#129

The deep kiss was like a round tidal wave approaching from an immeasurable distance. Gently, slowly, it crashes into his front. The sensation of being shattered like sea foam by that blue wave was dizzying in its clarity. The white shattered flesh is swept away by the water, and in an instant, only the naked solid core remains like a strange rock on a sandbar. His desire.

“Inette.”

He ended up grasping his sister’s chin.

“Inette.”

As if by instinct, he twisted his head and burrowed deep inside.

He seemed to gasp for breath. Perhaps he even moaned. He left nothing as a clear memory. His mind had turned white, almost like a blank sheet. He couldn’t even tell if his eyes were open or closed. His vision was like an aquarium filled with hundreds of thousands of flashes of light. The white and blue shimmering waves were all dizzying.

When they started licking without knowing who initiated it, his hands moved aimlessly. He desperately clawed at his sister’s back, which almost completely covered him. Ah, what should I do now? What… should I do with you?

No, there was nothing more to be done.

In the midst of desperately immersing himself in his sister, he frantically searched for an escape route from deep within his chest. The entrance to the shortcut lay in his sister’s curiosity. He plunged into that path without looking back.

In fact, this kiss was no different from child’s play. It was merely that his sister’s intense and youthful desire had briefly transferred to him. Even though he wanted her so badly right now, this impulse was nothing more than a child’s bubble that would disappear without a trace once interest was lost.

Just as his sister was doing now.

“We’ve… just discovered a new plaything. Right, Inette?”

“……”

“Such… play… couldn’t be an unfilial act that betrays the family’s expectations, could it? Because it’s just play. It couldn’t be a dangerous affection that might harm each other…. Right?”

“……”

The excuses he earnestly made up with a thread of reason were all plausible rationalizations, but they seemed to fit perfectly and felt entirely true. His sister, who had been staring at him with a red, tingling expression as if she didn’t understand the meaning, approached again without giving any answer. At that wordless permission that didn’t consider the consequences, Johannes trembled with relief. And so he began to pray desperately without even setting a specific target. You heard, right? So, so please. Please… turn a blind eye just for today….

And quite amusingly, the one who answered his desperate prayer was the man from his nightmare.

“…despises the sleeping son. The woman despised the son, and the woman despised the son….”

…What?

The blood that had been silently boiling suddenly froze at the familiar voice he had been hearing all season. Johannes opened his eyes with a start. Beyond his sister’s forehead, he saw the purple hem of a skirt flapping violently like a sail caught in a storm. It was the hem of the princess consort’s skirt, rushing in like a terrifying shipwreck.

“You… filthy…! Monster!”

His sister, caught by the nape in her grasp, was swept away in an instant. There was no time to grab her. His arms, which had been holding his sister, froze in midair in the shape of their loss.

Ah.

***

Johannes, left alone in the shade of the tree where his sister had been torn away, couldn’t easily come to his senses. He sat dazed for a long time even after his mother, who had snatched his sister’s hand, had gone away like a storm. A wind carrying an unforgettable heat was sweeping through the terrible garden.

It was a horrible time when even a single breath felt sinful. The look in his sister’s eyes as she turned to him with a pale face was like ash settled on his cornea. He couldn’t see ahead.

He stood up, feeling his way along the tree trunk. Standing up, he walked hesitantly, following the traces of his vanished sister. As he walked, he was pierced with anxiety. And then he started running. Something’s wrong. Something’s terribly wrong…!

He had never seen his mother in such a state of fury before. Hadn’t she always been like an empty shell, each day the same? But just now, she looked like someone who had completely lost her mind. Having dragged his sister away in that state, she might even strike her.

Inette, Inette. He ran towards the direction his sister had been pulled, until his throat burned. At that moment, the fear for his sister outweighed the fear of being a child who had committed a sin.

And now.

Crack.

The sound of his hyoid bone breaking echoes inside his throat as he lies in the middle of the children’s room. Johannes couldn’t even shed tears due to the excessively terrible pain. With his airway firmly pressed by the slender grip of the enraged princess consort, he couldn’t even let out a threadlike scream. He could only desperately struggle, making choking sounds while grasping with both hands the wrist of his mother who was strangling him.

Winfrid, lying on the bed in the children’s room, remained motionless as if in deep sleep. The princess consort, straddling her son with the heat of midday at her back, kept shouting with bulging eyes.

“I… had no other choice. So… I begged for a child of my blood to inherit the title of Duke Valdemar, I couldn’t think of any other way to have a son…. But…. You, you dare… to harbor… lust… for my daughter…!”

“Mo, mother…. It’s not….”

“How far do you intend to push me into the abyss before you’re satisfied…. No matter what kind of wish I made…! You…! You vile creature, how dare you… try to… violate my daughter…! You damned…! Parasite of the devil…. Even if I drop dead… at least, I’ll… twist off your head! Before I die…! I, I! You filthy…!”

Johannes saw madness in the princess consort’s face, as if she might foam at the mouth at any moment.

It felt like his heart was burning up. He couldn’t distinguish whether this agony was coming from the princess consort’s grip or from his mother’s voice. Either way was fatal, either way he felt like he would die. In fact, he didn’t understand even half of the curses the princess consort was spitting out. However, two words he had never heard before were piercing his eardrums like needles.

Lust. Violation.

Johannes vaguely grasped that these were words contemptuously referring to the impulse he had failed to suppress. Through the pain of suffocation, he came to understand in detail the filthiness, that disgust, oozing blackly from the words rolled out by that red voice.

“…ther, misunder….”

He tried to explain that it was a misunderstanding. He tried to explain that it was a game they played together. Moreover, he couldn’t ask how he could possibly do such a thing to his sister. It’s impossible, mother. Even if I truly harbored thoughts of harming my sister, the blood ties between siblings are the strongest barrier, so how could I possibly? He was choking.

I’m sorry.

Although at the time he couldn’t comprehend it at all, he knew that the impulse he had felt couldn’t be undone as if it never happened. Just harboring such a filthy desire for his sister was already wrong. So it was unconditionally his sin. He himself was a beast. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, mother. Gripped by fear, he wanted to immediately kneel down and beg for his mother’s forgiveness.

“Die, please die before you grow any more…!”

But he didn’t even get to properly apologize once. His small frame, completely subdued with his abdomen pressed down. In the midst of this, his focus seemed to drift away, and darkness crept in from the edges of his vision. Although it was still bright daylight, the brightness all around was becoming terribly low.

His eyeballs rolled back. Finally, the scene before his eyes, which had been rippling like the surface of a black lake, suddenly went out. It was already the fourth time the light had gone out since he started being strangled. Johannes writhed with his eyes closed.

Suddenly.

A voice that seemed to belong to someone about fourteen or fifteen years old ordered someone. The sound of children murmuring began to spread all around. The weight of the princess consort, who had been pressing down on Johannes with her whole body, was no longer felt, as if she had moved away. Johannes opened his eyes, coughing out something close to a convulsion.

Something was strange.

Somehow his body didn’t feel like his own. As if wearing ill-fitting clothes, his limbs strangely wouldn’t move as he willed. Or rather, it was closer to the sensation of his mind being led by the movements of his body. Moreover, the feeling against his cheek wasn’t the carpet of the children’s room. It seemed he was lying on a dirt floor, but he couldn’t make out what was in front of him as his focus wouldn’t fully settle. Inside his mouth, the fishy taste of liquid mixed with the dry taste of dirt dust was lingering.

Strange.

While his whole body felt heavy like water-soaked cotton as if he had been thoroughly beaten, the back of his head was particularly hot. His ‘body’ raised a hand to rub the painful area. Before Johannes could feel the sense of disconnect, hair soaked in hot water was tangled between his fingers. What is this?

Again, his ‘body’ lowered its hand. Blinking his sticky eyelids several times, he checked his palm. It was red. Such a deep shade of red. Rather, it felt as if Johannes’s heart was turning icy blue. Come to think of it, it seems his head might have cracked when his mother shook his body and slammed the back of his head against the floor. But where is mother….

As he began to tremble, recalling his mother’s crazed expression, and tried to check his nape with his shaking hand, fortunately, his ‘hand’ came up to his chin first. And at that moment, something thick and rough was placed around Johannes’s neck. Including the back of his hand which he hadn’t managed to pull away.

It was a binding rope. Someone was pulling it taut from behind, constricting him tightly. The sensation of consciousness slipping away revived, and Johannes turned deathly pale. He struggled, grasping the rope with his free hand that wasn’t caught around his neck, but he couldn’t stand up or loosen it.

Someone shouted with a giggle. His body, which had been lying on its side, was dragged along by the rope and flipped over onto its back. The dirt ground seemed to be full of gravel, as his back scraping against it felt almost like being beaten with a club, aching terribly.

Johannes thought he was seeing things.

As if the fortress had burst open without him knowing, the sky above was like gray soot. He was being dragged like baggage in an open space with nothing around in all directions. He looked around, choking desperately. Strange-faced boys were looking down at him, laughing.

Among them, there were a few who stared expressionlessly into the distance as if they didn’t want to pay attention to him, but in any case, every single one of them was cruelly young. They walked leisurely, following behind him like they were trailing a condemned prisoner being led to the execution ground.

Perhaps the situation would have been a bit better if he hadn’t struggled. As the rope caught on a tree trunk and Johannes’s whole body was lifted up, the bones of his fingers entangled in the rope shattered. A scream burst out at the burning pain, but it was blocked at the root of his tongue.

What is all this?

Where on earth is this place?

He writhed, clinging to his fading consciousness as he hung in midair. Judging by the dilapidated tower looming ahead, it seemed to be some frontier fortress. However, it was a completely unfamiliar place. The bare-faced boys watching him from below were equally strangers he had never seen before.

It was maddening. Strange sky, strange land. His head was in a jumble with strange faces mixed in. The confusion was so extreme that he couldn’t even fully comprehend the situation of his own impending death. Just, my throat…. Ah, I can’t breathe….

From the moment he opened his eyes until now, every second had been unbelievable and urgent, but the most unbelievable thing happened just before he breathed his last.

The murmuring sound spread, riding on the heads of the children as they all turned to look at one point. Johannes also spotted a shadow coming around the distant tower. It was a platinum-blond boy wearing a blue silk coat that came down to his knees, with a long training sword at his leather belt. Johannes felt his heart sink. His eyes widened involuntarily even through his blurry vision.

That forehead. That jaw. That shoulder line.

Wouldn’t he look just like that if he aged a few more years? Johannes in that awkward period, just passing through childhood and heading towards youth. A chilling shudder ran down Johannes’s already painful spine. It felt like he had witnessed some kind of ghost.