“I don’t know. Why I feel such indignation. Why I’m so… angry only at you. I don’t know. While knowing you not at all, I can’t shake the feeling of being betrayed again… and I tremble at you again.”

He placed his hand, with thick veins bulging and twitching, on his thigh. His face, with unfocused eyes staring at some point in space ahead, was now a black mark that had flowed down to the corners of his mouth. More quietly than ever. As if being devoured.

With me in front of him.

Not actually looking at me.

“…I imagine hurting you.”

Johannes, with eyes fixed on some distant dream, moved his dry lips.

“It repeats like a chain in my head. With you struggling… I carve into your body whether your plausible excuses are truly real. Just as I confirmed your lie years ago when you said you couldn’t run away with me because you were unwell, on this night too, like then, I deliberately confine you as you resist, dig into you… create countless scars by biting your soft skin… and force myself upon you. You’ll sob like then, saying even the momentary pleasure felt under long torment is shameful and unpleasant. With a face soaked in what may be tears or moonlight, you’ll shout things at me you don’t mean.”

“……”

“I don’t listen. I can’t hear. Instead, as if punishing you, I carry you, white and fair, on my shoulder out to the streets. From my place, I search for the worm that pleased you without this body. It’s easy. I remember the disgusting breathing of the man who panted at your whispers. What I’m tracking is his breath.”

“……”

“At last I discover the vile beast. I tear off first the ears that received your breath. I flay the skin you caressed as if rewarding. I crush the one who forgot his place with the back of my blade. Alive. Like a rag. Right in front of you.”

“……”

“In the end, I must tear out that man’s heart with these hands.”

“……”

“Yes. Like that night once again.”

Suddenly my forehead felt hot. It was like a razor blade lodging in my chest. It wasn’t because I was shocked by the cruel scene Johannes’ lips were calmly depicting. The wordlessly agreed upon abuse was rather what I had hoped for.

However, the memory of an old wound.

As if some memory even greater than the faded ones that had lost their initial blackness was returning before my eyes…

Surprisingly, it didn’t feel like it was digging into a sore spot. It was more like some junk I had carelessly stored away as unnecessary had suddenly dropped in front of my feet. In that way, I seemed to be surprised in a somewhat different manner.

When we had all fallen silent. As I alone gazed at him, blinking, gradually, Johannes began to tremble faintly, starting from his still-white chin. Inside his lips, which had only seemed lightly closed, he was actually gritting his teeth.

Only when the fine trembling reached his eyes did he finally furrow his brow painfully. He closed his eyes. He looked like someone desperately enduring the pain within himself, his weary head resting on a gloomy darkness.

“…It’s not me.”

Johannes opened his eyes painfully and muttered lowly. As if trying to hide it, he first bowed his head and stood up, supporting his staggering body with both arms. Grasping both armrests of the chair I was sitting in, he lowered his head over my nape. As he bent his waist and drew closer to me, my upper body was pushed back little by little. His brilliant platinum hair was shattering into pieces before my eyes.

“That. It’s absolutely not my desire. I swear I didn’t want to hurt you. I… tried to protect you. Your happiness, your well-being were always my top priority. That was all I ever wanted. Ah, truly, that, this….”

When Johannes’ voice choked up. I flinched unconsciously. Crack. Suddenly there was a sound of wood breaking beneath my shoulder. Giovinetta. It was the faint groan of the armrest helplessly gripped in Johannes’ hand.

“I love you.”

“……”

“I love you.”

“……”

“It’s a love that began with the feeling of breaking myself to give to you. Even if you take it and toy with it as a mere light joke, I don’t mind at all. It doesn’t matter. You probably can’t even imagine such feelings, but what do you think? Doesn’t that make sense? Don’t you agree?”

“……”

“I’ll say it again, Giovinetta. I know you. In this utterly uncertain world, you’re the only person I can be sure of. And yet, I….”

Amid gasping breaths, he suddenly swallowed as he confessed his love anew in an almost resentful tone. With his head bowed, he seemed to bite his lip thinly for a moment in the shadows. In that moment of silence, I didn’t dare to move at all.

As if watching someone self-harm, I just stared with wide eyes. Only the sound of my heart rising from inside my ribcage towards my throat was as noisy as a bird… The thump-thump of it was like a fountain driving my thin reason into the air. Until Johannes opened his mouth again, I felt as if I was witnessing a life on the edge of a cliff.

“I’m the one who lives with the memories of others, of all things.”

He smiled faintly.

“At first I could distinguish them. Until the once-clear memories broke down their boundaries and seeped into this body like bones. And now I… I don’t know myself.”

It can’t be me. His final monologue was more like a resolution uttered inadvertently.

“What about you…”

“……”

“Who do you want me to be?”

Johannes asked me. Still gripping my armrest with his body deeply lowered, only his head, which had been bowed even deeper, quietly rose to look down at me from above my head.

Even if I raised my eyes to look up at Johannes, all I could see was the delicate area under his eyes. My view blocked by his chest was as dark as the night of nights. As if my entire being, from the top of my head to below my waist, had been quietly swallowed by his broad embrace. I felt a hand rising to my nape. The gentle touch brushing my disheveled hair back behind my neck was chillingly seductive.

“Why do you hesitate? It’s not like you…. Tell me. It’s alright…. Giovinetta, what form do you want from me?”

He was caressing me while urging childishly. The breath I dared not exhale was burning hot inside my nostrils and throat. His pale smile descending more poignantly than death was soaking into my gaze like a drug.

“Father…. Xavier. Perhaps your kind brother. An unstable lover. A wicked beast with one wing. A blind believer who gazed only at your white instep until his eyes finally went blind. Livestock. An uncivilized serf. Choose. Whatever face it is, I’ll become yours with it. I can do it.”

His bangs touched my forehead as he calmly promised. The breath of his low whisper was gently pressing on my nose bridge. Tell me. Come on. Ask me. And his touch too.

Rustle. Rustle….

At the sensation of his fingers gently caressing my shoulder, creeping in under the thin fabric, my undergarments flowed down with a small noise. It was dizzying. The feeling against my skin was like tears flowing inside Johannes’ lungs to me.

“Indulge me, Giovinetta. If this goes on… don’t you know? I’ll truly go mad. Rather than that, I’d gladly live only as the form you desire. Believing the man reflected in your eyes to be my true self, without a hint of wavering.”

“……”

“So whisper to me alone. Cling to my neck.”

“……”

“This, it’s not such a difficult request, is it…?”

He laughed painfully between gasping breaths. At that moment, I was in no position to answer at all. All my senses were paralyzed as Johannes’ touch descended from my fully exposed shoulder to the inside of my armpit below.

I confess. My cheeks were burning hot all over. My breath was mixed with Johannes’ exhaled breath up close, dizzyingly sweet. Johannes, who had firmly pressed my side breast with his palm, lightly traced my shoulder blade with his fingertips. He lowered his lips to kiss the top of my head. Hush, hush…. He whispered as if soothing and coaxing me who couldn’t open my mouth.

“It’s alright. Don’t feel burdened. You can do it. You’re stronger than you look. That’s how you hold all of me… and make me a nonexistent being in this world.”

“……”

“Erase me.”

“……”

“Please….”

You can do it. You can do it. As the whispers deafening my ears repeated, and his hand that had been caressing my back seeped down to stroke my thigh along with my skirt hem, I.

Kretzman.

What answer should I have given?

“…Johannes.”

“Yes.”

I desperately closed my eyes, fluttering my eyelashes that had become completely wet in between. The sensation of Johannes’ eyelashes trembling above mine, now almost directly close, was like flames. I placed both hands under his chin. His hands, already raised to my waist, were all caught on my underwear.

Ignoring the heat clouding my mind, I desperately voiced out.

“Don’t… use me so easily.”

“Hm…?”

Johannes, who had somehow knelt on the floor and was biting my lips with sweet, rough breaths, vaguely asked back while continuously licking inside my mouth. At that moment, we were clearly somewhat out of our minds. We were undoubtedly lovers intoxicated by each other’s scent.

I clung to his neck as he wished. Turbulent blue waves were crashing wildly over the bright red instinct. While eagerly licking back Johannes’ tongue that was intertwining relentlessly without pause, while drinking him like someone quenching a years-long thirst, I barely managed to turn my reason and whispered.

“If you want to die, ah, die by… your own hands.”

“……”

“I, I, won’t allow it, but….”

Johannes’ shoulders, which seemed to stiffen for a moment, soon relaxed with a short moan. As if he had then received some permission, feeling him clinging desperately to my body, I don’t know how many times I thanked the mistress who had cut off our, no, my destructive flow. That you helped us. That heaven helped us….

I almost pulled him down with my own hands.

“Johannes. We, ha, need to… talk.”

“Now…?”

“No! No…! Not now, not… later, later….”

I quickly dismissed Johannes’ question, which sounded breathlessly impatient even at a glance. We were already as heated as we could be, and I had already grasped all of his inner thoughts today anyway, so detailed conversation could be postponed a little. I apologized again and again, grasping the edge of my fading consciousness. I’m sorry, Johannes. I mean….

Actually, today, I’ve held back for too long….

“Johannes. Wait, Jo, hannes…!”

Lying back on the chair due to Johannes’ whole body pressing in, I pushed his shoulders for a moment. After somehow managing to detach him, who wouldn’t budge at all, I finally raised both legs and slowly wrapped them around his waist, then asked.

“The ring….”

“……”

“Aren’t you curious… where I hid it…?”

A puzzled gaze fixed on my face. Amidst our hot breaths permeating everywhere like fog, a thin smile came unbidden. I grabbed the hem of my skirt. Though I hesitated inevitably, my fingertips trembled slightly as I lifted it up ostentatiously. And Johannes’ eyes grew wider and wider following the rising skirt hem.

At that moment, how his inhuman eyes shook so greatly. Seeing his perplexed expression blooming at the end of his doubt was so beautiful to my eyes that I was utterly satisfied, my flesh all a-tremble. Towards Johannes, who was blushing all over like an innocent boy and at a loss for what to do, with his gaze fixed in one spot, I whispered distantly. Come here. Come quickly. Don’t worry about the roots you’ve lost, my poor man….

“Just as you know me, I know you, Johannes.”

I am here by your side.