I Became the Villain Alpha's Omega (BL)

Chapter 343: A Passing Shadow

"It’s pretty late and a little unusual to be coming all the way here just to pray."

The silver-haired boy didn’t turn around immediately. His gaze remained fixed on the statue looming high above them, his shoulders still visibly tense beneath his cloack.

"Prayer can be done at any time," he answered, his voice tight, hoarse from crying but fiercely defensive. "The God doesn’t keep a schedule. I didn’t realize the temple had set hours for who is allowed to seek comfort."

Zarius nodded slowly, a faint smirk playing on his lips in the shadow of his hood. "Fair enough. But it seems to me like you’ve got a huge problem if you’re sneaking out here in the middle of the night just to beg for a hearing. Normal people usually do their pleading when the sun is up."

The boy’s jaw clenched. He stared stubbornly at the altar, his fingers tightening against the fabric of his trousers. He didn’t reply, clearly hoping that if he ignored the massive intruder long enough, Zarius would simply vanish back into whatever corner he had crawled out of.

The chapel fell silent again.

Behind the deep fold of his hood, Zarius’s eyes narrowed slightly as he looked at the quiet, miserable figure across the aisle. He stared at the floor beneath his boots, and for the first time since he had sat down, he began to internally question his own sanity.

Why the hell am I still sitting here?

He was letting his guard down, and that was a dangerous habit to fall into.

With a soft, irritated grunt, Zarius pushed himself to his feet. The cloak swept against the pew as he adjusted the collar, pulling the dark, thick fabric closer around his face to completely obscure his features in the dim, failing candlelight. He had stayed too long already.

"Well," Zarius said, his voice flat as he took a step toward the side aisle. "I’ll leave you to pray in peace."

He turned to walk away, fully intending to disappear into the dark corridors and never think about this midnight distraction again. But before he could take three steps, the boy’s voice suddenly cut through the quiet, stopping him.

"What?" the boy asked, his tone laced with a sharp, defensive sarcasm that seemed entirely meant to mask his embarrassment. "Are you going to find another quiet corner of the palace to sleep in? I’m sure there are plenty of empty offices where you can shirk your duties."

Zarius paused. He didn’t turn around fully, only looking back over his shoulder. In the deep shadow of his hood, only the sharp, dangerous edge of his jaw was visible. "What do you think?"

The boy let out a soft, bitter huff, looking up at him from across the empty walkway. There was a faint, mocking challenge in his blue eyes. "I think you probably haven’t prayed a day in your life. You don’t exactly look like the religious type."

"Should I?" Zarius countered flatly, his voice entirely deadpan. "I’ve never found much use for talking to stone."

He turned his back on the boy, taking two heavy, decisive steps toward the doors. He was finished. But just as his hand reached out toward the handle, the boy spoke again. This time, his voice didn’t have the sharp, defensive bite from before. It dropped into a quiet, envious murmur, a thought spoken aloud that he probably hadn’t intended for Zarius to hear.

"Must be nice," the boy whispered, staring down at his own clasped hands. "It must be really good to have absolutely nothing to worry about. To not have a single problem in the world heavy enough to make you beg God for a thing."

Zarius stopped dead in his tracks.

The words struck something deep inside him. For a long moment, the only sound in the chapel was the soft crackle of the dying candles. Zarius turned around slowly. He walked back down the wide aisle, his massive frame seeming to swallow the rows of wooden pews as he stopped in front of the boy’s bench.

He looked down at the delicate, silver-haired boy who sat there, looking so small and pathetic, completely oblivious to the brutal reality of the world outside his comfortable cage.

"And who are you to judge the weight of another man’s burden?" Zarius said, his voice dropping into a low, cold rumble that made the boy visibly flinch. The lazy, sleepy facade was entirely gone. "You think you’re the only one carrying a weight in this world? You think because you’re weeping in the dark, your pain is the only thing that matters? Everyone has their own problems. Not just you. You know nothing of what others have endured."

The boy stared at him, his blue eyes widening in surprise. He looked completely paralyzed, his breath catching in his throat as the sheer pressure of Zarius’s gaze bore down on him.

But Zarius didn’t give him a chance to find his tongue or snap back. He turned back, pushed open the doors, and walked out into the cool night air of the outer corridor.

He didn’t look back once. He made his way through the temple’s quiet hallways with ease, slipping past the guards before leaving the holy district and returning to his mansion in the capital.

By the time he tossed his heavy cloak onto the foot of the bed and collapsed onto the mattress, the first faint light of dawn was beginning to filter through the window.

He had reached the point where he dreaded the morning. How pathetic.

He stared up at the dark canopy of the bed, resting an arm over his eyes as he replayed the night’s events in his head.

What a bizarre encounter, Zarius thought, a bitter chuckle escaped him.

He actually knew exactly who it was. The silver hair, the striking blue eyes, the expensive silk, and the bitter, desperate prayers to the God about Yerel and Philia left absolutely no room for doubt.

That boy was the Crown Prince’s fiancé.

A cold smile tugged at Zarius’s lips in the dark.

So the rumors are true. The Crown Prince, so highly praised by all, cares so little for his own fiancée that he leaves him to weep alone in an empty chapel.

It was certainly unfortunate to have encountered the Crown Prince’s fiancé. Even so, he supposed there was little to worry about.

Still, Zarius wasn’t particularly worried about his own safety or his identity being compromised. The chapel had been incredibly dim, illuminated by nothing but a few dying candles, and his face had been completely hidden beneath his hood and cloak the entire time. He had kept his distance, and the boy had been far too busy crying and nursing his own bruised, fragile pride to pay any real attention to the face of a "lazy guard." To the boy, Zarius was just a passing shadow, a nameless nobody who had interrupted his breakdown.

Zarius closed his eyes, letting a deep, exhausted sigh escape his chest as he settled into the pillows, the cool breeze from the window finally starting to soothe his skin.

It matters not, he thought, pushing the memory aside as sleep finally began to pull him under. It is unlikely our paths shall ever cross again.