novel
| ← Ch.046 | Ch.048 → |
Alice, dressed in her lovely pink-beige dress, stepped out of Mad Hatter's front door with Jeremy. In her hand was the smartphone she had ordered and received at a much earlier than anticipated date.
The moment the door closed, Mad Hatter pressed hard at his temples with a look of great annoyance. His migraines had returned. He opened his windows wide. The wind that came in through the window swept away the scent of the silverbell flower perfume. That made his headache lessen a bit, but it couldn't fix its main cause.
Using the smartphone as an excuse, Alice visited Mad Hatter's house every day. Learning from her mistake the first day, she didn't try to touch him again, but even her gaze caused him discomfort. Her eyes were full of a strange desire. It was a look too familiar to him, and every time he witnessed it, it made him feel as if he was living the nightmare all over again.
He walked angrily into his bedroom. He had spent the last several nights working to finish the smartphone quickly so that he could spend less time with Alice. He felt as if he could sleep for several days straight.
That night, his nightmares returned.
He was standing in a creepy unattended garden. As he lifted his head, he saw a gloomy-looking building. It was a building that stood erect through the test of time, the Castle of Chapelier. He looked up at the building blankly until he saw blue-gray hair pass from beyond the window. He hurriedly turned and headed for the door.
The bag on his back felt heavy. Inside were textbooks that he didn't need. Whether he refused to open those books or attend class, the teachers just accepted it because he was the genius who returned the glory back to the Castle of Chapelier. He was the most powerful and intelligent wizard whom they had prophesied would never come again.
The people who had only seen two people with such blue-gray hair stole glances at him as he passed. There was no one here who did not know him. He hid himself in an alley corner and tugged at his hair. He wanted nothing but to pull out all his hair.
He suddenly smelled a foreign scent. The world around him crumpled like paper. Spinning, it swirled as if he was being sucked into a drain. Am I being kidnapped again? he thought with his eyes closed. What experiments would they do to him this time? Whatever those experiments might be, they wouldn't compare to the abuse he endured from his father. At least they were strangers.
The scent became more potent. It was the smell of fresh fruit. He felt a familiarity with it. White hair fluttered in front of him.
"White Rabbit."
Mad Hatter stared at the ceiling. It was the familiar ceiling of his own house.
"Is this a dream?"
He laughed as he pressed on his throbbing forehead. He had to give Heart some credit for his patience. He could barely stand these couple of days with that girl, but Heart had to endure her for several weeks now. Mad Hatter thought he could still smell the silverbell flower scent coming through the closed door.
He got up from his bed and went to his living room. There was no one in the house except him. Realizing this, he stumbled through the darkness like a sleepwalker and left the house. Having figured it out, he couldn't pretend to ignore his need to feel the warmth he craved.
***
Night in Wonderland smelled like the gutters. It was pungent and disgusting to the point that it numbed the senses until you began to think it smelled of roses. He staggered through the pervasive smell.
His clothes and sleeping cap were wrinkled, and he wore indoor slippers. He looked as if he was a drunk. Because it was the middle of the night, the only person wandering around at this hour was him—fortunately for both him and the others.
When he arrived at SoYoon's house, he slowly pushed the door. The unlocked door smoothly opened. When it did, he was met by the familiar scent of her soap. Inhaling, he felt the headache he had been suffering from all day dissipate a bit.
He stood at the foot of SoYoon's bed. Not having been asleep even before Mad Hatter had entered, SoYoon muttered in annoyance.
"Why are there so many unwelcome guests in the middle of the night... oof."
Mad Hatter hugged SoYoon tightly. SoYoon was still for a moment and then she patted him lightly on the shoulder. He was much taller and well built than her, but he clung to her like a child.
She was reminded of Heart from a different night. That man also had embraced her desperately before. As if he had heard her thoughts, Mad Hatter's arms released her.
"Don't think of anything else."
SoYoon looked into his eyes. On the tips of his tightly closed eyes were blue-gray eyelashes that trembled fragilely. Seeing that up close made SoYoon's heart feel as if small raindrops were falling inside it. What is this? That's strange. She frowned.
"Did you have a bad dream?"
To him, the fact that his dream was his past was in itself a nightmare.
"My head hurts so bad, I want to go insane. But..."
His long fingers were now intertwined in her hair. Mad Hatter felt SoYoon flinch, and he smiled.
"If I am with you, I feel a bit better."
SoYoon pushed him away.
"It's suffocating. Let me go."
"Why are you so mean? I told you I'm hurting."
"That's why I told you to go see Alice. I know you've heard the rumors."
"I don't believe rumors unless I see them for myself. Plus, there's already a medicine I can use right now, so why would I go barging into Heart's house at this hour?"
He frowned as if his headache had returned. Even if China's finest beauty queens were to rise from the dead, not one of them could compare to this frowning beauty.
"I'm not going to do anything. So just think of it as saving a life, and let me sleep next to you."
Mad Hatter laughed heartily and said the words she was unable to refuse.
"It's a request. If you hate it that much, you can kill me."
She was White Rabbit. She never could refuse a request and must do everything he asked. The only way to refuse was to kill the client to shut his mouth. Unlike the situation with Twins, she had been planning to reject his advances, but once he asked for it, she closed her mouth.
The night again became calm. The two of them were lying on the same bed in the same direction. Mad Hatter stared forlornly at the back of SoYoon.
Stubborn, he mouthed, but SoYoon must have sensed the movement of air because she turned her head to look over her shoulder at him.
"How could you be so cold when we've known each other for this long?"
She snorted. Mad Hatter crept closer and clung to her back. She was about to push him away when she stopped at his words.
"Last time, you had caressed me so lovingly."
"When did I do that?"
"The day I had been sick. When I woke up from a bad dream, you embraced me."
"I don't think I hugged you that tightly."
She relaxed her stiff back. Mad Hatter smiled from behind her.
"What are you thinking? Were you mixing it up with another night?"
He was the one who said it ambiguously. SoYoon muttered. Now he was no longer even trying to conceal his laughter. He laughed for a long time and then plopped his chin on top of her head and said to her, "I was a research subject too."
SoYoon's back stiffened again.
"Wait, Mad Hatter."
When she tried to stop him, he blocked her mouth.
"I told you this was a request. I'm not expecting anything from you, so just listen."
"Chapelier was a family of the most well known and respected wizards. That was until fifty years ago, when my father was born.
"Since the day my father was born, his magical powers were severely weak. As a wizard, this was a serious fault. For the Chapelier family, who prided themselves on their magical skills, this defective heir was a source of shame. Ostracized and criticized, he slowly started to go insane.
"And that was when I was born. When his father first heard his son's cries, he could feel the overwhelming magical power coming from him. If only he could get his hands on that power.
"I still remember it—the face of my father looking down at me as I lay in my cradle as if I was an experiment subject.
"There was no way the experiments of a deranged man would yield good results. All his ever-changing experiments did was bring his son pain. His brain was saturated with drugs and magic so that it slowly started to break down. For that reason, he was unable to consume food to this day. His father had fed him food mixed with the drugs.
"His father was not the only one who treated him as an experiment. Blue-gray hair was the feature of the Chapelier family and he, their fifth generation, was the only one with that trait. He was like a walking billboard announcing that he was their one and only heir. A genius born from a halfling, that Chapelier. Because his deranged father was unable to protect him, he was kidnapped constantly by other wizards and experimented on. With no one to save him, he used his skills to escape, thus honing his powers. And when he turned 15, his father came at him with a knife saying he would carve out his heart.
"Do you know that magic starts from the heart and flows through the veins? My father told me he was going to examine my heart and figure out how to transfer the power to himself. I'm not sure if he had been intending to kill me. My father might have just thought of me as a legendary monster."
That day, Mad Hatter had been able to escape the Chapelier name only after killing his father. However, he was forced to live, to this day, with the consequences of his father's actions. With a broken brain and the inability to channel his magic properly, he had to spend his whole life tortured by terrible migraines.
After he had finished saying all he wanted to say, he removed his hands from SoYoon's mouth. SoYoon watched his hands get farther away.
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