Thank You For Being Trash

Rewan did not die that day.

He was dragged like a dog and thrown into a corner of the prison. Funny enough, as soon as he got out of the brink of death, he thought of death. It was the life that Arne saved at the cost of her getting insulted, but he wanted to die.

Still, when he thought of Arne, he wanted to live.

Arne was the existence that made him want to live and die at the same time… It was a contradiction.

He thought about death dozens of times a day. He thought his life itself was a sin. He survived, yet he ruined her. It was a guilty feeling. His heart thumped.

Perhaps there was no need to tie him up, there were no guards or ropes to tie the prisoners around. Nonetheless, Rewan didn't think of going out. If cutting off his life was a sin, how about dying naturally? He thought so.

In that space, a single light could barely enter. The light faded and rose twice.

Two days passed without food or water.

After that, someone came to the prison looking for him. He thought it was the death god who came to pick him up.

“Do you want revenge?”

It was a sweet-talking devil. He corrected his thoughts and soon grabbed the hand that was reached out to him, possessed.

Externally, Rewan became a dead man.

* * *

It was a predicted life, and it was a set path. He considered himself a lucky man. Good family, good parents, good siblings, and a good fiancé. He didn't miss anything. There was no deviation, it was a normal life.

Mediocre talent, mediocre effort, mediocre brain, mediocre face.

To himself, he was just an ordinary person. Even without much effort, he maintained good grades in terms of swordsmanship.

There was no dramatic situation point where he had to work hard to the point of death, and the quiet, peaceful days continued, so the swordsmanship of the Sorano Kingdom was declining. It was easy to stand at the top of the country with the right amount of effort and the right swordsmanship.

Too much peace was poison to the country. In their indolence, their level was barely above average. They were people living in a peaceful world.

There, only Arne was the one cornered.

Rewan saw his perfect fiancée for the first time. He was indifferent to the things around him besides working for the country that he was not considered a human being.

While he had no hobbies or anything, just clinging to his work, he knew it was all because he lost his parents at an early age.

However, even for him, his fiancée, Arne, didn't leave a single point of the weight. She carried the weight alone. Rewan thought that her stubbornness, noble and dignified appearance was a group image that matched well as a king.

Usually, Sorano nobles were those who could be content with a fraction because they had no desire for money or power. Nonetheless, sometimes there were nobles who were aiming for Arne's position. She didn't give any gaps to them, who were like a pack of hounds.

She was a great and respectable person. She was good enough to serve as king, but still, his affection as a fiancée never developed.

They had never taken a walk together while they had been engaged since childhood or even faced swords. An easy-going master, a mysterious lover… so he just considered her as his master. He was worried about the first night spent with her.

He couldn't imagine the first night with her.

It was a truly foolish idea. Even then, he shook his head. As long as it was not hate and hatred, he could keep their engagement relationship with just that level of emotion.

Rewan felt at ease.

She was a good king, restless, and kept luxuries to a minimum. No one knew that she worked while breaking her body like that. He was frustrated by her inflexibility, but she wasn't the one to be told.

The tongue that spat out the words of advice was rough.

In the end, he just closed his lips and stood by Arne. He thought that was his entire job.

From that moment on, Arne gave him her side. She handed out a spot. She was originally one who ate alone.

“If you haven't eaten yet, would you like to eat with me?”

He thought it was a once-in-a-lifetime whim though often, she asked her if he wanted to eat together. On days when they weren't busy and the time overlapped, they ate together. They didn't have a friendly conversation, but he was glad that she seemed to build trust with her.

He was happy to build a castle called trust.

“Would you like to do some sparring if the time permits?”

That was how the time they spent together increased.

Laughing with a face she had never shown before and often playing jokes he wouldn't understand. It was a special day, and he gave her chocolate that he rarely buys and eats as a gift.

He was the only one special to Arne. Only he knew Arne's smile, and he was the one who shared the most time with Arne, from such a substandard relationship to an ordinary relationship. He thought he would have a normal marriage after spending a normal engagement life.

* * *

Rewan trusted and believed in Arne. He thought that because of his incompetence, she was being forcibly dragged away by a rude and impolite envoy from the empire.

He had a certain sense of indebtedness and had such a sense of debt that he had to do anything. Could this sense of debt arise from the feeling of serving Arne as his master? He wasn't quite sure how he felt.

‘No, I have to go to the Empire. If the reason for calling her is unreasonable, then even the Empire will not be able to avoid disaster.'

He believed in his confident and arrogant attitude towards his choice.

After arriving in the Carwen Empire, he saw her roaming the Carwen Empire for the rest of her time. He was worried. Was she anxious? She was a workaholic, so she wandered around the Empire because she was anxious about not having work.

He asked, worried that she might be anxious.

“Are you anxious?”

When he first asked if she was anxious, Arne said he wasn't.

She was not anxious, she said. Even so, Arne's behavior did not change, so he didn't think that Arne was looking at the empire. Arne wasn't like that.

Rewan persisted, asking if she was anxious, but she just replied nonchalantly and casually no.

She didn't even make eye contact with him.

Could it be that she couldn't make eye contact with him because she was worried that her feelings would be revealed? Or was it because Arne didn’t trust him and didn’t confide in him? As he was impatient, a sense of debt grew like a monster.

Going to Arne's residence, he knew it was a disrespect that she wouldn't like. However, he couldn't help but act like that out of impatience for no reason.

Rewan knocked on the door.

“This is Rewan.”

Arne handed him the tea himself.

A sugar cookie was seen in her hand as she served the tea. Seeing that, he felt like something was cut off. The Arne he knew didn’t eat anything like that.

“I asked if you were anxious.”

“No.”

Then, why was she eating sweets that she didn’t normally eat? It was some kind of frustration, and Rewan felt a sense of betrayal.

While she said she wasn't anxious. She covered her face with both her hands. At first, it was anger at himself for being so incompetent, and later, it was worry about Arne, who couldn't express even a piece of her heart properly.

His stomach was stuffy, and he couldn't stand it. Hitting the table with his fist, he didn’t know what he had done. He wasn't aware of what kind of rudeness he was committing.

As he grabbed Arne's shoulder, he buried his head on her shoulder and let out a sigh.

“If you are anxious, cry. Tell me it's hard. Blame me for my incompetence…”

He violently spat out the things he had stored inside and bit his lip.

Why was it so difficult to spit out the word resentment? Did he think it would be hard to bear if Arne resented him? It was a sigh mixed with words. Originally, he knew he wouldn't care if she was anxious or not.

Still, what kind of feeling was this? Why was he so angry?

“…Please resent me.”

Rewan closed his eyes. He was afraid to see what face she was making. When he opened his eyes slowly, Arne's expression was indifferent. He was worried that he would hear her resentment, but that day he was rather comforted by Arne.

The sense of indebtedness was reduced in size.

* * *

The rude imperial bastards had no morals.

Arne, who received the finger of a noble of the kingdom of Sorano, trembled. Her face went white. Without a word, Rewan left Arne's residence. Her expression, which she couldn't bear to hide, made the feeling of indebtedness rise again.

And Rewan challenged Distria to a duel. He reluctantly went to his study blindly and threw off his white glove. His glove, which had been blown right onto Distria’s cheek, fell to the floor.

“Ha? What are you doing?”

“I request a duel. The price is my life. If you win, I ask you to send us back to Sorano Kingdom.”

Even at the rudeness, Distria laughed. And his red lips curled up in an arc.

“I don’t care about your life at all, but it sounds like fun. I’ll schedule a date later and send you a message.”

He laughed. Rewan dreamed of winning the duel and returning to the Kingdom. He trained his sword in his residence, mistaken that he would be able to win easily.

He made a huge mistake.

In Rewan's life, he had never really longed for, wanted, or tried to live or die. Moreover, he did not know the level of swordsmanship in the Carwen Empire.

That was a factor in his defeat.

He lost his fighting spirit in the huge gap. During the duel, the tip of his sword couldn't even brush the hem of his opponent's clothes. He was sweating and struggling, but his opponent didn't even shed a single drop of sweat.

He dealt with Rewan only to the extent that he did not die from a fatal wound and only for him to accept surrender. Humiliating, for a moment, he couldn't even surrender. He faced Acacia’s sword with his trembling hand.

“More will kill you.”

“If I lose anyway, I will die.”

Rewan wiped away the sweat that flowed along with the blood. In an instant, the distance between him and Acacia narrowed. It was in the blink of an eye. Acacia hit the back of his neck with a sword, and he collapsed down.

“His Majesty told me not to kill…”

Behind the blurred vision, Acacia's voice came. His vision blinked.

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