Chapter 47 (2/2)

”Why are you so mean? I told you I'm hurting.”

”That's why I told you to go see Alice. I know you've heard the rumors.”

”I don't believe rumors unless I see them for myself. Plus, there's already a medicine I can use right now, so why would I go barging into Heart's house at this hour?”

He frowned as if his headache had returned. Even if China's finest beauty queens were to rise from the dead, not one of them could compare to this frowning beauty.

”I'm not going to do anything. So just think of it as saving a life, and let me sleep next to you.”

Mad Hatter laughed heartily and said the words she was unable to refuse.

”It's a request. If you hate it that much, you can kill me.”

She was White Rabbit. She never could refuse a request and must do everything he asked. The only way to refuse was to kill the client to shut his mouth. Unlike the situation with Twins, she had been planning to reject his advances, but once he asked for it, she closed her mouth.

The night again became calm. The two of them were lying on the same bed in the same direction. Mad Hatter stared forlornly at the back of SoYoon.

Stubborn, he mouthed, but SoYoon must have sensed the movement of air because she turned her head to look over her shoulder at him.

”How could you be so cold when we've known each other for this long?”

She snorted. Mad Hatter crept closer and clung to her back. She was about to push him away when she stopped at his words.

”Last time, you had caressed me so lovingly.”

”When did I do that?”

”The day I had been sick. When I woke up from a bad dream, you embraced me.”

”I don't think I hugged you that tightly.”

She relaxed her stiff back. Mad Hatter smiled from behind her.

”What are you thinking? Were you mixing it up with another night?”

He was the one who said it ambiguously. SoYoon muttered. Now he was no longer even trying to conceal his laughter. He laughed for a long time and then plopped his chin on top of her head and said to her, ”I was a research subject too.”

SoYoon's back stiffened again.

”Wait, Mad Hatter.”

When she tried to stop him, he blocked her mouth.

”I told you this was a request. I'm not expecting anything from you, so just listen.”

”Chapelier was a family of the most well known and respected wizards. That was until fifty years ago, when my father was born.

”Since the day my father was born, his magical powers were severely weak. As a wizard, this was a serious fault. For the Chapelier family, who prided themselves on their magical skills, this defective heir was a source of shame. Ostracized and criticized, he slowly started to go insane.

”And that was when I was born. When his father first heard his son's cries, he could feel the overwhelming magical power coming from him. If only he could get his hands on that power.

”I still remember it—the face of my father looking down at me as I lay in my cradle as if I was an experiment subject.

”There was no way the experiments of a deranged man would yield good results. All his ever-changing experiments did was bring his son pain. His brain was saturated with drugs and magic so that it slowly started to break down. For that reason, he was unable to consume food to this day. His father had fed him food mixed with the drugs.

”His father was not the only one who treated him as an experiment. Blue-gray hair was the feature of the Chapelier family and he, their fifth generation, was the only one with that trait. He was like a walking billboard announcing that he was their one and only heir. A genius born from a halfling, that Chapelier. Because his deranged father was unable to protect him, he was kidnapped constantly by other wizards and experimented on. With no one to save him, he used his skills to escape, thus honing his powers. And when he turned 15, his father came at him with a knife saying he would carve out his heart.

”Do you know that magic starts from the heart and flows through the veins? My father told me he was going to examine my heart and figure out how to transfer the power to himself. I'm not sure if he had been intending to kill me. My father might have just thought of me as a legendary monster.”

That day, Mad Hatter had been able to escape the Chapelier name only after killing his father. However, he was forced to live, to this day, with the consequences of his father's actions. With a broken brain and the inability to channel his magic properly, he had to spend his whole life tortured by terrible migraines.

After he had finished saying all he wanted to say, he removed his hands from SoYoon's mouth. SoYoon watched his hands get farther away.