#72

The horse we rode on became a distant speck on the unlit road.

“Is it okay to send it off like that?”

“……”

I asked Johannes a bit dazedly. I was watching the horse that Johannes had slapped on the rump gallop away in the opposite direction with loud hoof beats.

I turned to look at Johannes to gauge his reaction since he couldn’t speak, but he just stood there breathing heavily. A blue light falling like a cliff. His eyelids, which had seemed to be staring at me, closed heavily. He turned away from me like that.

In fact, Johannes didn’t seem to be in a good mood throughout our escape. It wasn’t like that from the beginning. But gradually, in the end he clearly avoided me. No. Since he couldn’t avoid me anyway, to be precise, he avoided my gaze. Because of that, although we were clearly together, we each had to rush through an uncomfortable night.

Johannes, who seemed to have spotted the stable’s location in advance, stole a horse without getting lost once and rode with me in front of him, losing consciousness several times as we galloped. It must have been because of the arrow piercing his throat.

If it weren’t for the pursuers’ torches that wouldn’t fall behind, I would have held him and ridden the horse myself. It felt like we would be caught immediately if we delayed even a moment to change positions.

In the end, after bleeding profusely for a while, Johannes would collapse onto my shoulder, and I would shake him awake vigorously. He would barely regain consciousness and grab the reins again. But even then, he never made eye contact with me. Even though he was in a position where he could see me just by lowering his chin slightly.

After arriving at the edge of the forest to evade pursuit, he never touched my body first except when helping me down from the horse.

Johannes, who had practically fallen off the saddle, staggered as he couldn’t even steady his own body properly, but he hesitantly got down and helped me stand. Ah, you don’t have to do this.

“Th-thank you…”

“……”

There was still no response to my barely uttered thanks. After the horse we had sent off finally disappeared like dust in the darkness. Worried and upset, I called out to him again.

“Johannes… Why have you been like this?”

“……”

“Why… why do you keep avoiding me?”

“……”

“Hey, I’m anxious… Look at me. Okay…?”

“……”

“Johannes.”

Without realizing it, I grabbed his arm. But Johannes placed his hand on the back of mine and slowly pulled me away. The nape of his neck, which he turned slightly to the opposite side as if he couldn’t bear it, felt like a knife stabbing into my heart.

His mood was so unusual that I couldn’t even speak to him. Yes, stupid me couldn’t approach him. I misunderstood Johannes’ avoidance on my own.

Ah, Johannes is angry with me.

A sense of guilt overwhelmed me despairingly. At that time, Johannes’ ominous resurrection was just a miracle to me who had lost him once. I had secretly felt relieved that I had summoned a demon, thinking it was rather fortunate.

Of course, Johannes didn’t rise again in the form of a demon. But I had already concluded that he must have been able to resurrect through the power of the demon that I didn’t know about. I couldn’t think of anything else.

But Johannes?

Ah, he must be confused. It must be terrible. He might be in agony feeling that his body is no longer human. Didn’t I already confess that I was the one who summoned the demon? If I had gone through something like that, I wouldn’t be able to help but hate the undying body, and the person who made me that way.

I understood him rationally.

Crazy girl.

The twelve-year-old me inside, as if inhaling cut nails stuck in my lungs, sneered viciously.

Don’t you have any guts? Have you forgotten all your loneliness? What that man, that man did to me…. Because he killed my husband so horribly that I went mad, and in the end I couldn’t receive a single proper marriage proposal, so I ended up coming to this distant land to this vicious old man…! It’s all, all his fault!

The end of my words were almost a scream.

But at the time, I couldn’t see anything else. In front of Johannes with an arrow in his neck, I alone felt like a sinner. Shut up. I know. Just that I’m glad Johannes came back to life. That I can’t even ask for forgiveness from Johannes now. Still…. Ah, still….

Johannes. How could you do this to me.

Anger inevitably mixed in.

We’re even, aren’t we? You were bad too. So don’t hate me. Ah, meanwhile, how petty I am for still hoping for forgiveness. Please forgive me. I wish you would look at me. I want to hold your hand. I want to be held by you, I want to hold you….

Giovinetta Valdemar, you immature human.

I bit my lip. Because I felt like I would cling to him, shedding cowardly tears. I was on the verge of going crazy at how pathetic I was for covering up what I had done to him and then blaming him and getting anxious. Even my anger towards him was another new anger, and the various negatives that followed one after another pressed down on me so much that I was at a loss, dazed and alone.

“……”

I jerked my head up at the sound of Johannes exhaling as if he had been holding his breath. He was turning towards the pitch-black forest, standing like a statue a little distance from me. His back looked like the back of someone about to leave me behind.

You’re not thinking of leaving me behind, are you?

I’m not sure if I said that thought out loud or just asked it in my mind. Even though I believed that Johannes wouldn’t do that to me no matter how much he hated me, it felt like my whole heart was sinking. With my burning feelings, I couldn’t help but follow him, but still I couldn’t approach him easily. Ah, don’t do this to me. As my hands and feet trembled with anxiety then.

Johannes staggered as he took a step.

“…Johannes!”

Startled, I finally hurried to his side. I clung tightly to Johannes’ arm. A hint of surprise passed through his skin. But fortunately, he didn’t shake me off again.

Only the arm I was holding tensed up. Johannes pressed his lips together as if steeling himself before he started walking. I lowered my eyes when I saw the arrow shaft swaying near my temple.

The forest in the dead of night, like a gaping black mouth.

That day, I realized for the first time that darkness has different depths. Although night shadows were everyday occurrences, the forest’s darkness was particularly thick, seeming to choke one’s breath just by looking at it. A place where not even a sliver of moonlight or a single ray of starlight showed itself. The howl of a forest beast, whether wolf or coyote, carried on the chilly wind from a distance too far to gauge.

Even though I was holding onto Johannes so tightly as we walked, it wasn’t long after entering the deep night forest that my feet, suddenly anxious at the sound of beast cries, slipped.

“Ah…!”

My body instantly lost balance. Johannes, who had been held by me, quickly wrapped his arm around my waist to support me as I fell backwards. My heart pounded as I regained my posture with his help.

I was startled, and the wound on my back had been rubbed by his arm. I clenched my mouth shut, unable to show signs of pain in front of him. Johannes, who had properly set me upright, didn’t seem to intend to move even after I had caught my breath. Soon after, he collapsed towards me, head first.

It was only natural, since he had been hovering between life and death for some time now. I barely managed to catch and hold him when he had already crumbled more than halfway.

I desperately tried to drag him to hide him as he had completely collapsed, almost kneeling, but it was hard enough to handle Johannes’ build, and the rough ground made it impossible to go deeper. In the end, I barely managed to seat him against a nearby tree trunk not far away.

“Johannes.”

I cupped his constantly crumbling cheeks and called out to him.

“Try to pull yourself together. Okay? We need to go further in.”

“……”

“Johannes. Johannes. Please.”

“……”

But the person who had completely lost consciousness gave no answer.

Johannes’ body poured onto me. Because the arrow piercing his neck was too long, he couldn’t even properly lean his back.

So around that time.

Johannes, who had tilted his upper body into my arms, looked as if he had been painted with his own blood. Johannes was damp from neck to ankle as if he had been drenched in a downpour. Of all the clothes he wore, only the outer coat he had thrown on was not soaked in blood, and even that occasionally overflowed with blood pooled in the folds near his neck, re-soaking his already dark red upper garment.

The bleeding, which seemed to melt and remove all his internal organs, showed no signs of stopping, to the point where even my front lapel holding his upper body was soaked. It was an enormous amount that, even to my eyes ignorant of medical arts, should have killed him long ago if he were human.

I propped up Johannes’ shoulder. With his head bowed forward, only his eyes visible, he seemed not even to be breathing, like someone who would never open his eyes again. Yes, as if he were already gone from this world.

Like an illusion.

At that sight, I felt like I might lose my mind. The twelve-year-old girl stuck in my lungs melted with every breath. I could no longer even hate him. What does it matter now what you did to me? It felt like the moment he left again, after barely returning, would be the moment I died.

“Open your eyes, Johannes.”

I kissed his blood-soaked face, not avoiding his eyes or cheeks, while cradling it.

“Come back. Don’t leave me alone. Please, please wake up…”

The hot wetness touching my hands suffocated me.

I pulled my lips away from Johannes’ cheek and, trembling, searched through his clothes. After rummaging through his body and between his clothes for a while, I pulled out the dagger hilt that was tied to the inside of his outer garment. This is not the time for me to just be calling his name. Johannes will come back to life anyway, as if to show off. So let’s deal with this arrow first. That would be better. That was my judgment.

The tip of the dagger in my reddened hand shook violently. In fact, my vision was so blurred with tears that I couldn’t see anything properly. I tried to cut the arrow shaft while practically hugging Johannes’ nape, which kept slipping, but I simply couldn’t accomplish it with just the dagger.

Thinking I might try to break it instead, I put both hands on it, but rather than the arrow breaking, every time I touched it, Johannes’ flesh opened up more, making the sight terribly distressing for me to watch. Ah, how on earth should I cut this!

“……”

At that moment, I heard the sound of blood boiling near my chest.

It was the sound of Johannes, who had regained consciousness, exhaling a new breath. He died and came back to life like that several times, several times in front of me.