Lucilfer (ChrolloxReader)

Chapter 84

‼️TW: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS MEMORIES OF PHYSICAL/SEXUAL ABUSE‼️

He knows.

My heart dropped. Fear enveloped every cell in my body, but in an odd contrast to the prior moments, my trembling subsided. It faded into a misty, outward calm, emanating the assumption of remaining unfazed, but I felt anything but such an assumption. An ominous prickle traveled down from the crown of my head to the back of my neck, flickering lower in a series of goosebumps from my spine to my knees, and then to my ankles. My skin seemed to be suddenly bombarded by a blistering cold, though it was warm and humid in reality out on that balcony, and any process of thought or response was locked away to a hidden place in my mind.

How is it possible? How could he have found out?

All of my worst expectations, the ones I had used to comfort myself, along with the preconceived notion that none of them could ever possibly come to pass, were staring directly into my eyes, forcing me to wake up and face what I'd tried to run away from—I certainly wanted to run away. I wanted to do what I'd always done in times of trouble or terror, what never really helped me, but what I'd learned might take me to a better place in the pits of my soul. I wanted to curl up in a ball like the foolish coward I was, and ignore every mocking expression fate sent my way. I wanted to forget that I'd ever found out anything past the facade of Kassidy.

Because Chrollo would forgive me then, wouldn't he? If it wasn't my fault, since I'd never been told what the chain user looked like in physical appearance, if I'd been deceived by my lover's enemy in a valiant effort to get closer him, I would simply be a naive dreamer with a bleeding heart towards those in pain. I wouldn't have known any better—the chain user is one of many secrets, after all. Perhaps he would believe me if I told him nothing different than what I'd been telling him for months now.

"I will only ask you this once."

The ringing bell of finality, of almost nauseating silk dripping from those words, left me ultimately petrified. He was looking for my denial. He knew exactly who Kassidy was, and he was waiting for me to speak one single sentence of rebuttal, to lie to him just once. It would be enough for him—my deceit would be enough for him to come to the conclusion, despite months of my own honest professions of love, that he had been tricked. Chrollo was used to trusting no one but himself, and the ambiguous path of fate, anyway.

But then he trusted you. And you've torn that trust to shreds.

How could I retrain the perception learned by a lifetime of lonesomeness, when even I, myself, knew how rigid that lonesomeness could make one's heart? Devastation after devastation had struck that unknowing child who still lived in a frightened cage deep inside his soul, and I had become only another among the lineup of many. Even now, I could see the desperate attempt to shroud that devastation with suspicion, with detachment, with an unbiased questionnaire which searched for my blunder, but it still lingered underneath. I saw the strain it pulled from him to rebuild what he'd let down around me, and I saw that frightened child hiding in plain sight from the cruelty before him. But this time, it was I who had dealt such a ruthless blow; this time, it was I who had hurt him in his most vulnerable state.

But how...?

I found no urge to speak. I could only stare into those deadened amber-gray irises, picking for my own answer. No sound escaped my lips, but tears still slipped from my eyes, noiselessly weeping for the damage I'd done, the one safety that I had destroyed, the second heart that I had broken within the timespan of a single day. But this heart was the one which held my own, the one which continued to visibly yearn for my own, and that one fact made things so much worse.