CH5

Gasp, what is this? Did I just make the noise?

Yul widened his big eyes. He was trapped in the drawer, so he couldn’t even tell if Mikael was outside or not.

What if Mikael heard it? He must be thinking of me suspiciously!

Worried, Yul couldn’t move for fear that Mikael might open the drawer right away and he only rolled around his blue eyes in the dark. But even after a while, nobody suddenly opened the drawer.

‘What… ? Did he go out?’

He was curious. There was no sound, so it was frustrating to death.

He didn’t know if he had left the room or not so he couldn’t open the drawer door. Because of this, Yul nervously swallowed dry saliva in the darkness.

An unknown amount of time passed. Maybe because he had been in an enclosed space for a long time, it became difficult to breathe. It felt like there was a lack of oxygen.

Yul wheezed his breath. Perhaps because of his mood, his consciousness seemed to gradually fade away.

‘I think I’m going to die… At this rate, I will die of shortness of breath…’

He didn’t know what the situation was outside, but he felt like he was going to die right away, so he had to open the drawer door a little bit. If it was opened just enough to allow ventilation, even if Mikael was in the room, he wouldn’t notice the drawer moving.

‘Huff, it’s tiring!’

Despite his tiny body, only 20 cm tall, when Yul got up, his head was almost touching the ceiling of the drawer. That’s how narrow the drawer was.

He had never been inside, but he wondered if it would be something like this when you enter the coffin alive. Yul took a few breaths to conserve the scarce amount of oxygen, supported the ceiling with both arms, and carefully pushed his weight on the front of the drawer with his two feet.

He waited for the drawer to open under the weight.

‘Ah shit, why isn’t this working?!’

However, contrary to expectations, the drawer did not move. Even if Yul’s entire weight was pushing the drawer, it was only the weight of a cotton doll the size of a palm. With such a weight, the drawer was carefully pushed but the wooden drawer could not be opened.

‘Whew, fine. Let’s try again.’

Although it didn’t go his way, his desire for life was too great to give up after just one shot. Yul calmed down his anxiety, making up his mind to challenge it until it opened, for as long as he could.

‘Aahhh!’

Unlike before, Yul pushed the drawer door from the inside out as hard as he could. While he was almost out of breath, his arms supporting his body trembled.

In the eyes of others, it was just an insignificant gesture, but for Yul, it was a life-or-death struggle.

In spite of the lack of oxygen, he gave strength to his whole body and overworked it, and it seemed like he was about to faint.

Just as he was wondering if he was going to die like this, the drawer slowly opened.

‘Gasp, that’s it! It worked!’

A ray of light permeated the dark drawer. At the same time, the air in the drawer, which had only been stuffy, escaped, and fresh air rushed in.

‘I lived…’

Only a single finger’s worth of space was opened up, but compared to the previous environment where there was no light or even oxygen, it was heaven now. Yul took a deep breath and another a deep breath.

‘Gasp, what is that sound?’

When Yul, who was dying, was barely able to come to his senses, he heard a voice from afar. It was the sound of someone’s footsteps.

Yul listened to the sound as closely as possible. The sound of footsteps was getting closer. Someone was coming this way.

He was curious about the owner of the tapping footsteps, but there was no way to confirm it. Earlier, he thought he was going to die like this, so he was in a hurry to open the drawer door despite the chance that Mikael might be in the room, but it was dangerous to move beyond this.

He had to focus all his nerves and grasp the dynamics of the outside world only via his auditory senses.

At last, the sound of footsteps approached very nearby and then stopped.

It was unknown who the person was, but he was standing in front of a chest of drawers right now.

“What on earth is happening?”

“There is such a thing. Anyway, come here.”

The indifferent and cold voice was Levi’s. The voice that followed was Mikael’s.

The place where the voices of the two could be heard was from in front of the chest of drawers. Therefore, Yul concluded that both of them were in front of the drawers he was in right now.

Thinking that not one but two people were in front of him, Yul froze with tension.

Just as Yul took a deep breath to soothe his anxious heart, the drawer door opened in an instant.

“… Did you call me just to look at this?”

It was Mikael who opened the drawer, and Levi stood next to him with a shocked expression.

Yul was as hard as stone. The sudden encounter between the two surprised him enough to make his heart shrink, but it was fortunate that he was lying quietly. If Mikael had opened the drawer while he was struggling to open it earlier, he would have been in big trouble.

Of course, Mikael was surprised as well.

Obviously, when he closed the drawer earlier, he had closed it very tightly, but he was surprised by the rattling sound, so he brought Levi here and found that the drawer door was open in the meantime. It didn’t open much, but it was more shocking because it was a drawer that was carefully pushed shut.

Mikael tried to calm his startled heart and looked at the doll, pretending to be as calm as possible. In fact, just looking at the doll gave him chills on his back, but he couldn’t help but glare at Levi, the party who gave him the doll.

“Levi, the doll you gave me seems to be moving.”

“What are you talking about?”

Well, the time has come.

Yul swallowed dry saliva at Mikael’s words. As expected, when the drawer shook earlier, Mikael also seemed to have felt something was off.

But Yul had a track record for overcoming a crisis where he was nearly caught.

Yul thought it would be okay this time too, so he assured himself down and calmed his thumping heart.

Burning red eyes fluttered in front of Yul’s nose.

Yul’s round face reflected in Mikael’s eyes. It was as if he was trapped inside his eyes. He could now understand why the title of the novel was “Red Prison”.

Yul held his breath and endured the gaze of the Archduke who was staring at him.

Be patient, be patient. If you even breathe now, you’ll be fucked.

“Hmm. Yes, it must be my imagination.”

The Archduke then turned around and said flatly.

Yul lived. He had survived such a miserable life, and today too.

“Levi.”

“Yes.”

“Burn that.”

“What?! Nooo!!!!!!!!!”

After staying still, Yul, who was about to be burned at the stake, screamed out in a panic.

At Yul’s shout, a chilly silence fell in the room. Mikael’s red eyes, as well as Levi’s green eyes, opened wide and turned to Yul.

Oh, I’m fucked.

In Yul’s tiny head, there was only the thought of ‘I’m fucked’.

He had almost been caught several times, but he couldn’t believe he was caught in vain. At the same time, feeling the emptiness that all his efforts had gone in vain, he felt even more terrified at the thought that he was going to be burned at the stake now.

He had to somehow get out of this situation. Yul quickly shook his head. As soon as an idea came to his mind, his mouth moved first, without thinking whether that was really the way to go.

“What?! No! What?! No! What?! No!”

Yul mechanically repeated a soulless sound.

For a brief moment, the thought that came to mind was to pretend to be a talking doll.

“Levi.”

“Yes.”

“Burn right now.”

“Yes.”

“Hurry.”

[Yul pretended to be a talking doll!]

[The effect was minimal!]

Yul realised that the operation had failed at Mikael’s urging to burn him quickly. There was really only one way left.

“Ahhh! Save me, save me!”

And that was begging to be saved.

There was no way he could escape from the two strong men with this short body, and pretending to be a doll was no longer possible, so there was no other way.

He could see the eyes of the two of them looking at him with astonishment, but what could he do? This was the only way to live.

“I know I look really suspicious and scary, but I’m not a bad doll. Not a demon either. I’m serious, believe me. Please!”

In urgency, Yul cried and begged pitifully like a kitten about to be bathed.

Perhaps because of his small size, his voice was only half that of a human, so no matter how loudly he cried, it was only a small shriek.

“Ha…”

Mikael looked up at him and burst into laughter when he saw a doll the size of a palm dripping tears the size of chicken poop.

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