I Became the Villain Alpha's Omega (BL)

"What do you honestly think about Cherion, Karson?"

The question felt oddly heavy for a calm afternoon. Karson, who had been methodically tidying a stack of tax ledgers that seemed to multiply whenever Yerel turned his back, paused halfway through his work. He looked up, one eyebrow slowly rising as if questioning what he’d just heard. The look he gave suggested this was the last thing he expected to be discussing now.

"That is a rather pointedly unusual thing to ask today," Karson remarked, setting the papers down with a soft thud. He straightened his posture, his eyes searching Yerel’s face as if expecting a hint of a joke that wasn’t there. "Did something particular happen in the North? A raven I missed, perhaps?"

He waved a hand as if to brush it away, fingers tapping without pause on the desk. "Nothing happened. Zarius is being his usual, insufferable self, brooding, territorial, and generally acting like the cold has finally frozen his brain solid. It’s irritating." He leaned back, the chair creaking slightly as it shifted. "So, back to my question. Cherion. What’s the verdict?"

Karson sighed, the sound of a man who knew he was about to step into a conversational minefield. He took a moment, leaning back against the bookshelf. "Well, if we’re looking at the facts... he comes from a stellar lineage. A good family, through and through. Their family has been loyal to His Majesty for generations, which counts for a lot in this court. Skill-wise? He didn’t possess anything you’d call extraordinary. No world-shaking magic, no genius-level strategy. But he was... present."

Yerel snorted softly, but Karson continued, his tone shifting into something more reflective.

"And then, of course, there was the devotion. He was deeply in love with you, Your Highness. I think ’extreme’ is the polite word for it. It was a fixation that crossed lines, occasionally violent ones, God knows Lord Philia still carries the mental scars from that particular mess. But," Karson shrugged, a small, almost reluctant concession in his voice, "if you strip away the obsession part? He was actually a pretty decent man. Beautiful, obviously. Quite smart when he wasn’t blinded by his own heart. A bit tragic, really."

Yerel’s eyes darkened, his gaze drifting toward the window where the afternoon sun was beginning to lose its fight against the gray horizon. "Right. He worshiped me. That’s the word you’re looking for, isn’t it? He worshiped the ground I walked on."

"Worshipped sounds so aggressive," Karson mused, rubbing his chin. "But honestly? It’s probably the closest we’ll get to the truth. He didn’t just love you; he made you his entire faith."

Yerel stood up abruptly, the legs of his chair screeching against the floor. He began to pace the narrow strip of rug in front of his desk. "Exactly. How can someone just... change? So suddenly? So drastically? It’s as if he woke up one morning and decided the last decade of his life was a fever dream he’d finally recovered from. It isn’t natural."

"It’s weird, certainly," Karson agreed, his voice dropping an octave as he watched Yerel’s agitation. "But humans are strange creatures, My Lord. What if it was triggered by a painful experience? Something so sharp it felt like something finally gave way? Sometimes people simply turn away from everything. It’s a survival mechanism, I suppose."

Karson walked closer, his expression softening with a rare bit of unasked-for philosophy. "Think of it like this. Imagine a little child. A boy who never really felt the warmth of his parents, no matter what he did. He brings them flowers, they scold him for getting mud on the rug. He brings them top marks, they tell him he should have done better. Instead of love, he gets a cold shoulder or a sharp tongue. Maybe even a beating when the wine runs too deep."

Yerel stopped pacing, his back to Karson.

"That child might try to rationalize it for years," Karson continued. "He’ll hang on, thinking if he just tries a little harder, if he’s just a little quieter, a little better, the love will finally come. But eventually? The well runs dry. He can’t accept the rejection anymore. So, he decides to stop chasing it. He kills all that love he had, smothers it in his sleep, and turns it into a hard, cold hate. Or worse, he turns it into nothing at all. Complete indifference. And once that point is reached, it cannot be undone."

Yerel said nothing. He brought a single finger to his lips, lost in a labyrinth of his own thoughts.

"Why are we suddenly talking about him again, anyway?" Karson asked, breaking the tension with a light, curious tilt of his head. "He’s in the North. Out of sight, out of mind, right?"

Yerel snapped back to the present, shaking his head as if to clear away cobwebs. "Right. Of course. I... I think I’ll go look for Philia. See how he’s doing."

Karson merely nodded, though his eyes lingered on Yerel a second too long. "As you wish, My Lord."

Yerel left the study, walking with clear intent. He meant to head for the gardens where Philia usually spent his afternoons, but as he moved through the winding, familiar corridors of the estate, his feet seemed to develop a mind of their own. His brain said right, but his muscles moved left. He didn’t even realize where he was going until he found himself standing in a quiet wing of the castle that had been left alone for some time.

He was standing in front of Cherion’s chambers. Or rather, what used to be Cherion’s chambers.

Yerel reached out, his hand hesitating for a heartbeat before he turned the handle. The door opened slowly, creaking as it moved.

The room was abandoned. Most of the furniture had been draped in white sheets, making the space look like a graveyard for things that hadn’t quite died yet. The room smelled faintly of old lavender and dust. Yerel stepped into the room.

Then, he heard it.

"Your Highness?"

The whisper was faint, carrying a kind of pathetic longing that used to grate on his nerves. He turned toward the window, and for a split second, he saw him.

Cherion.

He stood there, framed by the window and bathed in that hazy, afternoon light, wearing a smile that looked far too bright for such a heavy room. It was that soft, radiant expression he used to wear whenever Yerel entered a room, a look of pure hope. This was the man who had lived for a single glance, the one who would have happily let himself be unmade if it meant earning a second of Yerel’s approval. He looked vibrant, yet in this dusty stillness, he seemed impossibly fragile.

The image didn’t match the man now in the North, the one who looked at him with clear disgust, yet smiled so easily at Zarius.

"Cherion?" Yerel whispered, his heart hammering against his ribs.

He walked toward the figure, reaching out a hand to touch the shoulder, but as he neared, the image shivered and dissolved. It was just a flaring curtain, caught in a sudden gust of wind from a window that hadn’t been latched properly.

Yerel stood in the center of the empty room, shaken to his core. The silence was deafening now. This place was dead. The man who had lived here was dead.

He backed away, his breath hitching. He couldn’t stay here. He couldn’t look at the white sheets or smell the stale lavender for another second. He retreated into the hallway, his hand trembling as he caught the edge of the door and slammed it shut with a resounding bang.

He stood in the corridor, fuming, his chest heaving as he tried to regain his composure. He covered half his face with a shaking hand, his fingers digging into his skin.

"No," he hissed into the empty hallway, his voice cracking with a desperate sort of anger. "There’s no way. There is absolutely no way I’m missing him."