My Body Has Been Possessed By Someone - Chapter 294

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Side Story Episode 25
* * *
At dawn, Kalen fastened the buttons of his shirt while a thought consumed him.
‘Are we truly blood relatives?’
The question gnawed at him without reason or foundation.
‘No. It doesn’t seem that way.’
Of course, he had no evidence.
It was merely a feeling—an instinct that whispered otherwise.
Now that he considered it, this premonition had haunted him for some time.
Ever since he’d seen Kanna drenched and trembling in the rain.
And when he’d buried his face in her garments, surrendering to rapture.
Yesterday was no different.
At the party venue, watching Kanna dance beside Colin, dancing with that bastard….
The conviction seized him then: this woman could not possibly be his blood.
‘I need to conduct a test.’
Fortunately, alchemists existed who could determine bloodline kinship.
All that was required was a single drop of her blood.
Kalen ordered the Maid to assist Kanna with her toilette, deliberately inflict a small wound under the guise of clumsiness, and bring him the blood she drew.
He then entrusted it to the alchemist.
The results would arrive in a week.
* * *
“It’s my one-sided infatuation.”
Colin exhaled a heavy sigh when they met days later.
“Right now, we’re just friends. It’s sad, but nothing more and nothing less.”
“Is that so?”
“So help me out a little.”
Kalen smiled wordlessly. As he reached for a cigar, Colin snatched it deftly.
“Allow me, Kalen.”
Colin cut the cigar’s end with a knife, then placed it between Kalen’s lips.
“From now on, let me handle such things for you, great Kalen.”
“It makes no difference.”
“Hey, help me out! You’re Kanna’s brother, after all!”
But this bastard… Kalen clenched the cigar between his teeth, swallowing a curse.
“Kanna, is it? You’re being far too familiar. I’d prefer you refrain from using her name so casually.”
“Why? Kanna calls me by my name freely. We’re close enough for that.”
We?
Kalen stared at Colin while drawing deeply on the cigar. The ember glowed crimson as it burned. We, he said?
“By the way, what’s your relationship with El Andois? I heard rumors that she’s your mistress.”
“Well, just a few times.”
He exhaled smoke and answered indifferently, causing Colin’s eyes to widen.
“Was it real? You? Why? You usually don’t…”
“Don’t be vulgar about it.”
“No, but El Andois? You’ve always avoided women of different social standing. What changed?”
“Who knows.”
Kalen flicked ash from his cigar with a smirk.
“Her voice appealed to me.”
“Her voice? Does it make something surge up inside you when you hear it?”
“If you’re going to keep speaking so cheaply, you might as well shut your mouth, Colin Davis.”
“My apologies, Kalen. I’ll correct myself.”
“Not necessary.”
“Please, just help me with my sister. I’ll repay the favor.”
“Handle it yourself. It’s not my concern.”
Kalen rose to his feet.
“I’m leaving. Don’t look for me for a while.”
I was displeased.
Displeased enough to kill.
* * *
As I passed through the corridor of the Valentino Estate, I encountered Kanna.
“….”
She merely glanced at me and continued on. I stopped dead in my tracks.
My head felt numb.
‘She ignored me?’
Me?
She dared ignore me?
“Sister.”
I called out, but she ignored me again. I followed her.
“Sister, wait.”
“What?”
When I chased her all the way to the Underground Laboratory, she spun around sharply.
“Why are you being so annoying?”
“….”
My vision went white for a moment.
Up close, she was truly beautiful. No—mere beauty could not capture her essence.
An invisible toxin seemed to shimmer around her, drawing in anyone who approached, pulling them closer, consuming them whole….
“What’s wrong with you?”
Kanna asked irritably. I couldn’t find the words to respond. And that infuriated me.
‘What is this?’
I was acting like some provincial fool seeing a beautiful woman for the first time.
Beautiful people littered my surroundings like gravel. Of course, my sister stood out among them, but I was not the type to be shaken by mere appearance.
So this was merely confusion. Because….
“I wish to be on good terms with you, Sister.”
Kalen swallowed the roiling, turbulent emotions and spoke.
Yes, that was the purpose.
To be on good terms with Sister, to have decided to do so, to correct the mistakes of childhood.
I had set that as my goal.
But she slips away, tears it down, mocks me—and worst of all, that mockery is devastatingly beautiful.
So isn’t it natural that my mind grows dizzy like this?
My heart churns with turmoil.
“What must I do to appease you?”
“What are you talking about?”
Kanna laughed, exasperated and incredulous.
“I have no intention of forgiving you, so stop pestering me.”
“What is the reason? Is it because of what happened in childhood? If so, I apologize. I was immature.”
“Is that all?”
Kanna smiled crookedly.
“You stole my clothes.”
“….”
“Is that it? That rainy day back then—what was that? And I saw all my clothes hidden in your room. What you did to my clothes….”
Then, as if unwilling to dwell on it further, she clamped her mouth shut. She looked as though she were suppressing nausea.
“It’s disgusting. Kalen, you’re truly disgusting.”
Kanna steadied her breathing before striking again.
“Kalen Adis, I know exactly what kind of person you are. Your insides reek of rotting corruption.”
She jabbed his shoulder sharply. It stung like being pricked by a rose’s thorn.
“Orsini looks better by comparison. At least he isn’t as insidious as you.”
“….”
“You’re nothing but a nobleman in appearance—in reality, you’re just a filthy, contemptible deviant. You want to be on good terms with someone like that? I’d rather live like a maggot in this Underground Laboratory, just as you once said.”
Then she added with a sneer.
“Or accept Colin’s proposal.”
That seemed to be the killing blow.
“A proposal?”
Only upon hearing those words did Kalen realize he had been standing at the edge of a cliff. And just now, he had begun to fall.
“Without my consent?”
His voice was so low that it seemed shadowed.
For a moment, even Kanna flinched, her shoulders stiffening. But she soon answered with fierce resolve.
“That’s my choice. Surely you don’t still believe you can control me as you wish?”
“Of course. You are Adis, after all.”
Kalen gazed at her with eyes that had turned pitch black.
“Everything in Adis belongs to me. You belong to me as well.”
“You’ve lost your mind.”
Kanna felt genuine fear, it seemed.
“You’re not in your right mind, Kalen Adis. You’re completely insane.”
The fear that flickered across her eyes was almost welcome. And in that moment, Kalen made his decision.
Yes. This was better.
Better than being thoughtlessly ignored, better than being despised.
Let me become an object of fear instead.
“Anyway, I have nothing more to say to you, so leave. And don’t pretend to know me anymore.”
With those words, Kanna Adis stepped into the Research Laboratory.
Kalen gazed at the door with quiet eyes. Then, suddenly, a memory surfaced.
When he was very young, before he had any sense of reason, he had locked Kanna Adis in this Research Laboratory and forgotten about her entirely.
She had to remain trapped there for days.
It was fitting. No one ever came to this Basement. Her cries and pleas would have reached no one’s ears.
She must have wept for days, begging to be saved, to be let out….
How pitiful.
Kalen stared at the half-open door, then followed her inside.
Click.
He closed the door.
“…Kalen?”
With each step forward, the sensation of falling downward became vivid. Into darkness, into a black chasm, into the Underground from which there was no return.
Kalen had seen his own depths.
* * *
【Based on analysis using the magic stone, the probability that Kanna Adis and Kalen Adis share no blood relation is 99.9%.】
Kalen laughed. He’d known it would be like this.
‘Should I call this a relief?’
All trace of guilt evaporated completely.
Yes, she was a stranger after all. He’d always sensed they weren’t bound by blood.
Then….
‘There’s nothing wrong with this, is there?’
Kalen accepted his rational attraction to her without reservation.
His instincts must have sensed it long ago.
That’s why he’d acted as he did, why things had become as they were.
Now Kanna fears him.
‘Yes, that’s far better.’
Kalen smiled with satisfaction and opened the next envelope. It was a letter from Colin Davis.

I know. I know very well.