It\'s uncomfortable...

That was the first thought that came to Hecathe\'s mind as he tried to move his body that felt too weak.

"D-doctor!" He heard the voice of a woman shouting, "Patient in Room 1103 is awake!"

Too loud...

Hecathe frowned as he tried to open his eyes, however, he was only able to squint as he felt that the surrounding was a bit too bright and uncomfortable to his eyes.

"Where... Am I...?" He muttered weakly as he tried to remember what had happened to him.

Soon, he could hear rushing footsteps, followed by surprised gasps of people and someone constantly ordering others to check up on Hecathe.

As Hecathe tried to open his eyes a bit more, he saw a person in a white coat looking down at him with a worried expression.

"Mr. Hecathe, can you hear me?" The man questioned and Hecathe took more than a minute to respond with his hoarse voice.

"I can..."

Hecathe immediately realized that he was in a hospital and he closed his eyes once again as he felt a little relieved to know that at least he was still alive and not dead like he had imagined he would be.

The Doctors and nurses ran some tests on him and checked whether everything was okay with him before they finally allowed any guests to enter the room.

It took an hour or more but by the time all the tests were done, Hecathe was fully conscious and awake as he sat up on the bed.

"You bastard!" The door of the hospital room flung open and he heard the familiar voice of a man.

Hecathe turned his head to look at Azazel who was breathing heavily with drops of sweat stringing to his face.

"Did you run?" Hecathe tilted his head and asked with a smile.

When Azazel ran over here, he was sure that he would punch the man as soon as he sees him, but now that he finally saw Hecathe awake again, he could no longer bring himself to lift his fist.

"You deserve to be beaten to death," Azazel sighed as he shook his head in disbelief and slowly walked over to Hecathe\'s bed.

"I agree," Hecathe chuckled playfully but immediately stopped as he felt his throat hurting.

"Next time you leave behind a company to a friend, at least make sure that the friend is actually interested in your crappy Zelium," Azazel spoke with a frown.

Hecathe smiled brightly as he heard this but said nothing to that.

"Don\'t smile like that," Azazel clicked his tongue as he pulled a chair and took a seat beside the bed, "You don\'t even know how long you have been sleeping here."

"The Doctors already told me," Hecathe sighed as he responded, "Almost a whole year. It sounds hard to believe, doesn\'t it? Even the Doctors said that it was a miracle."

Azazel nodded his head with a frown, "We all thought you were gone for good."

"..." Hecathe was silent as he heard this since he had also thought the same.

Since the last message sent by Alphius, precisely consisted of the words, \'Die in my stead.\'

Now that Hecathe looked at it, he couldn\'t help but wonder if this was what Alphius was referring to. After all, in the end, Hecathe did die inside Alphius\' body instead of the boy.

"What are you thinking so much about?" Azazel asked with a sigh as he looked at the man with worry.

"I\'m thinking about an annoying brat whom I can\'t understand," Hecathe responded with a thin smile.

"I better not be that annoying brat you talk about."

"Don\'t worry, it\'s someone more annoying."

"You have friends other than me?" Azazel asked in surprise, "Since when?"

"A friend?" Hecathe deeply thought about it for a moment before he shook his head, "I\'d rather call us acquaintances who never got to actually meet."

"..." Azazel\'s eyebrows creased together and he wondered if this friend of his had gone crazy after that car accident.

"Don\'t bother thinking too much about it," Hecathe spoke with a sigh as he brushed it off as nothing.

Azazel nodded his head as he looked at the mountain of flowers and fruits that had been collected at a corner of the room, "For a guy with two friends, you really have a lot of acquaintances who care about you."

Hecathe followed Azazel\'s gaze and thinly smiled as he saw the flowers and asked, "Did they send all this after knowing I have a pollen allergy?"

"Tch- It feels like you\'re more allergic to kindness," Azazel clicked his tongue as he stood up and walked over to pick up all the flowers.

"You must have been quite busy," Hecathe spoke with a small smirk, knowing that he was probably the biggest cause of Azazel\'s so-called busy life.

"I come here every day just to throw these flowers away," Azazel whined, "I even resorted to putting up a warning."

He picked up another bouquet and showed the warning that he had printed out and pasted on the wall that cleared read: \'Patient allergic to pollen so please refrain from leaving flowers.\'

Hecathe chuckled as he read the warning notice.

"Your secretary has been trying to kill me with overwork for a whole year now. Both your parents refuse to visit you. Actually, your father did come once but your mother is yet to visit even though I went over to invite her a couple of times. It really makes me wonder just how much she hates you."

Hecathe wasn\'t too shocked to hear this, "That\'s to be expected."

"And..." Azazel suddenly stopped and seemed to be contemplating on whether to say something or not as he took a few minutes, "We tried to find the perpetrator."

This time, Hecathe looked to be very interested as his ears perked up and his eyes narrowed down on Azazel.

"Who was it?"

"The driver of the truck was caught and he confessed to being paid by that Bastard Barren."

Mr. Barren was the C.E.O. of a new Zelium company that sold impure Zelium at lower prices and often tried to compete with Zeux. Before Hecathe had got into that accident, he remembered ordering his people to burn down Mr. Barren\'s source of Zelium and hence, it wasn\'t really shocking to see that the man had also repaid the \'favor\'.

Azazel suddenly frowned as he continued, "However, there is something missing."

"Hmm?"

"We recovered a phone from the crime scene. At first glance, it looked exactly like your phone but that wasn\'t it. Your phone was still in your apartment-"

"Where\'s the phone," Hecathe cut him off and questioned without even letting the man complete what he was going to say.

"Huh...?"

"The phone that you found at the crime scene," Hecathe explained without missing a beat, "Where is that phone?"

Azazel frowned as he sensed the desperation and worry in Hecathe\'s voice.

"It\'s with me," Azazel took a minute to reply.

Hecathe looked to be a little revealed as he heard this and held out his palm with a sigh as he asked for it, "Let me see it."

Azazel\'s frown deepened as he heard this and he took out the phone from his pocket as he walked over to the man but instead of handing it over, he held it back and asked, "Is there something you wish to hide?"

Hecathe pursed his lips into a thin line and looked back at the man with an unimpressed expression, showing that he was not playing around.

"Hecathe, I read the last message," Azazel revealed as he looked at the man with suspicion, "What type of a psycho would tell you to die instead of them? And it\'s also quite creepy how you almost died that exact day."

Hecathe looked to be a little surprised as he heard this but he didn\'t want to just reveal everything to Azazel at this moment since he was also unsure of a lot of things. If Azazel were to hear the crazy story of how Hecathe got to live the life of a seventeen year old villain, he was sure that he would be met with a few of the countries best psychiatrists on the very next day.

"I\'ll tell you everything slowly," Hecathe sighed, "Just give me the phone first."

Azazel\'s frown deepened as he heard this but he still looked to be convinced as he handed over the phone to Hecathe and spoke, "It hasn\'t turned on since then. I got it fixed but it seems to have simply died."

Hecathe took the phone and tried to turn it on even after hearing Azazel\'s warning.

Shockingly enough, as soon as Hecathe touched the phone, it turned on without any difficulties and Azazel was left with his jaw ready to drop to the floor.

"..."

Hecathe\'s eyes narrowed down on the screen that directly opened the messaging tab that had been last opened when he had gotten into that car accident.

Hecathe read the last message that had been sent to him and he tried to type in something as he wondered.

Would Alphius reply?

In the end, he did not know what to write and hence, he simply stared at the screen blankly till he heard a notification.

A new message had arrived.