My Body Has Been Possessed By Someone - Chapter 297

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Side Story Episode 28
* * *
On a certain day when Kanna was eighteen years old.
That day, she discovered a fledgling bird that had fallen beneath a tree in the Palace Garden.
‘How pitiful.’
The sight of it struggling alone, cast out from its nest, was so heartbreaking. It looked exactly like herself.
So after treating the bird’s wing, she placed it back in the nest—but then.
‘How did I even get up here?’
Climbing up a tree and descending from one were entirely different ordeals. As I clung to the trunk like a cicada, unable to move for some time.
“What are you doing up there?”
A man appeared.
Kanna tensed immediately. It was him. It had been nearly a year since I’d last seen that perpetually busy man.
“A bird, the bird was injured, so….”
“And? Did you climb up there wanting to get injured yourself?”
When I couldn’t respond, he pressed further.
“Come down quickly.”
“I, I can’t come down.”
“Then fall. I’ll catch you.”
“….”
Fall? From this height?
Easy for him to say, but how could I possibly jump in my right mind?
Still unable to move, he exhaled a quiet sigh.
‘What do I do.’
Kanna gripped the tree trunk and squeezed her eyes shut.
He must think I’m pathetic. I thought he would curse and leave, but instead….
“Eek!”
The next moment, my body was suddenly hoisted up.
“Ah, ah…!”
It was him.
He had climbed the tree in one swift motion and now had my body draped across his shoulders.
When I thrashed in surprise, he pressed firmly against my back.
“Stay still.”
Large hands. And warmth radiating from his body.
That grip was so infinitely reassuring that suddenly all strength drained from me.
It was as if my instincts had recognized it first.
These hands, this person—safer than anyone else in the world.
But then I tensed again. The hand pressing against my back to keep me from falling, its vivid warmth made my heart race wildly. It felt as though it would shatter my ribs and burst free.
That eternal moment passed, and finally my feet touched the ground.
“Th, thank you. Ah.”
Unable to regain my balance immediately, I stumbled, and he steadied me by the shoulder.
In that instant, their eyes met.
“….”
I froze.
I couldn’t move. His gaze pierced through me so intently that my soul seemed to be drawn into those eyes. I stood there like a fool, utterly entranced.
‘This man is like a god….’
The silence lasted only a moment.
He averted his gaze to the side. Only then did I snap back to my senses, flustered and breathless.
“I-I’m sorry. Um, but your hand has a wound….”
Perhaps a thorn had pricked him when he climbed the tree with one hand. Blood was flowing from his right palm.
“W-would you let me treat it for you?”
I couldn’t fathom where I found the courage to say such a thing. This was a man I had yearned for and feared my entire life.
“….”
I thought he would refuse.
But he didn’t. More precisely, he gave no answer at all.
“Please wait here for just a moment! I’ll bring the supplies right away!”
I rushed frantically to the Underground Laboratory and gathered the medical tools.
‘Hurry, hurry. I have to go before he leaves.’
As I ran toward the Garden with an armful of supplies, my breath came in ragged gasps. With each step, my heart trembled as though it might shatter.
‘No, he’s definitely gone by now.’
He must have left by now.
How could such a busy man possibly wait for me?
Yet he was still there.
The sight struck my chest like a sharp shard of glass, embedding itself deep within.
I couldn’t remember how I approached him or treated his wounded hand.
All I remembered were fragments of sunlight filtering through the leaves, the spring-scented air, my trembling breath, and….
The warmth seeping through our fingertips as they barely touched.
That was all.
“All done.”
He gazed down at me quietly, then turned away without a word.
And so he vanished. As always, into a place beyond my reach.
Whenever I recalled that moment afterward, my hands and back would burn as though aflame.
The very spot where his hand had touched.
It throbbed like a burn wound.
* * *
When I opened my eyes, Orsini was perched on the edge of the bed, smoking a cigarette.
“….”
I gazed quietly at his broad back.
And I thought.
‘He has a scar on his back.’
I wondered how he got it… though truthfully, I wasn’t particularly curious.
Troubled by his thoughts, he lit one cigarette after another—five in succession.
Whether his mind was in turmoil or not mattered little to me, but the acrid smoke had begun to irritate, so I decided to offer some comfort.
“Orsini.”
He’d already noticed my gaze, yet he answered without surprise.
“What.”
“Does it bother you so much that I’ve taken over? Are you feeling conflicted? Guilty?”
“Shut your mouth before I tear it open.”
“You don’t need to torment yourself like this.”
I raised myself up slightly. I spoke toward his back.
“You still don’t know, it seems. Though Kalen appears to understand.”
“Understand what.”
“Duke Adis is not my biological father.”
“….”
A brief silence fell between us.
Orsini turned his head slowly to face me. His expression was utterly blank.
“What did you just say?”
“I was adopted into the Adis family when I was four years old.”
I reached out and touched the scar on Orsini’s chest. I felt his muscles stiffen beneath my fingers.
“You were so young then that you don’t remember, it seems….”
His skin was hard and warm, like heated metal.
I traced it without emotion and continued speaking.
“Duke Adis seemed to have some serious conversation with my mother, though I don’t know the details. What I vaguely remember is that he said I needed to be protected from the Black Apostles. He said something about how if the Black Apostles obtained me, the world would… what was it? Tear apart? Collapse?”
“….”
“Ridiculous, isn’t it?”
“….”
“I still wonder why Duke Adis believed such nonsense. He looked as serious as someone who had actually traveled to the future and witnessed the end of the world.”
I laughed softly.
“He took me in to prevent that.”
“You….”
After a long silence, Orsini’s expression twisted.
“Are you asking me to believe that bullshit?”
“You don’t have to believe it. Perhaps I misheard. I was so young that my memories might be distorted.”
In truth, I didn’t believe it either.
My mother, whose face I couldn’t even remember—she was likely a masterful deceiver.
She had perfectly deceived Alexandro Adis, making herself, someone with not a drop of his blood, the eldest daughter of the Adis family.
I resented her for that.
‘You shouldn’t have done that.’
You shouldn’t have made me the eldest daughter of Adis.
You shouldn’t have made me his daughter.
I had never once felt them as family, treating them as strangers I happened to encounter only occasionally.
That shackle had rendered her life miserable.
Colin suddenly came to mind.
“I wish you could be happy, Kanna. With that man you love… is there truly no possibility at all?”
No. There isn’t.
Kanna laughed bitterly and pulled Orsini closer. His skin had grown scorching hot, like burning embers.
Moments ago he’d trembled with shame, yet he transformed in an instant, rushing toward her with abandon.
The only way she could endure this torment was in those fleeting moments when he resembled him.
But even that was nothing more than a pathetic consolation.
‘There’s no possibility, Colin. I can never be happy.’
I was already standing at the cliff’s edge when Kalen pushed me off.
I fell, and now I’m wallowing in the mire.
Once, I thought descending was difficult.
Now, I can’t remember how to climb back up.
* * *
On his way to see Kanna, Kalen bought flowers for the first time in his life.
‘There’s no way my sister would care for something like flowers.’
Even as he thought this, his heart quickened. He felt like an awkward boy experiencing first love.
Kalen reflected.
Perhaps this was what love felt like.
This yearning for her, growing and growing until it finally reached the realm called love.
‘So what do I do now?’
He wanted her to smile genuinely. He wanted her to be truly happy. He wanted her to genuinely care for him.
Since these feelings were new to him, he had no idea how to proceed.
But they had time. So somehow, it would work out.
Slowly, bit by bit, step by step, walking toward something better…
“Hey, Kalen.”
But his hope was crushed.
“You came?”
…
Kalen’s expression remained blank as he surveyed his surroundings.
There were roughly a hundred mercenaries guarding the estate. Yet…
“Did my brother do this?”
They were all dead.
Every single one within sight.
“Then you think he’d do something like this?”
Orsini flicked the blood from his blade. Kalen’s face turned cold and rigid.
“What did you do to my sister?”
“Speak properly. It wasn’t something I did—it was something she did.”
Orsini twisted his lips into a smile.
“She seduced me.”
In the next instant, Kalen drew his sword with fluid speed. Almost simultaneously, a tempestuous force collided against him.
Kalen’s jaw tightened. The impact was so violent his shoulder nearly dislocated.
“What is the meaning of this?”
“She asked me to kill you.”
“And so you draw your blade against your own brother, seduced by a woman’s honeyed words?”
“I keep my promises.”
Sparks erupted from the clashing blades. After several violent exchanges, blood—whose, he could not tell—sprayed across the chamber.
Orsini’s mind burned with fervor. The scent of blood intoxicated him, and at last, clarity descended.
When he had witnessed the two intertwined figures in the chamber, he had mistaken the murderous intent he felt as bloodlust directed toward Kanna.
But he had been wrong.
“Today, I shall kill you, Kalen Adis.”
He desired to slay his brother.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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