"W-Wait! Please! Don't go. I-I'll do anything, anything you want. You can hit me, yell at me, I'll be glad to take it… j-just don't walk away, please…"
A young girl with waist-long hair, its shimmering deep blue hue like the sea, clung to the man in front of her.
Her pale gray eyes were hollow, blank, as if all the light had been drained from them long ago.
The rain poured around them, soaking everything, but the tears running from her eyes still felt so tangible.
She had her arms around the man from behind, clinging to him so desperately, as if he were the last one in the entire world she absolutely could not live without.
The man had already started to walk away. But her hand stopped him.
He turned, looking back at her over his shoulder.
His eyes shimmered, as though they, too, held something on the verge of spilling.
"…That's enough, Rafaela," he said quietly, pausing for a breath. "Let me go."
His words cut through the storm more sharply than any thunder. He gently pulled her arms away and stepped forward.
Rafaela collapsed onto the wet ground, trembling uncontrollably.
She stretched out and seized the waistband of his pants, gripping hard with what remained of her strength.
"Wait, Benedict! I'm sorry, okay? Sorry for… for all this. for everything… for what I've done. all this time…" her voice cracked with each phrase, shaking hands gripping hard.
"I said enough!"
His bellow ripped through the space between them.
Her fingers relaxed, her body shuddering more violently as though his words had siphoned the last trace of strength out of her.
"This wasn't your fault. It was mine. And I do know that. That's exactly why you need to let go now."
Benedict hesitated again, tugging his leg free of her grasp with a gentle yank.
"You'll get sick standing in the rain like this."
His voice was gentler now, barely above a whisper on the wind.
And he turned and walked away.
The rain smothered the distance growing between them, but she cried out his name, over and over, as if repetition itself could restore him to her.
But too late.
Benedict didn't look back. His face was still masked and unnervingly serene, but loaded with something… heavy. Something that looked alarmingly close to sorrow.
But then… his lips curled into a twitch.
Just barely. Near enough to make it look like he was going to smile.
He quickly covered his mouth with one hand.
"Ah… ha… haha."
No matter how much he tried to hold it back, the laughter crept out in little spurts. It wasn't loud, but it was real.
He ran off, with the storm covering up the sound of his laughter. If Rafaela heard one second of that laughter, everything he had built so far would come crashing down.
Because yes… this had all been an act.
Why was the girl crying?
Because that was exactly what he wanted.
This man. Benedict, was no hero, by any stretch of the imagination. He was a bastard, plain and simple. A disturbed soul packaged in the body of a kind, dependible man. A man who can lead you to believe he gives a crap… just so that he might witness you break.
A scumbag, a beautiful facade, and a rotten mind.
Ahhh~ did you see her face in the background? That broken hopeless face… that regret in her voice… that trembling, that pleading.
That is what I've craved. That's the payoff. That's what it's all about.
Those are the words that drive me crazy. That's the type of thrill I live for.
This story is about a man with hypnosis skill.
A man who will tame the heroines.