A Butterfly Through the Mist - Chapter 100

Suddenly, he was drained. A sense of disillusionment, like lethargy, swept over him entirely.

“…Forget it.”

Ilex already knew the source of this disillusionment rising through his body.

It came from a foreboding.

From the certainty that this thoroughly guarded woman would never let down the walls she had built against him—and that he, despite it all, would never be able to stop this relentless one-sided love.

“It’s not like the money even matters.”

“However much it is, it’s only right that I pay it.”

There was no wavering in Tilia’s eyes as she answered firmly.

Suddenly, déjà vu struck him.

Like her words reflected exactly how she saw him. That same feeling he used to get every time he hovered in front of his empty mailbox, knowing nothing would be there.

Even as he acknowledged that his efforts hadn’t been enough to reach her heart, he still couldn’t help feeling stung by her indifference—feeling small and insignificant.

That same emptiness now surged up to his throat, and everything began to feel sickening.

How much longer did he have to hover outside the lines Tilia had drawn?

He hadn’t endured three years for this kind of argument. He hadn’t bloodied his hands again and again just to say these kinds of words.

A self-mocking laugh slipped out. He could feel Tilia flinch slightly as she glanced at him.

“…It’s not money you need to pay.”

Even so, she still wouldn’t bend.

And even as he felt a faint flicker of annoyance, Ilex found himself—yet again—helplessly drawn to how utterly her this stubbornness was.

That’s why. Because he had realized this hopeless one-sided love would follow him for the rest of his life.

“So then. Why do you think?”

He muttered how tired he was of it, yet he knew—once she was gone—he’d cling to the lingering scent she left behind in this room, like a starving beast.

“Why do you think I kept paying a vagrant’s hospital bills when it should’ve been your responsibility?”

Ilex couldn’t stop the edge in his voice, now testing her.

“What do you think, Tilia?”

Faced with the question, her lips closed. Anxiously, as if out of habit, she lowered her long lashes and bit her lip.

Ilex, eyes locked on that slowly reddening skin, let a cruel smile slip.

“Don’t tell me you don’t know. You’re smart, aren’t you? Tilia Ambrose.”

“……”

“You really don’t know why I did it?”

He admitted it. It was clearly a misstep. He hadn’t meant to push her this far. He hadn’t meant for their reunion in Arkansis to be like this.

“Just go.”

If she got scared and ran off now, that would be the worst outcome. Ilex realized he was unfairly projecting his self-disgust onto her and was just about to rise—

“…No.”

Tilia, who had been silent all this time, finally spoke—softly.

“I know.”

Their eyes met—green and piercing.

“I know why you did it.”

At that moment, Ilex felt as though those sharp green eyes had seen right through him.

From the sleepless nights of his youth, sobbing into his pillow, to the recent days when he clung to a shred of hope for a shared future while dragging himself along rock bottom—he felt as if she had come to know it all.

He no longer remembered the bitterness or disillusionment that had come with the long one-sided love.

In the room drenched in stark white sunlight, all he could sense was Tilia’s scent.

Had he become drunk on that scent he had so desperately craved?

Ilex couldn’t escape the feeling that she had stripped his heart bare.

He couldn’t escape the sensation that he was no longer an outsider to her—but now an exception within her boundary.

His lips were parched, as though he stood before the blazing sun. Without realizing it, Ilex wet his dry lips with his tongue.

And then it happened. The green eyes that had been meeting his without flinching dropped to his lips.

The instant her gaze landed on his moistened lips, he felt it—his deepest longing, hidden until now, surged to the surface.

Three years of heat, stagnant and murky, erupted into a feverish delusion.

The illusion that maybe she wanted him too. That maybe she also thought fondly of those nights they had shared. The hope flickered like a hallucination over his head.

Or maybe—it wasn’t a delusion at all.

Trying to steady his breath, Ilex licked his lips again. Tilia’s gaze, once again tracing his tongue, suddenly recoiled in startled retreat.

Her lowered, thick lashes trembled. The curve of her ear, visible past her tucked hair, turned red.

Observing the changes in the woman he had longed for—almost as if licking them—Ilex trembled.

So that’s what it is. The realization struck like lightning down his spine.

Whatever loneliness had drawn this woman to him, whatever misunderstanding had made her fall—

It was clear now that, unlike before, Tilia Ambrose recognized him as a man.

The moment he realized this, a heat incomparable to before surged within him.

He felt like his body would burn up in the boiling temperature. His trousers became unbearably tight. A living being with its genitals exposed was inevitably tied to its instincts; no matter how much he insisted it was pure love, in the end, he couldn’t help but respond with physical arousal.

‘Hold it in.’

Yet Ilex bit down on the inside of his mouth until the flesh tore, forcing down the desire to run over and kiss her right then.

‘Endure it, Ilex Davenport. No matter what.’

Just because she had removed one brick from the wall she had built toward him, didn’t mean she was granting permission for intimacy. On the contrary, the heightened possibility meant he had to be even more cautious. This was both a chance—and a risk.

He would become her lover, her husband—no matter what anyone said.

Ilex Davenport had come to understand himself. He could no longer settle for being her convenient release, or her decent foreign language tutor.

Whatever anyone said, he wanted to be by her side. Not just walking beside her at night or in deserted alleyways—

But beside her at noon when the sunlight poured down, on a street blooming with flowers.

The grand dream that once seemed to take a lifetime to reach was now within reach. He couldn’t throw it all away just because he couldn’t control himself. He would not become some fool who lunged at her, aroused, without even a ring or bouquet.

“…Knowing all that,”

Having barely suppressed the urge swelling to his throat, Ilex rubbed his flushed eyes with long fingers and muttered like a sigh,

“You still came.”

“…Of course I did.”

But it seemed Tilia didn’t even know the reason she had to avert her eyes. Like someone who had forgotten the sense of danger over the past three years, she muttered softly,

“Do you know why I came here?”

At those words, Ilex’s hand, which had been covering his eyes, lowered slightly. Through his fingers, a fierce gaze pierced the woman’s tense face.

“Why, then?”

“……”

“Why did you come?”

She looked like she wanted to be stripped bare and devoured, so he asked—and yet, no answer came. Her lips parted as if to speak but only hesitated.

Unaware that this sight only further fanned the flames of the man’s desire.

Tilia kept mumbling, unaware of Ilex’s parched insides now cracking from the dryness. When her lips, moving wordlessly, made Ilex imagine something else entirely, he cursed softly and covered his whole face with one hand.

“Go home for today.”

This was truly his limit. He had held back too long. Anyone else in his position, seeing such a feast laid out after three years, wouldn’t be able to maintain reason.

“If you stay longer, I might—”

“I came because I wanted to see you.”

He had tried to hold back.

Truly, he had meant to.

“I… I missed you, too…”

In the end, you’re the one who pushes me to the edge.

So reckless. Muttering internally, Ilex lowered his hand. And then, he faced Tilia, whose face was now so flushed it looked ready to burst.

At that moment—when she, clearly flustered, couldn’t meet his eyes but didn’t turn away either—when he realized she had summoned a kind of courage she had likely never used in her life just to say those words—

The whole world tilted toward her.

Gravity pulled everything—furniture, sofa, teacups—toward her.

So truly, he couldn’t help it.

It wasn’t his fault that his body toppled toward her. That the desire he had worked so hard to hold upright collapsed toward her.

“Kyah…!”

In an instant, his body was on top of hers.

The face he had longed to see up close, had nearly gone mad wanting to touch, was now right before him.

“W-what are you—mmph.”

Pressing her down with his weight, Ilex cupped her heated cheek.

Their lips met hastily. The clumsy rush caused their teeth to bump, but if he’d had the composure to worry about that, he wouldn’t have kissed her in the first place.

“Nngh…”

Mounted over her as she stopped resisting and pulled him close, Ilex plunged his tongue deep into her small mouth.