Chapter 70: [BEEP BEEP]

’What… is this…’

His lungs convulsed, clawing for air that wasn’t there. Each breath scraped like glass, his chest caving in, ribs screaming under invisible weight.

No—he was suffocating.

But there was no hand, no blade, no wound.

Only darkness.

Pitch-black, endless, pressing down on him from every side until he couldn’t tell where his body began or ended.

He tried to scream. Nothing came. He reached for his own arms, but—

Nothing.

No hand. No limb. No body.

Just crushing emptiness, choking him.

’Help… Help!’ His voice rattled inside his skull, desperate, cracking. ’Somebody—please—’

The darkness coiled tighter. His chest seized. His throat locked. The world shrank to that one endless sensation—suffocation, raw and merciless.

’Who’s there?! Who’s suffocating me?! Please—help—’

He could feel it now—something like a noose tightening, dragging him further into the black. A weight that didn’t just strangle his lungs, but his very existence.

’Where’s my body…? Did I—did I die again?’

The void swallowed his thoughts. His mind flailed, frantic, tearing at the emptiness. He couldn’t even remember what direction was up.

Then—

A voice, trembling and raw, cut through the dark.

“I’m sorry—”

He froze. ’Who—?!’

The voice cracked with guilt. A whisper, yet it thundered in his skull.

“I’m sorry…”

’Who—?! WHO?!’

His eyes flew open.

Eli’s chest convulsed with a violent gasp, lungs flooding with air like he’d been drowning for centuries.

He jolted upward—only to be dragged back by wires and restraints that clung to his body.

Monitors screeched to life around him, lights blinking red.

His vision blurred, white walls swimming into focus—machines, beeping, sterile.

And then—

“Eli!”

The cry tore across the room, breaking him from the haze.

His head snapped toward the voice. His eyes widened.

He knew that voice.

Elione’s mother.

Her hands were trembling as she rushed forward, tears streaking her cheeks.

Elois stumbled closer, her trembling hands brushing over Eli’s arm as if the slightest movement might shatter him to pieces.

Her touch was desperate, terrified—like a mother clinging to a child she feared would dissolve into mist if she blinked too long.

Tears spilled freely, splattering hot against his wrist, soaking the pale sheets beneath.

’She’s crying.’ Eli thought, his brow furrowing faintly.

“Elione…” Her voice cracked like glass breaking under pressure. “What were you thinking? An A, no…an S-Class dungeon?”

Her words weren’t sharp—they were broken. Each syllable rasped out raw, dripping with grief that felt heavier than the sterile air in the room.

“Not even a few days since you were discharged…” Her fingers curled tighter around his arm, her nails trembling against his skin. “And now you’re here again.”

Her sobs clawed at the silence, unraveling into words that crushed harder than any wound he’d ever taken.

“Your father—” she choked, her throat closing before the rest escaped. “He… he couldn’t even come anymore. Do you know what that means? Do you understand what this is doing to us?”

Eli’s pulse thrashed in his ears.

’I should say something. I should…’

His lips parted. The attempt was there, raw and desperate. A rasp clawed up his throat, dry and broken—but nothing came. No sound.

Only air.

Only silence.

His body trembled violently, every nerve still echoing the suffocating void, every breath stabbing knives through his chest.

His tongue stuck heavy against the roof of his mouth, his lungs convulsing, strangled as if the darkness still lingered inside him.

And Elois, mistaking his silence for rejection, for indifference—

Broke harder.

Her shoulders collapsed forward, her forehead pressing weakly against his arm as her sobs drowned the room.

The monitors beeped louder, frantic in rhythm with his heartbeat, but her voice, fractured and small, was the only thing he could hear.

“I know you were heartbroken.” Elois pressed her trembling hand to her chest, her sobs muffled against quivering fingers. Her voice was a choked whisper at first, raw from breaking too many times. “But heartbreaks don’t last, Elione. They don’t last!”

Her shoulders shook violently, her grief clawing upward until it erupted, voice cracking like thunder through the sterile hospital room. “I tried not to think about it—I tried so hard to believe you were just coping—but now it’s obvious, isn’t it?”

Her tears fell harder, dripping down her chin, her eyes blazing with a mother’s helpless fury.

“You’ve been trying to kill yourself!” she cried, her voice splitting open the air. “I knew it—I knew it when you didn’t dodge that monster during the explosion. When you left the car and ran toward those ogres! And now this—this dungeon gate above your class?!”

Her hands clawed through the air, her sobs shaking her entire frame. “What are you doing to yourself, Elione?! What are you doing to me?!”

Her words slammed into him like blows, relentless, suffocating.

Eli’s eyes widened, his pulse hammering so hard it blurred into a roar in his ears. His chest tightened, breath choking in his throat as each accusation carved deeper.

Elione was… suicidal? Heartbroken?

His mind reeled, unraveling at the edges. He had braced himself for monsters, for the system’s cruel whims, for the lies he’d have to weave just to survive—But this?

This was heavier. This was the weight of someone else’s grief, someone else’s broken history, chaining itself around his throat until he couldn’t breathe.

’Heartbroken? Over who? The “he” Elois mentioned before?’ His vision flickered with Elois’s tear-streaked face, the anguish behind her words cutting sharper than any blade. ’And suicidal—did he really…?’

Eli didn’t know Elione well enough to be certain, but one thing he knew—he didn’t want to doubt a mother’s instinct. If she believed it, then Elione had truly been… unfortunate.

Her sobs didn’t stop. Her voice cracked, spilling grief and rage and desperate pleas that blurred together, battering Eli’s skull until he couldn’t keep up. Each syllable was another stone slamming against a dam already on the verge of shattering.

Then—

Knock. Knock.

The sound cut through the storm like a blade, sharp and sudden.

’Now, who’s that?’

Elois flinched violently, her breath hitching as though caught mid-crime.

Her swollen eyes snapped toward the door.

For a moment, she was frozen, chest heaving, every sob choking back down into silence.

Her trembling hands flew to her cheeks, wiping furiously at the streams of tears as if she could erase the evidence.

She smoothed her hair with frantic motions, her shoulders still quaking even as she forced them to still.

Her voice cracked when she spoke, softer now, fragile and uneven.

“Come in.”

Eli expected a nurse, a doctor—maybe even Elione’s father making an unannounced visit. Someone explainable.

Predictable.

But as the door creaked open, the air shifted.

His eyes widened, the heart monitor spiked.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

The sound filled the sterile silence, loud, accusing, as if his own body was betraying him.

’What is he doing here?’ Eli thought, chest tightening. Even Elois gasped, the sound sharp and startled, her hand flying to her mouth.

The figure at the door stepped inside with effortless grace, tall, composed, every line of his presence demanding attention. His voice rolled calm and steady, yet heavy enough to drown the room.

“Good morning. I hope I am not intruding.” He dipped his head slightly, his tone polite but unyielding. “My name is Kairo. I am here to visit Elione.”

Eli’s pulse stuttered hard.

’What the fuck…’ His thoughts spun, the room shrinking around him as Elois bowed reflexively. To his shock, Kairo returned the gesture with equal respect, though his sheer presence didn’t lessen.

“Y-Yes, I know who you are,” Elois managed, her voice trembling with nerves. “I’m just… very surprised. Please, come in.”

She stepped aside quickly, her hand twisting nervously in her dress.

Kairo entered, carrying a neat wicker basket of fruit, his every motion measured, deliberate. His gaze swept the room only once before it anchored—firm and unwavering—onto Eli.

Their eyes locked.

Eli’s stomach flipped, his breath snagging in his throat. The air between them thickened instantly, heavy enough that the heart monitor betrayed him again.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

’What is he doing here? Oh my god. Oh my god.’ Panic rushed hot in his veins. ’Why now? Why me?’

“I-I will uh… I will leave you two to talk,” Elois stammered, breaking the charged silence. She hesitated at the door, glancing back at Eli with watery eyes that seemed to plead for him to behave, to endure.

She pulled out her phone in a shaky grip, murmured something under her breath, and slipped out, shutting the door softly behind her.

Kairo’s lips parted slightly as if he wanted to stop her, to say something to her directly, but the moment was gone. Elois left too fast, leaving only the faint echo of the door clicking shut.

And suddenly—it was just the two of them.

The fruit basket rested against Kairo’s arm, but his crimson gaze never left Eli, sharp and unflinching, as though the basket was merely a prop in his hand and not the reason for his visit.

The silence pressed in, broken only by the steady, mocking rhythm of the monitor.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

It was awkward.

Painfully awkward.

The silence stretched thin between them, so taut it felt like a blade pressing at Eli’s throat. The sterile hum of the machines, the faint ticking of the clock on the wall—none of it masked the sound that betrayed him most.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

His heartbeat. Loud. Exposed.

And Kairo—he was listening. Eli knew it. The man’s eyes never once drifted away, crimson and unblinking, as if he were memorizing every falter of Eli’s breath, every spike in rhythm.

’This is worse than fighting the priest. At least then I knew how to swing.’

The awkwardness dragged on, each second heavier than the last, until finally—

Kairo moved.

He set the basket of fruit down on the bedside table with deliberate care, the motion quiet yet final, as though placing the last piece of evidence in a case already solved. His gaze lowered for only a moment, then cut back to Eli, sharper than before.

“So, I was correct.” His voice was calm, but it cut like tempered steel. “You are suicidal.”

The words landed with brutal precision, the air itself seeming to recoil from them.

Eli’s stomach dropped, his lungs seizing.

Oh.

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