Into the Rose Garden Novel - Chapter 24 The nightmare ends

“Surely, that Raphiel?”

He asked again, unable to believe it, and Aeroc nodded.

Six months ago, Raphiel, who had married in a family-only gathering as if being chased, and then crossed to another country with his disliked husband, was still living well in that foreign land.

The two had recently sent a greeting card to the mansion. The butler had sent it back to the villa, so Kloff had personally confirmed the signatures of the unlucky fellow and the troublesome person. Of course, he had never shown it to Aeroc. If Raphiel had died in the meantime, he would have surely been contacted. Or that wolf would be standing outside the door right now.

Moreover, to incite murder, one would have to secretly meet someone, but it was impossible for the neurotic, heavily pregnant Omega, who had been hounding Kloff 24 hours a day, to meet someone without her husband’s knowledge. So how could he have incited murder? Kloff came to a conclusion.

“Childbirth is a blessing, but it’s also a very painful process. You’re probably saying nonsense because you’re tired. Aeroc, you should sleep now. Let’s talk after you wake up.”

Smiling gently, he took the child from Aeroc’s resisting arms and laid him in the baby crib that had been prepared beforehand. Since Aeroc was whimpering like a mother dog who had lost her pup, he placed the baby crib right next to the bed where Aeroc was lying. Aeroc, who had been stroking the child’s belly through the wooden slats, was soon laid flat by Kloff and had to have the blanket pulled up to his chest.

“It’s not a lie. Believe me. Raphiel was your wife, and she got pregnant, and I was jealous, so I made people brutally trample her. I killed both the fetus and the mother.”

“Yes, yes. You committed murder. I hated you so much that I changed you, an Alpha, into an Omega, and did all sorts of terrible things that no human could do. I know.”

At the perfunctory answer, Aeroc’s eyes widened, and he grabbed Kloff.

“Do you remember? Huh?”

“Yes. I knew it all along. Our first child is an Omega son, Raphiel, right?”

“Yes! That’s right!”

Aeroc, unable to tell if he was happy or sad about remembering, had a very pained look in his eyes. Kloff smiled faintly and hugged his stiff body, swollen from ten months of hardship. And he whispered gently in his ear.

“You’re a truly wicked person, and I thoroughly exacted my revenge on you. Right?”

“Yes. As soon as the child was born, you took them all. You kicked me out of the house and made me sell my body on the street, starving from hunger. So I had a few miscarriages. At that time, I was so miserable and 힘들어서 I wanted to die.”

A vein popped out on the Alpha’s forehead, and the arms embracing the person in his arms trembled. But Kloff stubbornly kept his smile.

“Yes. So what did I do to you?”

Perhaps pleased that his words were being heard, Aeroc, with a somewhat excited voice, began to recount extremely cruel things.

“I met you by chance and you gave me a silver coin. I bought clothes with that money and went to your house. Because I resembled Raphiel, you see. So when I found out you made me have a child, I was so distressed that I tried to commit suicide. But you saved me again. And now I live in a cabin in a corner of the rose garden of the mansion, which has become the Viscount Vandike’s. After that, I gave birth to four more children. The last ones were twins.”

Gritting his teeth, Kloff barely managed to add, “So?” and Aeroc uttered words that were too painful to hear.

“I heard that I should die the same way I committed the crime, so I tried to do that. I ran away and deliberately got gang-raped. It was so painful that I regretted it. My arm was dislocated, my leg was broken. Most of all, I felt like I was going to lose the child. But then you appeared again and saved me. You were truly like a prince from a fairy tale.”

Aeroc even laughed, as if that was a good thing, but Kloff barely managed to hold onto his fading consciousness.

It’s childbirth. Childbirth is hard, so Aeroc is making up a story, turning the Alpha who hurt him into the worst man. He’s combining nightmare stories he had before with his good memory. Deliberately being noble and sarcastic, like an aristocrat. Yes. That’s right. This damn Omega.

With the repeated mental torment, Kloff felt the sky turn yellow.

Aeroc, who had been pouring all his literary knowledge into torturing the Alpha with all sorts of malicious imagination, finally ended the story by talking about his own death.

“You said what I was doing wasn’t love. I asked you to say ‘I love you’ even if it was a lie one last time, but you refused.”

At this point, Aeroc was as dispirited as a dog caught in the rain.

“Damn… you bastard…”

Unable to bear it any longer, Kloff cursed his fictional self in the story, but Aeroc flinched and apologized.

“I’m sorry. For giving you such pain. I always thought I was sorry…”

“Not you.”

When he cut him off, Aeroc blinked for a moment, then frowned as if he didn’t understand, and then began to apologize again. There was truly no torture like this torture.

“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

“I know. You don’t need to apologize anymore. I forgave everything before.”

He said it to quickly soothe him and put him to sleep, as he couldn’t bear to listen anymore, but Aeroc suddenly sat up. He shouldn’t have gotten up so carelessly, but he made a very pained expression, frowned for a moment, then, surprised, collapsed onto Kloff, who was half-sitting up.

“Are you okay?”

“…Tell me again. What did you just say…”

At the worried question, Aeroc floundered, clinging to Kloff, and said urgently.

“Are you okay?”

“Not that. Before that.”

Overwhelmed by Aeroc’s desperate gaze, Kloff repeated in a dazed voice, “I forgave you. I forgave everything.” Then, tears welled up in Aeroc’s pale eyes and soon streamed down.

“Really?”

He didn’t understand what was going on, but his intuition as an investor told him to unconditionally affirm.

“It’s sincere. I know everything and I’ve forgiven everything.”

Aeroc let out small sounds of “Ah… Ah…” and began to sob. And he soaked Kloff’s clothes with tears.

“Thank you. Thank you so much.”

Kloff was at a loss with the repeated thanks. He couldn’t understand what he was thankful for. The one who should be receiving thanks was Aeroc, who had overcome the difficult process and given birth to a healthy Alpha son. Kloff would have to live his whole life to repay that. But he simply embraced and patted Aeroc, who was weeping endlessly as if melting away a deep-seated lump in his heart. After crying for a long time, Aeroc, with tears and snot smeared all over his face, looked at Kloff and asked.

“Then I can love you now, right?”

He didn’t have the energy to question whether such a thing needed permission, or what all the words he had said until now meant. He just smiled and wiped away his tears.

“Yes. You can love me.”

Until now, things thrown out without a special intention had never turned out well, but this time was different. Kloff had the good fortune to see his own Omega, whose hair was messy and wet on his forehead, whose face was covered in tears and snot, whose clothes were disheveled, and who looked extremely haggard, smiling truly happily right before his eyes. And he, smiling dazzlingly with his eyes crinkled, looked at Kloff and said.

“I love you.”

His confession was now directed straight at him. Like someone waking from a long dream, Aeroc smiled brightly at Kloff, his beautiful face blurred with happy tears.

His lips, wet with tears, were so sweet it made his mind hazy. Kloff devoured all of his beloved’s tears. He licked his slightly swollen eyelids and whispered “I love you,” and now the answer “I love you” came back reflexively.

The terrifying Omega, who had successfully completed childbirth, which could be considered the greatest pain in human history, followed by the first feeding, and then thoroughly inflicted mental torture on the husband who had driven him to such pain, soon fell asleep happily.

Until just before falling asleep, he had repeatedly pleaded with Kloff not to leave him alone, so Kloff bravely sacrificed one arm to pillow Aeroc’s head.

Clinging close to his shoulder, Aeroc rested his still slightly warm cheek against Kloff’s chest and fell into a deep, almost unconscious sleep. He should have pulled out his numb arm, but he didn’t want to. No matter how much his arm hurt, would it hurt more than Aeroc? Kloff sighed, looking at the ceiling for a moment.

The story Aeroc had just told was truly terrible. And he began to understand a little why Aeroc was so obsessed with food, why he sometimes looked at Kloff as if he would leave soon, or why he couldn’t directly say “I love you.”

He clearly thought he had been openly affectionate, but it seemed it wasn’t enough for this Count with an incomprehensible mental world. To think that anxiety had developed into such fantasies. Affection deficit and emotional instability. These were common among nobles. It was entirely possible for Aeroc, who had grown up under strict discipline as the only child of an influential family and had moreover been transformed into an Omega by genetic mutation. As far as Kloff knew, there was only one medicine for this symptom.

To pour endless love.

That was also the item Kloff was most confident in. Beyond Aeroc, who was sleeping with fairly deep breaths, his son made a small “pew” sound. He seemed to have woken up. He wanted to go check on him, but it was impossible with Aeroc clinging to him.

“Son. Your mother is someone who needs a lot of affection and love. Even now, he just barely fell asleep after crying. I don’t want to wake him up. So you can play well by yourself and sleep well, right?”

At his father’s quiet voice, the child made a “pew” sound as if answering, and then soon fell silent again. Hearing a small snore, it seemed he had mastered snoring despite being newly born.

“Smart boy. Definitely my son.”

The next day, when he opened his swollen eyes late, Aeroc was already awake and breastfeeding the child. Kloff blinked and asked, “Did you sleep well?” Aeroc, whose face was also swollen, smiled brightly and nodded.

The son was vigorously sucking milk. Somehow it looked delicious, so Kloff licked his lips, and Aeroc looked at him strangely. He pretended to yawn, then got up, feeling heavy, and rubbed his head. In the distance, he heard Martha clattering in the kitchen.

“Aren’t you hungry?”

“A little.”

Kloff stretched with a grunt, got out of bed, and put on his gown. Before leaving, he came back to the bedside and carefully kissed the crown of the child’s head as he nursed. Then he raised his head and gently kissed the most beautiful person in the world. Aeroc, who had closed his eyes and savored the kiss, smiled softly when their eyes met.

It was the same faint smile as before, but it was completely different. It was as if light was emanating from his whole body. Kloff stared at him blankly, then cupped his cheeks with both hands again and kissed him. When their lips finally parted, Aeroc shyly confessed, “I love you.”

“I know.”

He answered playfully, kissing his forehead and temples. Aeroc laughed.

After kissing for a long time, Kloff heard the rumbling in Aeroc’s stomach and got up to head to the kitchen. Now that he was the head of a family, he had to diligently move his body to feed his wife and child. Just as he opened the door to leave, he felt a pang of regret at not being able to see his two beloved people even for a moment, so he turned back. Aeroc must have been watching him, for as soon as their eyes met, he smiled without a word.

He felt a strange sensation. It was a peculiar feeling, as if he had to tell the one who had been looking at his back that he loved him. Kloff returned to the bedside and stroked Aeroc’s rough hair with his hand.

“Aeroc Teiwind.”

At the sudden mention of his full name, Aeroc raised his head and looked at him.

“I love you. Both you and the child you bore. More than anything in the world. I love you.”

His expression, upon hearing the serious confession, became blank, then burst into a bright smile.

“I know.”

Kloff, hearing the same answer as his own, felt a sense of relief, as if he had accomplished something he had forgotten. He felt a strange sensation, but he had to prepare breakfast quickly, so he gave Aeroc a short kiss on the crown of his head and left. Turning at the doorway, he glanced back and saw Aeroc kissing the child’s forehead without looking at him. That was enough. Kloff descended the stairs with light steps, an uncontrollable smile on his face.

Beyond the large window in the hallway leading to the kitchen, dazzling sunlight poured in.

Scene #2. Into the Rose Garden Aeroc suddenly came to his senses.

The sound of quiet wind filled the surroundings. When he got up, feeling hazy, he was standing in the shade in a secluded corner of the garden. At that moment, a heavy silence fell. The wind that had been rustling just a moment ago stopped, and the shade became a deep darkness, binding his ankles. A cold silence, deafeningly quiet, descended. He wanted to scream, but for some reason, no sound came out. He raised his head in a panic and saw the rose garden in the distance. In the center, a tall man was laughing with several children.

Ah, my Kloff.

Aeroc stretched out his arms. But he slipped through his blurred fingers.

Kloff!

He tried to call out with a gasping, mute throat, but Kloff didn’t turn back. Next to him, a beautiful blonde person was laughing, saying something gentle.

Ah… so it was a dream after all.

Cruel reality weighed heavily on his shoulders. He barely supported his collapsing body and unconsciously took a few steps forward.

Splash.

He didn’t need to look down. It must be full of blood. He wanted to watch him and the children a little longer before the darkness engulfing everything swallowed them whole. He blinked his blurring vision, barely focusing.

Kloff turned back. Aeroc smiled at him.

That was enough. Even if it was just a fleeting dream, he was happy.

Kloff’s indifferent expression, which had been looking at him, slowly changed to surprise. He widened his eyes, looking startled, then cried “Aeroc!” and ran towards him.

…Huh?

Before he could say anything, Kloff rushed forward and hugged his stiff body tightly.

“What’s wrong? Why are you crying?”

“Ah…”

His vocal cords, which had been frozen in surprise, moved erratically as if having a seizure, making strange sounds. Beyond Kloff’s broad shoulder, which smelled bitter, he saw the blonde person looking at him. Another tall person stood beside him. They were looking at him with slightly worried eyes. Ah.

“Kl… Kloff?”

“Are you sick?”

“No, it’s not that…”

Kloff, who must have had a foolishly bewildered expression, cupped his face with both hands, frowned, and kissed his eyes. It was an incredibly warm and gentle kiss. At that moment, Aeroc couldn’t breathe.

“No, you went to harvest bulbs, so why are you crying?”

“Well, I don’t really… I mean…”

It was then. Two children playing in the garden ran towards them, chirping “Mommy! Mommy!” and clinging to Aeroc’s legs. He stared down at them blankly. Among them, a boy with dark brown hair took Aeroc’s hand and asked.

“Did Dad say something mean again?”

He shook his head, not knowing who this child’s father was.

“You just suddenly started crying. Why is it always my fault?”

“Because you have a colorful record, that’s why.”

The boy chided him, then as soon as Kloff said “Homework,” he shrieked “Aaaaargh!” and ran away.

Seeing the two children, carrying their young blonde sibling, run as if they would fall, Aeroc unconsciously shouted.

“Be careful, Lennox! Urea will fall.”

“Yes, Mom!”

He saw the child waving his hand wildly as he turned back.

Lennox.

Ah… yes, that child’s name was Lennox. My and Kloff’s first son. Urea was their first Omega daughter.

All his memories returned. Aeroc laughed hollowly and clung to the man who was looking down at him worriedly.

“Why were you crying?”

“Just. I suddenly felt a little dizzy when I stood up.”

“That’s why I told you to be careful in early pregnancy.”

“Nagging.”

He chided him, but still nodded. He buried his face in the embracing chest and indulged a little. Kloff looked down worriedly and gave him a short kiss on the crown of his head. Tears flowed more at the firm pressure. Strong arms gently wrapped around his waist, leading Aeroc from the shade into the sunlit rose garden. A splashing sound accompanied each step.

Stepping out of the shade, he looked back and saw the pebbles that Kloff had laid at Aeroc’s request a while ago, glistening brightly in the light. Aeroc leaned on the shoulder of the person embracing him, wiping away the remaining tears, and smiled.

Now the darkness was gone, and dazzling light filled everything.

Into the Rose Garden Part 2

<Into the Garden of Light> Fin.