Xara, of course, noticed his sudden disappearance. The mont she realized he was gone, her frown deepened into sothing sharper, more troubled.
She knew this man—knew how stubborn he could be... Still, it unsettled her. Without wasting ti, she returned to her hidden base, her footsteps heavier than usual. But the second she stepped inside, a strange sensation crept over her.
Sothing felt... off.
This place was sacred. Only she ever entered. Every inch of it—every corner, every shadow, every drawer—was burned into her mory. So when she stepped into the room and saw the drawer just slightly ajar, the docunts not quite in their proper place, the difference so minor most would've overlooked it... she knew imdiately.
Soone had been here.
Her heart sank.
There was only one person who could possibly know this place even existed—Aether.
But how? How the hell had he gotten inside?
She rushed to the drawer, flipping through the pages with shaking hands. It didn't take her long... Just a glance at the docunt left half-open, and she knew.
She knew exactly where he went.
Without a second thought, she stord out. Her feet carried her faster than her thoughts, through rough terrain, through the whispering wind that clung to her skin. She finally arrived... only to find him.
Standing there beneath the lonely, twisted tree—alone.
Aether's figure looked smaller from afar, shadowed by conflict and hesitation. His expression was lost in thought, eyebrows drawn, lips parted as if still searching for sothing in the air.
"What are you doing here?"
Aether turned, startled. His face shifted through emotions—shock, guilt, confusion, then awkwardness.
"How did you...?
"I have my own ways," she said, interrupting his stamr before it could form. Her steps were slow but deliberate as she walked toward him, her tone serious, unwavering. "Now tell ... what the hell are you doing here?"
Aether scratched the back of his head, a nervous smile tugging at his lips. "Just... visiting the past, I guess... Trying to understand you better," he replied, eyes darting toward her, then down to the ground.
He looked up again—due to the illusion he wore, her height towered above his—and found himself facing her expression: sharp, annoyed, but burning with sothing more... sothing deeper.
Xara's lips twitched. Anger was there, yes, bubbling beneath the surface. But there was also restraint. She wanted to lash out at him, to scold him for breaking into her sacred space, for pushing too far.
Yet... the mont she saw him, truly saw him... that intention dissolved.
He wasn't doing this out of annoy her. He was trying to reach her... Understand her.
So she breathed, cald herself, and asked instead, softly but directly, "So? Did you visit them? Do you understand a little better now?"
Her voice didn't shake, but there was sothing hollow in it—sothing raw.
Aether t her gaze, then slowly turned away. His silence was heavier than words.
Xara's smile was faint and weak, barely there. But she didn't push.
"I did visit them," Aether finally said, eyes fixed on the distant house nestled quietly beneath the trees. "It seems you have a brother. And a sister."
He laughed lightly, though it didn't reach his eyes. "Funny. Your sister—she looks almost exactly like you."
Xara gave a small hum, lips curling into sothing wistful. "Yeah... she does."
"But," Aether added with a little edge in his voice, "her mouth was a bit bitchy. No offense. She didn't respect anyone. Not even your parents."
Xara chuckled at that, low and soft, as her eyes lingered on the far-off house.
A long silence followed.
Then Aether asked, quieter this ti, "Do you... still love them?"
The question struck harder than he expected. Xara didn't answer at first. The breeze picked up, ruffling her long hair as she turned her face away, eyes dimming.
"Yeah," she finally said, almost inaudible. "Even if they don't rember ... even if I've changed beyond recognition... yes, I still love them."
Aether looked at her closely.
She looked beautiful in that mont—tragically so. Her features were delicate, but there was sothing glass-like about her.
Xara stared at the ground, then spoke, her voice distant. "People change, Aether. We're not who we were. Sotis the things we feel... they shift too. What you feel for now might be love. But once you spend real ti with ... once you see everything... you might realize it's not."
She paused, glancing sideways at him, the weight of vulnerability thick in her chest.
"That's why I showed you my secret," she confessed. "Because if you're going to love ... I want you to love all of . The real . The broken, flawed, ssy . Not so image or fantasy you've built up in your head."
She knew... she knew herself more than anyone that's she ran away...
She knew she wasn't perfect—far from it.
Her past was littered with terrible decisions, things she could never take back.
But despite that... or maybe because of it... she loved him. She loved Aether—not just his presence, not the comfort he brought, but the very darkness that lived inside him.
The possessive gleam in his eyes, the way he looked at her like she belonged to him—those things awakened sothing inside her that she could neither suppress nor explain.
She felt it. She craved it... And deep down, she needed it like breath itself.
There was no confusion anymore.
Her love for him wasn't distant or maternal.
It wasn't sothing pure or selfless.
It wasn't the love of a guardian or the affection of a mother toward her son.
No... it was real, raw, and dangerously human.
She loved him as a man.
She had accepted that truth from the mont her legs carried her over the cold mountains in search of him.
The mont their lips t and she kissed him back—not out of impulse, but out of longing.
When her sanity trembled, when her restraint cracked—she knew. She was falling... And for the first ti, she didn't want to stop herself.
She could have pretended... It would've been easier. She could've stayed silent, could've maintained the illusion of control, of distance.
She could've acted like none of it happened—like her heart hadn't been shaken, like her body hadn't responded to his touch, like her soul hadn't already started to unravel for him.
She could have hidden behind the motherly mask she wore for years... But she didn't.
Because his love—his madness, his obsession—reached into the deepest parts of her, the places even she had long buried.
It touched sothing that had been dormant for so long, sothing fragile and fierce... And for so reason, only he had the power to bring it back to life.
That was the reason she showed him her deepest secret.
Not for trust.
Not even for guilt.
But because she wanted him to see her completely.
She wanted to feel again.
To be understood.
To be known... And she wanted him to know that even if she was a lost cause… she still chose him.
She didn't want to pretend anymore. She wasn't going to hide behind morality or try to paint herself as a noble woman with a noble heart.
She wasn't that. She wasn't good... She never had been.
And with him, she couldn't lie. Not even to herself. Every part of her—the violent, the obsessive, the aching and the broken—was real... And he had seen it.
If Aether had only remained her adopted son, she might've kept up the act. She could've maintained the illusion of distant care and impersonal warmth. But he wasn't just a son anymore—not to her, not in her heart.
He had beco sothing else.
That's why she had to reveal everything. Every piece of her soul. Every scar, every ugly truth, every craving, and every shivering thread of emotion tangled within her.
She stepped closer to him, no longer hiding—no longer pretending.
"My family... they were broken apart by my own actions," Xara whispered, "Even though I loved them... deeply... everything I did only pushed them further away. My choices—my mistakes—made it hard to love back. I know I was wrong... but by the ti I realized that, it was already too late."
She paused, her hands curling at her sides, eyes lost in distant pain.
"You probably don't get it... but the pain... the fear in their eyes when they looked at ," her voice cracked, "it was like thousands of knives, stabbing into my heart. That look—like I was so kind of creature they couldn't even recognize... it broke ."
She turned her gaze to Aether now, slow and heavy, her eyes filled with tornt, "They looked at like I was a monster, Aether... The sa people who once held , kissed my forehead, told stories at night... now they stared at like I was nothing but so cursed thing. Do you know how much that hurts?" Her voice cracked again, lower this ti, bitter with regret. "It hurt so much... I couldn't take it. I ran away."
"..." Aether remained silent. He stared at her, but it was no longer just her words he saw—it was everything beneath them. Her voice trembled, but her eyes... they held a desperate ache.
Longing... Loneliness...
Sothing shifted inside Aether.
And in that mont... sothing inside him clicked.
Sothing that had been stuck inside him, sothing blocking his thoughts, that stubborn haze in his heart—finally broke loose.
In that mont, it clicked.
He finally saw her—not as a powerful woman, not as soone dangerous or twisted—but as soone like him.
In a strange, twisted way… they were the sa.
Both he and Xara… were broken.
Broken.
Not broken by the world.
Not broken by fate.
But broken by existence itself—by simply being born different.
She wasn't shattered by outside events... she was just born this way, with cracks already running through her soul.
And the people who once loved her?
The ones who were supposed to understand her?
Until they saw those cracks... And once they saw them, that's all they could see.
The flaws... The wrongness!!
It was like seeing a perfectly white sheet of paper—pure and untouched—but with a single black dot in the corner.
People didn't notice the white.... They stared only at the black.
Even though the white big... yet they foucs on black part!
They judged... That's how the world always was.
And sohow... Aether, of all people—he, who should've understood her the most—he hadn't realized it until now.
His hand trembled as he stared down at his palm. 'How dare you forget yourself...' he thought bitterly.
His new life, the roles he'd taken, the responsibilities... they had made him forget what he truly was.
He too... was born broken product!... To others!!
Aether turned slowly toward her, sothing unspoken stirring in his chest. "I'm... sorry," he said quietly, and before she could react, he leaned forward—and kissed her.
It was sudden, but soft.
Xara blinked, her eyes wide, her breath hitching against his lips. When he pulled back, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
"What was that for?" she asked, her voice soft and uncertain.
Aether gave a small shrug, a helpless smile touching his lips. "I don't know," he murmured, then without warning, pulled her into a tight hug.
Xara stood frozen in his arms, her heart racing as confusion swirled in her chest. His embrace was tight—desperate—like he was holding on to sothing that might disappear if he let go.
She didn't understand.
Why now?
What had changed?
Aether, who douted questioned her actions, who feared her madness... now held her like she was precious.
Like she wasn't sothing broken, but sothing worth holding.
All this ti, he had been trying to make sense of her madness... to justify it, to dissect it, to fix it.
Yeah... he trying to fix sothing that never broken!
But not once had he considered accepting it.
Until now.
For so long, he had been consud by worry—about the future, about his other partners, about the chaos he was surrounded with. But in all that, he had never once stopped to ask... how Xara felt.
What she carried... What it ant to be her.
Yes, she was insane.
Yes, she was unpredictable.
But she felt. She bled. She loved.
What she did wasn't normal—but it was her.
And she had long accepted that truth. That no one could ever truly love her for what she was.
"...Aether?" Xara whispered, confused, her voice barely audible against his shoulder. 'What's gotten into him?' she thought, bewildered.
But then sothing even stranger happened.
Her eyes widened.
Her arms slowly lowered as her mouth parted in shock.
His body—it was changing.
She could feel it.
He was growing taller... his fra expanding, reshaping... his illusion unraveling right before her eyes.
His boyish features matured into sothing sharper, more defined. Handso. Older.
"…Wait… What the hell...?" Her voice shook as she stepped back slightly, staring up at him.
Her expression twisted into horror—not out of fear, but shock.
The illusion was breaking away.
And now—finally—she was seeing the real Aether.
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