“Elijah……, I hate you being touched by another bastard’s hands.”
Words like a child’s tantrum flowed out on a threateningly lowered voice.
“Rose……, I’m sorry. I was wrong.”
Elijah apologized with all his might. However, Rose seemed more upset by those words.
“You did nothing wrong, so why apologize?”
“Because you seem angry……”
“I’m not angry, this is, Elijah……”
His lips were covered again. Unlike just before, it was a kiss that felt somewhat gentler. However, the momentum pressing down on Elijah’s body was still extremely ferocious.
“I just……, I’m curious.”
A voice disguised as kindness rippled with incomprehensible anger.
“Why you must send letters to that bastard every day like that, so that eventually other vermin are drawn to our space for just the two of us, I don’t understand that……, Elijah.”
Elijah didn’t think ‘that bastard’ Rose was referring to meant his Master. It seemed certain that Rose was misunderstanding something.
“Th-, that person is really a stranger. I didn’t call him…… Rose, please believe me. That letter really……, wasn’t sent to that person……”
“Can’t it just be me?”
“……”
“You just need to think of me, look only at me, remember only me, so why do you keep looking for other things?”
“No, that’s not it, Rose. It’s not like that……”
Elijah didn’t understand his words precisely, but just earnestly denied them. He became so aggrieved that his eyes stung. As Rose said, he didn’t know why he should apologize.
“If I hadn’t been there, you would have kept meeting that bastard, right?”
“No, that’s not it……”
“What do you mean it’s not. You get lonely easily.”
Was it something that warranted this kind of talk in the first place? Just listening to Rose’s words, it felt like he had committed some great betrayal. Just because another person had entered this area, just because he had exchanged a few words of conversation with him…….
“Hup.”
Crunch, crunch, his shoulder was painfully chewed. He clearly heard the sound of skin being punctured and crushed. Elijah bit down on his lips tasting of blood and held back tears that surged up.
If he just endured a little, it would end. Rose’s mood would soon be fine too. It was just that he had become sensitive due to insufficient feeding for the past few months.
From the time he was soft flour dough, to toddling and starting to speak, he had watched it all. Rose was originally a good child. He absolutely would not harm him. So there was no need to be frightened more than necessary…….
“Ah, ahuk.”
However, the words he had tried to console himself with kept blurring due to the pain of skin being mercilessly chewed.
The time when he was just young and cute passed by too briefly. The Rose before Elijah’s eyes was a massive wall where traces of that time could no longer be found.
A beast is a beast even if it’s gentle.
Igrit, placed on the table next to the entrance, was looking this way. The crookedly drawn facial features seemed strangely twisted. Elijah, who had been blankly looking at him for a moment, suddenly struggled violently.
Rose hooked his arms under his knees and lifted them to both sides. His widely spread genitals were placed entirely under his view.
“N-, no, don’t do it! It hurts! It hurts, Rose!”
Frightened Elijah pushed him away wildly. Rose burst into clear laughter as if genuinely amused.
“I haven’t done anything yet, so where exactly hurts so much?”
His words were partially true. However, Elijah, already frightened to the extreme, flinched like someone pricked by an awl even at the slightest brush of Rose’s fingertips.
“It hurts, no! Don’t do it!”
No matter how much he punched, he absolutely wouldn’t budge, so instinctively he sought other means. An aura appeared on Elijah’s hands as he wildly scratched Rose’s shoulders with his nails raised.
“Hiik……”
Elijah, frightened in advance, tightly shrank his hands. He was afraid Rose would be shattered to pieces. The hands that stopped resisting gathered obediently in front of Rose’s chest. His frail legs struggled weakly.
“Rose, Rose. Don’t do this. ……Don’t be scary.”
“Scary?”
Rose, who opened his eyes round, tilted his head as if he truly couldn’t understand.
“What did I do?”
“……”
“I haven’t even touched you, so it’s a bit unfair to hear such words…… I’ve never once done anything you should be afraid of until now.”
“I was wrong……, it won’t happen again, I’m sorry. Spare me……”
Rose smiled and lowered his head to him. Large hands swept up his waist and rose to his chest. Shh, shh…… He whispered as if to reassure Elijah.
“It’s okay, Elijah. You won’t die. Why would I kill you?”
The face with an innocent smile approached right before Elijah’s nose.
“Just like always……, it’s like killing time.”
“……Killing time?”
“You’ll definitely feel good too. Hm?”
Elijah wasn’t persuaded even one bit by the soothing words. The words that he would feel good somehow felt unconvincing. Even without knowing exactly what Rose was trying to do, he just had that premonition.
The large body tilted and created a shadow over Elijah.
“Rose, what, ……what are you doing, hic!”
The hand groping the inside of his perineum felt particularly cold. His tender scrotum was pressed flat against his palm, and long fingertips flowed further down.
“Good boy, Elijah.”
The touch gently patting his buttocks as if coaxing a baby was chillingly affectionate.
“Don’t move. It’ll hurt more.”
Elijah recognized somewhat late the unfamiliar sensation digging below him.
“Hic……!”
Tears surged up. Unable to even scream, he stiffened his body and only trembled at his fingertips like a butterfly pinned.
The line he had tried hard to build solidly in the past gradually distorted. The belief that Rose absolutely would not harm him was quite thickly built compared to the insignificant time they had spent together.
“Urk, hup……”
Moans mixed with crying were all dragged into Rose’s mouth. The tongue trying to push away the invading flesh was captured instead. The back of his head ached from being sucked in with the momentum to pull out the root of his tongue.
Just as Rose said. He should have not written letters. Then he wouldn’t have had to experience such a frightening thing…….
Elijah desperately hoped this moment was a nightmare.
However, when the pain that existed only in nightmares was revived in reality, ironically he realized this moment could absolutely not be a dream.
* * *
Moonlight seeping through the rectangular window, entirely dark and damp stone walls. A small space where cold moisture clung inside his nose every time he drew breath.
Once again, it was a nightmare.
The small rooms divided into sections at the top of the old monastery were originally priests’ individual prayer rooms. The palm-sized window was too small, so it was always dark whether day or night. Especially at night, only the rectangular moonlight shone palely in the pitch-black darkness, seeming to float in the air.
Eyes not yet accustomed to the darkness couldn’t discern the other party’s face, but Elijah now knew well who she was.
‘Does it hurt?’
‘……No.’
Sweat that flowed from the ends of black curly hair fell on Elijah’s forehead.
‘Then?’
‘…….’
Words didn’t come easily due to the pressure hotly filling his belly. An anxious voice urged an answer.
‘I want to know how you feel……, Elijah.’
The voice that shook weakly without confidence was so low and wet, it sounded exactly like it was being dragged up from the monastery basement.
‘You tell me first, Rose. I want to know too.’
‘I……’
Though he clearly couldn’t see her face, Elijah felt he knew what expression ‘Rose’ was making. Her white, fine forehead was slightly distorted in pain.
‘I feel like I’m dying……’
Wet hair fell around Elijah’s neck. Along with stinging pain, a bloody smell full of thick moisture spread into his nose.
“Heu, uh……”
His body, boiling with fever, had even dulled senses. No sound was heard in his ears, muffled from the fever.
However, Elijah could tell Rose was by his side from the touch of the cold hand occasionally placed on his forehead. Elijah, who moved his dry lips, muttered in a completely hoarse voice.
“Cold……, I’m cold, Rose.”
He curled up and burrowed into the embrace that pulled him in. Even the touch of the blanket he always slept under and Rose’s flesh grazing his bare body caused tingling pain.
His whole body truly hurt as if breaking, so Elijah could do nothing but cling to Rose.
Rose’s care was as always devoted and sincere. He carefully applied medicine on the wounds caused by blood-sucking, and poured lukewarm water between lips coughing shallowly to moisten his throat.
Occasionally when Elijah struggled to open his eyes, he immediately brought thin soup to fill his stomach even a little, and wiped his sweat-soaked body in every corner.
That affection was so much like usual that the night of being crushed mercilessly beneath Rose seemed exactly like a dream.
“I’m thirsty……, I want to drink water.”
At one word, the arm that had been wrapping his shoulder fell away. Elijah reflexively reached out to catch the warmth moving away. Elijah, who hurriedly curled his body into Rose’s arms that returned in less than a few seconds, tightly gripped his clothes.
