Mia Grant fell silent.
For a moment, only the soft music flowed through the car.
Yates Donovan gripped the steering wheel, cautiously watching Mia’s reaction from the corner of his eye.
She seemed stunned.
After a long moment, she furrowed her brow sharply.
"Rebirth?"
She twisted her stiff neck to look at him. "How... how can you say that word so calmly?"
Yates thought, ’I’m anything but calm.’
He had just spent all of last night slowly processing it.
That’s why he didn’t look like a mental patient right now.
"You remember saying someone killed you with a knife in your dream."
"I know who it was."
Mia’s expression flickered, but she feigned composure as she looked at him.
"It was Hayes Hughes, wasn’t it?"
"!"
Mia’s eyelashes trembled violently.
Yates kept his eyes on the road and continued, "My uncle didn’t tell me."
"I also dreamed about what you described."
"Except, I saw it from my own perspective."
"I don’t know if there was some misunderstanding between you two, whether you were arguing, or if you were both just playing a part."
"I just know that not long after he killed you, he used the same scalpel to end his own life."
"He was right there beside you. Like a guardian angel."
Mia’s expression was one of pure shock. "What are you talking about?"
"I’m not trying to trick you. I’m telling you what I saw with my own eyes."
"You were already gone by the time I arrived."
"You said the person in your dream stabbed you repeatedly."
"I don’t think it was because he hated you so much."
"It was because he was so nervous he could barely hold the scalpel, because his reluctance brought tears that blurred his vision. He knew he had to kill you, but when the moment came, he subconsciously avoided your vital spots."
"But when he turned the blade on himself, he didn’t hesitate."
"Maybe those wounds felt like death by a thousand cuts to you, or perhaps even more painful."
"But it didn’t look like it was easy for him, either."
"I don’t know what kind of deal or secret you had. But I don’t want you to live in constant fear."
"So even though he’s my biggest rival for your affection, I have to tell you the truth—"
"I don’t believe he attacked you out of hatred."
"He must have truly loved you."
"That’s why he couldn’t bear to live on alone after ending your life with his own hands."
"Or maybe, he couldn’t stand the thought of you leaving this world all by yourself."
"I’m not him, so I can’t know for sure what he was thinking."
"But I believe that if a person still has something to live for, they wouldn’t leave so decisively."
"So decisively that he didn’t even leave a single word behind."
"I can’t piece together all these fragmented memories for you just yet."
"And I have no proof for any of it."
"The only thing I’m sure of is that your dream wasn’t a premonition."
"You weren’t dreaming of something that’s about to happen, but something that has already happened in the past."
"Because I know that right now, none of them would ever want to hurt you like that."
"And you wouldn’t want to leave like that, either."
"So, perhaps the first time you left your original world and came to ours was in that ’prophetic dream.’"
"And now, this is your second time here."
"There are certainly a lot of questions and things that don’t add up."
"Right now, only your system can give you the real answers."
"Do you know why your system is so confident, why it lets you do something as dangerous as faking your own death?"
Yates turned to meet her gaze and smiled. "Because it knows you don’t have the guts to die."
After a few seconds of staring, Mia, her eyes red, smiled back.
"If that’s the case, then in this life, why don’t you be the one to send me on my way?"
As the words left her lips, the girl’s beautiful, delicate hand shot across the center console and grabbed the steering wheel from the man’s grasp—
Yates’s pupils contracted.
The next second, the car swerved and shot through the intersection.
[HOST!!!]
Mia couldn’t hear anything clearly. Before her consciousness faded, she only heard a deafening BANG explode next to her ear.
——
"Hayes... Hayes Hughes."
The girl’s hesitant voice came from behind him.
Hayes Hughes stopped his conversation and turned around, meeting a pair of beautiful eyes.
He was taken aback for a moment, then smiled. "Are you looking for me?"
He knew this girl.
Mia Grant, his cousin.
They weren’t blood-related, though.
Rumor had it that his cousin didn’t have the best personality, but after interacting with her a few times, he always felt that people had a huge misunderstanding about her.
It was just that this cousin always looked at him with a strange expression.
At first, he didn’t understand.
Later, it dawned on him that this cousin, whom he’d only met a few times and wasn’t even related to by blood, seemed to... like him.
As he was lost in thought, his sleeve was tugged gently.
He smiled and looked over, understanding this wasn’t a good place to talk.
So, ignoring his friend’s scrutinizing and warning glances, he said, "Excuse me, I’m just stepping out for a moment."
"Let’s go." He gestured for the girl to follow him.
By an arched window on the second floor, the candlelight flickered.
The girl clutched the hem of her dress and asked, "Is this where you usually live?"
Hayes Hughes smiled and said it was, pointing to a nearby door. "That’s my room."
"Oh..." She hesitated for a moment, then added, "Can we go to your room, then?"
"..."
The man hesitated.
The girl looked at him with an expectant gaze.
After a long pause, he nodded. "This way, please."
The door closed, and the girl seemed to let out a sigh of relief.
Hayes sensed that she was about to tell him something very important.
Because she looked extremely nervous and conflicted right now.
He wondered, ’Could it be a confession?’
At that thought, he frowned in distress.
There was another layer to their relationship; he couldn’t just happily accept a declaration of love from his "cousin."
He even wondered if it was because she was too young and had mistaken a slight fondness for love.
He felt that, as her older cousin, he ought to correct this notion.
But...
If the girl had developed these feelings because she was young and impressionable, then what about him?
Was his own trace of fondness so innocent?
"Hayes Hughes, there’s something I need to tell you."
’Just as I thought.’
Hayes’s head throbbed. For a moment, he even considered just... not rejecting her.
He wasn’t good at guiding younger people, and he was even worse at rejecting a girl he actually liked.
Taking a deep breath, he said, "Let me go first."
Having made up his mind about something, he decided he couldn’t let her be the one to speak first.
’Worse comes to worst, I’ll just take her abroad.’
’We can always avoid Grandpa.’
Just as he was thinking this, the girl shook her head. "I’m in a hurry. If I don’t say it now, I won’t be able to say it at all."
Before he could respond, she suddenly grabbed his hand, took a step forward, and looked at him with a pleading gaze. "Can you kill me?"
The scalpel she had thrust at him slipped from his grasp and fell onto the carpet.
The man’s eyes trembled as he stared at her in shock.
As if she didn’t notice, she spoke in a rapid-fire torrent:
"Please."
"I don’t have much time..."