“Seianes, are you awake?”
When Seianes opened his eyes, Abrisius smiled brightly and embraced him. Seianes, with a dazed expression, stared down at Abrisius and carefully opened his mouth.
“…Where is this, Abrisius?”
At that question, Abrisius, who had been burying his face in Seianes’s abdomen, slightly raised his head. Tilting his head once, he answered the question with an unbothered face.
“Where else would it be? The underworld.”
The corners of his eyes curved playfully. A chilliness emanating from his innocent-looking expression. At that strange sense of discord, Seianes felt a deep headache for a moment.
“We fell into the underworld together. Don’t you remember?”
“…I do remember that. Yes…”
Along with a sharp pain, the memory of that time flashed through Seianes’s mind. The moment they fell together into the deep darkness, Abrisius had been smiling. In that situation, there was no malice felt from Abrisius. He was simply purely craving what he wanted. Like a child.
“Love…”
Seianes muttered while looking down at Abrisius’s black crown as he rubbed his face against him while nestled in his arms.
What had made this child like this?
It was ‘love’ that Seianes couldn’t give. It wasn’t lacking. It was just that Seianes couldn’t give the form of love that Abrisius wanted.
But this wasn’t the right way.
“Abrisius, you said you brought me here because you love me, right? Then let me ask you one thing. Is this your love?”
Gently pushing away Abrisius who was nestled in his arms, Seianes suppressed his anger. What Abrisius had just done was no different from dragging him bare-bodied into a lion’s den. Really, he was angry beyond words… but more than that, Seianes felt responsible for this matter.
He couldn’t only blame Abrisius’s wrongdoing. In any case, he was the one who raised this child. He couldn’t say he had no responsibility for committing such an act.
Because a child’s wrongdoing is also the parent’s wrongdoing.
“This isn’t love. You said it yourself. If you love me, you shouldn’t do it this way… You’re thoroughly mistaken about something right now. Do you think you’ll be happy being with me this way? This isn’t love.”
So even now, he had to admonish him and scold his wrongdoing.
“Then what is love?”
Before he could scold the wrongdoing, Abrisius tilted his head. What is love. Seianes, dumbfounded, let out an empty breath.
“What is love, you ask? Are you calling that a question?”
“I’m asking because I don’t know. What is love? Here, you and I don’t have to be apart, and we can be together continuously. Henelion won’t have a chance to separate us either.”
His red eyes glinted coldly. In his eyes was firm conviction. The conviction that they could be together in this place.
“It’s not love just because only you’re happy.”
Denying Abrisius’s conviction, Seianes scolded him loudly. Holding onto Abrisius and looking straight into his eyes, Seianes continued speaking.
“Even if you and I are together in this place, we can’t be happy. This isn’t a path where we can be together in the first place. It’s our grave. Abrisius, I can’t be happy in a place that isn’t the surface.”
“…Are you saying that we can’t love because you’re not happy?”
“No, what I’m saying is that your actions are selfish, Abrisius.”
Selfish. At those words, Abrisius blinked. He had said he would accept whatever he did. But what Seianes was saying now was so different from back then.
“Seianes said it. That you would willingly accept whatever I did…”
“But not this.”
Not this. Then what exactly did Seianes mean when he said he would accept it? He wanted to ask how far the ‘whatever’ he said he would accept was within the permissible range.
“Right… Then do you hate me now?”
Do you hate me for exceeding the permissible range you chose? Of course there’s no way you’d hate me.
Because Seianes loves Abrisius.
As expected, Seianes hesitated for a moment. He didn’t dislike or hate Abrisius. He loved him so much that he couldn’t dare say such words even in anger.
But he couldn’t just let this pass without saying something proper. He fell into thought for a moment. Should he make Abrisius realize his own wrongdoing by saying he dislikes it? Or would it be right to coax and soothe him while admonishing the child by saying no?
Whether the latter or the former, it complicated his mind because he couldn’t know how Abrisius would come out.
“I don’t hate you… But.”
“But?”
“I hate this situation.”
It was a conclusion reached after brief contemplation. I don’t dislike you, but I dislike your wrongdoing and this situation. In other words, it was a rebuke solely for his wrong actions, not for Abrisius himself.
“Right, I must have some responsibility for you making such a choice.”
And at the same time, Seianes, who acknowledged his own responsibility for this situation, looked straight at Abrisius. His face was serious, as if he would atone together with Abrisius for this wrongdoing.
“So bearing that responsibility together and admonishing you to return things to how they were is also my duty.”
“Return to how they were?”
Not understanding what he meant, Abrisius tilted his head.
Did what Seianes meant by ‘return to how they were’ mean to return to the surface together? Or was it to forget everything that happened until now and be together again as son and father? Either way lacked reality.
“It’s already irreversible though?”
Seianes still seemed not to understand. Already, the two of them couldn’t return to how they were. Abrisius had crossed a river that couldn’t be crossed.
At Seianes’s words, the corners of Abrisius’s mouth rose crookedly. His pure and gentle smile gradually twisted grotesquely.
“Pfft.”
Something rose from within. Anger? No. To be precise, it was closer to being deflated.
“Puhahaha—!”
Unable to hold it in any longer, Abrisius burst into loud laughter right there. Listening to the absurd things Seianes was spouting, his laughter wouldn’t stop.
The cloying laughter floated through the room. The small unnamed boy who had followed Abrisius slightly frowned beside him.
The boy who had stepped back looked at Seianes with a reproachful gaze.
“That’s ridiculous.”
Abrisius, who had laughed for a while, wiped his mouth with his arm. Giggling and shrugging his shoulders, he slowly approached Seianes.
“Is Seianes stupid? We can’t go back to how we were before.”
That was exactly it.
Abrisius, who had already become aware of his love and fallen to desire, couldn’t go back to before, nor did he have any intention of doing so.
“When I already love you this much?”
He placed his hand on Seianes’s chest. He felt the heart beating and making sounds. Thinking this was a sound directed toward him, Abrisius’s actions became even bolder.
“So acknowledge it now, you too—that you love me.”
Seianes denied it, but it was futile. Because this was the truth.
The only reason he didn’t know his own feelings was… because he had regarded Abrisius as a son for so long.
Even if he loved Abrisius sexually, the wall between parent and child that he himself had built blocked those feelings.
There was a need to break down Seianes’s solid wall. That massive, flawless, invisible wall of being parent and child.
“Right, but not this way. Your love is wrong. You’re my son… and happiness in a place like this…”
“You said you’re not happy because this place isn’t your surface, right?”
“That’s right, you dragged me here without my opinion.”
Verdant nature and the scent of flowers… This place had none of the things Seianes loved. No Milky Way, no clouds, no trees—only pitch-black darkness and fog obscuring the view was all this place had.
Seianes couldn’t understand Abrisius, who had forcibly dragged him to this desolate land without even asking his opinion.
“We were happy enough on the surface.”
We were satisfied and happy on that land, so why… Why did Abrisius throw himself into this land? To lose the abundance of the surface and make them look only at each other?
“Is that really so? Why do you think I was happy?”
At words different from what he expected, Seianes was left speechless. Abrisius, smiling brightly, lightly pushed Seianes. Flustered by Abrisius’s strength from the unexpected impact, Seianes helplessly plopped down on the bed.
What followed was even more shocking.
“The underworld is my homeland. Why are you arbitrarily deciding that I would be happy on the surface, Seianes?”
