Please Kill Me - Chapter 150
But putting everything else aside, the strongest emotion she felt was surprise.
Why is everyone remembering her like this? At the same time, she felt a slight relief. Just as she missed them, they missed her too.
Yekaterina summarized all these complex emotions with one simple phrase.
“I thought everyone would forget me.”
“There are some things that don’t get forgotten. And His Excellency has been a complete recluse.”
“…Leonid too?”
Yekaterina’s heart tightened with guilt. However, Olga, who was unaware of these feelings, quickly nodded after sniffling.
“Why don’t you meet with him? I’m worried His Excellency might collapse again. He hasn’t been sleeping and has been working non-stop. His Excellency that I knew was dedicated to his work, but he wasn’t this much of a workaholic.”
Olga also detailed Leonid’s condition. He had been holed up and living in a state that could hardly be called normal.
This made Yekaterina realize that the apparent lack of activity in Rostislav wasn’t due to their daily life being unchanged, but rather the exact opposite.
“I… thought Leonid was doing well.”
She had assumed he would quickly forget about her and go back to his usual life. But was that not the case?
Yekaterina had a strong intuition that she had misunderstood something very much.
‘I thought leaving him would be the best thing for him.’
She had been unintentionally causing harm even after leaving. She couldn’t allow this to continue. She hoped Leonid wouldn’t suffer from her departure, as she left with the intention of causing him no further pain.
So, she stopped talking with Olga and put her mask back on.
“Olga, where is Leonid?”
It seemed she needed to talk to him again.
* * *
With that, she set out for the place Olga had indicated.
Or rather, she was about to set out.
Just as she was about to turn the corner and head back, she discovered a secluded terrace, barely visible in the darkness.
And if Yekaterina’s sharp sense of smell hadn’t detected the stench of blood and decay in the vicinity.
At first, she couldn’t believe it. This was the palace’s party hall. How could there be a smell of blood at the Vesna banquet?
But the smell was too disturbing to ignore. It wasn’t just the scent of blood; the odor of decay had her trapped.
Yekaterina was more familiar with this kind of smell than anyone.
The smell of death when a person’s life has ended, and what remains must be treated as refuse. The damp, foul stench of death was so ingrained in her senses that it could not be mistaken for anything else.
Despite her efforts to believe otherwise, Yekaterina proceeded to the terrace. And there she faced the aftermath of the violent scene that had unfolded.
‘So it was true.’
Her initial reaction was indifference. Since she had anticipated this smell, it wasn’t surprising or shocking. If anything, it was slightly disappointing that her ominous premonitions had been correct.
On the terrace floor lay a dead woman with silver hair. Shifting her gaze slightly, she saw a blonde man leaning against the railing. Though his face was obscured by a mask, it was clear he was dying with a knife embedded in his torso.
But why did this scene feel so familiar?
Even without seeing his face, an uneasy feeling took hold. Perhaps it was the familiar pose of the man leaning against the railing or the fact that the woman sprawled on the floor had silver hair like hers.
Yekaterina desperately hoped her fears were wrong. She truly did.
However, when she locked eyes with the man, who was gradually losing consciousness, she was reminded of one undeniable truth.
“…Leonid?”
Yekaterina was once again reminded that her wishes had never come true. How could she fail to recognize those eyes, that gaze?
Those golden eyes, which had a peculiar, almost magnetic pull. Though it wasn’t her first time seeing golden eyes, Leonid’s were somehow different.
Leonid had said that when he was on the brink of death after falling from the cliff, the magic that had cast on him had enchanted Yekaterina.
However, Yekaterina had always felt a peculiar sense of enchantment whenever her gaze met Leonid’s, even before that moment.
Although it wasn’t as intense as in the cave, there was something about his gaze that made her feel as though it was reluctantly leaving her. If Leonid permitted it, Yekaterina might have wanted to keep gazing into those eyes indefinitely.
If Yekaterina had to name the part of Leonid’s body she had seen the most, it would undoubtedly be his eyes.
So how could she possibly fail to recognize them?
The scene, which had seemed indifferent just moments ago, transformed into something overwhelmingly terrifying in an instant.
