The World’s Strongest Are Obsessed With Me

Chapter 8

“Like you?” Hikan repeated in a cold, heavy voice.

His mood spiraled immediately. Dahlia noticed the change and glanced at him in fear. Hikan threw her off his shoulder, almost roughly. She flopped onto the floor. She sat there in a daze and looked up at her brother.

Hikan looked colder and scarier than she’d ever seen. The warm atmosphere that had lingered between them slowly disappeared.

“Dahlia.”

“Y-yes?” Dahlia responded in shock.

“Didn’t I say this before? I will never like you," Hikan said in a cold voice. He still wasn’t looking at her. “You’re nothing to me. Don’t forget that.”

His words stabbed her before she could even open her mouth to reply. Bewildered, she blinked rapidly.

Did I say I was something to him?

She never thought she was anything to Hikan, so Dahlia didn’t know where the misunderstanding came from or why he was monologuing about it. The warm atmosphere disappeared completely.

Dahlia felt like an idiot for reminiscing about the future, ten years from now. Despite the painful emotion swelling inside her, she forced herself to smile.

“I won’t... Brother.”

I hope you slip on a banana peel and crack both of your knee caps.

Dahlia stood and brushed her skirt back into place, then scurried ahead of Hikan and hopped into the carriage. She normally took the seat behind the coachman, but this time she sat on the opposite side, where the seat was raised higher. There was less motion sickness for the person sitting on the higher seat. It was Dahlia’s small token of rebellion.

He probably won’t kill his sibling just because I sat on the higher seat.

Hikan got into the carriage without a word. He didn’t even comment on the fact that Dahlia was sitting in his usual seat. At the very least, he seemed to feel slightly guilty about what he did.

The carriage started off. Both Hikan and Dahlia stared out the window for a long time. Dahlia still felt upset about what her brother had said.

I really didn’t do anything this time.

She understood why he'd been angry the last time, when she was holding a weird book in his office.

I would have understood if he was angry about me being annoying all the time.

But Dahlia thought it was unfair that Hikan had changed his tune so suddenly in the middle of a good conversation. It also made it hard for her to defend herself. She didn’t even know why he was so angry. She felt as though their relationship was back to where it started. Will I be able to get away from him safely? At all?

*Crack*

Suddenly, something within the carriage broke. It sounded a lot like the cracking noise Dahlia had heard when Hikan crushed the armrest… No, this was even louder.

*Crack*

A second crack rang out. Hikan turned his gaze from the window to Dahlia. She stared back in a daze.

No way.

*Crunch*

A third. Dahlia recalled hearing from somewhere that a Transcendent’s power was strong enough to break a carriage’s armrest in half. She raised her hand and looked at the armrest she had just been holding onto.

The hard wooden armrest had cracked in half down the inner line. She turned around to see where the crack led. That was her first mistake.

The crack extended past the inner line, towards the back of the carriage where the back frame was. The moment Dahlia turned around, her weight pushed the entire back wall of the carriage open and she felt her body fly.

Unfortunately, the seat Dahlia was sitting on was connected to the back wall. The entire wall and its attached seat flung open like a gate and swung in the air. The wind snuck through the gap and slapped at her.

“Aaaaah!” Dahlia clung to the back of her seat with both hands. Every time the horses moved, the seat and the wall bounced, and so did she. One mistake and she was going to be thrown out.

All she could think of was one person. While she had resented him just a second before, he was also the only one that came to her mind in such a situation. Still clutching onto the back of her seat, she turned her wide eyes to Hikan. “H-Hikan!”

In the chaos, their eyes met. As long as he grabbed her hand, she could live. She reached out instinctively, shaking along with the seat.

And he...

Dahlia saw his eyes.

He was unreadable.

An ominous thought struck her.

Why would he save me?

He hated Dahlia. So why should he? Was there truly a use for her? So much so that he’d save her? What if his hatred was stronger than she'd thought?

The back wall broke off completely.

The seat tipped over. The sky that shouldn’t have been visible sprawled in front of her eyes. All that was left was for her to fall.

Seriously? This is how it’s going to end?

Dahlia laughed in disbelief. She felt like an idiot for reaching out to him. She tugged her head around and saw Hikan. Their eyes met.

“Oh...”

She wanted to say something, but her mind was blank. Dahlia decided that this was how she was going to die.

A cold hand grabbed hers.

Shock ran across her arm as her body was tugged onto Hikan’s side of the carriage. With his other hand, he held her back stable as though he was hugging her.

He saved me?

Relief filled her mind. Her head spun.

Dahlia fainted.

* * *

In the wavering consciousness that hovered between dream and reality, hundreds of thoughts ran through Dahlia’s mind. There were meaningless and meaningful ones, happy and sad ones, and excited and depressed ones.

She had thought Hikan would ignore her falling to her death, but he'd saved her instead. Was it truly because he thought she’d be of some use to the Pesteroz family in the future? Still, she was relieved he had saved her. She was alive. Dahlia promised to herself that she’d save Hikan in the future, just once, no matter how evil he became. Just once.

Of course, he wasn’t someone who’d accept a helping hand, but she was still going to try to help him once. She was sure he’d make a memorable expression.

Her plan to run away was still in the works.

A kind sister. A kind, kind sister.

Fixated on the word, Dahlia repeated it to herself in her head. Her consciousness wavered, and her eyes snapped open.

She was lying on her bed in her room. Her heart was racing as though she'd had a long nightmare.

Hikan was sitting by her pillow. His eyes, as cold as the winter sea, were looking down at her. He looked out of place. Dahlia, who had been wavering between her dream and reality, thought the handsome face sitting by her bedside was an illusion.

Before Hikan could say anything, Dahlia pulled herself upright and she stared her brother straight in the eyes. She didn’t know what she was doing herself because her thoughts were still hazy. She grabbed both of her brother’s hands in a daze and drew out her thoughts.

“Even if you don’t like me... I’m going to like you...”

Oh, that’s not what I was trying to say. I was trying to say I’ll help him in the future, just once.

Regretting her words, Dahlia fainted again.

* * *

Hikan stared at Dahlia’s limp body. He reached out to feel her forehead but found his hand trembling. He could still feel the fear that had struck his heart when Dahlia said those words with a narrowed gaze, and her grip on his hand.

She knew.

He had hesitated before he grabbed her as she fell out of the carriage. And Dahlia knew that he'd hesitated.

I thought she was a mindless child.

When did she realize that he hated her? Had she been smiling at him this whole time despite knowing that? She always met his gaze no matter how much he tried to scare her.

“Even if you don’t like me, I’m going to like you.”

And those words she threw out without a single hesitation. He felt an oncoming headache.

The moment Dahlia fell out of the carriage, he thought he could let her die. There wasn’t a reason why he had to save her. Hikan didn’t want the child’s actions and words to affect him anymore, or to have the slightest expectation towards the people others called his “family.”

But the emperor had said his emotions were being affected by Dahlia. He wanted to believe that was impossible, but he also knew the emperor’s ability to read emotions never failed.

Sometimes, there are things one must acknowledge despite not wanting to.

When Dahlia had climbed into the carriage, he'd been surprised that she didn’t take his hand and ask for his help. He'd been surprised he was ignored, then further surprised that he was feeling anything at all because of her action.

His original plan had been to get rid of his parents' real child... but he wasn’t able to. Perhaps it was because he still had lingering emotions towards his “family.” Perhaps it was because he considered Dahlia his only sibling.

But such emotions could’ve been erased. All he had to do was let her fall.

He'd watched her falling with that thought in mind. But in the end, he wasn’t able to let her die. He'd grabbed her hand. Did Dahlia read all of his thoughts? That disgusting moment of hesitation?

He stared at her sleeping face for a long time. When she wakes up... how should I treat her?

He continued to hesitate.