#73

“Johan.”

I urgently cupped his face and looked into his eyes.

“Can you hear me? I need to pull this out, but I can’t cut the tip. What should I… What should I do? Hm?”

“……”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Johan. I’m so sorry…. I’m so clumsy, I keep making your wounds worse. What should I do, what should I do…. I’m sorry. Does it hurt? Does it hurt a lot?”

Even to my own ears, it was a truly futile and meaningless question.

“Oh, what should I do with you? I’m sorry.”

I kissed Johan’s eyelids and pleaded. Then I immediately looked at his face. His blue eyes, unable to focus properly, were struggling to stare at me within my hands. Then, as if in pain, as if feeling nauseous, he furrowed his brow and closed his eyes. He tried to lower his face and pull away from me. Still, it seemed he wanted to avoid me.

I wasn’t unaware of that feeling. However, I was utterly anxious, not knowing when he would return if he closed his eyes now. I had no time to care about his cold attitude.

“Jo…!”

Just as I was about to call out his name, feeling like my heart was about to give out. Johan finally separated his upper body from me. His tightly closed eyelids opened heavily only after leaving my embrace. I noticed Johan was hesitating about something only when I saw his eyes not meeting mine, wandering around my chin area before dropping his gaze.

Not long after, his gaze came straight towards me. It was quite different from before. His eyeballs, which seemed about to roll back yet still managed to find me, were strangely calm.

Eyes devoid of emotion. Or perhaps the suppressed gaze of someone who had made some secret resolution. I felt a chill down my spine at that gaze. Suddenly, his empty hand rose upwards. He firmly grasped the arrow shaft in his neck.

“Johan…?”

“……”

There was still no answer. And then, crack.

The bone-chilling sound that would never leave my ears came again. The arrow shaft embedded in Johan’s neck writhed before my eyes. Johan was… of all things, pulling the arrow out through the inside of his neck.

“Stop….”

Unable to bear the sickening sight any longer, I raised my hand. I tried to stop him. But Johan extended his remaining hand and pressed firmly near my collarbone, and I was blocked by that force, unable to move forward. My arm, which I had somehow managed to stretch out, only scratched the air without even touching his forearm.

I saw the horribly split arrowhead finally touch his skin.

I had no choice but to watch until the end as that sharp metal tore through Johan’s flesh and muscle with a chilling sound, burrowing inwards, turning Johan’s neck into a rag, and then being violently pulled out backwards.

Thud. The arrow that had torn a person apart fell from Johan’s hand. His arm that had blocked me also collapsed downwards. Johan, who had pulled out the arrow as if self-harming, had lost consciousness once again.

“You, you….”

Why on earth are you doing this.

My insides rattled like a broken lock, and I couldn’t string my words together properly. My head felt frozen from the continuous shock throughout the night.

In truth, I wanted to wake him up and demand answers. Ask if there was really a need to pull it out so cruelly. I wanted to shout and ask why he was doing this, upsetting the person watching. Ah, why do you insist on such pain? And that’s when it happened.

Johan, who quickly opened his eyes, slowly straightened his upper body. As if to show off. As if displaying to me his neck that was split open with its insides exposed, horribly tattered as if his head might fall off at any moment.

I shuddered without realizing it. It was because Johan had grasped my chin with one hand as I stared at him like someone shocked out of their wits. It wasn’t particularly strong force. However, that strength was clearly some kind of ‘compulsion’ that prevented me from turning my head away.

In this way, he firmly fixed my gaze on himself. With my chin held, I could only breathe rapidly, unable to even open my mouth. Thump thump, thump thump, my heart began to beat frantically with an inexplicable ominous feeling, but Johan’s gaze on me remained unwavering. Those eyes seemed to be telling me.

Look carefully and remember well.

Engrave this sight in your eyes.

“…Ah.”

I almost screamed. I covered my mouth without realizing it. At the same time, I jerked my upper body backwards as if jumping. Ah, truly, I couldn’t bear it without at least retreating that much. My fingers dug into the leaf-covered soil as I braced myself behind.

Something was visible in Johan’s wound.

Beneath his skin that was horrifically torn open, something like thin blood vessels, dozens of strands, revealed themselves. Those red threads swaying in the air seemed almost alive at a glance. They were like spider webs sewing up the wound by themselves. Swaying back and forth, weaving red cloth to fill in the flesh.

Ah, that repulsive sight that could be seen as lifeforms parasitizing beneath human skin.

I watched, trembling violently, unable to even think of looking away from Johan’s grotesquely healing appearance. I had no composure to consider how he might be feeling. It was when I felt his powerless gaze on me that I thought disgusting energy might pour from my eyes.

I slowly raised my gaze from the wound. And I discovered Johan, who had been watching me ‘horrified’ by him without averting his eyes even once.

He moved his lips, spewing a handful of blood from his half-filled throat, literally a hole gouged in his neck.

“You’re… not…”

“……”

“…Anyway, I’ve… been like this… from the start….”

His voice was so low that it was barely audible. However, I could understand everything from the conversation that followed more clearly.

“…So, you… don’t need to… feel responsible… for me.”

At first, I asked back in confusion.

“Responsible? Johan, what do you…?”

“The reason you’re showing tears now….”

There was no emotion in his expression as he cut me off. But soon, as if his insides were burning, he furrowed his brows and slowly closed and opened his eyes.

“You’re… just feeling sorry… because you saw me reviving like a monster… possessed by a demon, aren’t you? Ah, guilt…. Then you probably made up your mind to take responsibility for me on your own whim again, like before.”

“……”

“…Right?”

After finishing those words, a faint, wretched anger flashed in his eyes as he slightly turned his head away. It was like the last look of the black leopard I had seen long ago.

The gaze of a beast watching its master approach to end its life, as it lay dying from the hands of the master who had raised it. I now know you are not coming to save me. It was a gaze containing distrust, sorrow, and a hint of hatred.

Yes, I had completely forgotten at that time.

The lies I had spun out, saying it was for his sake. The fact that my cruel and inadequate lips were no different from a weapon that habitually cut Johan. Like my father’s stone that had smashed the black leopard’s head.

“No….”

I couldn’t speak properly.

How is it that tears never seem to dry up? My hand unconsciously rose to cover my mouth, and Johan’s gaze choked my chest, making it hard to breathe. My throat was all tied up with moisture that I couldn’t control, rising from deep in my lungs.

So it was then that I finally realized. The meaning of that pitiful anger that had been avoiding me throughout our flight, and the desperate resistance he had shown by revealing his monstrous true form to me.

‘It’s not something you called forth. Anyway, I’ve been like this from the start.’

I shook my head frantically. I managed to compose my voice and offered belated excuses.

“…That’s not it. Johan. I’m not by your side out of a sense of responsibility. I, I’m really worried about you…”

“You don’t have to pretend to worry, Yvette.”

“It’s not pretending…!”

“If not that, then perhaps you’re acting this way because you’re afraid I might leave you like this?”

“No, Johan. That’s not…!”

“Unnecessary… worry. Do you think I would do something like that to you? I’m the one who brought you this far.”

“No! How could I think of you as that kind of person. I love you so mu…!”

“Don’t lie.”

“……”

“…Ha. You. This me.”

Johan, who had cut off his words more firmly than ever before, laughed dejectedly. He looked utterly exhausted. He painfully backed away and leaned against a tree. His blue eyes, which had been wandering in the empty space between us with that bitter smile, disappeared behind heavily lowered eyelids.

“…Stop it now. …Please.”

Johan raised one hand. He covered his eyes with it.

As he had spilled blood, I spilled tears. I wanted to clear up the misunderstanding somehow. However, it was clear as day that he wouldn’t listen no matter what excuses I made to persuade him.

In the end, I steeled my heart in a different direction. I crawled over to him on trembling knees. I grabbed Johan’s forearm that was covering his neck wound and pulled it down. Johan, who was caught by me without much resistance, watched what I was doing with a gloomy gaze.

The blood vessel-like things I had seen just before were already gone without a trace. However, the wound that I couldn’t even imagine how painful it must have been, that I wished I could have taken in his place, remained as it was. It had seemed to heal without leaving a trace before, but now it was only half-filled. There was no more bleeding, but blood was still pooled there.

I hesitated for a moment. I took a breath and hesitantly placed my hand near his wound. At that moment. Johan’s knee touching near my thigh, his entire body, stiffened with a jolt.

“Johan. Johan….”

I heard Johan slowly swallowing right above my ear. I traced the edge of the split flesh with my fingertips. I whispered with all my heart.

“It’s not… something like responsibility…. I’m not trying to deceive you because I’m afraid you’ll leave me.”

“……”

“You say you’ve been like this from the start? What… does that matter. To me, only the fact that you’ve come back is important. I can’t see anything else, really….”

His neck, where new flesh had already half-filled in as if it were long ago. I earnestly caressed that area, which still hadn’t lost its redness. I hoped my sincerity would be conveyed even through this touch.

“I, right now I’m just frantic with worry that I might lose you before my eyes. You really look like you’re in pain and struggling… So…. So, don’t say anything now. …Ah, I….”

“……”

“I’m, sorry, Johan…. Okay? I’m sorry. I was wrong.”

Even as I begged for forgiveness, I couldn’t stop the tears or the trembling. Johan remained completely frozen and silent.