Please Kill Me - Chapter 158
However, Yekaterina doesn’t take his hand. What has fundamentally changed her is not him but Leonid Rostislav. What is it about him that could transform his sister to this extent? From the moment he saw Yekaterina leap off the cliff, he felt something inside him crumble.
It was jealousy, mixed with despair.
She was losing the life she had barely regained, all because of that damned Rostislav. Dmitry clenched his jaw tightly.
“Then why don’t you share your thoughts with me?”
“What do you mean by my thoughts?”
“I mean that damn Rostislav.”
Dmitry stepped closer to Yekaterina, gripping her shoulders with both hands.
“Why did you go to Leonid Rostislav? Why him? He had no connection to you. So why—”
Why did you go to him at such a desperate moment? Why did it have to be him? Was I not enough?
“Sister, why don’t you see me? I’ve always been right by your side!”
“Then why did you cast the protective magic of Offenbach on me?”
At that moment, Dmitry’s expression hardened into a straight line.
His heart was constricted with an intensity he couldn’t escape, leaving him no time to maintain his usual composure. Because of this, Yekaterina, held in his grasp, could see his face fully—the look of someone who had lost their composure, mixed with emotions that were hard to decipher.
And she felt certain.
‘…Dmitry.’
You truly are someone who cannot kill me
* * *
She wondered. It didn’t seem to make sense for Dmitry to harm Leonid in this way. He claimed he took action to prevent Yekaterina from having foolish thoughts, but there was no way such lies would work on her.
‘The methods of Offenbach are far more straightforward.’
There was no need for this convoluted approach. If he wanted to sever the connection between Yekaterina and Leonid, Dmitry could have simply given Yekaterina a knife and issued one command: go kill Leonid.
If she resisted, he could threaten to kill Yekaterina—or impose a punishment worse than death.
That was the way of Offenbach. Yet, here was Dmitry using such convoluted methods and saying how he wanted to get along. Although his expression still held the arrogance and deception she had known, the sense of unease he had created lingered on.
So, she asked herself. What were your thoughts during the time I can’t remember, and what are you thinking now? If you truly cared for me as you did when you cast the protective magic on me, then surely you could stop tormenting me now. I had already taken steps to distance myself from him.
However, Dmitry’s reaction was sharp. He looked at Yekaterina as if she had uttered words she shouldn’t have, or as if she had betrayed him.
“Do you remember…?”
“Just a little. I recalled that you once offered to cast magic on me. You said it was unnecessary for you, so you would give it to me.”
At her words, the tension in Dmitry’s face visibly eased. It was as if he was confronted with something he had long deemed impossible, and his expression seemed on the verge of crumbling.
“You remember. My sister.”
He repeated that fact softly to himself, almost in disbelief.
“But why not me…?”
That was no longer a question directed at Yekaterina. Dmitry’s gaze dropped, and the grip he had on her relaxed. He seemed unable to shake off the shock, as if he had been hit in the head.
‘You remember me.’
He knew that nearly all memories of Yekaterina’s time with Dmitry had faded since she received the protective magic. She held no resentment about it.
After all, he had been severely punished by Sergei for the events of that day and had been placed under surveillance.
— If you want to experience a day like today again, go ahead and get close to that girl. I’m curious what will happen then.
Sergei did not want to see his cherished heir distracted by an adopted child. If it seemed like Dmitry was getting closer to Yekaterina, he was always ready to crack the whip.
So, Dmitry thought it was better this way. Even if Yekaterina didn’t remember him, and therefore didn’t direct her gaze towards him, he believed that he could still try.
After all, they would have another chance.
‘But…’
The truth was that Yekaterina did remember him; she just chose not to look back at Dmitry. He had already become a stranger to her.
That was why, as soon as she returned to the past, she left Offenbach. Even if she sought out someone she had never met before, she did not come looking for Dmitry.
Yekaterina no longer regarded Dmitry as someone close to her.
That realization hit him coldly.
“…That’s enough. You can leave now.”
“And the answer?”
“It seems you’re asking a long-winded question about a mistake from my childhood.”
Dmitry furrowed his brow and spoke coldly.
“Whatever happened is just a thing of the past. It holds no significance now. I don’t even remember what I was thinking back then. Is that enough?”
