Chapter 77.

“Why can’t you at least tell me your name? Is it really such a big deal if I know?!”

“It’s not a big deal. It’s just that there’s no point in telling a stranger I’ll never meet again what my name is.”

“You really are an unlikable jerk to the very end.”

“Then you’re just an unlovable fugly brat.”

“Hmmp! Some Prince Charming you are. You’re more like Prince Frog at the Bottom of the Well or Prince Man with No Eyes.”

“Yeah. That’s right, that’s what I really am, so leave me alone. I’ll be back in a bit, so wait there patiently for the doctor to see you.”

“Don’t come back. Who needs a jerk like you around anyways?”

Her reaction was so normal when compared to the past, that it really left me with an overbearing, bittersweet aftertaste in my mouth.

Wordlessly, I turned away from her and continued towards the exit. The moment I stepped passed the ward’s doors, I felt something tug on my sleeve from behind.

When I turned around, I found Adele with her back facing me. She’d pinched my left sleeve with her right hand.

“What is it now?”

“You’ll really come back, right?”

“This again? Of course I will, so just relax.”

I lifted my free right hand and placed it on top of her head. I gently brushed it through her pristine white hair from behind for what I thought would certainly be the last. I held a small lock of her hair when I pulled my hand away. It was extremely smooth, silky and soft. Like the finest thread, it slid through the crevices of my fingers until parting ways as if fluttered back to rest in its original position behind her back.

At first, her body tensed up a bit after my unexpected action, but she didn’t freak out. Instead of getting weirded out and instinctively puting distance between the two of us, she relaxed her shoulders as though she felt some sort of reassurance.

Why did I get so sentimental when I looked at the completely normal version of her? Haaaah. This feeling... it’s honestly just gross and unnecessary. The thought of what could have been if she had always been like this when we were together all those years ago flew through my mind. Though I immediately refuted the thought as quickly as it came. The past was the past after all. No matter how much you wished that things turned out differently, it would never change.

The two of us stood on separate sides of the entrance to the ward. For some reason, the ward’s entrance felt like a strange divider that kept us on our respective sides. It felt like a barrier that I couldn’t cross over to enter anymore. Internally, I was curious whether she felt the same way.

There was a time in the past where we were two complete strangers. Yet, through a series of coincidences, we ended up meeting, and each of our lives were influenced heavily by the other.

For her, she wasted five precious years of her life away in a mental asylum that she now no longer remembers.

For me, my entire life flipped upside down, both through my time with her, and a series of unfortunate relationships that followed after our relationship ended.

After Adele, it was a hired killer. The next was the super all knowing stalker, Anna Thena. After my third relationship, I became mentally unstable and met my fourth ex, in other words, my doctor who also turned out to be another complete psychopath.

While ‘treating me’ of my mental instabilities from events related to my prior three traumatic relationships, she somehow fell madly in love with me, her patient. However, my fifth ex was probably the most dangerous of the five. Even thinking of her true identity leaves me internally terrified.

The queen of black markets across the globe, the ‘Bloody Queen of the Underworld,’ so to speak. The leader of the largest criminal syndicate who inherited the position from her now retired father. Her organization has a monopoly on several billion, or perhaps trillion dollar, unregulated industries that ranged from human, drug, and organ trafficking. In addition to that, they had a big stake in many other branching illegal industries; you name it, and you would likely find them behind it somehow.

Really, how did I let myself get romantically involved with such a shockingly big time player when all I ever wanted was a quiet peaceful life?

Haha. Well… it actually wasn’t as impossible as you’d think. My fourth ex was her cousin. One time when they were supposed to meet, I discovered her and inadvertently got in her good books without knowing who she was. My plan was to find a way to escape my fourth ex, and I thought I could do so through her at the time. Unfortunately for me, she was a person far scarier than I could have ever imagined back then, and she took a fancy to me after I daringly approached her in spite of the strange sort of relationship I had with her cousin.

As for how I got out of my relationship with my fifth ex in the end, that was because I got her father to hate me and break us up. She couldn’t go against her father’s orders and reluctantly broke up with me despite what she really wanted.

However, she still continued to relentlessly text me even after the fact. Of course, I eventually set up my phone to automatically delete any messages that came from her. I did so by creating an AI I programmed using deep learning neural networks to identify her texting mannerisms. As such, I haven't contacted her or responded to anything she has sent me since we broke up.

Why didn’t I just block her number? Well, she disposes her phone several times on a daily basis. Her number was constantly changing. There wasn’t really any way for me to simply outright block her with just a phone number due to the lifestyle she lives. Changing my number didn’t do me any good either. Do you really think it’s easy to hide anything from her with her networks? She’d be the first person alerted to what my new number was. If I tossed my phone altogether, she’d just send me a new phone with an ominous note saying, ‘do it again and you’re dead,’ with a cutesy heart written out in blood at the end of the message.

Not only that, if I did respond to her and her father discovered that I was still in contact with her, I definitely wouldn’t be able to live a peaceful life. I might even be sleeping at the bottom of the ocean if he knew about it.

Overall, all five of my exes were freaking scary as hell. Out of my five exes, four of them I’d prefer to never see again.

It may be surprising, but the single exception whom I was the least afraid of was my second ex, the hired killer. I wasn’t aware of it back then, but she was only acting as though she was in love with me in the beginning when she first approached me. Later on her feelings did become more serious though. However, with the skills that came with her profession, I easily let my guard down around her and opened up to her the most. She didn’t kill of her own will, but based upon the contracts she’d taken up. That was likely the only reason why I didn’t feel as scared of her when compared to the other four.

Strangely, I found solace in that little fact. When I first discovered her identity after she disappeared, I was shocked; I felt betrayed, but I didn’t feel as afraid of her when I compared her to Adele. We had very normal conversations, dates, and similar interests. In the end, it was the only break up completely opposite to my other four failed relationships. It was the only one that came to an abrupt anticlimactic end without any sort of closure, she just quietly disappeared without any prior warning one day. She was the only one that gave me space and breathing room despite being a little pushy at times.

While I lost myself in thoughts of the past, by the time I came to, Adele had at some point quietly returned to her room. The entire time, I’d likely stood there like an idiot as I awkwardly stared blankly off into empty space. Slightly embarrassed, with a somewhat lonely smile, I hid away the pain I felt towards my cowardly decisions deep down. I took one last look at the ward before I walked away without turning back. Finally, I exited out the hospital’s front entrance and returned to my car.

After I put the key in the ignition, the car’s engine rumbled, and I immediately drove off into the distance. I returned to my apartment, then passed out not long after I hit the bed like a rock. With how mentally exhausted I was, I easily fell into a very deep slumber.

…