After we walked further from his room, I stopped, and Elena halted instantly too.
"Elena, you can go back to your room now..." I began, rubbing the bridge of my nose. The adrenaline was fading, leaving behind a bone-deep exhaustion. "I just want to sleep."
Elena’s eyes widened, a flash of genuine panic crossing her face. She looked like I had just suggested she walk into a fire. "R-Rio, I can’t leave you! What if someone else also planned to hurt you?"
She was grasping at straws, saying anything and everything just to keep herself close to me.
"Didn’t you see the assassin earlier?" she pressed, her voice rising in pitch.
"I did," I said calmly.
But that was exactly the point. If you stay this close to me, hovering like a guardian deity and intercepting every threat before it even reaches my peripheral vision, how am I supposed to get strong? The Supreme Physique and the Void Gaze aren’t ornaments; they are weapons that need to be forged in the heat of conflict.
I need you out of the frame so I can experience pain. I need to bleed, to struggle, and to stand on my own. That is the only way to get strong fast enough to survive this family.
"You did? And yet you want me to go?" Elena’s expression shifted from panic to a stubborn, iron-clad resolve. She turned on her heel and began to walk back toward my room, her pace leaving no room for argument. "I am not going to leave you alone. From now on, we are going to sleep together."
My mind stalled for a minute. Sleep together? In the same bed?
The "moral catastrophe", the taboo cliff I had been desperately steering away from was no longer a distant threat. I was currently falling off the edge of it.
I tried to think of a solution, a witty retort, or a logical loophole, but my brain was a blank slate.
"Wait, what? Elena, think about what you’re saying! We’re adults, and—"
"I don’t care," she cut me off, not even sparing a glance back. "The ’rules’ of this family mean nothing if you aren’t alive to follow them. I’ll stay on the couch, or I’ll stay in the bed—it doesn’t matter. But I am not letting you out of my sight."
Shit.
She wasn’t just being overprotective; she was using her own logic to bind us together. If I argued too hard, I’d have to reveal just how much I knew about my own power, and if I didn’t argue, I’d be sharing a pillow with the most unstable woman in the family.
I looked at her back—resolute, dangerous, and swaying with a newfound, terrifying purpose.
How did a simple ’pretending to be asleep’ plan turn into a forced cohabitation with a yandere who has a ’miserable hunger’ for me?
"Alright, Elena," I began. "You want to protect me? Is that so?"
She stopped dead in her tracks. "Yeah, I want to... I don’t know why, but I just want to."
She looked at me with a gaze that was almost too intense to meet. It was official: she was teetering right on the edge of becoming a full-blown yandere. I needed to talk her down from that mountain, and fast.
I’ve seen enough stories to know how that ends, and honestly? I’m terrified. I can’t have one of those following me around, especially not one that can level a building with a flick of her wrist.
"Then, wouldn’t the best solution be for me to get stronger?"
"You? Strong?" She turned fully to look at me, her brow arching in genuine disbelief. "You aren’t joking with me?"
The skepticism in her voice stung a little, but I couldn’t blame her.
"I’m serious," I said, taking a step toward her. "If I’m strong enough to defend myself, you won’t have to spend every waking second worrying about an assassin in my closet. You could sleep in your own room, knowing I can handle myself. Isn’t that better for both of us?"
Elena stared at me, her crimson eyes scanning my face as if searching for a hidden punchline. The silence stretched between us, heavy and thick. She didn’t laugh. Instead, her expression darkened, and she took a slow, predatory step toward me.
"Stronger..." she whispered, the word tasting strange in her mouth. She reached out, and her hand touched my chest. "You think that would change things? You think if you could swing a sword, I would just... let go?"
She gave a hollow, chilling laugh that made the hair on my neck stand up.
"If you get strong, Rio, you’ll just be more dangerous to lose. The stronger you get, the more people will try to take you from me. The more reasons I’ll have to never let you leave this room."
Great. My plan backfired.
I was trying to negotiate my freedom, and she was busy calculating the new security measures she’d need for a ’high-tier’ prisoner.
"That’s not how it works, Elena!" I protested, backing up until I hit the wall. "Strength is freedom. If I’m strong, I don’t need a cage."
She leaned in, her breath warm against my ear, her voice dropping to a whisper that was far too intimate for a hallway. "In this family, Rio, strength isn’t freedom. It’s just a bigger target. And I’m the only one who can hit back hard enough to keep you in one piece."
She pulled away slightly, her eyes locking onto mine with a terrifyingly soft devotion. "But... if you want to train, I’ll help you. I’ll be your only teacher. We’ll start tomorrow morning. Right after we wake up... together."
She turned the handle to my room and stepped inside, leaving the door wide open for me. It wasn’t an invitation. it was a summons.
I stood in the hallway for a moment, staring at the empty space where she had been. I wanted to get strong to escape the drama, but it looked like the only path to power led straight through the sister’s bedsheets.
I really should have stayed asleep.