Chapter 283
ARE YOU... (2)
IAM doesn't respond immediately, and for a moment Blaze can't tell whether IAM is thinking… or avoiding the question entirely.
Blaze seemed to be agitated, a faint tremor running through his shoulders as he tried—and with obvious difficulty—to sit up. When he finally managed it, he stared at IAM with eyes full of shock, the kind that looked like it had been dragged up from somewhere deep inside him.
"Are you talking about r—" Blaze began, his voice was voice low and tight, but before he could finish IAM cut in.
"Raj was the last leader of the Student Council… right?" IAM said, his tone was strangely casual. "You know… now that I think about it, what was his last name?… He never told me…"
Blaze froze.
His body stilled mid-breath, every trace of movement locking into place. Logic tried to step forward—it told him that maybe IAM had simply seen Raj's name on the golden plaque outside the Student Council building. Anyone could have noticed it. Anyone could have asked about him because of that.
But even as those explanations whispered in his mind, something deeper pushed back.
Why did it feel like IAM wasn't asking because of a plaque?
Why did it feel like it was deeper than that?
"Why are you bringing him up… how do you know him? Answer me!" Blaze choked on the words. His voice cracked, raw as he dragged himself closer to IAM as if proximity would force the truth out. His bloodied face lifted with his eyes desperate, as though he were trying to look straight through IAM and tear out whatever answer was hiding behind his expression.
IAM simply smiled.
It wasn't a mocking smile, nor a confident one. It was small… almost fragile, the kind that didn't match the situation at all.
And for some reason, the moment Blaze saw it, a cold feeling curled across his spine. Suddenly IAM's frame felt like the loneliest thing Blaze had ever witnessed. As if IAM wasn't a person sitting in front of him at all, but a small boat lost in the middle of an endless storm, pushed around by waves no one else could see, braving the unknown by himself.
Blaze shivered without meaning to.
"IAM…" he whispered, his voice dropping into something softer, almost fearful. "Please… answer me…"
IAM looked up slowly. His lashes lowered, then lifted again, and when he finally spoke, the words came out almost careful.
"Because I know…" he said, "knew him for the shortest amount of time…"
There was something different in his voice—a depth that didn't come from the words themselves but from the way he carried them.
Blaze almost seemed to breathe the words out, as if the air was being dragged from his chest rather than spoken. "You… know him… Wh-where is he right now? How is he doing? I-I… where did you meet him… I… have been looking for him… for so long…"
His voice trembled wildly between excitement and fear, like two currents fighting each other inside him. His hands twitched beside him, and his eyes were frantic and hungry for any bit of truth as he locked onto IAM's face.
Blaze looked both hopeful and terrified, almost vibrating with the desperate need for an answer.
IAM held that gaze.
He looked at Blaze's hopeful face, at the way the man clung to the possibility that Raj was somewhere out there. IAM felt something inside his own chest—because he knew exactly what he was about to do, and he knew it would crush that small, bright piece of hope.
He steeled his heart.
"I met him…" IAM said quietly, "at The Hold."
Blaze's face seemed to freeze. Not just his expression—his whole body went still, as though time itself had taken its hands and pressed pause on him. His lips parted just slightly, but no sound came out.
"…"
IAM swallowed once, "Blaze…" he said, slower this time, "he's dead."
"Dead…"
The word slipped out of Blaze like something torn from him. IAM watched as Blaze's expression collapsed in real time—hope draining out, confusion flooding in. His face twisted into a crestfallen look so raw it almost didn't seem human, and IAM saw the way Blaze gulped deeply, as if trying to swallow the truth but it was unfortunately a bitter pill.
"Dead..? What do you mean dead?… That's not possible." Blaze's voice cracked. He crawled forward on trembling limbs and grabbed IAM's chest with both hands, his fingers digging in hard despite the blood soaked into the floor around them. "What do you mean dead."
IAM's face remained unreadable. He didn't flinch, didn't pull away, didn't even blink as Blaze stared into him with wide, frantic blue eyes. Something in IAM's eyes seemed to give Blaze the answer he was desperately trying to reject.
And that was when Blaze broke.
His breath hitched sharply, and then he started rambling, words spilling out of him in a chaotic stream, the frantic, disbelieving mutterings of a man slipping into panic. He clung to IAM as he spoke, like he was afraid the truth would drag him under if he let go.
"How could he… he just go ahead and die? Just like that! That fucking moron! That idiot!" Blaze's voice rose and cracked, each word sounding like it was being ripped out of his throat. "How could he fucking ignore everything we said! How could he let himself die! How could he! You idiot! Is this what you promised everyone!"
The words were sharp, almost violent, but they were soaked in grief—raw, shaking grief that made every syllable sound like a confession. In contrast to the fury in his voice, hot tears flooded down his face without restraint. They fell in heavy drops, streaking through the blood on his cheeks as he screamed, the sound breaking into a hoarse, agonised howl that echoed through the room.
IAM never could have expected to see Blaze reduced to such a state because of something he said. The sight of him collapsing like that… the shattered expression, the trembling shoulders, the way he clung to IAM...