Help! I Became A Guy In A BL Novel!-Chapter 267: A Voice

Darkness.

It wasn’t cold or painful. Just... Still.

Riven felt like he was floating. Not above the ground. Not below. Not even in water. Just suspended. Somewhere, that time didn’t seem to reach.

And then, there was a voice.

Soft. Warm. Feminine. The kind of voice that made your chest ache with longing, even if you didn’t know why.

"You’re here," the voice said gently. "You always find your way back to me, don’t you?"

Riven blinked, though he had no body to blink with, and saw nothing. Just a soft golden light in the void, flickering like a candle flame.

"My love," the voice whispered again, closer now. "They fought over me, you know. So many of them. I used to think none of it mattered. I didn’t believe in love, or forever, or... Or anything at all."

There was a pause. Something shifted in the space around him. Just whose voice was this? Who was this person, and why was she talking to him?

"Until you."

A memory flooded him, but it was not something he remembered, not even a little. Everything was foreign. He was on a bed, lying down and next to him was a woman wearing a dishevelled robe. Her hair was a mess, but she looked beautiful.

"You’re the only thing that’s ever truly been mine," She said as she leaned in. "You’re the one I love the most, the only one..."

Riven tried his best to move, he tried to reach out, but his body wasn’t his to move. He was frozen, he could only view this memory, a memory that did not seem to belong to him.

"Look at you. You’re perfect. No one gets to claim you. I won’t let them."

She leaned in closer, nose brushing against his.

"You’re just you. And you’re mine. My secret. My heart." novelbuddy-cσ๓

The image shifted again—Riven saw her crying silently. Humming songs he didn’t recognise. Muttering to herself about how she could not leave... Not yet!

"None of them deserve you! And I cannot stay here any longer... Please..."

The light faded.

And once again, Riven was surrounded by nothingness.

But this time, it wasn’t warm. It wasn’t golden. It wasn’t safe.

It was cold.

The kind of cold that seeps under your skin and settles in your bones. That gnaws at your edges like frostbite. The kind of cold that didn’t belong to a place, but to a memory.

Something shifted.

Suddenly, he was small again, young. Barely old enough to understand cruelty, but far too familiar with it. He sat on the stone floor of a large, high-ceilinged hall in the estate, curled in the shadows behind a tall column. The polished black floors reflected the firelight from the distant hearth, but it didn’t reach him.

Not in the dark corner where he hid. Not in the corner where he always hid.

His knees were pulled up to his chest, arms locked tightly around them. His tail was curled against his side, quiet, unmoving. His ears lay flat against his head. He was trying not to cry.

Trying, but failing.

Soft, stifled sobs echoed in the cavernous space, too quiet for anyone to hear.

He’d been told to stay out of the way. Again.

He was always in the way. Always a nuisance.

Always wrong.

From the end of the hallway, a door creaked open.

Riven flinched and wiped at his cheeks. He tried to make himself smaller, impossible as it was. But the footsteps that followed were all too familiar.

Slow.

Heavy.

Full of distaste.

"Are you crying again?" a low voice sneered, the tone sharper than any blade. "Pathetic. I can’t believe YOU are my son."

Riven looked up and locked eyes with the towering figure of his father. He could not remember his father smiling at him... Ever. He always looked at him like he was unwanted. Someone who should have died.

Disgust.

That’s all Riven ever saw on his face.

"I told you to stay in your room."

"I... I was hungry," Riven murmured, his voice barely audible.

The man’s boots clicked across the floor as he approached. Riven pressed himself against the wall, instinct screaming that proximity was dangerous.

"Did I say you could speak?" the man snapped, his voice low but venomous. "I provide you food. Shelter. And this is how you repay me? By sulking around my house like a stray mutt? A pathetic half-breed that will amount to nothing." He gave Riven clear instructions to stay hidden, to stay in the house. To not embarrass him with his tainted bloodline.

The word mutt hit harder than a slap. Riven winced.

"I—I’m sorry."

"You should be."

Silence fell like a guillotine. Then:

"You think you deserve better, don’t you?" The man scoffed, arms folding. "You think someone like you could ever amount to anything?"

Riven looked at him with sadness but also some resentment. Why... Why was he treated this way?

However, seeing that annoyed his father more. With no hesitation, he kicked Riven in the stomach, leaving him clutching it and curled up in a fetal position. "Fucking worthless, can’t even fight back? You clearly inherited nothing from her, but now I know you inherited nothing from me. I’m probably not even your father. I should’ve thrown you out of the house a long time ago."

"You’re weak," he whispered. "Useless. Fit for nothing. Not worthy of your bloodline. Barely even worthy of my name."

Riven didn’t respond. Couldn’t. He was trembling with pain... He looked at children his age, ten years old, happily playing outside, but he was forced to be in this prison called home...

"You’re lucky I don’t send you off to the forest where you belong," the man continued. "The wolves out there would tear you apart—and maybe then, we’d all be rid of this embarrassment."

Something inside Riven cracked. His father was right. He should have died. He shouldn’t have been born... His nails dug into his arms, the pain he felt grounded him in a way...

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