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Sion didn't sleep.
Not even for a second.
The ceiling above him remained unchanged, but inside—he was far from still.
One month ago.
He stood at the altar, eyes searching the crowd. Everyone else was smiling, the music played, the flowers were arranged just right. But Ren never came.
No footsteps.
No explanation.
Just absence.
He disappeared.
Sion laughed bitterly to himself. That laugh hadn't changed even after all this time—it was always dry, hollow. That week, he locked himself in his estate. He didn't eat. Didn't speak. Every knock on the door felt like it could be Ren—but it never was.
He remembered whispering into the silence, "Even if I imagined it all… let me keep loving him."
And now—he was here again.
Ren. Aiden. Whatever name he chose, he was back.
Yet Sion couldn't bring himself to hold him again. He couldn't bring himself to say, "I still love you."
Because what if it wasn't real?
What if it was all guilt or sympathy?
He turned to his side, watching the faint outline of Aiden sleeping on the sofa outside the half-open bedroom door. He looked peaceful, curled up like a child, the kitten snuggled by his leg.
Sion's chest ached. A pain that didn't heal even after a year, even after waking up in this new world.
The new world.
He clenched his jaw.
It happened a few weeks after Ren vanished. Sion had been walking in a daze when he stumbled upon a small, almost forgotten pond nestled in the forest behind the capital—a "wishing pond," the locals called it.
Desperate, broken, and lost, he closed his eyes and whispered:
> "I don't care where… I just want to be with him again. Even if it means leaving this world."
The next morning, he woke up… here.
A new world. A modern city.
And oddly enough, the first thing he saw in this life was a book.
A novel.
The title made his blood run cold.
> "Ever Yours."
He read it. Every page. Every word.
And there it was—Ren. Not as a prince, not as his fiancé… but as a character.
Only later did the pieces fit together.
Ren—no, Aiden—once said something strange while drunk.
> "I wish I could change how the story ends…
I only here in this book for you..."
At the time, Sion had brushed it off. But now, the truth was cruel and clear.
Aiden came from outside the book.
He wasn't supposed to love him.
But he did.
The thought brought tears to his eyes—tears he quickly blinked away.
Sion turned his face into the pillow, biting his lip to stay quiet. No one knew how hard it was to keep pretending he was fine. To push Aiden away when all he wanted was to pull him close.
> "Was it love… or just pity?"
The doubt clung to his heart like vines.
The sun began to rise, brushing the sky with hues of gold and pink.
Sion sat up and rubbed his eyes. He looked toward the door again, where Aiden still slept. Even now, he was beautiful—messy hair, slightly parted lips, peaceful breath.
He was here.
But the scars in Sion's heart whispered: "He might leave again."
So he told himself one thing—
"Don't believe it yet. Not until he proves it wasn't just sympathy."
With that, he rose, quietly walked to the kitchen, and began making coffee.
Maybe… today would be different.
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