#103

He lightly pulled his arm, firmly grasped in my hand, in front of his body and asked.

“Were you embarrassed?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t hear you well.”

Dragged along in front of him, hanging onto his arm, I hesitantly poked out my eyes and looked up. Johannes appeared with a faint smile, seemingly not embarrassed at all.

“Say it again, Isolde.”

“Wh… What are you making me do now? I don’t want to.”

“I said, say it.”

Shuddering slightly at his shameless face, I grumbled and buried my forehead into his arm again. Johannes, showing a playful side like in the old days, seemed very relaxed for the first time in a long while that day.

Yes, we were peaceful for the first time in a very long time.

We took a very pleasant walk until we reached the fence connecting the main building and the annex of the inn. So perhaps that day’s walk could have ended without incident. At least if I hadn’t closely observed the main building outside the fence.

It was strange. My eyes were fixed on the sight of the main building, which was all muddy even on clear days without even cheap gravel laid down.

I had no idea there would be so many passersby from such an early hour. The faces of those carrying bundles of luggage that looked almost like boulders, wearing clothes close to rags, were blackened like barbarians.

Above the black sandpaper-like faces, eyes of all colors rolled like the eyes of dead fish. The footsteps that seemed to be struggling were like raw meat. The low, rumbling voices that seemed about to trip over those feet were ominous. Crude curses pooling here and there like muddy water. Ah, aaack, even the unending wailing of an unknown woman that seemed about to break off at any moment.

Beyond the fence was an unfamiliar world I had never witnessed before. It seemed that the only quiet place here was the space where I stayed. At that moment, for some reason, I recalled Johannes’ expression when he lost his reason.

This isn’t the muddy place. The very place you’re standing on is the muddy place. I’m right, aren’t I?

My young voice came to me like a daytime nightmare. Though it wasn’t particularly a pleasant sight, my heart was pounding uncontrollably. It felt as if an indescribably intense impulse was striking my chest violently. I want to leave this place. A lie. I want to escape. A lie. I want to be free.

A lie.

“Johannes.”

“Yes.”

I swallowed my words momentarily. I knew well that the question I was about to ask was one I shouldn’t ask Johannes. It would only stir up his anxiety that seemed to have barely subsided recently. And I didn’t want to bring up the issue unnecessarily either. What’s the point when we’d just be going to another tower anyway?

“What’s it like outside here?”

But my lips burst out on their own.

Johannes didn’t answer. I couldn’t bring myself to check his face. I just tentatively reached out my hand and carefully grasped his hand, which was standing as if dead while still alive. There was no warmth at all in that pale blue hand.

“…I’m sorry. I just suddenly became curious… That’s why I asked.”

“……”

“Really, Johannes.”

Stop talking nonsense. You want to kill, don’t you?

What on earth does that mean?

Even until that day, I couldn’t fully understand the voice in my head. However, I seemed to vaguely grasp the meaning of the muddy place. At least that something was going terribly wrong. Though I had tried to stay with the feeling of going on a recuperation trip to the countryside, without my knowledge, a twisted crack was quietly growing its strength. Like the evil skin spreading on Johannes’ back.

That night.

Johannes barged into my bedroom out of nowhere. The door flung open. As if it were a natural course of events, without any words, Johannes embraced me like handling a slave. Though not as rough as the first time, it was by no means a gentle lovemaking. No, that day was even crueler than before in its quietness, as Johannes didn’t even ask about my feelings.

I don’t want this… Johannes, it hurts, I don’t want this… Turned away from Johannes, how many times did I beg him, crying? Ah, aah… Johannes only responded absentmindedly, as if in a trance. It was such, such… a cruel night. And ridiculously, that night, nightmares didn’t visit me. With a body that felt like it would collapse at any moment, I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep for the first time in a very long time.

It was before dawn.

I felt Johannes, who had fallen asleep in my bed, startle awake and sit up abruptly against my back. He shuddered as if he had just finished an intense physical struggle. Huk, huk, his exhaled breaths were unbearably rough.

I turned over in my sleep and wrapped my arms around his waist. Johannes seemed to startle as if he had seen something he shouldn’t have the moment my arms encircled his body. I felt his muscles tense up completely and freeze through my arms.

“…What’s wrong?”

I asked without even opening my eyes, I think.

Johannes seemed to turn his stiff neck to look down at me. After being unable to move for a while, as if he couldn’t believe the sight before him, he raised his trembling hand and cradled the back of my head. In my half-asleep state, I stroked his side and nuzzled my nose against his waist.

He murmured faintly that he had a dream. The fierce look that seemed ready to kill someone who wasn’t even there finally seemed to subside a bit. I felt Johannes’ breathing, which had seemed about to hit the ceiling, gradually calm down.

Johannes slowly regained his composure. It was an empty calmness that felt more desolate than reassuring, but my body and mind were too exhausted to realize this right away.

Soon, Johannes, now much calmer, tidied up the blanket that had been thrown back when he sat up, covered my shoulders, and then carefully burrowed into me.

“Are you going back to sleep?”

“Mm, yeah…”

I couldn’t help but let out a short moan as I tried to answer. The sensation of him slowly pushing into the place that was still slick from the traces of the night’s activities, without any warning, as if it were natural. Johannes pushed his hand into the side of my waist and murmured once more.

“…It was a nightmare.”

“Was… it?”

I asked, pressing my body against his embrace.

“Yes.”

Johannes answered briefly.

“But Johannes, I’m tired…”

“……”

“Ah, mmh, mnn…”

I moaned, half-closing my eyes, almost as if sleep-talking. My lower abdomen felt heavy with the slow sensation of him rubbing against the moist flesh, coming in deep and pulling out shallowly repeatedly. Finding it difficult to move, Johannes grabbed my buttocks and thighs and hooked my legs around his waist.

Soon, he wrapped his whole body around me, almost burying me in his chest, and painfully whispered while pushing back the messy hair on my forehead with his lips.

“I dug a pond near the tower.”

“In… in the dream?”

“No. In our hideout. Before you left.”

“Mm, mm…”

“I put in aquatic plants and lotus… Released several ornamental fish too… Have you ever seen ornamental fish? They’re beautifully colored. You’ll surely like them. If they’re still alive, that is…”

“That… that sounds nice… It must be pretty…”

“Look forward to it. Now that your condition doesn’t look too bad, we should be able to leave within two weeks at least, ah, ungh…”

For a moment, a short tremor ran through my body as he gently prodded a sensitive spot. Simultaneously, Johannes let out a long sigh and frantically pounced on my body. My knees, held down by him, were pushed up to my shoulders in an instant.

There was no more conversation beyond our moans. With both my body and mind completely exhausted, I was out of breath just from receiving Johannes. The lovemaking that started again like this continued until dawn.

Johannes, Johannes, can’t we stop now? My body doesn’t even feel like my own anymore, I pleaded a few times, but Johannes showed no sign of wanting to stop. I can’t hear you, he muttered, panting. Just hold on a little longer today, he coaxed and soothed me.

Finally, as the ashen dawn began to seep through the window cracks like a thin fog.

“I’m thirsty…”

At that one mumbled phrase I uttered without realizing, all of Johannes’ movements stopped as if it were a lie. After breathing heavily for a while in the position of covering me, he barely managed to get up and stepped out of the bed.

Johannes, who walked briskly to the table completely naked and returned with a water bottle, sat on the edge of the bed, raised me to a sitting position, and gave me water to drink. I clung to the water bottle he offered. I was busy quenching my thirst in a hurry, not even caring about Johannes. Johannes stared at me blankly.

“That’s too much. You should leave some for me too…”

I heard Johannes laughing softly. He took the water bottle from my grasp as if snatching it away. As I stared blankly at the bottle suddenly moving away, Johannes grabbed my chin. His tongue pushed into my mouth, which had opened due to this.

He licked every corner of my moist mouth thoroughly. As if he would devour even my breath. When his tongue finally withdrew, I apologized in a small voice, feeling a bit embarrassed, but Johannes just smiled bitterly without any particular response.

I still remember.

In the wavering gray twilight. The sight of Johannes getting up from his seat and drinking the last bit of water left at the bottom of the bottle. He seemed to have been quite thirsty too, as the transparent stream of water that he couldn’t swallow completely due to drinking in a hurry flowed down his chin and neckline, wetting his slowly bobbing Adam’s apple at a pace slower than his pulse.

It was lukewarm water, far too little to fully quench both people from the start. Even that couldn’t go down completely past Johannes’ parched throat and was only pooling in his deeply hollowed collarbone.

Was it because I had been lying face down? The irregular beating of my heart inside my compressed chest climbed up along my blood vessels and dug into my eardrums. It felt as if a razor blade was scratching my heart. Johannes, who was focused on quenching his thirst with a defenseless naked body in front of me, that precarious state looked particularly… dizzying.

Do you want to kill him?

The twelve-year-old me that had not been erased until then sneered as if singing. Ah, really! What are you saying? That can’t be. I responded to her in my head.

Can’t be? Aren’t you wanting to kill that guy right now?

Me? I don’t know what you’re talking about.

You know everything, what don’t you know?

I don’t know. Why would I kill him? I love him so much.

You have such dreams because you love him?

Shut up… Shut up. With no way to drive out the child who was little more than an illusion, I had to uselessly shake my head and cover my ears.

At that moment, I saw Johannes, who had wiped his mouth with the back of his arm, turning towards the table. The pale, shiny metallic skin was spreading blackly along Johannes’ spine. Little by little, slowly. As if it would eventually take over his entire body.

Can you see it? Can you see? Ah, aah, you, who cover your eyes and ears, will end up killing both of you.

At this rate, everyone will die.

The girl in my head seemed to shudder.