NOVGO.NET Chapter 303 - 303: Sadness
Lucian stepped out of the hotel.
Silently.
His movements lacked their usual grace, his shoes barely lifting off the ground as he moved like gravity had become heavier somehow.
“Is that what you wanted to show me, System?”
His voice didn’t come out aloud. It echoed only inside his own mind, flat and tired.
[You’ve got to grow up, Host. I just showed you the reality.]
The coldness in the system’s voice stung sharper than it should’ve. But Lucian didn’t argue.
Didn’t sigh.
Didn’t curse.
He just kept walking.
The hotel door shut behind him with a soft click, but it felt like it slammed shut on something more than a building on a chapter, a memory, a flicker of hope.
The streets outside buzzed with life.
Cars passed. People moved. Conversations blurred together in a low hum.
But Lucian? He was a shadow among them.
A few more slow steps, and then
He just stopped.
There, a short distance from the hotel entrance, near a side wall marked with age and fading paint, Lucian slowly crouched… and sat down.
Right on the pathway.
No care for the dust. No care for the stares.
His back leaned against the wall behind him, knees loosely drawn up. One hand resting over the other. Silent. Still.
People passed by some in suits, some with shopping bags, some holding hands and smiling. A few gave him brief glances. Most just walked faster.
Their expressions said it all.
What’s he doing here?
Why’s he just sitting like that?
Is he okay?
But no one said a word. Not one person stopped.
Lucian didn’t care. His gaze didn’t move from the hotel entrance. His face, carved from stillness. Only his eyes betrayed him dull, quiet, and exhausted.
His mind, though?
Raging.
Full of broken thoughts spinning around like jagged glass.
[What happened?]
The system’s voice cut in this time a little sharper. Almost strict.
Lucian didn’t even blink.
“What happened? Nothing. I’m just sitting here now, right? Or even this isn’t allowed?”
He spoke back without tone, Trying to be casual as much as he could be still not able to.
[Kid…]
The voice hesitated for the first time. Not because it didn’t know the answer. But because it didn’t know how to say it in a way Lucian would hear.
Lucian didn’t say a word.
He just sat there.
Still. Silent. Eyes fixed on the entrance of the hotel like it was a doorway to answers he knew he’d never get.
People passed by in waves talking, laughing, frowning, living. Their footsteps blurred into background noise, their voices mere static in his mind.
But he…
He was frozen.
Trapped in a single thought.
Why… am I like this?
He had promised himself again and again he wouldn’t do this anymore.
No more looking back.
No more checking her socials.
No more asking around like some desperate idiot.
“Cut her off. Forget her. Move on,” he had told himself every time.
And yet…
Every time, he broke.
Just a glimpse.
Just a peek at a mutual friend’s post.
Just scrolling back to the old photos he swore he’d deleted.
Just wondering what she might be doing when he couldn’t sleep at 2 AM.
Even now, a part of him wanted to storm back inside that hotel, demand answers, grab her shoulders and shout,
“Why? Why are you doing this to me? Didn’t you propose to me just days ago?”
“Didn’t you say you were pregnant with his child… right in front of your family, in front of me, like I didn’t even exist?”
“Weren’t you…?”
He stopped himself.
The thoughts spiraled like a whirlpool, ready to suck him down, but he squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his fists.
No. Stop. Don’t go there.
He inhaled shaky, thin, useless.
Exhaled like it carried nothing out.
“It’s not her.”
“It’s me.”
“My problem.”
He whispered the truth to himself like a confession dragged from a bleeding throat.
“I keep trying to blame her. But in the end… it’s just me. I let this happen. I keep crawling back into the same pain. Again and again.”
His chest felt hollow, as if something had been scooped out long ago and never filled in.
The weight wasn’t physical it was worse. It was shame.
“I’ve lost all my self respect.”
He looked up slowly.
Gray clouds churned overhead, swollen and furious, like the sky itself was on edge.
And then
The first raindrop struck his cheek.
Then another.
And another.
And suddenly it poured.
Thunder cracked somewhere in the distance, followed by a flash of lightning that briefly turned the world bone white.
The rain came down in heavy, angry sheets.
Pedestrians shrieked and scrambled for shelter. Footsteps became frantic splashes. The street buzzed with chaos umbrellas snapping open, horns honking, people ducking into cafes and alcoves, fleeing the sudden downpour like it was a war zone.
But Lucian?
Lucian didn’t move.
He sat still completely still as the rain soaked through every layer of his clothing.
His black hair clung to his forehead. Cold rivulets ran down his face, over his lips, past his chin. His clothes clung to his body like a second skin, heavy and cold.
Yet he just sat there.
Like he didn’t even feel it.
Like he wanted it.
To drown out the heat in his chest. To numb the ache in his ribs. To blur the weight in his mind.
[Now I’m starting to regret bringing you here,] the system’s voice finally said. This time, it wasn’t just cold it was frustrated. Frayed at the edges.
[I thought… maybe if you saw it for yourself. You’d finally move on.]
Lucian said nothing.
The system waited, as if hoping for a reaction.
But Lucian didn’t give it one.
His lips remained still. His jaw locked. His eyes stayed on the wet pavement ahead, blurred by rain and his own hollow reflection.
[You’re just… sitting here.]
A beat of silence.
The system didn’t know what else to say. Not because it didn’t have words. But because Lucian wasn’t listening.
He wasn’t here.
Not really.
He was in the hotel.
In the moment Avey looked away.
When Avey looked at him… and turned away.
When her eyes once familiar, once soft swept past him like he didn’t exist.
His heart clung to that instant like a wound refusing to close.
And then
He remembered.
Her smile.
How she looked sitting across from Victor leaning forward just slightly, her lips curved, her eyes warm.
That effortless, delicate smile she wore as she sipped her coffee and nodded at something Victor had said.
Lucian let out a breathless, bitter laugh.
It wasn’t sharp. It wasn’t angry.
“She never smiled like that with me…”
The thought settled in his chest like lead.
Never. Not once.
He lowered his head, eyes blinking through the downpour, vision blurred not just from the rain.
A part of him wanted to hate her for it.
A part of him tried to.
But all he felt was a hollowness.
“She’s happy with him… isn’t she?”
His voice didn’t come out, but the thought echoed inside him like a whisper carved into stone.
“She must really love him.”
She avoided Lucian.
She pushed him away every time he got close.
But Victor?
She gravitated toward him like gravity had chosen a new center.
Should I just give her to him?
The question came uninvited, cruel in its clarity.
“He’s not a good man. I know what he’s capable of. I know what he wants. I know how he uses people…”
Lucian’s fists clenched against his soaked jeans.
“He will break her. He will hurt her.”
He shut his eyes tightly, jaw tense, body trembling not from the cold but from the conflict.
And yet…
She looked happy.
Genuinely, beautifully happy.
And maybe… just maybe… her happiness lies with him.
Even if he’s poison.
Even if it’s temporary.
Even if it ends in pain.
Lucian sat still, rainwater pouring off his lashes, pooling at his feet.
The hotel doors no longer mattered.
No one was walking in or out.
The streets were nearly empty now only the soft, relentless drumming of rain against the earth remained.
He stared at those doors like they held his entire past and future behind them.
“Why is it…” he wondered bitterly, “that the person you care about always ends up caring for someone who couldn’t give a damn about them?”
“Why can’t they see it? Why does it never matter what you do, what you give, how much you’d sacrifice?”
And yet…
He remembered the story.
He remembered the plot.
He knew how it all ended even if twisted, even if she suffered for it
She’d be happy. Eventually.
She’d survive. She’d smile again.
Maybe not now.
Maybe not for a while.
But one day… she would.
And that… was enough, wasn’t it?
Wasn’t it?
He shook his head, every part of him heavy.
“Why am I even worrying about her? It’s not my place anymore.”
“It’s her life. Her choices. She’s not a child she’s mature. Smart. Strong.”
His logic tried to carry him away.
But again
His heart whispered.
“I just… I want to talk to her. One more time. Just to ask… why?”
“Why did you propose to me, only to leave me in the dark?”
“Why tell me something so deep only to be sitting with him like I never existed?”
“Shouldn’t I at least say goodbye?”
A sudden spike of rage bloomed in his chest.
With a sharp grunt, he flung his head back
PAAK!
The back of his skull smacked hard against the stone wall behind him.
The pain was sharp, grounding.
Real.
“What the fuck am I thinking?” he muttered to himself, breath catching.
“I said I wouldn’t do this. I said I wouldn’t let her break me again.”
He repeated it.
Like a chant.
Like a curse.
“I said I wouldn’t.”
[Kid… calm down,] the system said softly after a long pause, voice no longer frustrated just quiet. Almost… helpless.
Lucian didn’t respond.
He didn’t even blink.
His mind drifted back, again. Always back.
To that smile.
To that table.
To the way she looked happier with someone else.
And then he asked silently, barely able to admit it:
“System…”
“Is it normal… to feel sad because the person you once loved looks happy now?”
“Even if you wished for that happiness?”
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