#116

Johannes stepped back greatly, staggering, and wrapped his body. As if a wave starting from his stomach reached his head, his upper body shook violently and folded forward. It was undoubtedly a clear gesture of enduring pain. The sword hilt he was holding fell to the floor with a loud clang.

I almost habitually tried to embrace him, asking if he was alright. But as much as it was painful to watch, the joy was also great, so I just watched Johannes. Ah, you’re finally losing your reason. You’re breaking down because you can’t handle me….

Huh, huh. His breathing, coming out in bursts, was noticeably rough and irregular. He spat out his anger without even lifting his head.

“I… go….”

“……”

“You think… I see you as dirty? Do you think I would see you as dirty even for a fraction of a moment? Does it make sense that you still don’t know how I feel about you every minute, every second? How can you not know me this much. Just where and how should I look at you for such an idea to come out. You…. You, what do you think I am to you….”

Johannes swallowed his breath hastily and trailed off. Collapse. He struggled to continue speaking as if wringing out his insides, and finally crumbled. With a long groan, he ended up face down on the floor from his knees. I looked down at his golden hair scattered near my thighs.

He was trembling in pain all over his body, just like the day he had crawled up Gustavus’s tower with a body on the verge of turning into a devil.

Crack. A sound like bones breaking rang out from his shoulder blades.

Ah, ugh…. Johannes let out a rough groan.

One of his hands that had been hugging his stomach, no, his torso, crawled up to his chest and went over his shoulder line. It was as if there was a fatal wound gathered on his back.

“To you, I’m… not a lover or anything. Right?”

Johannes asked me desperately without even raising his head.

Lover? I couldn’t understand at a glance why he was questioning the definition of our relationship now. No, I didn’t know exactly which part he was stepping on to be shaking like this.

Just seeing him clearly hurt by my attitude, I shuddered for a moment at the dizzying feeling rising from my ankles. The sensation of slowly scratching away flesh that had rotted and softened over a long time. It was a painful ecstasy that made my insides sting.

I raised my slightly trembling hand. I stroked Johannes’s hair, which was pitifully shaking beneath me, with my fingertips.

“Does it hurt a lot? Johannes….”

“……”

“Hey, what… what should I say to make you hurt more?”

“……”

“How about this…. Actually, that was the problem. I… didn’t want to be your woman.”

Johannes suddenly inhaled the faint breath he had been exhaling. He lifted his head abruptly, holding his breath. The dragon’s eyes, so wide open it hurt to look at, stared at me with a light of disbelief.

“To think that my devil-possessed younger brother is my lover. A shadow monster in the middle of the night. Cursed from birth, a devil who will someday be punished by heaven….”

“Inette, you….”

“Johannes. The more we’re together, the more I realize that you were an incestuous sinner even before me. You didn’t come to feel affection for me just because we were thrown together in a disaster, did you? So you are my monster. A divine filth that dared to covet its own sister, and finally caused this trouble….”

I mixed half truths and half nonsense and spilled them out. What was most important to me was not to share feelings with him or clear up misunderstandings, but simply to appreciate the wounded Johannes.

As my voice flowed, I clearly engraved in my mind the sight of Johannes’s complexion turning increasingly pale. He was staring only at me without even blinking once. Terrible moisture seemed to be pooling in the eyes of that pitiful monster.

“…You said it before. That I should hate you instead. Yes, I’ll tell you everything as you wished.”

I slowly sat down, steadying my trembling body. Johannes’s gaze closely pursued me downward. Although he seemed to have no intention of taking his eyes off me even unconsciously, I mercilessly grabbed the base of his horns with both hands and yanked his gaze to face me.

Johannes’s head was completely bent backward. I looked into him. At a close distance where our breaths mixed directly, Johannes panted painfully. I was deeply moved. At that moment when our positions were completely reversed.

“Actually… I hated you.”

And I whispered against his lips.

“I hated you so much I felt like I would leak out…. So it wasn’t that I had Henrik in my heart, but that I wanted to shake you off even by using him. Every time you clung to me, it made me shudder…. I hated you so much that I wanted to kill you over and over in my dreams….”

“……”

“How about it? Johannes. Can you believe me now? Feel better?”

By then, Johannes was just breathing heavily with his lips slightly parted. Tears that were completely shattered began to pool in his eyes, which no longer showed any anger.

Crack, a sound like cloth tearing rang out from his back. At the same time, Johannes collapsed forward in front of me, and I lost my grip on his horns. I watched Johannes’s back with my hands still in the air.

A long, long bone was rising up through Johannes’s shoulder blades. Johannes curled up in front of me, constantly letting out groans he couldn’t fully swallow inside, and trembled violently.

I yanked Johannes’s horns hard. He was helplessly dragged to my chest, having been lying face down defensively. Although his gestures showed a clear desire to escape from me, it seemed impossible due to the excessive pain.

The resistance was momentary. With no way to escape, his choice was ultimately me.

“…Net.”

He buried himself in my arms like a wronged child.

I tightly embraced Johannes’s head, which was writhing in pain. Thud. The membrane wings that seemed to be growing on his back were now crumpling like paper as they hit the wall. Ah….

I want to grab and break those still soft wings.

I gently suppressed the cruel impulse and stroked his shoulder blades with my fingertips. When I subtly pressed between the torn flesh under the ripped cloth, Johannes let out another long moan without being able to avoid it. My insides… were hotter than ever as I savored that sob.

“Hey…. You know, Johannes?”

I murmured quietly against Johannes’s nape.

“My past decade or so… was a miserable and lonely time. Days of just longing for the day I would be free someday, being raised as the womb of the family and only breathing for that role…. It should have all ended at twelve… but you pushed me into a filthy pit because you couldn’t handle one dirty desire. Then you saved me again according to your worthless desire…. You know, that’s how you trampled even the scrap of hope I was barely holding onto….”

“……”

“Even if I escaped immediate pain because you saved me, would it have any meaning to me? I would still be just a helpless woman by your side…. In the end, I was… a puppet dancing in your hands from beginning to end. Rather than have my pride trampled like this, I should have died at Indrida’s hands.”

“……”

“How, how could you do this to me, Johannes? Just how many times do you have to make me incompetent before you’re satisfied.”

Incompetent.

My throat strangely choked up at the truth I had spat out. Even though I was questioning the culprit who had ruined me for the first time in my life, somehow I sank into an emotion that was hard to name the more I poured out my long-held sorrow.

Is his affection dirty? Is that filth his sin? No. Rather, isn’t his sin that he can’t defile no matter what he does? Because he is the sun. And truly the dirty and dark one is….

The incompetent me.

Was that feeling that seemed like it would ring hollow if I hit my skin perhaps a sense of emptiness? I was losing my hot anger and cold composure one by one.

Johannes, who seemed to have no margin or strength left, of course couldn’t make even a short rebuttal. As I lazily raised my gaze that had been flowing along his shoulder line and swept over his back as if stroking it, the black membrane wings newly entered my sight.

The wings, which had been almost crumpled against the wall, were now half-folded and peeking into the air at some point. Johannes’s intermittent writhing showed no signs of stopping. The mutation seemed to be moving to another part. At last, the ends of Johannes’s hair began to turn black.

I combed through his cursed hair strand by strand. Just as Johannes had once done for me when I was suffering from a fever.

At that moment, Johannes, who had been breathing heavily in my arms, froze. His finely trembling arms hesitantly wrapped around my waist. As if he absolutely couldn’t bear not holding me like this right now. Ah, Inette. Please stop. It felt like a cry without substance was ringing in my ears.

I responded to that scream.

“Hurt more, Johannes. Because your best was heartbreaking to me…. You know that day you saved me from Indrida? I think I reflected myself against you who came to save me…. Because you shone so brightly, I could see so clearly how dark my weak shadow was that day.”

“……”

“After that, I think I realized that the only power I could have was your affection. The power to bind you with emotions and use your limbs as if they were mine…. It’s a power I’ll lose if you alone fall away, but I still desperately want it even now, Johannes.”

“……”

“You know, when I see you suffering because of me, I fall into an ecstatic illusion as if I’ve become the sun…. Maybe it’s because the power you stole from me is so desperately needed….”

Crack, crunch…. Silence except for the sound of Johannes’s bones and flesh tearing. I continued to spew out the dust in my stomach, taking his occasional groans in my hands as an answer.

“Johannes. Are you in a lot of pain right now? Is it agonizing? This is pain you never want to experience again, right? Am I right? So….”

“……”

“You should love me as if atoning for your sins from now on.”

That was the moment. Johannes suddenly raised his head. Intoxicated by the sensation of emptying, I continued to ramble on without accurately noticing his state.