The silence that followed was rather stagnant, but it didn’t last as Alaric reached for Julian’s shoulders.

"But you didn’t have this before. I watched you wake up, I...," Alaric’s voice was slightly broken with confused despair, his hands tightening on Julian’s shoulders as if trying to physically hold him together.

And then he recalled what had happened the previous day. How Julian had been sitting upright, his eyes devoid of life. He refused to speak, but could this be...?

"Did it happen recently? Is that... is that why you were like that yesterday? You looked like you had the life sucked out of you, and you couldn’t tell me anything. Was it because of this... this illness?"

Illness, He said, it was an illness. Wouldn’t it have been nice if it were just an illness? At least then, he could find a cure, or even come up with one.

But it was more than that. It was a madness that had been inflicted on him as a punishment for reincarnation, he believed.

The system wouldn’t tell him exactly what he was being punished for, why his soul was unstable, and why he had to go through this hell every waking moment.

"Julian," The Duke called, his voice carrying tremors that grounded Julian into reality.

Julian let out a shaky breath, the relief of finally being seen hitting him harder than the madness ever could. He leaned his head against Alaric’s collarbone, the words tumbling out before he could think to pull them back.

"It started... about four months ago," Julian whispered, his voice cracking.

He didn’t mention the System, the glowing purple windows, or the fact that he was a soul from another world. He kept it to the symptoms—the terrifying, physical reality.

He thought that revealing all of that could bring about consequences that he probably could not handle. The duke had a 94% favorability, but what if the system could take that for revealing its existence?

But... Julian wanted to try. The weight of the truth was so heavy, it was so painful. He wanted to lean on someone, wanted to lean on the Duke, wanted to share it all with him,

But just when he decided to try, spill out the secret and get the weight off his chest, the system rang a cold chime in his head. The air in the room seemed to freeze as a blood-red window flickered into existence, so bright it made his retinas ache.

> [CORE SYSTEM PROTOCOL: ABSOLUTE SECRECY]

> [Warning: Unauthorized Disclosure of System Existence Detected.]

> [Penalty for Breach: Instant Erasure of Host Consciousness.]

> [Current Status: FINAL WARNING.]

The system was mocking him, right? The penalty was even worse than just affection deletion.

Julian’s breath hitched and bit his lips in an agonizing way,

He stared into the empty space over Alaric’s shoulder, his face contorting even more painfully than he intended.

The System was a jealous god; it would allow him to share his pain, but it would kill him before it allowed itself to be named. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

"Julian?" Alaric’s voice broke through the silence, his brow furrowed as he watched Julian stare at nothing.

Julian blinked, the red window vanishing as quickly as it had appeared. He gave Alaric a small, sad smile—one that didn’t reach his eyes—and buried his face back into the Duke’s chest. He wanted to cry, to scream, to forget his morals as a teacher and curse the invisible strings that moved him, but he simply tightened his grip.

"Can you... still not tell me?" The Duke asked, a slight tremor and concern filled in his tone.

"I suddenly started waking up like this," Julian began, his voice muffled by the silk of the Duke’s robe. "Shortness of breath... the feeling that the room is shrinking... like my head is being squeezed and my lungs won’t function... a frantic madness that I can’t understand. I’ve looked for a cure, Lucien. I’ve scoured every corner of the Imperial Library for even a trace of a similar case, but it’s unheard of. There’s nothing."

He twitched his fingers, his nails digging into Alaric’s back.

"That’s why I wouldn’t let Lucius sleep in the same room," Julian admitted, his voice dropping to a shamed murmur. "I was terrified of anyone finding out. I was scared of traumatising the boy, scared that you and everyone else would find out and then say... say I was possessed. I’d get cast out, or worse."

At the word ’possessed,’ Alaric went deathly still. The memory of the man from midnight—the one who had looked out of those same eyes with a chilling, predatory grin—flashed through his mind. Ah, we meet again.

"Julian," Alaric said, his voice dropping into a low, careful tone. He pulled back just enough to look Julian in the eyes, searching for even a glimmer of that stranger. "This illness... does it ever feel like you aren’t yourself?" He asked. "Do you... Do you have another personality? Someone else who shares your body with you and isn’t you?"

Julian blinked, looking genuinely confused. He hadn’t really noticed anything like that. Yes, he was a foreigner in this body, but as for there being another personality, he hadn’t exactly experienced it.

He shook his head lightly.

"No. It’s just... it’s just the pain, Lucien," he said. "I don’t know of another personality. I’m always me, just... a version of me that’s silently breaking. But..." he looked at the Duke, curious as to why he would ask something like that. "Have you noticed me doing anything strange? Do I sleepwalk?"

Alaric looked into his eyes, seeing the genuine curiosity in them. So, he didn’t know. He has no clue.

He brought his hand up to Julian’s face and caressed it.

"No," he lied. "There is nothing like that. I was just trying to figure it out more since it’s peculiar."

But even as he said this, Julian couldn’t help but feel something off.

"I haven’t seen you wake up with this illness." Alaric continued. "Does it have a period where it doesn’t bother you?" He tried to sound calm, but there was no hiding the panic in his voice.

The stranger aside, Julian was suffering, and he had no idea.

Julian gripped his own arm tight, his knuckles white. "That’s because... it stopped. After the accident during the hunt, it just disappeared. I thought I was free. I thought I had finally found peace here, with you. But then yesterday... it came back. It came back even worse than before, and I can’t breathe," he clawed at his throat, his voice cracking. "I can’t be at peace, Lucien. It haunts me so much."

Alaric’s heart felt like it was being squeezed by a gauntlet. He looked at the man in his arms—this fragile, honest soul who was terrified—and then he thought of the entity that had occupied Julian’s body at midnight.

If Julian didn’t even know about the ’other’ person, then the situation was far more dangerous than it seemed. And if that person’s appearance had anything to do with his illness, then this was by no means a simple illness.

Someone—or something—was waiting for Julian to weaken so it could take the reins.

"It is not your fault," Alaric said, his voice like a vow, pressing a fierce, protective kiss to the top of Julian’s head. "I don’t care if it’s an illness or a curse. I will find the man who has the cure, and if he won’t give it, I will take it."

Those words were very reassuring, but... was there really a cure in this world?