive, sitting beside her, speaking to her with the same familiar warmth he had shown her since child. It was definitely him.

She was grateful that he was here. She was happy that he had survived and found his way back to himself.

Still, knowing that he had no memories of an entire year they had spent together in the academy left a quiet ache in her heart. Those days had meant so much to her. For Amael, however, they had vanished into a blank space he could never reach. They didn’t even exist and didn’t even happen actually from his perspective.

Miranda had tried to speak about that missing year only once.

Amael had made his feelings very clear. Whatever version of him Miranda had known during those months at the academy, he had said, was not truly him. It had been someone else entirely, someone who had carried his body, his name, and his place in the world while Amael himself had not been present.

At first, Miranda had not understood what he meant.

The explanation Layla later gave her had only been brief, but it helped her see the situation more clearly. It was still confusing in ways she could not fully put into words, yet many things suddenly began to make sense. The change had happened at exactly the same time Edward’s appearance and behavior had shifted so drastically. He had lost weight, his personality had changed, and even his way of looking at people had become unfamiliar. At the time, Miranda had only thought that grief and hardship had transformed him.

Now she understood that she had truly been seeing someone else.

It had not been Amael.

And Amael, understandably, did not want to be connected to that person. He especially did not want to be associated with the one who had carried his existence for two long years while he remained absent. The trauma he endured after awakening had been overwhelming. His memories had collided violently inside his mind. The memories Alea had sealed when he was five years old had returned, and with them came the knowledge of everything that had happened during the two year gap.

A period when Amael had not even truly existed.

For anyone, that truth would have been unbearable. To awaken and discover that someone else had worn your face, lived in your place, formed bonds in your name, and experienced years of life that you could never remember would leave deep scars.

The last thing Miranda wanted was to awaken that pain again.

Both Alea and Kleines had also asked her not to speak about the missing years around Amael. They did not say it harshly. They simply wanted to protect him while he was still recovering, still trying to build a life that belonged to him alone.

So Miranda stayed silent.

Instead, she gently tightened her fingers around Amael’s hand.