154.

As usual, that day his sister fell asleep earlier than Johannes. With a face smeared with fake tears, she smiled faintly and whispered to him until just before falling asleep.

“Yes, Johannes, you should welcome me… Not rudely greet me half-heartedly like you just did.”

And in his arms, unable to bring himself to strangle her neck or fully embrace her, merely fidgeting restlessly not knowing what to do, she alone seemed satisfied as she slowly closed her eyes and quickly escaped into the world of deep sleep.

“I missed you, Johan…”

It was almost like her last words.

Johannes lay straight with his sister attached to his side. His limbs bearing her weight were stiff as wood. Finding it difficult to control the twisting sensation in his gut, he clenched his jaw almost to the point of grinding his teeth.

Tracing her tightly closed eyelids with just his gaze was an agonizing feeling. How could this be… How did I end up missing this moment like this? What exactly held me back and made me hesitate? His stomach was boiling with rage that couldn’t be drawn out. Eventually, he abruptly sat up as if he was about to die.

He couldn’t possibly let this night go to waste. It took only an instant for his hand to reach for his sleeping sister’s neck. This was not anger that could be simply let go due to some kind of incomprehensible, previously unnamed resistance that he himself could not even accurately identify. It was a depth that made him tremble, like a grudge held for hundreds of years. However, despite his seemingly explosive momentum, he ended up frozen in place.

“Who are you?”

Suddenly, he recalled the Duke’s question.

Right. Once in the library, Duke Gustavus had asked him as if testing him. The man who dared to decorate his background with sacred, unfathomable artifacts. He didn’t know why the gaze of that man, so cruelly high that it looked down more indifferently than iron cutting through human flesh, came to mind at this very moment.

“Who are you?”

Johannes’ under-eye twitched slightly.

“Da…”

“……”

“Damn it…”

“……”

Almost inaudibly, a curse leaked through his trembling teeth. Johannes’ hand, spread open like a trap, twitched, almost but not quite touching his sister’s skin. Beneath that hand, his sister with closed eyes seemed as if she would never open them again even if he were to pick her up and run away right now. Her sleep was always so deep, piercingly innocent.

You, why of all things, do you have to look like this…

Johannes was on the verge of having a fit. Eventually, even the familiar nausea rose up, and he had no way to endure it. No, it’s not familiar. That retching was similar to before yet an entirely new pain. As if his entire body was gathering at the tip of his solar plexus, contracting into a single point. It was a sensation at the opposite extreme of the pain that had once tried to shatter his own body and burst outward. In the end, he jerked back, almost jumping, removing himself from his sister.

He was helpless. Johannes, half-lying at his sister’s feet, quickly raised the back of his hand to cover his mouth. His bulging eyes glistened with anger and bewilderment as his chest heaved. He was screaming in shock inside his tightly closed mouth. Why, he asked. What… what on earth is the reason?

What is this revulsion?

It was a completely incomprehensible state for Johannes. The paradox of his body now seeming to resist, tightening his limbs as if afraid to sympathize with old memories, when just moments ago he had been ready to crush all his joints in frustration at not being able to harm his sister.

At that moment, the only thing Johannes could be certain of was that his own body was a monster placed inconveniently outside his control.

Nothing goes as intended. The scene of his sleeping sister is like the embodiment of the curse said to lurk within her. You are the devil. Johannes tried to kick his sister’s ankle with the tip of his foot, which he had bent at the knee. But this time too, it was just an impulse. His body and limbs couldn’t move an inch, only his pupils shook violently as if about to be uprooted, as he gasped for breath. And then…

The dawn scenery arrived indifferently.

“Why do you look even more gaunt?”

Griselda, who came to pick up his sister at the exact promised time, asked him while patting the thin back that was struggling to open its eyes. The gaze of the bent woman rose to the face of the boy who gave no answer. Johannes, who had been sitting stiffly at his sister’s feet, trembling until then, smiled as if gritting his teeth and answered.

“We had a bit of a fight last night.”

“A fight? The two of you?”

“It wasn’t long. Just for a moment.”

“……”

“It shouldn’t be that strange. We’ve been estranged for a while, after all.”

Griselda, who had been staring at Johannes with a slightly surprised look, soon turned her head towards his sister with an understanding expression. Johannes glared at his sister while desperately suppressing his utterly upset insides. His sister, barely raising her upper body under the nanny’s touch, was still mumbling something under her still-closed eyes.

“Oh no…”

“What is it?”

“I don’t want to go…”

“You can’t. If you throw a tantrum now, it’ll be troublesome for me, young lady.”

“Ah, but… but…”

“Please be patient for a little while. I’ll come to serve you again next time, even if you don’t whine like this…”

“……”

Johannes forced a smile to his lips and escorted the two women to the exit. The person who couldn’t bear to send you away was actually himself, he thought, firmly sealing his lips that seemed about to spew out his pent-up feelings. Only after the platinum-blonde hair of his sister, carried on the nanny’s back, disappeared beyond the corridor still flickering with torches, could he finally let crumble the pretense of composure he had barely maintained.

Enduring the tremors in his fingertips, he quietly closed the door and then collapsed just like his expression. When will you come to find me again, he wondered, his chest boiling with improper emotions still unresolved. Ah, he himself. Finally…

He felt like he was about to burst inside and out.

***

After that, he spent a season swallowing his bitterness.

“There’s no need to confirm anymore.”

The boy who handed Johannes the arrow made a visor with his hand and gazed at the distant target. Johannes, who confirmed the hit while standing in a twisted posture, nocked another arrow to the bowstring. The chatter of soldiers scattered here and there in groups of two or three after finishing training filled the training ground like a dry wind.

His young companions still stood guarding Johannes’ back. Although a cloud-like crowd no longer gathered as when he first started training, the gazes of passing knights and soldiers still frequently alternated between his profile and the arrow-marked target, exchanging low exclamations.

Johannes pulled the bowstring just enough for the short bow to bend appropriately for his build. Even with that much force control, the bow bent taut as if about to break, and Johannes’ brow furrowed imperceptibly for a moment.

“When you come of age and use a longbow, you’ll easily pierce through multiple layers of armor.”

There was a subtle hint of pride in the boy’s tone. However, Johannes couldn’t even give a brief response. In reality, he was struggling just to focus on the target.

While fixing his gaze on that distant point, he had the impression that his field of vision was blocked right from the tip of his nose and bouncing back, forcing him to swallow dry saliva. If he were to release the bowstring now, it felt as if the arrow would hit the wall and come back to pierce his throat. Until now, he had been imagining Javier’s face at the center of the target, but today it felt like he was shooting an arrow at a mirror. That feeling.

Perhaps all the arrows shot into the world return to their archer? Perhaps we call that invisible trajectory fate?

He contemptuously pushed aside that needlessly sentimental feeling. He just felt inexplicably angry. It wasn’t because of the sunlight pressing down on the wide-open training ground without even a visor. It was already late October. The north wind hazily enveloping the west, which had already entered the season of cold air, was irritable and sharp. So the weather couldn’t be the reason.

It was just that he had been constantly worn down in body and mind ever since the day he reunited with his sister. The problem was the rage he hadn’t been able to fully quench. On that day when his anger had reached its peak and he had tried to explode with fury, it had unfortunately fizzled out, leaving the anger sitting heavily on his chest, melting his heart like a pulp.

Since that day, the nights Johannes spent with his sister were countless. Even using all ten fingers to count wouldn’t be enough. Around that time, the Duke’s summons became strangely frequent, causing the princess to frequently leave her chambers, and his sister would sneak into his bedroom during those gaps.

“Hold me, Johan.”

“……”

“Caress me, Johan.”

“……”

“Comfort me, Johan.”

“…Why?”

“Hmm? What do you mean, why?”

“……”

“I don’t understand why you’re asking now.”

His sister raised one eyebrow in confusion. That bold face, as if asking why he had so many objections when he should just do what she asked, still looked innocent in some corners. His sister increasingly threw tantrums like someone with a fever, and Johannes couldn’t budge at all in front of such a sister.

On such nights, Johannes could never bring himself to strangle her slender neck. Not only that, he had never once initiated touching her body. Could it be that his anger was less than before? That couldn’t be.

It was just that the disgust was an unimaginable barrier. Who are you? The Duke’s incomprehensible voice and the resulting revulsion remained like chains binding his brainstem. It won’t erase. Instead of the pain that tried to crush him, now that pain felt like shackles that wouldn’t let him go, and there was no way he could even properly move a finger filled with murderous intent. If he tried to touch her, he would end up covering his own mouth first.

So one day he made up his mind. Even if his body dissolved, he was determined to grab her nape. He intended to kill her in one go. By then, he no longer even had the desire to torture her. Let’s end it, he thought. Even now, let’s put an end to this tenacious ill fate…

“What are you looking at so intently, Johan?”

But when he met his sister’s fragile, innocent blue eyes, he would end up smiling while suppressing his nausea and trembling.

“…Nothing.”

“Huh?”

“It’s nothing. Nothing at all.”

It accumulated. Like a lump of lead fury. He could not understand the rising disgust every time. This woman has done things to me. Hasn’t the devil inside her also been waiting for the day of revenge? He sighed deeply, feeling as if he had returned to the time when he was Idris.

It felt as if someone somewhere was holding the end of a leash named pain, training him.

“Bull’s eye!”

The arrow that flew pierced the target with a violent cracking sound. As if there was no longer any surprise or words of praise for his excellent skills that were improving day by day, the companions standing behind him whispered something among themselves with just a cheerful air. When will we reach such a ‘level’? Just as Johannes was guessing that they might be making small bets among themselves, wagering marbles or game pieces.

“…I, dris.”

It was Giovinetta. Johannes flinched.