#92

There is a certain magic in tender kisses. It is like a meal. We intertwine, bite, roll, and savor each other’s tongues as if to absorb the other, sweetly swallowing juices that are not our own.

We desperately try to fill our hearts while hastily drinking each other’s saliva, but our foolish hearts feel both satiety and hunger simultaneously, so the more our chests swell, the more endlessly starved we become. We reaffirm through this meal-like kiss that we are closer than anyone else at this moment, yet ultimately complete strangers, because we can never fully consume each other. Hunger.

The hunger that made me want to beg for every urgent breath of Johannes, every strand of his moans. In that moment, I was slowly drowning, dipping my feet into sweet solitude.

As if it were natural, I tilted my head to the side and parted my lips. Johannes, who had briefly pulled away as if to suck on my lower lip, pressed against me again, and a soft yet firm sensation slowly pushed between my parted lips. The gentle, kind caress of his tongue. It felt as if every piece of my skin was standing on end.

I must have pressed my body against him too much. Johannes’s body trembled, and I felt him pressed against my stomach. I didn’t dislike it. There was no reason to avoid it.

Johannes’s breathing gradually grew rougher. It was the kind of breathing that seemed unlikely to end with just a kiss. He covered me as if to bury me within himself, then pressed against me, digging in as if he would lift me onto his thighs as I stood.

However, the sensation of heating up together did not last long. Suddenly, Johannes grabbed my shoulders and pulled his lips away with a somewhat urgent gesture. His warmth instantly distanced itself.

“S-sorry.”

Johannes, uncharacteristically stammering, apologized as he abruptly straightened his upper body. Startled, I stared at him, unable to close my mouth that had suddenly become empty.

Johannes’s nape and ears had turned as red as mine, as if he had sunbathed in the sunset. His gaze, hastily raised towards the ceiling, wandered in the empty space above my head, and in that state, Johannes, momentarily at a loss for what to do, lowered his eyelids while still holding my shoulders. I could only stare at him in bewilderment, unable to properly catch my breath.

Our eyes met again soon after. Johannes seemed rather embarrassed and slightly avoided my gaze. His eyes that had drifted downward stopped near my lips. His touch was clumsy yet ticklish as he wiped my mouth area, startled, and tidied my disheveled clothes. It must not be any other feeling, just worry for me that made him do this. I had to console my disappointed self while entrusting my body to his hands in a somewhat dazed state. And then.

“Mother summoned a devil.”

Johannes suddenly spoke as he was retying my waistband that had shifted to one side.

“Huh?”

“…Mother broke open a stone coffin and summoned a devil right after giving birth to us siblings… That devil possessed me. The story was that I had been like this from the beginning. It wasn’t you.”

As I stared at him blankly, unable to easily follow this sudden story, Johannes’s movements paused for a moment. Was there some trigger for that sudden confession that day? I still don’t know. Only after a long silence did Johannes painfully continue speaking.

“I realized this fact quite a long time ago….”

“…”

“It was the day Mother strangled me.”

“What….”

“That day, Mother grabbed me and pinned me to the floor. When I didn’t die according to her wishes, she shouted things like monster or devil… a few times. Perhaps that’s why then….”

“W-wait. Johannes.”

“Yes?”

I was completely shocked. How could I not be when three shocking facts I had never known before poured out of Johannes’s calm mouth? And because one of those three was so astounding that it made the back of my head throb, I clung to it as if it were the only problem. I couldn’t even think to question the other matters.

“Mother strangled you? When?”

I blurted out to him. Johannes answered briefly.

“Probably in the summer when we were six years old.”

“W-why would she do that when you were so young…?”

“Well, that day you….”

Johannes, who was about to answer me with an indifferent expression, suddenly closed his mouth. Something seemed to have gagged him. His gaze, trying to gauge my thoughts, was very cautious. Soon, Johannes shook his head and quietly answered.

“She must have been worried about you. Mother.”

“Why would she strangle you out of worry for me?”

I shouted immediately.

“That woman, I knew she was completely insane for a long time, but that’s….”

“Don’t speak that way. Everything Mother did must have been for your sake.”

“No, I can’t understand the flow of events. Why on earth would she…?”

“Isolde.”

“My goodness, she’s really crazy…. What kind of mindset allows one to strangle their own child?”

“Isolde.”

“I really can’t believe….”

“Listen, Isolde.”

“…”

“She loved you so much, and I….”

“What love…!”

I flared up completely. As I was about to shout not to dare call the emotions of that crazy woman who treated me like her possession ‘love’, Johannes raised his hand to my mouth. With his index finger raised, he gently stroked my lips again, which were still slightly wet with his saliva.

In the end, I had to close my mouth helplessly, making only a sound like air escaping. Although I was thoroughly angered, I had no means to resist his gentle touch. Johannes’s lips briefly descended on the empty space where his delicate fingertips had left.

“…She must have sensed that I would do this to you.”

After the light kiss, Johannes leaned his upper body back, his eyes looking much darker than before. I gripped his waist while straining my eyes, which were half filled with anger and half with tears. Johannes grasped my hand and said:

“She was always overly sensitive, you know. Think about it. As a mother, how horrifying must it have been to notice that her son harbored such filthy feelings for his sister?”

“…”

“Moreover, I’m the heir. There’s not much to stop me, no one in the fortress to prevent me, and no one to protect you. At such a time, how could she know when I might lose my reason and come to you one night to take you recklessly? Isolde, do you think you could have properly resisted if I had pinned you down? No, do you think I would have stopped even if you had resisted? Having finally got you defenseless and helpless beneath me?”

“…”

“…Not a chance.”

Johannes answered himself as if biting his own lips. I was momentarily lost for words. The story he was telling, supposedly to make excuses for Mother, took on an unsettling tone from the middle, and by the end, it had almost taken on the miserable air of a felon’s confession.

Self-reproach. Self-loathing whose depth was hard to fathom.

It seemed that Johannes had tried to keep it to himself, carefully compartmentalizing it, but for me, who had been closely observing his expressions since the previous night, it was easy to notice from small signs like his unclear tone and troubled gaze. Belatedly gathering my wits, I shook my head from side to side.

“No. From what I hear, that’s not right. Your words sound a bit strange.”

“What is?”

“Have you been thinking like that since childhood?”

“…”

“That you’re that kind of… person. That you would do such things to me…”

“It’s the truth.”

Johannes answered, cutting me off in a faster tone than before.

“Have you, have you been thinking like that all along, Johannes? All along?”

“Because I know myself, who has been constantly yearning for you, all too well.”

“Did you, perhaps, desire my body?”

“…I wanted you.”

The last answer sounded like a suppressed sigh. However, it was both the answer I wanted and an all too obvious one. I fiddled with Johannes’s hand and clumsily tried to conclude:

“See? If that’s how you feel, then you’re not… that kind of evil person.”

“My true feelings are not at all important between us.”

“Why not?”

I glanced up to gauge Johannes’s reaction. I lacked confidence in my conclusion, and I acted on an instinctive feeling that even one wrong word could scratch his back and chest all over. My chest just felt unbearably tight.

Sure enough, the atmosphere surrounding him was as pale as the tip of a needle. It was as if a piece of Johannes from the previous night had been cut out and placed before me. After long hesitation, he began his second confession with a story that was difficult for me to understand.

“As you know… we’ve been placed at different heights regardless of our own will. Voluntarily or involuntarily, we’ve been faithful to our respective positions and had no choice but to be. Especially you, as you grew up. You did your best in the role assigned to you. Understandable. Having nowhere else to escape to, you had no choice but to do your best.”

“…”

“In this situation, what does it matter whether I longed for your heart or desired your body? Even the slightest movement of my finger could be ruthless violence to you. Yes, I’ve longed for you for a long time, but because of that, I had no choice but to acutely feel the difference in our hierarchy. Even though I didn’t want to know… I couldn’t dare look away.”

“…”

“Deep down, it was laughable. The real me… is no better than a rag, barely worthy of begging for your affection, yet with this outer shell that I can’t take off, I happen to have so much that I can’t even confess to you freely. What a joke of the gods. Just suppressing, suppressing… and suppressing again…. Ah, this kind of glory, I never wanted it….”

Johannes let out a low laugh mixed with a sigh. Because his tone sounded just like that of a person about to be erased from the air, I grasped Johannes’s hand more firmly.

“Anyway, I ended up doing it.”

He continued speaking in a much calmer tone.

“In a way that didn’t deviate an inch from Mother’s expectations. There’s no way to excuse this. When I heard that you had received a marriage proposal, I finally reached the breaking point, and I couldn’t properly control myself. So that day….”

“Don’t say it like that. It wasn’t you.”

“Whichever it was, the result is the same.”

“…”

“It was my sin from the beginning, so I want to atone to you now, but I don’t have the confidence to restrain myself. In fact… I don’t really want to restrain myself that much.”

“…”

“I mean it.”

Johannes’s second confession ended there. I watched silently as emotions gradually faded from Johannes’s face after he finished speaking. At that moment, he looked like a knight captured as a prisoner with a sword at his neck. He also seemed like a criminal who had become rather calm, knowing there was no way to excuse himself, as he had said. And for some reason….

I felt my chest grow cold inside.

I still don’t know why it was at that particular moment. In any case, at that moment, I felt like I was dreaming with my eyes open. I saw Johannes’s battered corpse in my hands.

It was so vivid, descending like an opaque veil over Johannes standing straight before me, that I had to close my eyes to erase that dream. My heart was strangely pounding, and my throat was severely parched. I had no choice but to rest my head on Johannes’s chest.

At first, I tried to comfort him almost habitually, suppressing the pain in my lungs as if I had swallowed thorny vines. However, just as I was about to move my lips, a question stopped me. It was a question similar to the thirst I had felt the night before.

Is it not incomprehensible to want to comfort someone who says they will continue to force themselves on me under the guise of affection? Do I find him pitiful? Pathetic? Why? Because I love him? Just for that reason, do I want to offer ‘this kind’ of comfort?

…Really?

“You’re lying.”

I tried to make a joke.

“You always explode belatedly after trying to hold back every time…”

Feeling Johannes’s gaze falling on my head, I hugged his waist. My complex emotions couldn’t even become words, leaving me with nothing to convey but the most honest and simple sentiment. I continued speaking:

“Still… I like it. I think I finally understand a little… why you’re blaming yourself so much.”

“…”

“It’s okay, Johannes. I’m really okay. You can have me as much as you want from now on. See. I’m your person.”

Johannes remained silent as if his lips had frozen, not giving any reply. Well, what more could Johannes have said? He carefully leaned down, resting his forehead on my shoulder, and hugged me back.

In his embrace, I kept turning it over in my mind. That today, what mattered was not some unidentifiable emotion. That I was the only one who could comfort this man. So let’s use the peace barely given to us solely for the sake of us two.

Don’t just think of yourself, Giovinetta Valdemar. I deceived myself like that, holding Johannes in my hands, who had no idea what I truly desired, unable to even guess.

Kretzman.

As you know, on that day when the sunlight scattered like finely ground golden powder, Johannes’s confession was flawed from the start. He mixed half-truths with half-lies and confessed to me. As a result, he ended up telling me a ‘lie’, but I don’t want to blame him.

Yes, perhaps Johannes could have confessed to me completely. If I had earned a little more of his trust. Or if he had cared for himself a little more.

I want to ask. If only I had been faithful to the desire I belatedly realized that day, would something have been different? Could we have spent time just the two of us, oblivious though wicked? Was the self-deception that continued for a few days after that also the result of a curse born from your hatred? Where are you now?

Today, as I write about our best moments. It feels like it’s already been years since I met you in the underground hall to burn the stone coffin, unable to bear Johannes falling apart, which happened just a few years ago.

Even today, Johannes is half-mad.