“Mikaela, how shameless can you get? I should’ve known you were this kind of person. You’re blinded by money.”
“I was with you for five years. Five years of caring for you, sharing everything as lovers. And this is how you treat your ex-lover?”
“All because I broke up with you, you’re hell-bent on revenge? You won’t even let me be reborn in peace?”
Listening to Kieran’s accusations, I let out a cold laugh. “That’s right. I came all the way here for revenge. I won’t let you be reborn. So what?”
“You heartless, ungrateful woman!” His parents rushed forward, grabbing and striking me as they wailed.
“Kieran dated you for five years. Do you have any idea how much he gave up for you?”
“When you had nothing, he ate instant noodles with you and lived in a basement by your side. When you were sick, he ran out into the freezing night to buy you medicine, nearly collapsing from the cold!”
“He even worked odd jobs to save money, even paid your tuition, bought you a phone, bought you clothes.”
“You stingy, penniless beggar! You still dare to demand money back from us?”
At that moment, the Lord of Hell struck his gavel, summoning the Mirror of the Past. Scenes flashed, showing every sacrifice Kieran had made during our years together.
As his parents had said, he had given so much to me.
A snowy night, the bitter wind cutting like knives, he was slipping and falling with blood stains on his clothes, but clutching a bag of medicine just to bring me fever pills.
Under the scorching summer sun, he was handing out flyers on the street, shirt drenched with sweat, only to shove his hard-earned money into my hand with a grin.
“Mikaela, I’ve got the money to pay the rent.”
On my twenty-fifth birthday, he stood under a flickering streetlamp, nervously holding out a pair of high heels he had bought for me.
I stared silently at the images, at my beloved’s bright smile and his earnest eyes and then pressed my lips together without a word.
I had grown up with no parents, scraping by picking through garbage. Kieran had given me all the warmth and love he had.
Those five years with him had been the happiest time of my life.
But still…
Kieran stood trembling, his fists clenched, his voice hoarse with suppressed anger.
“Five years, Mikaela. Five years. I gave you everything I had. Why would you treat me like this? I suffered with you for five years. Now I’m dead and still you won’t let me go?”
His words dripped with grief and pain, stirring the souls around us.
“Damn! This woman has no shame. Heartless witch!”
“A man this good and she dares betray him? All over thirty lousy bucks? She’s not even human!”
“Someone this cruel shouldn’t be allowed back into the human world. Your Majesty, please throw her into the animal realm where she belongs and never let her disgust us any further.”
The Lord of Hell slammed his gavel again, his face dark with anger.
“Mikaela, Kieran gave much and asked for little. If anything, it is you who owes him. Yet you chased him down even into the Underworld. Is that not going too far?”
I knew what he wanted to say—that I was heartless, shameless.
I swept my gaze over Kieran’s tear-streaked face and the only thing that rose in me was disgust.
“A relationship is about mutual consent. If he chose to sacrifice his everything for me, that was his decision. Why should I owe him for that?”
“But the money he owes me is real. That’s a fact. And he must repay it.”
“And as for how things ended up this way… Kieran, don’t you dare pretend you don’t know.”
Kieran froze, his face crumbling as tears spilled down.
“Mikaela, are you trying to put all the blame on me now?”
“Yes, I said some harsh words when we broke up, but only because you became more and more overbearing, more and more impossible to understand. Why do you only ever blame me?”
