Sweet Devil [BL]

Chapter 112. A Selfish Man

After Misha attempted to strangle Stephan for the third time, Gabriel decided to separate the two before a certain someone ended up with a broken neck; they didn't need a corpse to hide on top of all the problems they already had.

"How about Stephan and I move to another room?" Gabriel finally suggested, fearing Misha would run out of patience and wring his childhood friend's neck on the spot. Anyway, they would never get anywhere if they all stayed in the same room, not with Stephan grating on Misha's nerves at the slightest opportunity.

"Flip through this while you wait," Gabriel said before Misha could protest, giving the siblings a few album photos to keep them busy. As expected, the content quickly caught their interest, and they forgot about him and Stephan, even shooing them away with a wave of their hands.

'I swear these two....' Gabriel inwardly sighed as he left the living room with Stephan and went upstairs, finding his way to the study.

Unlike the living room, the study was neat, with shelves filled with books. It was a simple room that had no superfluous decoration and appeared a little dull at first glance. In the center laid a massive wooden desk, on which Gabriel leaned before crossing his arms.

"Would you please stop teasing Misha?" he demanded in a deadpan tone. "I think he's about to explode."

"How could I? His reactions are too adorable, and you should know by now that my mouth tends to run off by itself. Unfortunately, I can't do anything about it," Stephan snickered before adopting a more serious demeanor as he added, "But, well, I also wanted to talk to you in private."

Gabriel answered with a slight nod, letting him know he had guessed as much. Since the beginning, he had a hunch that Stephan was purposely angering Misha. Though he was a loudmouth, his friend usually wasn't that unbearable.

Even if Stephan and Misha were meeting for the first time in this timeline, Masha, as the bro-con that she was, talked about her little brother every day at school, just like a chatterbox that couldn't be turned off. Stephan was thus well aware of Misha's personality and knew what to say or do to drive the kid away. And not too surprisingly, the boy gladly left everything up to Gabriel after being teased a little too much. Right now, he didn't even want to eavesdrop on them; just the sound of Stephan's voice was enough to make his blood boil.

"So? What did you want to talk about?"

"I'm pretty sure you already know," Stephan sneered, shaking his head. "But well, I guess I'll say it aloud anyway. Why didn't you go back in time to an earlier date? I have a feeling you weren't limited to one year only. You could have gone back before your mother's death and maybe even saved her if you wanted. You could have changed everything concerning that day, yet you didn't. Why is that?"

"Do you want an honest answer or a white lie?"

"What do you think?"

"The truth it is, then," Gabriel sighed, taking a second to organize his thoughts before continuing matter-of-factly, "It's only a possibility, but what if I went back sooner, let's say, before Misha transmigrated, and the very first timeline ceased to exist? The wristwatch stores the memories of the one traveling in time; however, the first timeline of said traveler has to have happened at one point. So here's a question: if a third party tampers with the timeline before the traveler's first transmigration, what do you think would happen?"

"Hm, that's a good question. Depending on what they do, many things could change. For instance, if their actions tamper with the first timeline too drastically and erase the reason why the first traveler wanted to travel back in time, the person in question would have no reason left to do it and surely wouldn't want to time travel. Maybe they wouldn't even encounter Santa Claus."