Chapter 77: Idiot

With heavy steps, Himanshu walked out of the room and headed toward the hall.

?The echo of the slammed door was still hanging in the air behind him, but all he could hear was the sound of his own fast, heavy breathing.

With his head full of endless confusion, his teeth clenched tight in anger and helplessness, and a faint wetness resting in the corners of his eyes, he collapsed onto the sofa in the hall like a snapped thread.

It felt like all the strength in his body had drained out the moment he slammed that door.

?He lay there without moving an inch. His wide-open eyes were glued to a single spot on the empty wall in front of him—so still, it was like his eyelids refused to blink.

?After so many years, he had finally broken out of the chains he had built around himself. Stepping out of that dark corner of overthinking, as his closeness with the demon grew, he had started feeling a new change inside himself.

He had stepped out of that emptiness and started living again. He really thought the derailed train of his life was finally ready to run on a good track.

?But today, in this exact moment, he realized that all of it was just in his head, his own made-up thought. A one-sided illusion.

?In the dim light of the hall, the walls of his house started looking colorless and dull to him all over again, just like they always used to.

His eyes shifted to the peeling paint in the corner of the wall. Maybe these walls had always been colorless. Maybe they never had any color in them to begin with.

They had always been this cold and empty—someone suddenly showing up wasn’t going to change the colors of his life.

?He swallowed a bitter lump down his dry throat. Maybe all of this was just the result of Himanshu’s years-old loneliness, which forced him to get attached to any person—no matter who or how they were—the second they got even a little close to him.

Even if that person meant nothing to him in reality... or if Himanshu didn’t matter to them at all.

?’She is right...’ a voice rose from some corner of his mind.

?"You don’t need to do anything for me!"

?The second those screamed words of the demon echoed in his ears again, a sharp burning sensation rose in Himanshu’s chest.

His breathing suddenly sped up, and shaking with anger, he raised his hand and violently swept a few things off the center table in front of him—an old magazine and a plastic pen stand—knocking them straight onto the carpet below.

?The stuff scattered across the carpet, and two or three things just lay there messed up on the floor. But even that small noise didn’t calm the storm raging inside him.

?"I was the crazy one... it was my mistake," his voice was broken and heavy. He rubbed his face with both hands. "What was the need to think so much for a character? I was crazy... I was the crazy one..."

?Still muttering this to himself, he let his body go limp and rolled over onto that small sofa. His lips were trembling, and in the dark, he just kept repeating this one line over and over like a chant.

?Because of the stinging pain from the bruises on his back and the mess running through his head, sleep was miles away. He kept tossing and turning from one side to the other. The sofa cushions felt too small for his body.

?After struggling like that for a long time, he pulled a nearby pillow and pressed it tightly over his ear—as if he was trying to block out the voices echoing inside his own head. He sprawled flat on his stomach on the sofa.

One of his legs was bent up on the cushions, while the other hung out over the edge in the air. Along with it, his bandaged, injured hand also dangled down toward the floor.

?Today had become one of those days in his life that he wouldn’t be able to forget even if he tried. Today, he was so completely broken and exhausted, both physically and mentally, that his tiredness finally won over his anger.

Slowly, the tight crease between his eyebrows relaxed, his breathing grew deeper, and he slipped into a deep, dead sleep.

?The whole house fell completely silent once again. The same house that was echoing with the sounds of a slamming door and shouting just a little while ago was now ruled entirely by silence.

?°°°°°°°°°°°

?Slowly, the night slipped by.

?For Himanshu, knocked out on the sofa in the hall, morning had probably already arrived in his deep sleep. But inside the bedroom... time felt like it was frozen in place.

?Sitting on the edge of her bed with her legs dangling in the air, the demon was still staring blankly at the clock hanging on the wall in the dark.

And then her eyes would slip from the clock and go straight to Himanshu’s empty bed right in front of her—where the deep wrinkles on the bedsheet from Himanshu’s tightly clenched fist were still sitting untouched.

?It was true that she had lived for eight thousand years in her past life. She had seen empires, rivers of blood, and the royal throne. But it was an equally bitter truth that here, in this world, all of that was nothing more than a story written in a paper book. And now, all she had left of that life were some blurry memories.

?After a few more moments passed like this, the constant tick-tick of the wall clock and that empty, lonely bed in front of her started creating a strange restlessness in her chest. Her hands, gripping the edge of the mattress, slowly started tightening. Her fingers dug into the sheet.

?She gritted her teeth, and a very low, muffled voice slipped out of her mouth—

?"Idiot..."

?The very thing the demon was most afraid of—Himanshu was slowly starting to feel all of it. He was crossing the line that needed to stay drawn between them.

?The demon knew very well who she was, what her reality was right now, and what was going to happen in the future. And besides, she didn’t even know how many days she had left in this human world.

Who knew if her existence might just vanish into thin air tomorrow? For her, getting through these numbered days probably wasn’t as hard and troublesome as facing the truth that couldn’t be changed or denied at any cost.

?It was just like when a human starts liking a main character from a book, or someone from a movie or anime, way too much.

That character becomes so important in your life that you slowly start trying to change your real life and your real relationships around them.

?Well, the demon thinking this way made sense from her side. You can like a fictional character, you can even cry for them... but you can never make them a part of your real life.

?Squeezing her eyes shut tightly for a second, the demon let out a deep breath, pressed her hands against the bed, and stood up.

?She couldn’t take the biting silence of this room anymore. At first, she thought once Himanshu’s anger cooled down, he would quietly come back to the room after a while.

But even after two or three hours had passed, apart from that loud slam of the door, not a single sound had come from outside. Nothing had changed.

?She walked forward barefoot and stopped for a moment when she reached the room’s door. Her hand stopped in the air just inches away from the handle, as if she was rethinking her decision to go outside.

?After quietly staring down at the floor for a second, she slowly turned the handle and opened the door without making a sound.

?Stepping out of the room, she scanned the dark hall and walked forward slowly, looking for Himanshu.

?