After a quick rest and some light regrouping, the party resumed their journey. They couldn’t afford to waste time—not when they had no idea how long they’d be trapped inside the Demon King’s castle.
As they walked through the now-familiar corridors, Rita turned to glance at Cain. He was walking a single step away from Satin, practically glued to his side.
“Seriously, just how close were you two in the past? You’re always right next to him. Anyone watching would think Satin’s your kid.”
Satin also glanced up at Cain, curious about what kind of answer he’d give. Probably something unhelpful, but still.
“Not your business.”
As expected. Satin let out a small sigh, and Cain shot him a side glance before asking,
“You that curious?”
“Well, yeah, a bit.”
Satin scratched his cheek with an awkward grin. Of course he was curious. According to what Cain had told him the other night, Cain hadn’t depended on Satin. Yet there had clearly been some kind of bond between them. Maybe it had even been a mutual one.
Put that way, it might sound like an ordinary friendship, but there was nothing ordinary about it.
Because right now, Cain was blatantly overprotective of Satin. If they were just friends, it wouldn’t make sense for him to go that far.
‘Was it the other way around?’
Maybe it had been Satin who’d relied on Cain. Sometimes people became stronger out of a sense of responsibility. Maybe Cain was haunted by the fact that he hadn’t been able to protect Satin in the past.
‘Hmm… no, that doesn’t make sense.’
Satin had originally sided with the Black Magician, not Cain. It would be strange for him to depend on someone like Cain instead of the Black Magician.
‘Seriously, what is it? Did Satin give him two drumsticks or something?’
Could that have sparked some one-sided loyalty from Cain? Would someone like him really act that way over something so trivial?
Just as Satin was about to get lost in his thoughts, Cain spoke up with a cryptic expression on his face.
“He saved me.”
“Saved you? From what? Where? How?”
Rita’s eyes lit up as she pressed him for answers, even moving up to walk beside Satin. Edward, pretending not to care, kept his gaze fixed ahead, but noticeably slowed his pace.
Cain clicked his tongue and grumbled.
“You people are way too nosy.”
“Sure, we are. But Satin’s involved in this, so spill.”
Rita coaxed him with her usual shameless smile. Cain sighed once and raked a hand through his hair.
“There was a fire.”
“A fire?”
Satin repeated without thinking, and Cain gave a faint smirk. “Yeah, a fire.” Edward glanced back with a strange expression, but Cain didn’t look at anyone. He kept his eyes on the path ahead and continued.
“I couldn’t move at all. Satin carried me down the stairs on his back.”
Satin hesitated. Judging by their current sizes, there was no way he could carry Cain—he’d probably struggle just to drag him. Was this a made-up story to avoid giving a real answer?
Catching onto his skepticism, Cain gave a soft chuckle.
“Back then, I was smaller than you. I remember thinking you were huge…”
His voice trailed off. Satin couldn’t guess what memories Cain was lost in, but his own thoughts grew increasingly tangled.
‘That’s unexpected.’
Rescuing Cain from a fire? According to what he’d heard from Edward, the blaze had completely destroyed the school—it was massive. It would’ve been hard just to escape alone, let alone carry someone else out.
For the first time, Satin started to doubt himself. Maybe because of the Dark Age, he’d unconsciously projected his biases onto people he didn’t even know.
Rita was louder and more cheerful than how she’d been described in the Dark Age records. Edward was kind, if a little jaded. And Cain? He’d completely abandoned the persona from the original account. So then… could Satin really say he was unchanged?
As Satin mulled things over, Cain’s story continued.
“We got separated when the staircase collapsed. I was lucky—I fell toward the exit.”
Cain’s gaze shifted to Satin.
“But you ran deeper inside, away from the flames.”
‘That wasn’t me.’
“Even after the fire was out, I couldn’t find you anywhere.”
‘That wasn’t me.’
“I didn’t want to believe it, so I kept going back to that place again and again… but in the end, I had no choice but to accept it.”
Cain’s voice echoed through the corridor, pressing down uncomfortably on Satin’s shoulders.
“That you saved me—and died.”
‘That… wasn’t me.’
Cain’s recollection felt entirely foreign to Satin. And deeply unsettling.
Over the past few days, everything Cain had said and done toward him—all of it had been meant for someone else. Satin was the only one who knew that truth.
If only the original Satin had been a terrible person, it would’ve been easier to deal with. But hearing that he was actually Cain’s savior just made the guilt worse. When Satin had wished to become a character in a novel, he never imagined he’d end up in this kind of situation.
‘Should I just tell him I’m not really him?’
A foolish thought. Even if he said it, Cain wouldn’t believe him. After all, at least his body was the one Cain remembered. No matter how seriously he confessed the truth, Cain would probably just chalk it up to lingering effects from the Black Magician’s death.
“Why the long face?”
As Satin lowered his head and fidgeted awkwardly, Cain bent down to look into his eyes. It didn’t even occur to him that the Satin in front of him might not be the same person.
Satin forced a smile and shook his head.
“It’s just… I don’t remember any of it, so it feels strange, I guess…”
“That’s okay. I remember it for both of us.”
Cain’s hand brushed through Satin’s hair and settled on the back of his neck. Then he wrapped an arm around his shoulders. The motion was a bit clumsy, as if Cain wasn’t used to doing it. Maybe he knew that too, because he let out an awkward chuckle.
‘I should smile too.’
But Satin couldn’t.
Cain had said that once Satin remembered the past, things between them would feel more natural. And he was probably right. Which meant… they never would.
***
“Ack!”
Once again, it was Rita—leading the group—who triggered the trap first. Though “stepped on” wasn’t quite right. “Got sucked in” would be more accurate.
The moment Rita vanished into thin air, Edward sighed and turned around.
“I’ll go after her.”
Perhaps to prevent a repeat of last time, Edward paused for a few seconds before moving forward. And, just like Rita, he disappeared somewhere.
Satin was mentally counting down to follow when Cain suddenly grabbed his arm.
“You…”
“Hm?”
Satin looked up, thinking Cain suddenly had something to say. Cain narrowed his eyes and studied Satin’s face like he was scrutinizing every detail. Then, frowning, he asked,
“You’re not… thinking weird thoughts or anything, right?”
“What? What weird thoughts?”
Satin tilted his head in confusion, not understanding the implication. Cain didn’t respond right away. After a short pause, he muttered and stepped back.
“Never mind. Forget it.”
Satin was just about to press him when it hit him—Cain must’ve noticed that he’d been off in his own world again.
‘Not surprising.’
Cain had been watching him up close this whole time. Of course he’d notice something was off. But that led to another question.
‘Hasn’t he felt anything else strange?’
Even if the appearance matched, there had to be differences. The expressions made without thinking, the little habits carried out unconsciously—only someone truly close could notice those things. And for Satin, that person was Cain.
Yet from the very first moment they’d met, Cain hadn’t shown even the slightest suspicion. He hadn’t doubted Satin once. Whatever he was thinking internally, he didn’t show it outwardly.
‘It’s kind of unnerving.’
Satin stepped forward, still holding onto that unresolved sense of unease. The world instantly began to spin around him. It felt like being caught in a whirlpool and dragged down into the ocean’s depths. Thankfully, it didn’t make him nauseous.
After what felt like both a long and short span of time, Satin landed on the ground—with his butt, again.
“Ow…”
“What took you so long?”
As Satin sat there, rubbing his sore backside without even trying to get up, Rita came over and asked, clearly having arrived first. Satin didn’t have a good answer, so he gave her a sheepish smile and started to stand.
“Urk…!”
If only Cain hadn’t landed on top of him.
“Ugh, damn.”
Cain quickly scrambled off him with a frustrated expression. At least this time, he didn’t fumble around like earlier. Satin’s ribs survived intact.
Taking Cain’s extended hand, Satin stood up and, without much thought, looked up. Their eyes met—only for Cain to immediately glance away. Before Satin could ask why, Cain began to explain.
“I didn’t do it on purpose. I just… thought you might end up somewhere else…”
Satin tilted his head, not immediately understanding what Cain meant. Cain hadn’t meant to sound defensive, but the look on his face suggested he felt even more awkward about it now.
“You’re not hurt, are you? I didn’t land on anything important, right?”
“Uh, yeah. I mean—no, it’s fine.”
It finally clicked for Satin—Cain wasn’t saying he’d rushed after him just to crash into him. He’d simply been worried about getting sent to a different location.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m fine.”
Waving it off, Satin subtly put some distance between them. Even though Satin had stepped back more than two paces, Cain didn’t scold him. He just gave him a slightly disgruntled look, as if he were measuring the space between them with his eyes. Most likely, he noticed but was holding back from saying anything outright.
“Well then, shall we get moving?”
Rita took the lead, and the rest followed. Light conversation trickled between them, a way to ease the tension.
Rita said she hoped the next monster would be less gross than a monkey or a snake. Edward replied that he’d rather there be no monsters at all.
A few casual jokes were exchanged, and then Satin noticed something. Since earlier, his arm kept brushing against Cain’s. More accurately, the edge of Cain’s robe kept grazing his elbow. At some point, the space between them had closed without him realizing.
It didn’t really bother him, so he stayed quiet. As Rita cracked another joke, Satin responded with a halfhearted quip, thinking silently to himself:
‘Separation anxiety, huh.’
When someone loses something important and then gets it back, it’s only natural for them to hold on tighter—to be more careful, more cautious, just to make sure they don’t lose it again. Depending on what that thing is, the behavior can verge on obsessive. Satin understood that well enough.
And when that understanding met with his lingering doubts, it transformed into suspicion.
‘What if it’s not that he doesn’t notice the differences… but that he’s pretending not to?’
