The Avoided Topic

"You know, in the dream, Matthias and I were talking when you left and we were basically just waiting to die." Dylan suddenly said. Before he could continue, Sherry interrupted him.

"I was getting help; you guys should've at least stayed a little hopeful." She puffed her cheeks out angrily.

Dylan chuckled and ruffled her hair. "There was no sage. Matthias thought the building was going to collapse and sent you away."

"Again, you stupidly-"

"I know. Next time, we'll find a way for everyone to survive." Dylan reassured. Sherry pouted but stayed silent.

"Anyways, so, at the time, I wasn't really thinking straight because I was severely injured, but Matthias' injuries weren't too serious. He could've made it out alive but he chose to stay with me instead. I was wondering why he would do that."

"Isn't it obvious. It's because he's your friend. You guys are basically gay for each other." Sherry blandly stated.

Dylan looked at Sherry with a weird expression. "…We're not friends anymore. He, uh, betrayed me."

Sherry's eyes widened. "Why? You guys were bestest friends. Did he sell information to the enemy? Or did he join the enemy? What happened? Why didn't you tell me this earlier? I spoke of Matthias a few times before, if I knew, I wouldn't have talked about him."

"I, I didn't want to remind you of…unpleasant memories. You cried the last time I wanted to ask you about it, but since we're d-dating now, I thought it was best to talk about it." Dylan glumly explained.

"Matthias didn't do anything to me though. He saved my life and almost died in the process!" Sherry cried and revealed.

"What? He, he told me that he killed you. That he didn't want the peace talks to go through and planned to murder you." It was Dylan's turn to be surprised now. Up until now, he had always been under the impression that Matthias murdered Sherry, after all, he was the leader of the organisation that plotted the assassination.

"Why would he tell you that? It was actually my fault that we got ambushed." Tears welled up in Sherry's eyes at the memory. "I actually befriended an adventurer and told her about the travel plans and even allowed her to join the group. Who would've known that she was part of an underground organisation. She stabbed one of the knights and, and, killed another. Then, a group of men in black appeared out of nowhere and began to attack us. The knights killed the adventurer but many more were killed by the assassins. In the end, in order to buy time for us to escape, the knights stayed behind and were all killed."

Dylan silently pulled Sherry into his tight embrace. He rubbed her hair and back in a vain attempt to soothe her. Little did he know that his warm gesture only made Sherry cry even harder.

"It was my fault! It was all my fault that everyone died. If I wasn't so trusting, if I wasn't so stupid, no one would've died." Sherry's words were laced with self-loathing and regret.

"No, it wasn't your fault, Sherry. Please don't blame yourself like this." Dylan whispered with a deep voice.

Sherry shook her head. "Matthias kept protecting me because I was so useless. I kept dragging him down and even got stabbed through the chest. Because of that, Matthias also got stabbed. I was so distraught that I just cast my incomplete spell on him."

"I implicated everyone. All the people on the escort team, John, Jacky, Ben, Barry, Ken, Peter, everyone, dead, because of me."

"Why didn't you tell me when I first asked you? Did you think I would hate you? You know I'll never hate you." Dylan hugged Sherry and asked with a shaky voice.

"I, I thought you would blame me for it."

"Am I the type of person that would do that?"

"No, I know that, but, I was just so scared. I was scared that if you found out, you'd hate me forever." The heart was irrational. Even though Sherry knew that Dylan would never blame her, she was always afraid that he'd turn away from her because of it.

"Sherry." When Sherry lifted her head to look at him, Dylan saw her red eyes and tear stained face. Though she appeared to be sorrowful and pitiful, he still found her like a cute little rabbit. Without saying anything, he planted an affectionate kiss on Sherry's forehead. "I love you. I would never hate you. Especially not because of something completely outside of your control."

Sherry broke down into sobs. "I'm sorry. I love you too. I didn't tell you all this time and I didn't even ask how you had died. Sorry."

Dylan kept patting Sherry to calm her down. "I was murdered, by Matthias himself. Stabbed me in the heart, with the dagger I gave him too."

Sherry raised her head again, her eyes wide with shock.

"The organisation that led the assassination against you is led by Matthias. He killed you and after I found out, he killed me too."

There was only disbelief written all over Sherry's face.

"The organisation is his mother's. She left him with his father to get inside information on the nobles and also secretly trained him to one day inherit the organisation. In the one year after your death, Matthias raised the organisation from mid-size to one of the most powerful, most dominate in all of Frin and possibly, all of Diva."

"He, he's been lying to us all this time?"

"…That's what I thought too. But it just didn't make sense. Why would he agree to slay the demon? He didn't have to, but he did. And he stayed behind to die with me even though he could've made it outside. Why? It doesn't make any sense!" Dylan continued with difficulty. "He didn't deny all the accusations I threw at him either. It was as if he wanted me to hate him. And then, he just watched on as I died."

Even Dylan was crying now. He was silently shedding tears as he recalled his time with Matthias. Sherry wiped away his tears and tried to comfort him.

"Whatever his aim may be, the person himself is not here, there's no point questioning it. Just forget, Dylan. Forget about that world, this is Earth, not Diva."

"Un. I know. Thank you." Dylan whispered.

"Do you want to go to school?" Sherry suddenly asked, changing to subject.

Dylan tilted his head blankly.

"I'm going to go back to uni next year so I thought you might want to go too. Do you have anything you want to do?"

"But I'm already modelling."

"I know but you don't do that that much do you? In these few months, you've only done that twice."

Dylan thought about what he's been doing for the past few months. What he enjoyed most other than being with Sherry was probably his time with the children. He enjoyed seeing them grow each day and how eager they were to improve.

"I think I want to be a teacher."

"Then you can be a teacher and part time model. Isn't that cool?" Sherry laughed.

"Yeah. I'm going to leave that world behind me and start anew. Thanks, Sherry." Dylan chuckled and rubbed Sherry's cheeks. The two were still hugging each other intimately and Sherry was basically sitting in Dylan's lap. Their faces were only a few centimetres apart, so close that they could see the fine hairs on each other's faces.

"*Cough cough*" Sherry coughed and pushed herself away awkwardly. "I, uh, will go wash my face."

"Y-yeah, sure. Go ahead."

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Author: A serious chapter right after a not serious one. Balanced as all things should be.

Reader:…You can't keep changing the mood like that, you know?

Author: They had to talk about it sooner or later.

Reader: Not like this, dude, not like this.

Author: Bleh, I don't care~

Reader:…

Author: Cough, put that gun away, let's talk civilly like normal human beings.