When the Wild Beast is Trapped in the Nightmare Cycle (BL)
Chapter 649: Even Until The End

Chapter 649: Even Until The End

Noir had caught him right as he was about to crash to the ground, and the unstoppable momentum sent the two of them smashing right into earth like a meteor.

Out of pure reflex, Noir wrapped his arms and body tightly around Gu Luoxin to shield him from the impact, and he ended up landing hard on his knees to absorb the full brunt of the fall. The Eldest Young Master truly lived up to his title as a human weapon, as such a bone-shattering impact that should have crushed anyone else left no damage on his body at all.

Instead, a shallow crater was carved on the ground beneath them, sending up a roaring storm of dust in their wake.

Despite his blurred vision, Gu Luoxin still struggled to open his eyes wide, unwilling to waste even one precious second of what little time he had left.

"Se... nior...?" he forced himself to speak, only to choke on the blood that had coagulated in his throat.

Are you real? He wanted to ask. How did you find me amidst all that chaos? Have you been searching for me all along? Were you... very worried?

Oh, he had so much he wanted to ask, so much that he wanted nothing but to babble away, spilling all the horror and atrocities he had experienced so far. Yet he was dismayed to find that even speaking these two words had drained most of his energy; all he could do was drink in the sight of the man greedily, tracing every line and contour and committing them to memory.

Perhaps because of the fall, Noir appeared to be in the most disheveled state Gu Luoxin had ever seen him in—his clothes were wrinkled and torn in a few places, his hair dusty, and dirt marks marred his cheeks.

And yet he still looked gorgeous this way, still able to seize Gu Luoxin’s breath away as easily as the first day he saw the man.

Gu Luoxin wanted to hide the sight of his gruesome body, to assure the man that everything was fine, but alas, his body felt as heavy as a rock. He could no longer move them.

Noir had sensed something amiss the moment he caught Gu Luoxin in midair, but it wasn’t until now that he could see everything clearly—the young man’s broken form lay cradled in his arms, blood gushing out of his stumped torso in a relentless stream, staining the two of them and the ground in crimson.

Noir’s emerald pupils shrunk as his breath caught in his throat.

"... Where’s your healing prop?" he rasped, his voice as rough as sandpaper.

"It’s..." Gu Luoxin spoke between faint breaths, "... useless..."

Through his ringing ears, he faintly heard Noir shouting, saying something about the free pass, but Gu Luoxin wasn’t sure. Perhaps he was already hallucinating at this point. The Noir he knew had never even raised his voice, let alone shouting. Gu Luoxin squeezed his eyes shut before opening them again, yet the sight before him remained blurry as though veiled in a layer of crimson haze.

He felt Noir’s hand brushing across his cheek—cold and hard, unlike a human touch—and only then did he belatedly register that the man seemed to be calling for him.

"...Stay with me! Don’t close your eyes!"

Gu Luoxin bit the inside of his cheek, willing himself to stay awake a little longer—just a second longer—despite the drowsiness weighing heavily on his eyelids. He wasn’t foolish; he also knew how dangerous it was to fall asleep at a moment like this.

Gu Luoxin was not quite willing to fall asleep yet. He still had not looked at Noir enough, had not spoken to him enough, and—

—And he still hadn’t told Noir, that he liked him.

How cliché, he thought in a daze.

Dying in the arms of the person you liked was such a cliché way to die, a plot that had become overused in movies. Never in his wildest dreams had Gu Luoxin ever foreseen that one day it would be happening to him too. Before, he could not figure out why the characters rushed to convey their feelings, struggling to say the three words ’I like you’ or ’I like you’ before taking their last breath.

How unfair was it to the person left behind, having to carry the ghost of these heavy words as they kept on living?

But now Gu Luoxin understood... he understood it so much that it hurts. Because now the same urge was also seizing him. He wanted nothing more than to blurt out his most sincere feelings, to tell Noir how much he liked him, before he got the chance to do it no more.

But he couldn’t do it—not when Noir was making that kind of face.

Ah, a trembling exhale slipped out of his lips.

Even until the end, Gu Luoxin still could not say the words he wanted to say the most.

A little reluctance, helplessness, and regret welled up inside him. But the most profound was the deep, overwhelming sorrow that carved a much deeper pain than any physical wound ever could. He did not even realize he had been crying until Noir cupped his cheek, wiping the hot tears sliding down from the corner of his eyes. When Noir brought their foreheads together, whispering to him, "Wait a little more. Just a little more, Nian is on his way here..." only then did Gu Luoxin notice that the man’s hand had fully morphed into a skeleton, so did a part of his face. It was as if his flesh was dissolving bit by bit to reveal the white bones beneath.

It was a familiar sight, one he had seen before when they were under mental attack in the previous Cycle, but also foreign because this time, the symptom was clearly worse, especially when Noir’s body was supposed to be fully mechanical right now.

Gu Luoxin had no idea where he got the strength to grab Noir’s hand, to cling onto those cold and hard skeletal fingers. The trembling breath he exhaled was laced with the indelible scent of blood as his body temperature became colder and colder.

He instinctively knew— he did not have much time left.

"...kill... me..."

Gu Luoxin mustered all of his strength to speak, yet his voice came out no louder than a mosquito buzz.

He felt Noir’s hand tremble in his grasp.

Once again, Gu Luoxin squeezed his eyes shut before opening them again, but his action was noticeably slower this time as though such a simple task required quite a considerable amount of effort from his part. "My kingkong and Toki... please..." take care of them, the rest of his words went unsaid, lost in between the struggle to breathe.

Gu Luoxin did not want to ask this of Noir if he could.

It was too cruel, far too cruel to ask his kind senior to end his life. Maybe more cruel than to simply confess his feelings. But still, he could not allow his kingkong and baby dinosaur to wither away with him. He could not close his eyes knowing they would fade into oblivion—or worse, return to the Nightmare—after he died.

From the moment Gu Luoxin acquired them, they were not just a skill card and divine prop for him. They were his companions, partners, and friends who had been through life and death together. He could almost hear them weep and cry out for him despite all the restrictions in place.

And only to Noir could he entrust them. Because he knew that his senior would definitely take care of them well.

They were a part of himself, a solid proof that he had once existed. Wanting them to stay with Noir was not just to prevent them from disappearing, but also a form of selfishness on Gu Luoxin’s part.

Now that he could no longer confess his feelings, leaving a little bit of himself with the person he liked would be allowed... right?

"Please, senior... they–ukh!" Gu Luoxin hacked out another mouthful of blood, and in the next second he was engulfed in Noir’s embrace, hugged tightly just the way he had always been dreaming of—almost desperately—while the man’s ragged and harsh breathing echoed beside his ears.

"I know..." he whispered, his voice brittle. Wisps of white smoke escaped his lips with each word he uttered, "I know so... don’t speak... don’t speak anymore— please..."