Chapter 110 - Kiaran's Interlude : Part 3

Kiaran would make the most outstanding play.

He was a genius. He was the mastermind behind everything. He controlled people like some puppets on a string where he could decide what fate a person would have.

He was the Machiavellian, king of the kings, the ruler of all.

The first world burn went as he had planned. With Axel and Alea as his front marionettes, he knew the ending already.

He calculated how the counterpart of his family would kidnap Axel and turn the boy into a demon. Kiaran let it happen because that way, Axel would become stronger than before.

The thought of having a demon that had consciousness and had been serving him for years as a murderer really intrigued him. Axel was his first step to actually do a world burn where it would not only happen in the Livedam city, but the whole world.

It was the perfect plan.

Kiaran would let Axel run into anyone he knew, begging for their help just for them to turn their back on him. In the end, the boy would realize that Kiaran was the only one that stayed by his side.

There was nothing more perfect than this plan.

Kiaran knew sooner or later, Axel would realize the manipulation. The naive boy would finally grow up and open his eyes to see the real world. He would mature enough and eventually leave Kiaran too.

So the plan was to make the boy realize that not his best friend, sister, and even father would stay by his side forever. It would be Kiaran and only Kiaran to stay.

So the boy would be Kiaran's greatest actor, the perfect main character in the play. The perfect monster.

He knew demon Kiaran was watching him the whole time through the mirror. He knew that his counterpart planned the world burn too so that he could finally gain his dead brother back.

What a hopeless denial.

And he knew that his counterpart also planned the second world burn. In the end, they would both let Axel choose where he would go back to. Kiaran was confident that Axel would choose him.

Well, how could the boy choose the demon who modified his humanity and turned him into something he loathed?

Kiaran would be Axel's only choice, and in the end, he did not have to worry about any obstacles trying to take away his main character.

Or so he thought.

He thought after he revealed that he was just using the scientist and that his counterpart had already handled her counterpart, it would be Kiaran and his demon version's last fight over who would obtain Axel.

But it didn't go that way.

He had been pretending to be used by the scientist just to have him getting used by a fucking blind man. He was angry and was a little bit impressed. He was about to turn the table around on the blind man because that was what Kiaran would always do.

He enjoyed the interruption a little, thinking that the blind man was an unplannable plan like Valerian's case.

But he did not know that he was part of the blind man's plan. He was his marrionette, and it pissed Kiaran off.

Then the play had turned into a game—a game of where Axel would choose who lived and who died. Kiaran was confident that Axel would not let him die, but he could not help but feel a little unsure when he talked to the boy.

Axel was talking to him just like how the boy talked to his counterpart. Axel was being himself and spilled everything in his mind with no fear toward him. For a moment, Kiaran felt like they were talking just like brothers would. No manipulation, no play, it was just them.

It made Kiaran feel something weird. It made Kiaran feel like something bad was about to happen.

"Timandi causa est sencire." The words caught Kiaran off guard. He did not know that Axel memorized every Latin word he used to utter.

Ignorance is the cause of fear. That was what the Latin words meant. Axel might have a plan right now, telling Kiaran not to ignore everything he said.

"I'm just the pawn of your games. You are the star of it all."

Was he?

If Axel meant literally, then he was saying that he would be a pawn and save the three of them. That way, they would overthrow the annoying blind men and turn the scenario around.

Axel gave the code by saying that he was the protagonist. It was almost laughable, but Kiaran got what he meant. That meant, his original plan where he wanted Axel to escape from the hole where he fell turned to be Kiaran who was trapped in the 'hole'.

But Kiaran felt like that wasn't it. It felt like Axel was aiming his words into Kiaran's play, telling that he was the star of it all even though he was the one who created the play.

Kiaran always made Axel the star of the play but was he wrong? He advertised his play as a piece of art, saying that he was the Machiavellian. But maybe he was the character in his own play too, and he was unknowingly made him the protagonist?

Something was off. Axel had a plan, right?

The thought of it almost made Kiaran laugh. For the first time, he relied on Axel for a plan.

"Just wait for me, okay?"

Kiaran's train of thoughts quickly broke off after those words came out of his little brother's mouth. He despised those words. He loathed those words.

"Wait for me, okay?" His mother's words played in his mind like a broken record, haunting him.

"Just wait for me." That day, his father's words seemed so sincere because he did not use his usual fake smile or overly sweetened words. Kiaran had believed him that day.

"Wait for me." The beautifully written sentence on the paper that Adreanna left on his birthday went flashing onto his vision for a moment, mocking him.

"Wait for me." A familiar word from a vague person played, and Kiaran hated how everything came at the same time.

"You know I trust you, right?" Kiaran said to Axel almost desperately. Was he afraid? Was he terrified that Axel would actually leave him?

"Just like you always do." Axel's words were too sincere, and there was a hint of lie between them. Kiaran could see his mother, his father, Adreanna, and that forgotten friend inside the boy at the same time. The shadows of them morphed into Axel. It was haunting him.

"Wait for me!"

That was the last word from Axel that Kiaran remembered. Because everything after that happened in a flash. Like a blurry night under the misty rain.

Kiaran could not cry. He was about to cry, but Axel would probably panic. He needed to be calm and calm and calm and-

He needed to calm the boy down. Just like those nights where Axel would have a nightmare and Kiaran would hide the fact that he often got nightmares too to calm Axel.

He would lie that he was okay for the fact that Adreanna and Cain left them two. He would lie and take care of the boy from a young age even though Kiaran knew that he needed to be taken care of too.

God, he was too young to take care of Axel, to raise that boy. But he needed to pretend that he was calm and okay for the boy.

He did not know why he did all of that while ignoring that he was slowly withering away. In the end, he realized that he was manipulating himself and the surrounding while unawarely manipulating Axel too.

He learnt to be the best at manipulation by manipulating himself first.

In the end, he got used to manipulation, and it became his strongest shield. It was easy to lie and try to turn an event into what he desired.

So when Axel coughed a handful of blood while his skin slowly cracked like broken porcelain, Kiaran tried to stay calm. He heard what happened when Axel's counterpart died, how Kiaran's counterpart cried and could not control himself.

Kiaran was mocking his counterpart, so he needed to stay calm and try to find a way to-

There was no way, wasn't it?

Hey, was this what it felt to feel regret?

Ah. There were five stages of grieves, weren't they? Was he denying right now?

Kiaran just needed to wait, then. Just like he always did. He just needed to wait and just wait. He was good at it.

He should've-

He should have brought him to an amusement park at least once to actually enjoy it. Maybe he should have apologized. He should have bought him a cupcake or made him a hot chocolate.

There were too many things that he hadn't done for Axel, so Kiaran just had to wait.

He just had to wait.

He would wait.

As Kiaran hugged his dead brother and screamed, he just had to wait. Axel told him to anyway.

When his funeral was held, Kiaran waited. Under the rain and the soldiers pointing their guns at him while he buried his brother, he kept waiting.

When Valerian handcuffed him with a pitying look on his face that the blond desperately tried to hide, Kiaran still waited.

When he was in a courtroom and was given a death sentence, Kiaran waited.

Behind bars, he waited for Axel while waiting for his death. His mind was empty and his blue eyes were hollow.

Maybe if he died, he did not have to wait anymore.