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“Just emotional?”

She was whining, staring at me with wide, expectant eyes. I swallowed hard.

“There’s something I need to show you.”

I watched her reaction closely. She only nodded with gravity. We headed to my secret sanctuary. The place I had been terrified to enter for so long. As the memory of bringing Mina here unawares tormented my mind, I focused on the confrontation waiting just a few steps ahead.

Both were equally terrifying.

Finally, we entered the room with the massive screen. The clones were still standing in the corner. Though I had said I would destroy them, I hadn’t been able to bring myself to do it. Killing just one of them had caused enough devastation.

“If you’re going to show me the clones, I remember them quite clearly. I wouldn’t say no to a nice chat with them, of course, but…”

“It’s not that,” I murmured, my courage slipping away. “I owe you an explanation. I want to explain my reasons.”

“Other than you being immortal… is there more? For God’s sake, Raymond, you’re like a cabbage.”

I cringed at her weird metaphor. When this sent Mina into fits of laughter, a smile spread across my face as well.

It didn’t last long, though. My ghosts were still hovering above me, refusing to leave me be.

“I told you, I killed you. It was not a joke.”

Her smile faded, and I gulped.

My hand reached for the buttons on the device I was terrified of breaking. “I found these audio files in a wormhole. They’re from me. My other self from another dimension. Years must have passed since then.” The waveforms of the audio recording flashed onto the screen. And a moment later, my own voice, the very sound that haunted my nightmares, echoed out.

“Today Mina Olind kissed me for the first time.”

Mina’s eyes widened.

At the first recording, she had offered a faint smile and even whispered, “I guess you’re a liar in every universe.” But as the recordings progressed, her face fell. At one point, she felt so overcome with shame and gloom that she buried her hands in her hair and waited.

We waited.

While she listened to everything, I didn’t take my eyes off the floor. My heart was pounding. Never in my life did I think I would willingly open up to her the audio recording I had strived to hide from the entire world, and especially from her. But I knew we couldn’t move forward on a foundation of mistrust. I had decided on a future with Mina before making that call to Krivan. Believing I was going to die, I had acted recklessly. But this was what my soul had truly wanted all along, and for that, I had to be transparent.

No more secrets.

No more pain.

“Ice… She was like ice… I brought her chest to my ears over and over, but there was no heartbeat, Raymond. The more I tried to feel her, the more she disappeared. No…”

“No…” Mina also murmured. “Poor Raymond.”

My leg, which had been shaking with stress, came to a halt. Ready to break, I lifted my head. Mina had brought her hand to her mouth, weeping silently. My eyes grew red.

Not yet. I had shown enough vulnerability. I had been humiliated enough in front of Mina. I had to stand strong. Strong and cold, emotionless…

However, the arms that pulled me close had other plans.

My breath hitched in my throat the moment she straddled me, every inch of her body pressed so close I couldn’t think.

In the background, the recording continued. The voice of Raymond screaming in agony must have reached all the way to the clones. Yet the only thing I could hear was her heartbeat. Real Mina’s heartbeat. She held me tight, her chest level with my face.

“Even if I want to, I can’t die for you. I’m not like you. I’m not! I’m not worth it. No, I’m not… Then why?”

“It’s okay now,” Mina whispered. Her voice sounded like the ones in my dreams, but far softer, warmer. It was a lullaby healing my soul. “It’s okay, I’m here. I didn’t die. I’m here.”