“Where are we?”

When I turned my head to look around, I noticed what appeared to be the ruins of a city. The buildings were in shambles, and the pavement was pitted and broken all over town.

It wasn’t surprising to find a city in such a state given the recent conflict that had taken place; however, in contrast to the other cities, this city appeared to have been in its current condition for a considerable amount of time.

A good indicator of this was the moss and other plant life that had taken up residence in the cracks of a number of the buildings.

Walking around the street, Kevin didn’t say anything. He just looked around the place with a reminiscent look.

I didn’t know for how long we continued to walk for, but we soon stopped in front of a house.

Well, what seemed to be the remains of. Half of the house was completely gone.

“This is where I used to live back when I was a child.”

Kevin finally spoke, his gaze never leaving the house.

“My mom makes very good soup. I would’ve loved for you to have tried it at least once. I tried replicating her recipe, but it just doesn’t taste the same. I don’t know what it is…”

There was a warm smile on his face as he spoke.

I didn’t say anything and just quietly listened to what he had to say.

“My dad would always come home late. Probably because we lived far from where he worked… rent problems, you know. We weren’t very wealthy. Not that our life wasn’t bad…”

He continued to ramble on about his parents. What he remembered about them, how they looked, what they liked, what they disliked…

I just quietly listened on. This was the first time I’d ever heard him talk about his parents.

He usually avoided talking about them. It’s not that I never brought them up; rather, whenever they were brought up, his face would take on a different expression. It was one that told me to stop asking.

“You know…”

Kevin turned around and our eyes locked.

“This dawned on me quite some time ago, but… When you have nothing, the only thing you can do is gain, but when you have everything, all you can do is lose… It is funny how things turned out to be exactly like that for the both of us.”

His words made me frown. I didn’t really understand what he meant.

‘Can only lose when you have everything?’

Was he perhaps talking about the other me? …Then, what did he mean by ‘when you have nothing, you can only gain.’? Was he perhaps referring to himself?

“Human emotions sure are complex…”

After taking a few steps forward, Kevin eventually entered the house. When he walked on it, the wooden floor made a creaking sound.

I quietly followed behind him. His words were rather surprising, but I didn’t say anything and just continued to listen.

…I was finally starting to learn about the real Kevin.

“…I didn’t really understand them at first. It took quite a while for me to understand them. Probably several centuries. I’m not really sure anymore. It doesn’t really matter though.”

He traced his finger over a certain wooden table.

“Like I said, you can only gain when you have nothing. During those centuries, I only gained. Gained a new understanding of what emotions are. Love, sadness, anger… I’ve experienced them all.”

He lowered his hand and placed his palm over the wooden desk.

“No matter how strong I became, no matter how many times I tried to stop the fate that would befall the people that made me understand what emotions were… all I’d get was the inevitable ending…”

He took a deep breath.

“…Their death”

His fist slowly curled.

“Regardless of what I did, or tried to do, one way or another, they would die. The more I witnessed it, the more suffocating life became… It hurt.”

He smiled.

“You probably understand best the pain of losing someone you hold dear. It’s not easy… Especially if you know it’s coming and can’t do anything about it…”

I closed my eyes. Flashbacks started to resurface in my mind.

Memories that I tried not to think about resurfaced, and something pricked at my chest.

“That helplessness is probably what drove me to finally understand a new emotion. Rage.”

Kevin’s fist was fully clenched.

“I wanted the one responsible for all of this to suffer. I wanted them to feel what I felt. I wanted them to disappear from this world… I wanted a lot of things.”

“It’s just that, I knew it was impossible.”

Raising his head, he looked at me. His smile was bitter. Extremely so.

“…There’s no way I can go against what created me. It’s just not possibl—”

Kevin stopped himself midsentence. I was startled not long after that when I noticed a line of blood running down the side of his mouth. He staggered a couple of steps as his eyes opened widely.

“Kevin!”

My eyes opened up and I moved toward him.

“I’m fine.”

Only to be stopped by Kevin who raised his hand.

“What do you mean you’re fine? You clearly—”

“T, trust me.”

His voice was weak and carried a hint of pleading in it.

Staring at him, I clenched my teeth.

“Thank you.”

He returned me a smile before weakly sitting down on a chair next to the table.

“I don’t really have much time to explain everything. I don’t h,have to anyway. You’ll eventually understand. You’re smart anyway. I’m sure you’ll come to understand with—No, I’m sure you already have an idea.”

Kevin grimaced as he rubbed some blood off his chin and looked at me while shaking his head in bitterness.

“There’s not much that I need to say. I’m sure you already have an idea of what’s going on.”

“…”

I didn’t reply. His words held some truth. While I was indeed confused by everything he said, I had a general idea of what was going on, and where his story would leave up to.

“Hah..ha..”

Kevin’s chest trembled as he leaned back against the chair and admired the house. There was a serene smile on his face at the moment.

…For some reason, I couldn’t muster myself to say anything at the moment. Too afraid of breaking the peace that Kevin was basking in.

“I,I’ve lived a long time. Spent countless years just for this moment… Sacrificed many things to have this work… and made many people suffer in the process.”

Closing his eyes, he smiled.

“…I got a lot of things that I don’t deserve or are too good for me. Even if I try to distance myself away from them, they keep sticking to me like glue… heh…I’m no good guy… but hey, who is? It’s all a matter of perspective… Be it you, me, Hemlock, or Jezebeth… one of us is the bad guy in their story..:”

His voice became softer and softer with each passing second. His eyes were becoming increasingly blurry, and his skin tone was visibly deteriorating.

“I,I’ve killed people whom I never wanted to kill… I still did it, and paid a price for it…”

His state was alarming me.

“H, hey Kevin…”

He continued.

“I was angry. I wanted to destroy ‘it’… and at the same time, run away from it. I was scared of what I was gaining. The more I gained, the more it hurt.”

“…Unlike you, who slowly started to lose, I continued to gain… the pain got worse with time, and I couldn’t stop it… I wanted it to stop, but couldn’t…”

He weakly raised his head.

“Remember, Ren. From this moment forth, nothing will be the same. Everything will change, and you’ll be at the center of it. All the dots will start to connect and whether you wish to die, or destroy the records it’s up to you. I’d l,love it if you did… After all, it would all be in vain if you didn’t… I’ve already done what I’ve set myself to do…”

The smile that had been on Kevin’s face for a while started to fade away as time went on, but just as it was about to disappear entirely, he managed to coerce it into the form of a smirk.

“…S-still think I’m a push—”

He never got to finish his sentence. By the time he forced a smile, his heart had already stopped.

“…”

I didn’t know how long I just stood there. Staring at Kevin, who was quietly resting in the chair with a tranquil look.

He looked to be sleeping.

And he was. It’s just that… It was the type of sleep where one wouldn’t wake up afterward.

“H,hah.”

My chest trembled.

Raising my hand, I clenched my clothes. A familiar pain resurfaced within me.

…My eyes started to sting, but nothing came out of them.

I forced everything back.

I had no intention of letting anything slip. I had already vowed to myself ever since Smallsnake’s passing that I would never again demonstrate any sign of weakness again.

…Maybe once everything was over.

Maybe then I could afford to be weak.

Already, I had a sneaking suspicion that this would turn out to be the case… Even so, despite the fact that I had some kind of mental preparation for this, it hurt a lot more than I had anticipated.

It **ing sucked.

Slowly, everyone was leaving me. I knew from the beginning that deaths were common… I just didn’t expect Kevin to be one of them…

Still, I forced a smile.

“Right, you wanted to know if you were still a pushover?”

I walked up to him. I knew he couldn’t hear me, but I still spoke.

Extending my hand, I closed his eyes.

“Heh, well… Regardless of whether you’ve gained your memories or not, you’ll always be a pushove—huh?”

Suddenly, Kevin’s entire body started to tremble violently. It exploded into a million particles, which quickly began to swirl inside my head before I even had the opportunity to process what was taking place.

“Wh—!”

Everything turned black after that.