Thought It Was 'The End', Only to Return to a Changed Genre - Chapter 4
“You kidnapped and imprisoned someone, and you’re happy about it? Well done. Are you satisfied now?”
“……”
“I’m asking you! Are you satisfied?!”
“I can’t possibly be satisfied with just this. Still far from it, Adeline.”
“Shane Blanchard.”
As she called out his name quietly, Shane looked directly at Adeline. Meeting his gaze, Adeline spoke slowly.
“Don’t do anything that you’ll regret.”
Rather than making him regret, no way to escape comes to mind, but she knows something. Since being reborn, more than half of Adeline’s life has been a lie.
“Regret?”
Shane suddenly burst into laughter.
“I’ve already killed that. Since the day you ‘died’.”
“So this is why? Is it because I deceived you? Because you thought I was dead? Should I apologize for being alive? Yes, I’m truly sorry for deceiving you, but I had no other choice…”
The laughter vanished from Shane’s face in an instant. Adeline found herself unintentionally stopping her words.
“The sight of you as you were dying right in front of me… It’s still vivid in my mind.”
“……”
“Yes, because you’re alive….”
Shane gritted his teeth. Then, he remained pale and motionless, as if unsure of what to do, like someone faced with a suddenly gaping wound.
‘I messed up….’
Facing the doll-like face, reason slowly returned to her. Adeline reminded herself of the fact that she was trapped in this secluded room with this insane person.
Furthermore, the man in front of her was not her former fiancé or childhood friend.
This was a complete stranger.
‘I did deceive him, but should I just apologize and beg for forgiveness?’
A sense of cowardice crept in. The terrifying aspect of a madman was not knowing what they might do next.
However, Shane just settled back down, silently gazing at Adeline for a while with calm eyes. He didn’t say a word.
Then, he suddenly stood up. Adeline found herself shouting involuntarily.
“Wait, Shane!”
Just before opening the door, Shane halted his steps and turned to look at Adeline. Occasionally described as sapphire-like, his clean and blue eyes were now clouded with dark emotions.
The affectionate fiancé she used to admire had become a completely different person in just five years.
“It’s better not to think about escaping. Unless you want to see how far I can go.”
With those words, Shane left the room.
Alone, Adeline didn’t exhale until a moment later. Her body, which had been tense, relaxed. She hadn’t realized she was so tense.
The bed, soft enough to bury oneself in, was very comfortable, but Adeline didn’t have the luxury of enjoying it. The dark room felt just right for her situation.
‘What is all this?’
What is it? This damn situation? How did things end up like this?
If Shane had been the same male lead Adeline knew, she wouldn’t have been scared no matter what the situation was. But that man was someone completely unknown to Adeline.
She wanted to believe that Shane couldn’t possibly be like that… but just judging by his eyes, it wouldn’t be strange if it was the male lead Shane from the novel who assassinated ‘Adeline’.
‘I don’t know where things went wrong….’
After five years, the male lead, who should have welcomed a happy ending, was kidnapping people, or behaving like a purveyor of infidelity….
<If I had known you’d fall for such a simple trick like a death notice, I would have done it sooner.>
This meant that the death notice was fake.
‘Well, that’s fortunate.’
If her mother were alive, there would be no better news. Even Adeline, who had dedicated her life to escape, couldn’t doubt or ignore her mother’s death, as sincere as she was in seclusion.
Perhaps Shane even suspected Adeline’s guilt towards her family. That’s why he chose it as a means to ensure she couldn’t ignore him.
‘Where does the truth end and the lies begin?’
She couldn’t trust anything.
Did the saint really have a happy marriage?
‘Is it true that she became happy by marrying that jerk?’
Fundamental doubts arose.
Since the essence of this empty-headed novel is that the female lead Genevieve receives love and healing, thus purifying the world, the female lead had to be happy.
However, the behavior of the ex-fiancée who turns his eyes away and kidnaps his former fiancée, felt far from happiness.
At least in the novels she had read, not a single line mentioned such an event.
‘After avoiding the villainous bad ending, kidnapping and imprisonment awaited….’
Moreover, the villain was the male lead.
Was it a mistake to firmly believe that he couldn’t possibly be a villain because he was the male lead?
‘No, he was really kind when we were young, right?’
Kind… Was he kind?
Adeline carefully sifted through her memories.
Yes, from the beginning.
