He needed a beating, and this was something refreshing to be honest. Even if he was in such a weak state, he was still that jerk that kept pestering me all this time.

“Wake up!” I shouted, “This… This was all an illusion, like a dream… no, it’s like a nightmare.”

It felt wrong to use the word dream about this. This time he stayed there on the ground without any intention to even raise his head to face mine.

“It was all fake! That angel died, died a long time ago! Wake up! You are jumping all over the apocalypse to just save him.”

“B… But… Sob… He… Sob… Died… at… Sob… My hands…”

I didn’t think even after all this time, the jumper didn’t get it out of his head. Damn! That bastard who did all this seemed to specifically target him. Out of all my people, he selected the right dude to crush, and found his weak spot and kept pushing mercilessly on it.

He even got to live through that same moment over and over again until he broke down. I wasn’t acting judgmental here. After all, if I was in his shoes, I would have never ended up in any better situation than him.

“Is…” Hilary tucked me from the arm, but I gave her a warning gaze.

This was all the jumper’s secrets, or the second most important secret in his own list of secrets.

As for the other one, his biggest secret, I hoped he wouldn’t reveal it now, not when he was in such a condition.

“Sob… Sob…” but all that came from him were these repeated sobbing. He was crying, bitterly crying as if losing that angel was refreshing and the wound was still alive.

“You…” seeing him like that made me shake my head in deep sympathy. Using this approach wasn’t going to work. It seemed I had to be softer.

So I went and sat by his side, and said without even looking at him.

“We started this together… I still recall the first moment we two met. Do you still remember it?”

“Sob… you were weak… Sob…” even when he was crying, he was still acting like a jerk.

“Yes,” but I simply nodded, “at that time, you were stronger, far stronger than myself. If you wanted, you could have crushed me to a pulp using a finger.”

“…”

He slowly stopped crying, raised his head at last and looked at me. Well, if these memories messed up with his head then it was better to start from the beginning of everything.

“That moment we had a conversation, a deal was made, and we started to walk this path shoulder to shoulder.”

“Don’t put me in the same basket as you,” he started acting mean again, making me inwardly smile.

At least this true self was still there. If he lost his focus or got deluded by what he experienced, it was the role of friends like myself to shake him awake and return him back to the right track.

“Do you remember what we two talked about back then?” I turned to gaze at his eyes. They were still felt with tears, but it seemed he was controlling his pain for now.

“…”

For a few minutes he struggled, and resumed crying silently this time. I stayed all silent, didn’t speak, only waited for him to answer me.

“I… Remember…” he sobbed again, “you told me to not jump again and prevented me from doing this to save him.”

Damn! He got it all wrong! “And you did it for your own benefit, neglecting mine.”

“That’s… Not what happened,” I had to shake him back, “we agreed to do this to help you save your friend.”

“How? How can I’m prevented from jumping? Jumping around is the only way I had to save him. You deprived it from me, took it away…”

Despite his aggressive words, his tone was weak, much weaker than ever. And at the end of it, he couldn’t control himself and started crying again.

“Jumping around?” as he was even deluded to see the simple facts of my actions, then it was better to bluntly say it to him, “jumping wasn’t your way to save him, but your way to run away from saving him.”

“Don’t say that!” he roared in pain, deep pain, as he punched me in the face. But this time I didn’t even need to use my spiritual energy to stop his hand.

His punch lacked any strength at all, as if it was a breeze of air moving over my face or something.

“You jumped, started an apocalypse, saw it was so damn hard to keep moving forward, then decided to jump over it again. Doing this over and over again, running all the time, made your first intention to save him turn against you.”

“Hye… Please…” from the direction of the door, Hilary spoke in a weak tone filled with emotions.

I knew this was the first time for her to see through the deepest layers of the jumper. She never expected, like anyone else, that beneath that hard and cold mask, such a fragile soul would be there.

And as she saw his true self, she didn’t stay aggressive or cold to him like everyone else. She would now understand why despite all this bad attitude this man gave to me, I still kept him by my side all this time.

He was a pathetic… really pathetic soul that didn’t just get crushed and deformed from the apocalypse, but got shattered and was beyond any repair.

Only by the presence of such friends like me by his side would he have the strength to keep moving forward.

Saving his friend might seem like a noble cause, but I knew better. Linking everything I knew about him, I got to say he was doing it for love.

And right now he was honestly expressing his feelings, in a subtle and indirect way of course. But as he was honest, Hilary got touched by his words and emotions, felt deeply related and had great empathy with him.

“He needed that,” I waved to her to not come over, “I know what I’m doing.”