199.

A pregnant woman who speaks of murder so casually. Idris merely thought impassively at that chilling statement.

“You love him.”

Idris didn’t realize he had spoken aloud. As such, it was no more than a sigh slowly exhaled by a man faced with an unchangeable fact. With his gaze fixed on a distant point across from him, there wasn’t even a trace of reproach for a fickle lover on the back of his hand as it gently stroked the back of Giovinetta’s head.

“This one will be a boy.”

“…”

“I have such a certainty about it.”

Giovinetta also murmured incomprehensibly without any particular response.

“The Ducommun lineage… should have ended with me. That would have been right. Such a vicious… barbaric bloodline. A group not worthy of surviving to see future generations, I dare say. I don’t know why a bestial lineage that shouldn’t leave even a small inheritance continues through my womb. As tough as steel wire…”

“…”

“A beast giving birth to a beast…. It’s unbearable, I can’t stand it…”

She didn’t even lift her forehead once from where it was buried in Idris’s nape. Idris, who had been quietly attentive only to her voice in the calm red night, slowly erased his expression. He couldn’t help but feel somewhat perplexed.

“Isn’t it terrible because the child has that man as its father?”

“You keep saying things I don’t understand…”

Giovinetta rustled near his ear. Soon, her blue and dazed eyes rose to meet his.

“I couldn’t think such a thought.”

Giovinetta’s face was simply bewildered, as if she still hadn’t calmed down. A shallow sigh escapes involuntarily. What an incredibly self-centered woman. Idris cupped Giovinetta’s still damp cheeks with both hands. He kissed her cold and pitiful round forehead.

“For me, it’s rather good news.”

He smiled bitterly.

What did she see in his face? Around that time, Johannes, who had given up resisting, saw Giovinetta through Idris’s eyes. Her two eyes, gently enveloped in his firm grasp, were blooming with an indescribable flush. Subtly caught, meeting her lover’s gaze. No, as if it was too dazzling to look at anymore, she even bit her lower lip like a nervous girl with a glance cast downward. By then, her eyes were completely red. Johannes’s, Idris’s heart ached at the sight. Johannes had to swallow his breath.

“You, you… How do you always manage to smile with your eyes like that? When we were young, you were just pretty and didn’t smile much. I don’t understand. It gets worse with each passing year.”

“Was I like that?”

“Don’t… smile like that… anywhere else… Okay?”

“I’ll try.”

“Promise me.”

Instead of answering, Idris lowered one hand to cover her belly. Despite spending long nights together without missing a day. He couldn’t tell she was pregnant at all, but after hearing the news and touching it, he finally understood. The slightly rounded belly was certainly different from several months ago. His chest tightened slightly. A brief feeling of self-reproach arose, wondering if he had been too indifferent this time. And, on the other hand….

“With clear evidence here that you are my woman, is a mere verbal promise necessary?”

Idris couldn’t quite hide that cruel elation that forgot its place, making it even more guilty. He didn’t have the confidence to hide it in the first place. Nor did he have the heart to hide it. As a result, his whisper was only as quiet as a folded love letter. Giovinetta’s eyes widened slightly in surprise, and she remained silent.

“I’m not without pure joy at the prospect of having a child with you. It’s just…. Giovinetta.”

“…”

“I have finally possessed you.”

“…”

Yes. Short of the child’s death, it’s a perfect possession that Giovinetta cannot undo. It’s a possession that goes beyond emotional bondage to have a physical reality. Here is a man whose smile is gloomy with joy so piercing he has no way to escape from that fact. There was no way to deny it.

“…I’m sorry.”

Idris, having finished his confession, simply lowered his head. He didn’t particularly intend to apologize. It was just a tired appearance. He rubbed his nose tip against Giovinetta’s ear, which had frozen in bewilderment. As if to soothe, as if to coax. So sorrowfully. Even if such a scoundrel is your lover, you have no escape now, my lady. Just sweetly give up. As I did long ago. In truth, it was as good as such a whisper.

Giovinetta remained motionless for a while. Then, slowly. She embraced his back.

“Answer me again…”

“About what?”

“Why did you give me something like this…? Why couldn’t you hold back…?”

“…”

“You just, didn’t hold back, did you?”

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t… don’t understand. What are you apologizing for now…?”

Giovinetta asked, slightly panting.

Because I’m not sorry to you, Idris answered softly.

With a start. Giovinetta enters his embrace by pushing Idris’s forehead up onto her shoulder. She puts strength into her pitiful arms that wrap around her lover’s neck and hug his head tightly. Though extremely weak, it was enough strength to warm Idris’s chest. Idris, with his head leaning against the backrest as he was pushed, embraced Giovinetta’s waist.

Mmm…. Giovinetta made a short sobbing sound. As if she had read all of Idris’s heart through this contact. Then she pushed Idris away as if shuddering. Sitting astride his thighs, she wandered with her whole gaze before finally seeming to steel her resolve and reaching out her hand.

Rustle. Rustle.

With trembling fingertips, she undoes the fastenings of Idris’s top.

She opened her lover’s collar. Raising her hips slightly, she pulled out the hem she had been sitting on and pushed it to both sides. Idris didn’t particularly stop her. Giovinetta’s gaze trembled, flinched. It flowed along the waistline of the young man who was no longer delicate, now sleekly forged like a scabbard after passing through the torture of his youth and the countless battles that followed. It was essentially an upper body redolent with the scent of blood.

An upper body that had been covered in blood countless times, from Idris’s own bleeding and that of others. That upper body, which seemed to mix the bodies of a martyr and a murderer, was mostly old scars. It’s difficult to even distinguish the boundaries between the numerous scars. Because places that had been stabbed, cut, and burned were stabbed, cut, and burned again, making it difficult to distinguish even the timing. Needless to say, his back would be worse.

But Giovinetta traced them like a ghost. She slipped her hand under Idris’s side, pushing it in all the way to her wrist. It almost reached his spine. Then, when what she wanted touched her fingertips.

“…Ah.”

She let out a short exclamation with startled eyes. She seemed more restless after touching it herself. With her hand still tucked under his back, she sat awkwardly, not knowing what to do, constantly checking Idris’s reaction.

“Is it, okay…?”

Giovinetta sought his consent with an awkward smile in her eyes. The frenzied woman who had grabbed him by the collar without warning was nowhere to be seen. Her gaze and tone were unmistakably those of an affectionate lover.

Idris’s gaze, having already guessed what she was about to do, fell slightly. His lover’s hand on his back was hot. His chest, suppressing his breath, trembled slightly. He couldn’t help but close his eyes like a person in pain at the young sensation that fell straight down to below his waist. Giovinetta, taking that eye gesture as permission, swallowed audibly.

Of course, where Giovinetta’s hand touched was the place where she herself had wounded Idris. She gently caressed that spot.

“Does it still hurt? Does it hurt…? Tell me it hurts…”

Her eye whites, which were begging like this, were flushed red with twisted excitement, and meaningless tears were about to fall, brimming in her eyes.

The sight itself was a stinging, sweet sensation. Like a well-trained dog, the area below his waist reflexively grew heavy. Idris sat up, careful not to dislodge Giovinetta’s touch. His breath was unbearably rough as his lower body grew stiff. After forcibly suppressing his breathing, he managed to ask.

“I don’t understand… the meaning of these tears.”

He kissed Giovinetta’s eyes as if licking them. Again and again. Again and again.

“I’m crying because I’m happy.”

“What is there to be so happy about?”

“Because you said you wanted to break me a little too…”

“…”

“I’m sorry. I’m such an idiot… I didn’t know at all until I heard it from your mouth today.”

Idris’s expression became like that of someone who had been struck. Somehow, he felt like his chest was being cut open lengthwise. He slowly detached his lips and met her gaze. Giovinetta stroked his disheveled hair along his temples.

“We are indeed not in love, you and I. We are sick in exactly the same way. Look. No matter how you look at it, aren’t we the same color? So we’re just souls full of wounds, dogs defeated in our respective battles. It’s two dogs with their eyes gouged out and fur torn, barely surviving, secretly gathering in a cowardly shade to lick… bite… and fight each other. That’s the truth.”

“…”

“Although that is an unchangeable truth…”

“…”

“What should I do, Idris.”

“…”

“To my eyes, to my ears, you are so lovely.”

“…”

“I love you so much.”

“…”

“What name should I give to this contradiction?”

Johannes saw the red night reflected in her pupils. It was Idris’s face, trembling all over after reading his longtime lover’s first sincerity. Her statement. It couldn’t be called an excuse like usual. There was a magic dripping from her entire expression and attitude that made it impossible to call it that. He didn’t know that the first assertion that it wasn’t love could make one so heartbroken. What is so different between the deception habitually laced on her lips and this confession? Ah, but at this moment.

Idris would have been content even if his breath were to stop right then.

***

He was glad he didn’t slap her cheek. Johannes had such thoughts several times during that long dream.

‘Idris, I don’t know what you’re doing.’ During the long night play between Giovinetta, who kept pretending ignorance while gasping with tears, and Idris, who acted as a cruel invader saying, ‘I’m loving you right now.’ In that agreed-upon mutual violence.

Both of them saw their lover laugh out loud for the first time that day. The lovers, sprawled under the armchair without even making it to the bed, whispered old stories all night. Even the truths they couldn’t bring up until now and the flaws they tried to hide from their own eyes. Like some old memory. The end of that night is to name the child they will raise in secret and to tangle up without order while making silly jokes.

“…How do we raise the child?”

“I don’t know.”

“Will it be cute?”

“It will be cute. If it takes after you.”

“What if I want to strangle it because it cries too much…?”

“That’s just nerves. When that happens, strangle my neck instead.”

“Then you’ll die too. Like Xavier.”

“Isn’t that joke going too far…?”

“Is it? S-sorry…”

“I’ll forgive you if you let me have a taste later too.”

“Of what?”

“You know what you’re asking…”

“Huh?”

“…”

“…”

“Giovinetta.”

“…Don’t bite!”

“…”

“Wow! Look at this guy! Wow! How can you smile with your eyes in this situation? You really…! No…”

“…”

“Ah…”

“…”

“…”