[Leif’s POV—ThorenVald Estate—Before Dawn]

Falling felt endless. No air. No ground. No sound. Just the cold weight of nothing dragging me through everything.

And then—

THUD!

Pain. Real, physical, undignified pain.

I groaned as I hit the floor, the edge of the bed stabbing me squarely in the ribs. The world snapped back into color—violent, blinding color. Marble against my cheek, cold air stinging my skin, and that faint golden pulse under my ribs flaring like a dying star struggling to breathe.

I lay there for a second, face down on the cold floor, trying to remember how gravity worked. My vision spun lazily; the ceiling bled into the walls, the candlelight flickered like a migraine, and my heart thudded somewhere between panic and disbelief.

I coughed, tasting iron. "...Ow."

Brilliant comeback. Truly divine of me.

I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling. The ornate carvings looked the same as before, except somehow everything felt sharper—too sharp. Like the world itself had been repainted in colors I wasn’t supposed to see.

"So," I muttered hoarsely, "the real Leif ThorenVald is alive."

The words sounded absurd out loud. Alive. Resting somewhere under the seal, waiting to take his body back once the Devil’s done and I’ve played my part.

"What a cruel joke," I whispered to the ceiling. "What a delightful little prank, Grandma God. Bravo."

I laughed once—a brittle, hollow sound that cracked halfway through.

Because it wasn’t funny.

I’m just a replacement. A patch. A temporary fix stitched into a divine error.

And because of that stupid, manipulative, overpowered Grandma God with a twisted sense of humor, I managed to make the one person I love most look at me like I was a stranger.

My chest tightened, the mark beneath my ribs pulsing faintly—almost like it agreed.

I made my Alvar angry.

. . .

"Right," I murmured. "My Alvar."

The words came out softer than I wanted them to. Too soft. Too honest.

I pressed a palm against my heart as if that could quiet the ache underneath. "My first love. The man I—" My throat locked up before I could say love .

Because what was the point?

He’ll forget me anyway.

He’ll forget my voice. My laugh. The warmth of my hand in his. And I’ll disappear from every corner of his memory like I was never here at all.

I exhaled shakily, forcing a crooked smile. "Congratulations, Leif. You’re the most romantic tragedy in divine history. A cosmic one-night stand."

The silence didn’t disagree.

I turned onto my side, dragging myself back onto the bed. The sheets were cold, the kind of cold that crawled under your skin and stayed there.

"I hate this," I muttered into the pillow. "I hate gods. I hate fate. And I really hate being recycled."

The words broke on my tongue halfway through. I closed my eyes, breath hitching.

"I really hate it," I whispered again, smaller this time. "I hate that I was chosen. I hate that she picked me ."

Why me? Why this body? Why this world?

Why am I the soul that fits perfectly inside someone else’s skin?

My fingers curled into the sheets until my knuckles went white. The silence pressed harder against my chest.

One tear slipped out before I could stop it. Then another. Quiet, unimportant, but still heavy enough to sting.

"Leif...?"

The sound of my name broke the air. My head turned just enough to see him standing in the doorway—hair tousled, dressed in soft night clothes that made him look too human for a man who could break me this easily.

Alvar’s eyes softened the moment he saw me.

He crossed the room, his voice low and careful, like he was approaching something fragile. "What are you doing down there?"

I blinked at him through the blur. My throat hurt when I tried to speak.

He crouched down beside me. "The floor’s freezing," he murmured. "Come on, love, get up."

His hand was warm when it brushed against mine. I let him help me up, too tired to resist, too hollow to speak.

He guided me back to the bed and sat next to me. I didn’t look at him. Couldn’t.

He softly brushed away the tear that dared to stay. "What happened?"

I didn’t answer. My lips trembled, but the words wouldn’t come.

"Did you fall? Does it hurt somewhere?" he asked again, his hand on my cheek now, his voice trembling with worry.

And that—that broke me.

Because I could feel it. His concern. His love. The kind of love that reached for me even when I was falling apart in ways he couldn’t see.

I looked up at him, eyes wet, breath uneven. "I..." My voice cracked. "I don’t want you to forget me."

He blinked, startled. "What?"

"I—" My chest clenched painfully, my throat closing around the words. "I don’t want you to forget me, Alvar. I can’t —" My voice broke entirely. "I really don’t want you to forget me."

I didn’t even know when I moved, but I was already in his arms, clutching at him like he was the only thing keeping me from dissolving completely.

"Leif," he whispered, holding me tighter, his hand splayed against my back. "Why would I ever forget you?"

I shook my head, my voice muffled against his chest. "You don’t understand."

"Then make me," he said softly. "Help me understand, Leif."

I swallowed hard, my body trembling as I finally pulled away just enough to see him. His eyes searched mine, worried and aching.

"It’s..." My lips parted, but the words came out broken, barely there. "It’s Renji."

He frowned, confusion flickering across his face. "What?"

"My name." The words scraped their way out of my throat, quiet but sharp enough to hurt. "My real name...Is Renji Takeda."

His eyes widened a little — just enough to show the disbelief that trembled behind them. His hands, the same hands that had just been cradling my face, slowly dropped to his sides.

"Leif," he said quietly, the name almost sounding uncertain now, like it no longer fit in his mouth. "What are you saying? I... I don’t understand anything."

I swallowed hard. My heart hammered so loudly it drowned out everything else. "You wanted the truth, didn’t you? You wanted to know who that man was that night—when Alina went missing. The one who looked exactly like me."

He didn’t nod. He didn’t speak.He just sat there, still and silent, like the air itself had forgotten to move.

"I..." I exhaled shakily, my throat burning. "I’m not the Leif Thorenvald you think I am."

The words hung in the air — heavy, irreversible, poisonous.

His breath caught. I saw the disbelief flicker in his eyes, then pain, then something deeper — something breaking.

"I wasn’t born here,"

I continued, my voice trembling, splintering with every word. "This isn’t my home. This isn’t even my world. "

He flinched slightly, as if the words themselves struck him.

"I don’t belong here, Alvar," I said, forcing the truth out before I lost the courage. "I’m not from this kingdom, this land — not even from this reality. I’m a man from another dimension."

Silence.

He stared at me, his lips parting but no sound coming out. His pupils dilated slightly, shock rippling through every line of his face.

I forced myself to go on — because if I stopped now, I’d never have the strength again.

"I’m from a world," I said slowly, carefully, like every word was a blade I had to swallow, "where there are no rulers. No magic. No dragons. No divine beings who decide who lives or dies."

His expression didn’t shift — just his jaw tightening ever so slightly, the only thing betraying how hard he was listening.

"In my world," I continued, "we’re just... people. Small, ordinary people who work until we break just to survive another day. There’s no light in our blood, no gods in our skies — just steel towers and hunger and noise. And money."

I gave a hollow, breathless laugh. "Gods, so much of life there revolves around money."

I could see confusion flickering in his eyes, but he didn’t interrupt. Not yet.

"I was one of them," I whispered. "Just another man in that world. Not chosen. Not divine. Just... tired. Too tired to keep going."

My throat closed as the memories surfaced — blurred, ugly fragments of an existence I had long stopped trying to remember."The night I died," I said quietly, "I was drunk. I’d lost everything that could still call itself a future. I collapsed by a trash bin behind some building. I remember the smell. The cold. The sound of rain hitting the concrete."

I swallowed hard, my hands trembling where they rested on my knees."And when I woke up... I wasn’t me anymore."

For the first time, Alvar’s lips parted to speak — but I kept going before he could, because the truth needed to come out whole or not at all.

"I woke up here. In his body. In Leif Thorenvald’s body."

He exhaled sharply — the sound breaking through the silence like a crack in glass.

I met his eyes. "At first, I thought I’d gone insane. That I was in some dream I couldn’t wake from. Because this place — this world — it didn’t feel real. It felt... written."

His brow furrowed. "Written?"

"Yes." I hesitated, searching for words that wouldn’t sound like madness. "A world that was... already decided. Like a story with its ending written before it ever began."

His voice was low when he spoke. "A novel?"

I nodded weakly. "In my world, stories like this — kingdoms, prophecies, heroes and devils — they exist only on paper. Fiction. Someone writes them. People read them for entertainment."

He stared at me, his disbelief turning quiet, almost reverent in its shock. "And this... this world..."

"...was one of them."

His breath caught.

I nodded again, forcing the words past the tremor in my throat. "And this story was about you—Grand Duke Alvar Regulffsson. The man destined to end with the saintess...Elowen."

For a heartbeat, neither of us moved.

I saw it happen—the shift in his face. Not rage. Not disbelief. Something far worse. Grief. The kind that doesn’t come from loss, but from realizing you’ve been living inside someone else’s story all along.

His lips parted, but the words came out hollow, trembling.

"Then..." he said slowly, as though each word hurt to breathe, "who is Leif Thorenvald, then?"

The silence swallowed the question whole.