Please get me out of this BL novel...I'm straight! novel Chapter 543

"In truth," Heinz began, his voice low and deliberate, "I had fallen in love with Florian. The… original one."

For a moment, his words faltered.

It wasn't just pain—it was hesitation.

A reluctance to even let the name pass his lips, as though speaking it would bring the ghost of the other Florian into the space between them.

No, not this Florian. Not him.

The original.

And yet, Heinz had to say it.

Florian's heart clenched, but he kept his expression carefully neutral. He didn't want to jump to conclusions—not yet.

Not when he was finally starting to hear the whole truth about what bound Heinz and the original Florian together.

"However," Heinz continued, his eyes fixed somewhere beyond Florian, "I was against… the idea of being in love. Of feeling vulnerable."

His tone dropped lower, almost guttural. "No, perhaps it's no secret… that I had never been surrounded by any kind of positive love. My mother… my father…"

Florian's chest tightened. Heinz's words were raw, heavy with a kind of vulnerability that startled him.

'But he's being vulnerable right now,' Florian thought, staring at him. It was almost frightening, seeing Heinz like this.

Heinz exhaled slowly, as though steadying himself. "Delilah suggested a book. A book filled with ancient and forbidden spells. Specifically… a spell that could erase memories. Or just very specific memories."

Florian's breath caught. A spell to erase specific memories.

That sounded disturbingly familiar.

'It sounds like the spell Hendrix used on Cashew… right? So that's what it was? An ancient spell?' His mind spun. Pieces clicked together in ways that made his stomach twist.

"I wanted to forget," Heinz said, his crimson eyes narrowing. "To forget the night I had spent with him, and any remnants of loving him. However… perhaps it was when I got drunk, or because of the nature of my own strength… or perhaps it was simply my heart."

His lips pressed into a thin line, his jaw clenched.

"I always fell back on him. Every other night I had spent with him, I would return. Delilah would remind me to use the spell. Sometimes she would even force Florian to stay away from me—because that was what I wished."

Florian's thoughts screamed.

'What the fuck?'

He didn't know how to feel. Shock, anger, pity—it all tangled into something sharp in his chest.

But at least now he understood why Delilah had spoken to him the way she did. Why she told him Heinz was more like Anastasia than he realized.

Heinz was broken. Twisted by grief, fear, and power.

He was… fucked up.

"I had no memory of any of this when I woke in this life," Heinz admitted at last, his voice quieter, his gaze finally returning to Florian.

"Not until I grew to trust you. Until certain things happened between us that… awakened fragments. Visions. Memories that weren't dreams, but pieces of another life. They returned slowly, just as you once described they had for you."

'Is that why he's been so… close? Because he remembers his relationship with Florian? So all this time he's been using me as a stand-in?'

The thought hit like ice water down his spine, and with it came a surge of heat in his chest. If that was the truth, then—wow. Just wow.

Florian's throat tightened. It didn't just sting. It made him furious in a quiet, bitter way.

This whole time, was he nothing more than a placeholder?

"While you were paralyzed from your trauma," Heinz began, his voice careful, measured, "Lysander suggested an Arcanior specializing in psychology. His name was Afton. I deliberately instructed him not to speak with you directly… because I had things to confirm for myself. Things I needed to understand."

He paused, crimson eyes locking onto Florian's.

"I had to go inside your mind to bring you back. Because… the reason you were unresponsive wasn't simply trauma."

Florian's heart stopped. His breath caught halfway in his lungs.

'Is he saying what I think he's saying?'

Heinz's expression hardened with truth too heavy to be softened. "It was the original."

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