Chapter 3

Suddenly, Olivia purposefully passed a half-eaten meatball to Gerard's lips.

The tips of his ears reddened instantly. A pregnant pause later, he shot Olivia a look.

In return, Olivia gave Gerard an encouraging and cheeky look. Embarrassed, he could only chomp down on the half-eaten meatball.

Gerard was a severe clean freak who especially hated eating with others. He'd even throw out the food that I had tasted when I was cooking.

I never ate from the dishes he did. In fact, I never even used the same glassware he did.

It turned out that Gerard wasn't a clean freak at all. He just treated the woman he loved differently from the woman he didn't.

At the moment, Gerard's cheeks were heavily flushed. He was so embarrassed that he could barely utter a word. Instead, he just lowered his head and continued eating.

But Olivia acted as though nothing had happened. She continued the conversation with a straight face.

"By the way, Ger, is there any news about Elly yet?"

Gerard's embarrassment dissipated instantly. He frowned in return.

"She almost killed you back on the mountain! Why do you still care about her? Olivia, you're far too kind, and you care about others way too much! You should take care not to get bullied by others!"

Olivia just smiled sheepishly at Gerard. "But isn't this the reason why you fell in love with me in the first place?"

Back then, everyone knew that Olivia was Gerard's first love. They were like a match made in heaven.

But after Olivia studied abroad, she cut off all contact with Gerard. Since then, no one had heard from her ever again. That was when Gerard and I began dating.

Two years ago, Olivia returned to the country and ended up joining Gerard's mountain excursion squad as the weather observer. However, she made an error when compiling the data on the snow mountain's weather forecast, leading to Gerard's squad getting stuck in a dangerous blizzard on the day they decided to tackle the summit.

At that time, the excursion squads belonging to two separate mountaineering clubs Gerard and I were in had embarked on the journey at the same time. The sudden blizzard caused Gerard—who was in the middle of scaling up a ledge—to fall off and lose consciousness on the spot. To make things worse, his oxygen tank was damaged because it was all banged up from the fall.

In order to save Gerard's life, I made a bold decision by giving him my oxygen tank. After strapping the oxygen mask to his face, I began dragging him down the mountain slowly.

In the end, Olivia was fired by Gerard's mountaineering club. As for me, I had suffered from pulmonary edema due to the prolonged lack of oxygen. Because of this condition, I could never climb all the way to the summit as a mountain climber anymore.

Just like that, my dream to tackle the summit once again was crushed.

After that, I made the decision to quit the mountaineering club I was in. Then, I joined Gerard's club as a field medic, primarily working in Camp 3.

But all Gerard noticed was the fact that Olivia had left right before I joined the club. He thought that I was the one who forced her out of the club.

At that moment, Gerard and Olivia slowly covered the distance between them. Their mouths were inching closer to each other as well.

"Ah, Gerard! You're here!" someone shouted, completely ruining the suggestive atmosphere.

Soon, a bunch of people from Gerard's mountaineering club could be seen running toward him from the base camp while hugging something in their arms.

They were quick to tell Gerard their reasons for meeting up with him. Their first reason was to show concern toward him because of the latest incident faced by the incursion, and to reflect on the factors that might have contributed to the incident's occurrence. The second reason was to deliver the things as per my request.

Those things were originally meant to be delivered to me. Now that I had gone missing, the group decided to give them to Gerard instead.

Truth be told, I wanted to give Gerard a surprise after the excursion. After all, our anniversary was coming up in a few days.

The members of the mountaineering club didn't expect to see me missing. The first thing they did see, however, was Gerard and Olivia being intimate on the plateau.

Gerard began inspecting the gift I had prepared for him. It was a watch that he'd had his eye on for a very long time, as well as a love letter that was penned with all my feelings for him.

He didn't hesitate to rip the letter into shreds without bothering to read it. Then, he tossed the pieces as well as the watch into a nearby crevice.

The members of the mountaineering club could no longer stomach Gerard's behavior. One of them quickly stopped him before asking, "Gerard, what the hell are you doing? If you don't like the gifts, I can return them to Elliana! What are we supposed to tell her now that you've tossed her gifts away?"

Gerard merely responded with a sneer, "What are you supposed to tell her, you say? Well, I want her to tell me what she's thinking right now!

"How dare she go missing on me as a field medic during the time the base camp needs her the most! What is she going to tell the patients in return, then?"

Gerard sounded extremely righteous when he criticized me.

But the thing was, he was the one who personally robbed me of my oxygen tank and reduced me to nothing but a corpse. Did he not feel ironic after saying those things?

When the members of the mountaineering club saw the way Gerard was acting, they didn't want to stay there any longer. Instead, they just came up with an excuse of not having lunch yet and left right away.

Meanwhile, Gerard handed a flower over to Olivia.

"Look, Olivia! This is your favorite pink rose! I've never forgotten your favorite flower!"

So… It turned out that pink roses were Olivia's favorite flower.

In the past, I had asked Gerard what his favorite flower was, yet he never gave me an answer. So, I began giving him different types of flowers. Out of all the flowers, he chose to place the pink roses in a vase at home.

Since then, I thought his favorite flower happened to be pink roses. For a long time, I was secretly pleased with my sharp observational skills.

I never expected those pink roses to be Olivia's favorite flower instead.

It turned out that everything I had done for Gerard was nothing but an illusion to him. My soul felt as though it was stabbed by a thousand blades.

How ridiculous. Gerard actually presented the flowers that were meant for him to Olivia, as though he was the one who had bought them for her.

My parents' agony, as well as my despair, were starting to tear my soul apart. Even my corpse was already riddled with injuries.

Now, my soul was immersed in nothing but despair.