Chapter 41
Mad Hatter looked at the dying wizard and felt ecstatic. It didn’t matter how powerful he might be, in the face of death, he was just like the nonmagical people. He was just a weak person whose fate rested on a thin wire around his neck.
When he put strength behind the wire, it started to penetrate his neck. The wizard kicked the air and gasped. He sounded like a toad being stepped on. Using his moans as the soundtrack, Mad Hatter laughed.
He blushed and strangled him joyously. It was only after the wizard had knocked off his hat that Mad Hatter’s expression changed.
The hunting cap had been pushed down low onto his head, but as it fell, his orange hair fell over the wizard’s back. The wizard’s eyes grew larger than they already were. As he gasped his last breath, he whispered his last words.
At the same time, Mad Hatter’s expression was wiped off his face. He had been using his physical strength the whole time, but he let magic take over. At that moment, the stiffened wire sawed through the wizard’s throat and sliced it clean off.
On Mad Hatter’s ceramic face, blood splattered as if from a geyser. He opened his even redder lips and mumbled.
“Oh, no. This will get complicated. I didn’t bring another hat. Um, it didn’t look like you liked my hat anyways, so I’ll let it go today.”
Coming straight from Jack’s hideout, he had been unable to get changed, so she was wearing a light green cardigan and a wrinkled white shirt and slacks.
He thought of SoYoon as he realized he would have been less noticeable if he had been in a suit. He could ask her to come pick him up and bring him a change of clothes.
He pulled out his smartphone from his cardigan pocket. But right when he sent the message to SoYoon, he burst out laughing. It was a laugh that would strike fear in the corpses.
She would probably be with Heart right now. Heart had said he would not let her leave tonight, that he would make her cry all night. A raging migraine suddenly hit him. He held his head and moaned as he mumbled to himself.
“No, she will come. She said she would come to me tonight.”
***
She was not one to break a promise. So you must wait. Mad Hatter pushed down the blood-soaked hunting cap over his head and went into the kitchen out of habit. He opened his china cabinet, dug out a shopping bag, and started to put the tableware into it. He found more tableware sets in another cabinet and hesitated for a second but decided to put them in too.
He searched the entire kitchen until there was nothing left to do. Mad Hatter returned to the living room and slumped into the sofa.
The head that had been cut off the wizard was staring at him. Mad Hatter kicked it away. It rolled until it hit and bounced off the wall. He followed the line of blood it created. His train of thought switched over to his orange hair.
Chapellier—the dead wizard’s agony was shaking his brain. The powerful headache made him moan.
Had the man recognized me by my hair? Or had he been the enemy wizard that kidnapped him? He didn’t much like the first option, but if it had been the second, it might have been better not to kill him so quickly. He should have caused him at least a fraction of the pain he had to endure for the rest of his life. Through his red lips, laughter seeped through.
The grandfather clock chimed to let him know how much time had passed. His long fingers pressed against his head.
Nine, ten, eleven—in an hour, today would end. How far has that wretched woman come?
But someone whispered laughingly in his head. She will not come. He shook his head hard, but the voice persisted and hung tight. She will be in Heart’s bedroom now. He was reminded of the cocky way in which Heart had stood before him. Then, a window of hope popped up in his brain.
“Come quickly, White Rabbit.”
Mad Hatter raised his knees and buried his face in them. The ringing in his head that traveled from the middle of his forehead was horrifying. He pulled at his hair. He banged his head against his knee. But the headache did not go away, and all he wanted was to break something.
Tick! The grandfather clock made a notable sound. It was the sound before it would chime the hour. She had not arrived yet. Mad Hatter laughed in despair.
“Of...course, you wouldn’t come. Oh...”
I’ll go back and kill Heart. And then I’ll steal her away and bring her here to my house, my bedroom, and lock her up forever. And then...
“Mad Hatter.”
Mad Hatter raised his head. At the same time, the clock chimed midnight. Ding—Ding! The grandfather clock chimed noisily, but he couldn’t hear it. A blurry face floated in the darkness. Was it a defense mechanism created by his brain? He calculated the possibility in one corner of his mind, but his hand was already reaching out. He grasped at the thin arms. It was a very well manufactured hallucination.
“What does it matter?”
Laughing maniacally, he embraced his hallucination.
He could feel a warm but slightly hotter body temperature. He kissed her cheek. Her skin was unbelievably smooth for someone who lived however she liked, and his rough lips touched it.
The scent of bittersweet soap aroused his senses. His hammering headache started to fade. He hung tightly on to the scent that was reducing his pain. However, something much sweeter than the scent touched the tip of his tongue. He licked her relentlessly.
“Pull yourself together.”
The sweet something was pushing him away and saying something. I’m still hurting so much. He resentfully complained about being in pain each time something flinched. Whatever that thing was sighed, and he heard a low voice.
“Stop crying.”
Hard fingers swept over his eyes. He felt their warmth. Mad Hatter was smiling widely and buried himself in his sweet reverie.
He heard her swallow. Oh, what a sweet sound! He bit down on the lips that made the sound and pushed his tongue into the warm and sweet cave inside.
From his head to his toes, all he could taste was sweetness. What they say about medicine being bitter was a lie. This sweet thing was not only making him happy but was also erasing his migraine. No, now he couldn’t even tell if the migraine or the sweetness was taking precedence.
“I told you to stop crying,” the voice said more firmly.
Scared, he hung on to it tighter. “I’m not crying, so don’t push me away. It hurts like crazy. Just a little bit, a little bit more.” As he repeated these words, his sweet thing would push him away but surrender and let him be.
Understanding the meaning behind the action, he did what he knew he needed from her. As he did, his headache subsided so that he could start to see in front of him.
Her face in his hands, the soft feel of her lips, her intermittent breathing. As he inhaled, the smell he loved encircled him. It was the smell of White Rabbit.
Mad Hatter opened the eyes he had not known were closed. The first thing he saw was white hair. Its contrast against the dark sofa was blinding. He blinked, and SoYoon’s hand swept through his hair.
“Are you awake now?”
The muted sound made his lips tremble. He had been so happy to feel the different parts of her as the voice changed. He hung his head. His lips felt hot. He knew that the reason for the change in temperature was due to his actions. In that moment, fire spread through his head.
“Sleep...It hurts...”
The muted alto echoed, but Mad Hatter’s ears couldn’t hear it. He ran toward her and clung onto her.
SoYoon was lying on the sofa and looking up at him. Her slight frown and her unwavering calmness, even in his crazed obsession, were irresistible. She reached out and pulled him in. Mad Hatter put up no resistance and followed.
SoYoon looked into Mad Hatter’s eyes as she took in a breath from her trapped lips. The wavering and glazed-over eyes looked like those of a child who had lost its way. His red lips smacked, wanting more, and she, realizing it, placed her hands around his face and put her lips to his.
A calm surrounded the two of them in that moment.
Their tongues had not intertwined, and no foreplay ensued. All that happened was that the two lips were locked together, and they stared into each other’s eyes. But even so, the blue eyes were slowing, starting to regain their light. Only until she knew he had come back to his senses did SoYoon remove her lips from him.
“Are you back?”
Mad Hatter looked down at SoYoon. The tousled girl in front of him felt far away as if in a dream.
Trying to figure out if this was a dream or not, he looked inside her open collar to see the skin inside. On her pale skin were numerous blotches and hickies.
Mad Hatter reached his hand toward the spots. Feeling the body heat coming from them, he gasped.
It was her. He moaned, burying his face into her hair. Lost in happiness, he kissed her face. The calm alto broke the atmosphere.
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