Chapter 143
Nille ordered his usual meal without much thought—a baloney sandwich and a tall glass of iced tea. Lin Yue ordered something lighter for herself, and soon the two settled into the familiar comfort of their corner booth.
For a few minutes, neither spoke.
The simple atmosphere of the deli seemed to wash away the tension of the morning.
Eventually, Lin Yue broke the silence.
"Why did you accept the spar?"
Nille looked up from his sandwich.
"The one with Han Seo-jun?"
Lin Yue nodded.
"Yes."
Nille thought about it for a moment before answering honestly.
"My reason was somewhat immature."
That answer alone caught her off guard.
Nille rarely described his own decisions that way.
He usually analyzed things logically, identifying mistakes without much emotion attached to them.
Seeing him openly admit it surprised her.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
Nille took a sip of iced tea before replying.
"I wanted to test something."
Lin Yue frowned slightly.
"Your martial arts?"
"Partly."
Nille nodded.
"But mostly myself."
He leaned back slightly.
"Before today, I didn't know there was a yearly tournament in Sector One organized by the noble elves."
Lin Yue remained silent, listening.
"If I had known that earlier," Nille continued, "I probably wouldn't have accepted the challenge."
"Why not?"
"Because I would have tested my abilities there instead."
The answer made perfect sense.
A tournament existed specifically for measuring skill.
There would have been little reason to entertain the awkward challenge from Han Seo-jun's group.
Lin Yue folded her arms.
"So why were you so interested in testing yourself?"
Nille's expression became more serious.
For several seconds he simply stared at his drink.
Then he answered.
"Because I lost."
Lin Yue blinked.
The words sounded strange coming from him.
Lost?
Nille wasn't someone who obsessed over victory or defeat.
Yet the way he said it suggested something deeper.
"What are you talking about?" she asked quietly.
Nille hesitated.
Then he answered honestly.
"The time I got injured."
Lin Yue froze.
The atmosphere at the table immediately changed.
Her mind instantly connected the pieces.
The severe injuries.
The recovery.
The expedition.
Everything.
"You mean..."
Her voice lowered.
"The time you almost died?"
Nille nodded once.
Lin Yue stared at him in disbelief.
She had assumed the incident was behind him.
Something he had accepted and moved past.
Yet hearing him describe it this way made her realize she had misunderstood.
For Nille, the injury had not simply been a painful experience.
It had become a question.
A problem waiting to be solved.
A gap in understanding.
"I wanted to know where I stood," he explained.
"I knew I had improved."
His fingers tapped lightly against the table.
"But improvement and capability aren't the same thing."
Lin Yue remained silent.
"So I accepted the spar."
"You wanted to measure yourself?"
"Yes."
He nodded.
"Not against them specifically."
"Just against someone."
The honesty of the answer left Lin Yue momentarily speechless.
She had expected a more complicated explanation.
Something involving pride.
Competition.
Perhaps even frustration.
Instead, the answer was surprisingly simple.
Nille had nearly died.
He had recovered.
Now he wanted to know if he had actually become stronger.
Not because he wanted recognition.
Not because he wanted to dominate others.
But because he didn't want to repeat the same mistake.
Lin Yue slowly lowered her gaze.
"So the fight was connected to your injury."
Nille nodded again.
"More than I realized."
A brief silence followed.
The clinking of dishes and quiet conversations from other customers filled the space around them.
Finally, Lin Yue spoke.
"You know..."
Nille looked up.
"I was scared when you got hurt."
The words came out softly.
Without hesitation.
Without embarrassment.
Simply honest.
Nille blinked.
He had expected many responses.
That was not one of them.
Lin Yue looked out the window.
"When people get stronger, they usually talk about power."
Her voice remained calm.
"But after what happened, all I could think about was whether you'd come back alive."
Nille didn't know how to respond immediately.
For him, strength was a practical matter.
A tool.
A means of survival.
A way to solve problems.
But hearing her say it like that reminded him that other people experienced those events differently.
To him, it had been a lesson.
To those who cared about him, it had been a frightening reminder that he could disappear.
After a moment, Nille finally spoke.
"I'll be more careful."
Lin Yue immediately laughed.
Not because the statement was funny.
But because it sounded exactly like something Nille would say.
A simple solution to a complicated problem.
She shook her head.
"I know you'll try."
Nille looked genuinely puzzled.
"Isn't that enough?"
That only made her laugh harder.
And for the first time since returning from the Draconian Mountain Range, both of them found themselves relaxing completely.
Not as explorers.
Not as awakened individuals.
Not as participants in some larger system.
Just two friends sharing breakfast and talking about things that actually mattered.
Nille remained quiet for a while after their laughter faded.
The relaxed atmosphere of the deli remained unchanged, but his expression had become more thoughtful.
Lin Yue noticed it immediately.
"What is it?" she asked softly.
Nille looked down at the glass of iced tea in front of him.
Then, after a moment, he spoke.
"You know... taking risks isn't really new to me."
Lin Yue waited patiently.
Nille rarely talked about himself.
When he did, it usually meant he had spent a long time thinking about it first.
"Even when I was young, I took risks just to survive."
His voice remained calm, almost detached.
"I grew up believing I was alone."
Lin Yue's expression softened.
Nille continued.
"Back then, every day felt like something was trying to take my body, my soul, or whatever part of me it could get."
He gave a small shrug.
"When I was younger, I thought it was because a guardian angel was protecting me."
A faint smile appeared on his face.
"But when I got older, I stopped believing that."
"What do you believe now?" Lin Yue asked.
Nille thought for a moment.
"Luck."
The answer surprised her.
"Luck?"
He nodded.
"Not good luck. Just enough luck to survive."
His fingers lightly tapped against the table.
"Enough luck that I always lasted one more day."
For a few moments, neither spoke.
Then Nille continued.
"I wasn't a good kid, Lin."
That statement immediately caught her attention.
"You weren't?"
Nille shook his head.
"No."
His tone carried no self-pity.
No pride.
Just honesty.
"I was angry all the time."
His eyes drifted toward the window.
"I got beaten."
"Starved."
"Thrown around."
"Treated like I didn't matter."
The words were spoken simply.
As if he were describing the weather.
That made them feel even heavier.
Lin Yue remained silent.
Nille wasn't telling a story.
He was recalling memories.
"I learned quickly that nobody was coming to save me."
His gaze hardened slightly.
"So I stopped waiting."
A brief pause followed.
"Then I started fighting back."
Lin Yue listened carefully.
Nille wasn't smiling anymore.
"When people bullied me, I didn't care about rules."
His voice remained calm.
"I scratched."
"I bit."
"I threw rocks."
"I used sticks."
"I used my fists."
"I used anything I could grab."
His eyes lowered.
"I wasn't trying to win."
"I was trying to make them stop."
Lin Yue felt a knot form in her chest.
Nille continued.
"It was rough."
"Chaotic."
"There was no structure."
"No guidance."
"No lessons."
"Just survival."
He paused again.
"Eventually people became afraid of me."
That surprised her.
Nille wasn't an intimidating person now.
Yet the way he said it made her believe him completely.
"They realized hurting me wasn't worth it anymore."
A faint smile appeared.
"Even if they won, I would make sure they paid for it."
The smile quickly disappeared.
"I became feral."
The word hung heavily between them.
Not because it was exaggerated.
But because Nille genuinely believed it.
Then his expression softened.
"That's when Granny Amparo found me."
Lin Yue immediately looked up.
Nille nodded.
"She saw the mess I'd become."
There was affection in his voice now.
A deep respect.
"Honestly, looking back, I think she saved me from myself."
The words surprised even him.
For a few seconds, he stared at the table.
Then he quietly laughed.
"I never told you any of this before."
Lin Yue slowly shook her head.
"No."
"You didn't."
Nille nodded.
"I know."
A strange realization crossed Lin Yue's mind.
Many of the stories she had heard about Nille during childhood had come from Granny Amparo.
Letters.
Phone calls.
Occasional stories shared during conversations.
Most painted a picture of a stubborn but kind boy.
Someone curious.
Someone hardworking.
Someone who got into trouble occasionally.
But now...
Looking back...
Some details didn't fit.
Some stories felt too clean.
Too gentle.
Too idealized.
Almost as if someone had deliberately softened the truth.
Lin Yue blinked.
Then a realization struck her.
"Wait..."
Nille looked up.
"Do you think Granny Amparo changed the stories?"
Nille laughed softly.
"Probably."
Lin Yue stared at him.
Then she slowly remembered several letters.
Several conversations.
Several details that suddenly seemed suspicious.
The stories always focused on what Nille learned.
Never what happened before the lesson.
Always the outcome.
Never the struggle.
As if the unpleasant parts had been carefully removed.
A mixture of emotions crossed her face.
"She lied."
Nille chuckled.
"Not completely."
Lin Yue folded her arms.
"She definitely left things out."
"That too."
For a moment, both imagined the elderly woman deliberately editing events before sharing them.
The image was surprisingly easy to picture.
Then Nille's expression became thoughtful again.
"I don't think she did it because she wanted to deceive anyone."
Lin Yue nodded slowly.
Neither did she.
The more she thought about it, the more she understood.
Perhaps Granny Amparo had simply wanted people to see the person Nille was becoming.
Not the child he had needed to be in order to survive.
Or perhaps...
She regretted something.
Some decision.
Some mistake.
Some moment she wished she could change.
Lin Yue couldn't know for certain.
But for the first time, she began to suspect that Granny Amparo carried far more guilt about Nille's childhood than she had ever admitted.
Nille, however, seemed strangely at peace with it.
"I don't really blame her."
Lin Yue looked at him.
"Why?"
Nille thought for a moment.
Then he smiled.
"Because she stayed."
Such a simple answer.
Yet it carried more weight than any long explanation could.
In the end, countless people had come and gone from Nille's life.
Many had ignored him.
Some had hurt him.
Others had simply looked away.
But Granny Amparo had stayed.
And for someone who once believed he was completely alone, that fact mattered more than anything else.
Nille stayed quiet for a long time.
The noise of the deli around them continued, plates clinking, quiet conversations, footsteps near the counter, but for him, it all felt distant.
Lin Yue didn't rush him.
She could tell this wasn't something he was casually thinking about.
It was something he had held for a very long time.
Finally, Nille spoke.
This time, his voice was lower.
More grounded.
Less analytical.
"I think I need to tell you something properly."
Lin Yue's expression softened slightly.
Nille looked at his glass of iced tea but didn't drink it.
"My life… wasn't always like what I told you before."
He paused.
"I mean, I wasn't always like this."
His fingers tightened slightly around the cup.
"Before everything… before the orphanage… before all of that…"
He exhaled slowly.
"I was normal."
The word sounded strange coming from him.
Even to himself.
"I had parents."
A pause.
"Things were… ordinary."
His gaze drifted somewhere far away.
"Not perfect. Not special. Just normal."
Then his voice became quieter.
"Then they died."
Lin Yue's eyes lowered slightly, but she said nothing.
Nille continued.
"I was there."
His tone stayed calm, but something heavier sat underneath it.
"I was the only one found alive near where their car fell… down that deep roadside ravine."
He swallowed once.
"But no one ever explained what really happened."
His eyes narrowed slightly, not in anger, but in confusion that never fully left him.
"No one answered me properly."
"Not the police."
"Not the adults."
"Not anyone."
He paused again.
"And Granny Amparo…"
His voice hesitated for the first time.
"…she let me stay at the orphanage."
That sentence carried more weight than the previous ones.
Lin Yue's expression shifted slightly.
Nille didn't look at her yet.
"I don't understand that part."
His voice became more honest now.
"No matter how many times I think about it… I still don't understand why I was left there."
He finally looked up.
"Why I had to go through five years there."
The words weren't angry.
They were searching.
Trying to find something that had never been given to him.
"Those years weren't just hard," he said quietly.
"They were… disorienting."
"Everything felt unpredictable."
"People changed from kindness to cruelty in a moment."
"Nothing stayed stable long enough to trust it."
He leaned back slightly.
"I adapted to it."
A small pause.
"Or maybe I broke and just kept moving anyway."
Lin Yue's hands tightened slightly in her lap.
Nille continued, slower now.
"I used to think I was just surviving."
"But now I realize…"
His eyes softened slightly.
"I wasn't just surviving."
"I was… constantly under strain."
"Like my mind never fully stopped reacting."
He tapped lightly against his chest.
"Even when things were quiet, I wasn't."
A pause.
Then he added something quieter.
"But something changed recently."
Lin Yue looked at him more closely.
Nille's voice lowered.
"When I was with you…"
"I slept."
That sentence made Lin Yue blink.
Nille nodded slowly, as if confirming it for himself as much as telling her.
"Not the kind where I wake up and remember everything."
"Not dreams."
"Not fragments."
"Just… sleep."
He looked down at his hands.
"Empty."
"Quiet."
"Like my mind stopped running for the first time."
A faint exhale left him.
"That's when I realized something."
He hesitated again.
Then said it plainly.
"I don't think I've ever been normal."
Lin Yue didn't interrupt.
Nille continued.
"I used to think I was just someone who went through hard things and adapted."
"But now I think…"
His gaze steadied.
"…I was already different from the beginning."
Not proud.
Not ashamed.
Just accepting it.
"My thoughts don't settle the same way other people's do."
"My reactions… my memory… the way I process things…"
He shook his head slightly.
"It's not the same."
A pause.
"I used to think everyone felt like this and just handled it better."
A faint, almost self-deprecating smile appeared.
"But I don't think that's true anymore."
Silence settled between them.
Then, more quietly, he added:
"I don't blame Granny Amparo."
"I don't even think she meant harm."
"But I still don't understand why I had to go through all of it."
His eyes softened again.
"That's the part I can't solve yet."
He leaned back slightly, exhaling.
Then, for the first time in the conversation, he said something that sounded like full acceptance rather than analysis.
"I know I'm not normal."
A pause.
"And I've stopped trying to force myself to be."
He looked at Lin Yue.
"But I think…"
His voice softened.
"…this is the first time I've been able to rest without fighting my own mind."
A quiet moment followed.
Not heavy.
Not painful.
Just real.
And for once, Nille didn't try to explain it further.
He simply let it exist.
Lin Yue wasn't confused or shocked.
She already understood that this wasn't new for Nille, it was just something he had never fully said out loud before.
Unresolved trauma didn't disappear just because someone became stronger. In Nille's case, it often resurfaced when his mind was quiet enough to remember, and that could be more dangerous than any external threat. So instead of reacting with panic or questions, Lin Yue simply listened.
Her concern deepened, but her response stayed gentle. She slowly reached for his hand and held it, her fingers lightly resting against his as if grounding him in the present.
Nille didn't pull away.
But his thoughts kept moving.
As he sat there, he began piecing things together in a way that felt both clear and unsettling. He wondered if part of what he was came from his lineage, or from whatever unknown factor had shaped his early survival. He feared the possibility that no matter how strong he became, his life might still follow the same fragile pattern as before, like Granny Amparo, who survived through endurance rather than peace.
He had always told himself he wanted strength.
Not for pride.
Not for status.
But for protection.
To protect his future.
To protect the people he cared about.
And then his thoughts shifted, uninvited, toward Lin Yue.
The memory of waking up and seeing her face while she slept surfaced in his mind. It wasn't dramatic or sudden, it was quiet, almost disarming. In that moment, something in him reacted differently than usual. His heartbeat felt unfamiliar, like it no longer followed the same rhythm he had known his entire life.
He realized he could no longer separate everything into simple categories like "survival" or "logic" the way he used to.
There was something else now.
Something unfamiliar.
Something he couldn't neatly organize or control.
And that uncertainty made him uneasy, not because Lin Yue caused it, but because he couldn't label it or reduce it to a strategy.
It wasn't parental care.
It wasn't duty.
It was something deeper and more personal: the instinct to protect someone not because they were weak, but because their presence mattered to him in a way he couldn't ignore anymore.
And for someone like Nille, who had survived by controlling chaos through clarity, that lack of control felt overwhelming.
So his thoughts became erratic, not out of instability, but because for the first time, he was trying to understand an emotion he had never been trained to survive with: love directed toward a person he wanted to protect, without fully knowing how to hold it.
Lin Yue stayed quiet for a while, still holding Nille's hand.
Not tightly.
Not possessively.
Just enough to remind him he wasn't alone in that moment.
Nille looked down at their hands, then slowly exhaled as if trying to settle the thoughts that kept overlapping in his mind. He was only seventeen—old enough to understand danger, responsibility, survival… but still young enough that emotions like this didn't come with clear instructions.
That was the part he couldn't easily accept.
Not because he didn't feel it.
But because he didn't know what to do with it.
Lin Yue finally spoke, her voice calm and steady.
"You're overthinking it again."
Nille blinked slightly.
"I am?"
"Yes," she said softly. "You always try to turn feelings into something you can solve."
That made him pause.
Lin Yue glanced at him, not judging, just observing.
"You're seventeen," she continued. "You're not supposed to fully understand everything you feel yet."
Nille didn't respond immediately.
Seventeen.
It sounded simple when she said it like that.
But his life had never really allowed him to feel like that number meant anything.
Lin Yue leaned back slightly, still not letting go of his hand.
"You grew up surviving," she said quietly. "So your mind learned to treat everything like a problem that needs fixing."
Her gaze softened.
"But not everything is something you fix."
A small silence followed.
Then she added, almost thoughtfully:
"I'm the same age as you."
That made Nille look at her.
Lin Yue gave a faint, knowing smile.
"But I didn't grow up like you."
She paused.
"I grew up around people who smiled while hiding knives behind their backs."
Her tone wasn't bitter, just factual.
"Lies. Politics. Manipulation. Even kindness sometimes had a price attached to it."
Nille listened without interrupting.
"So I learned something different," she continued. "I learned how to read people instead of fighting them. How to wait instead of reacting. How to survive by understanding what isn't said."
Her fingers lightly adjusted on his hand.
"That's why I can tell when you're not just thinking… but carrying too much inside your head."
Nille exhaled slowly.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then Lin Yue leaned slightly closer, not invading his space, just closing the distance enough to make the moment feel real and grounded.
"You don't have to understand everything right now," she said gently. "Especially not at seventeen."
A faint pause.
"But you also don't have to carry it alone."
Nille looked at her for a long moment.
Something in his expression softened, not resolved, not fully clear, but less tense than before.
He had spent years turning survival into instinct, and instinct into identity.
But this…
This didn't require survival.
Or analysis.
Or control.
Just presence.
Slowly, he relaxed his grip slightly, not letting go, but no longer holding on like he was bracing against something invisible.
Lin Yue noticed, but didn't comment.
Instead, she simply stayed there with him.
Outside the deli window, the world continued as it always had, loud, busy, indifferent.
Inside, for once, Nille wasn't trying to solve himself.
And Lin Yue wasn't trying to fix him.
They were just two seventeen-year-olds sitting in a quiet corner of the world, learning, at their own pace, that not everything inside a person needs to be understood immediately for it to be real.
Lin Yue stood up from her seat and moved closer to Nille without hesitation.
The deli around them kept moving, quiet conversations, soft clinks of cups, distant footsteps—but their corner felt suddenly smaller, more contained, as if the rest of the world had stepped back on its own.
Nille remained seated at the table, still processing everything he had just said, still trying to organize thoughts that didn't want to stay neatly arranged.
Then Lin Yue gently leaned down and embraced him.
She didn't force it.
She didn't rush.
She simply placed her arms around him, guiding his head carefully toward her, letting him rest against her in a way that felt natural rather than overwhelming.
"You're not alone," she said softly. "My beloved Nille… I am here. I will always be here."
Her voice wasn't dramatic.
It wasn't a promise made in emotion alone.
It was steady, like something she had already decided long before saying it out loud.
Nille didn't respond immediately.
His face rested lightly against her, close enough to feel her presence, her warmth, the steady rhythm of someone who wasn't leaving.
For someone who had spent most of his life expecting loss, distance, or danger, the feeling was unfamiliar.
Not painful.
Not confusing.
Just… complete in a way he couldn't immediately explain.
His thoughts slowed.
Not because they disappeared, but because they no longer had to fight for attention.
And in that quiet space, something became clearer to him.
He wasn't just reacting anymore.
This wasn't the same instinct that had driven him through survival, or the same calculation that had kept him alive through chaos.
This was different.
He realized that the reason his emotions had become unstable wasn't because something was wrong with him.
It was because something had changed.
Lin Yue was no longer just someone beside him.
She had become someone he wanted to protect, not out of obligation, or habit, or fear of loss, but because her existence now mattered to him in a way that didn't need justification.
Was this what he had been struggling to understand?
This feeling that made his heart tighten and his thoughts scatter?
The desire to become stronger, not for himself alone, but so that the person holding him now would never have to face the world alone?
Nille stayed silent for a long moment.
Then, slowly, he allowed himself to accept the thought without trying to break it down.
Maybe that was it.
Not a problem.
Not a flaw.
Just something new forming inside him, still unrefined, still unfamiliar, but undeniably real.
For the first time, he didn't try to control it.
He simply let it exist.
Something definitely changed.
Nille could feel it, not as a sudden realization, but as a quiet shift inside him—like a weight he had carried for so long had finally loosened its grip.
For most of his life, the questions about his past had been constant. Why things happened. Why he survived. Why no one explained it properly. Why there were gaps that never closed no matter how many times he tried to think through them.
Those questions had always felt urgent, like answers were necessary just to keep moving forward.
But now, resting there with Lin Yue holding him, something in him no longer pushed as hard for those answers.
It didn't feel like the past had become solved.
It felt like it had become… smaller.
Less defining.
Less consuming.
The memories were still there, but they no longer felt like they were shaping every part of who he was in this moment.
Because something else had taken presence in his awareness—something real, immediate, and steady.
Lin Yue.
Her voice.
Her warmth.
The way she held him without expectation, without fear, without trying to fix what she didn't fully understand.
For the first time, Nille noticed that he wasn't searching backward while she was with him.
He wasn't trying to reconstruct every missing piece of his childhood.
He wasn't forcing himself to solve the contradictions of his survival.
That urgency had softened.
Not disappeared—but stepped aside.
And in its place was something simpler.
A thought he didn't overanalyze this time.
He just accepted it.
Maybe understanding the past mattered.
But not more than what was happening right now.
Not more than the fact that he was here.
Alive.
Seventeen years old.
And for once, not alone in the middle of his own thoughts.
The answer he had been chasing for so long didn't feel as important anymore—not because it was resolved, but because something in the present finally gave him a reason to stop running toward it all the time.
And in that quiet realization, Nille didn't feel lost.
He felt grounded.