Every situation given to Kiss was saying it. That he shouldn’t get more deeply involved with Ash. Not only had he made a deal with Deus over the throne, but Ash’s father was Lucius, who had greatly contributed to his mother’s death.
Also, if Erina, whose mood had soured from today’s events, broke off their engagement, the plan he’d originally designed would definitely fall apart. The original Kiss wouldn’t have accepted such a variable.
‘I’m going crazy.’
His head clearly knew this wasn’t acceptable, but for some reason he didn’t feel like backing down. He couldn’t let go of Ash, who was sobbing and clinging to him as if he were a lifeline.
Rather, he kissed him and pressed their bodies together, like taking a long-held breath. Ash, who had been receiving the kiss with his eyes tightly shut, turned his head. Then, covering his face with both arms, he spoke.
“Am I, am I the only one who can hear it? Doesn’t someone keep muttering something?”
“……”
“Just, just now… didn’t someone tell me to die?”
Kiss, who had pulled down his arms, examined Ash’s complexion. His eyes, having lost reason, were empty and unfocused, and his half-open mouth was busy panting as if even swallowing saliva was difficult.
He seemed to have fallen into a state of extreme fear, hearing not only hallucinations but auditory hallucinations as well. It was a familiar sight to Kiss, who had often been drafted for monster subjugation and commanded mercenaries.
‘How troublesome, has he fallen into a panic?’
The way to handle someone in a panic was simple. You just had to slap their cheek to bring their senses back. Ash, startled by Kiss raising his hand without hesitation, squeezed his eyes shut.
Seeing this, Kiss’s hand froze in midair. Kiss, who had sighed, gently cupped the back of Ash’s neck with the hand he’d raised. Then he lightly kneaded his nape as if to release his tension.
“I guess that talk about talent was all bluster too.”
“……”
“Can you still hear it?”
Ash, who had hesitated, nodded slightly. Tears he couldn’t wipe away flowed down his cheeks. Ash, who had been moving his lips while staring into space, spoke with his gaze lowered.
“Actually… there was one more child.”
“……”
“In that room, there was one more adopted kid besides me…”
Ash, who had started an incomprehensible story, covered his eyes with both hands as if in pain. Kiss, watching this, recalled a story Ash had once told.
At the time, he hadn’t taken seriously the story about being locked in a room and nearly reaching the point of dehydration. He’d thought that whatever past Ash had, it was none of his business. Ash, who had cried until his cheeks were soaked, continued in a cracked voice.
“I heard that kid faintly asking for help while sleeping, but I pretended not to notice. I think I thought that if that kid died, those people might love me more. Because affection gets divided.”
“……”
“So I pretended not to notice. But I think I’ve been curious about it ever since.”
Kiss, who had been listening expressionlessly, cupped Ash’s cheeks. His hand, which had been wiping away the tears flowing down Ash’s cheeks, froze stiff at Ash’s next words.
“Why do I have to hurt someone in order not to get hurt myself?”
It was the same question Kiss had carried for a long time. To have his own time, he had to steal someone else’s time. To have his own strength, he had to steal someone else’s strength. To gain one thing, he always had to abandon one thing. The world was maintained by such cruel laws.
An unfamiliar emotion he’d never felt before heated his throat. It felt like all the violin strings he’d carefully tuned to produce the exact notes were snapping.
‘This emotion is definitely…’
A faint smile appeared on Kiss’s lips as he realized the name of the emotion he was feeling. It was an emotion he hadn’t felt even once since childhood. An emotion he’d discarded because it was unnecessary.
‘Compassion.’
Their eyes met in the darkness. Ash, confirming Kiss’s expression, muttered awkwardly.
“Why are you smiling when someone’s crying? That’s creepy…”
“I guess you’re getting embarrassed after crying alone to your heart’s content.”
“……”
“You don’t need to be afraid of hurting someone. A life that doesn’t hurt anything is rather cowardly.”
It seemed like words for Ash, but in the end, it was also words for himself. Ash, who had been quietly receiving the touch playing with his earlobe, asked back.
“Who are you saying that to?”
Kiss’s hand froze stiff. After looking at Ash with an expressionless face for a moment, he soon pulled Ash’s arms to make him embrace his own neck. Kiss, burying his lips in Ash’s nape mottled with bruises, whispered while stroking up his waist.
“Are you always this curious before sex?”
* * *
The work the Empress’s watchdog had to do wasn’t limited to just murder and torture. Sometimes Kiss himself often became the price of a transaction. He mixed bodies with women whose names he didn’t even know, and obtained information instead of payment.
It was fortunate. No matter how rotten the insides were, if the exterior was splendid, no one noticed. There were occasionally women who noticed, but that didn’t change anything.
<There’s a type like that. The type that makes the worst choices the more desperate the situation. You know what those kids have in common?>
The words of a bedmate whose name he couldn’t even remember circled in his head.
<If you look closely, they have a big deficiency they don’t even know about.>
He’d denied those words as a generalization at the time, but now he understood them to some degree. Kiss, who had been urgently gnawing on Ash’s earlobe, inserted his tongue into his ear canal and sucked. As the sound of sucking his ear resonated wetly to his brain, startled Ash made a “hic” sound and embraced his neck.
Glancing at Ash, who was twisting his body at the strange sensation, he completely blocked the opposite ear. Ash’s lips parted slightly at the amplified sound.
“You keep doing that to my ear…”
“You said you were hearing strange sounds.”
“……”
“Unlike someone, I don’t have the bad taste of fucking without comforting you first.”
Kiss expressionlessly wet his index and middle fingers with saliva. Then he slipped his hand into Ash’s waistband.
Ash trembled at the feeling of fingers fumbling around the hole. It was a sensation he couldn’t get used to no matter how many times he experienced it. The fingertips that had been wandering around the hole rubbed his perineum before soon spreading the inside. A moan flowed out simultaneously with the feeling of being opened below.
“Ah, ngh.”
“I don’t know why you’re so tight when you’re not even a virgin.”
Kiss, who had been prodding the tight insides, sighed. He thought Deus was truly amazing. When it clenched tight enough to cut off just two fingers, he was simply amazed at how Deus managed to fuck him so often.
Ash, who had been swallowing his pain with tears welling in his eyes, spoke in a choked voice.
“Normally when someone’s crying and suffering, wouldn’t you not think of doing this kind of thing?”
“I told you, it’s not that I hate you. It’s that I want to see you suffering.”
“……”
“But is it really only suffering?”
As Kiss’s fingers rubbed upward, the inner walls spasmed with a twitch. Startled by the strange sensation he couldn’t get used to no matter how many times he experienced it, Ash urgently grabbed both of Kiss’s shoulders. Looking down at Ash, whose face had flushed red and whose body was trembling, he muttered as if pleased.
“Your expression is good.”
Feeling the tightness clenching below, Kiss prodded the insides to make squelching sounds. Ash moaned with his head lowered at the fingertips skillfully finding and crushing his prostate.
“No, wait… Ah!”
Along with the feeling of a dull gathering below his navel, Ash’s nape quickly became soaked with sweat. The touch that immediately wandered around his prostate the moment he showed any sign of getting an erection was definitely vicious.
Kiss unbuttoned Ash’s shirt as he arched his back as if in pain. Only after a few buttons came undone did Ash’s mind finally return, and he urgently grabbed Kiss’s hand.
“Don’t.”
“Why?”
“……”
“I trust you’re not about to say the crazy thing that you can’t do this now.”
Ash, who had flinched at Kiss’s irritated voice, averted his gaze. Kiss’s expression turned cold as he confirmed Ash’s hesitant face.
Unlike himself, Ash was sincere, so he thought perhaps Ash might say he couldn’t mix bodies when they weren’t in a definite relationship.
And if Ash came at him like that, Kiss planned to obediently back down. No matter how out of his mind he was right now, he wasn’t crazy enough to definitively define their relationship. Ash, who had only been moving his lips without reading Kiss’s increasingly chilly atmosphere, muttered in a small voice.
“Last time you said I’d gained a bit more weight than before.”
“……”
“So I don’t want to take off my clothes.”
Kiss raised one eyebrow. In fact, Kiss had been suffering from anhedonia for quite a long time. Pleasure was also included in unnecessary emotions. As he repeatedly worked to consciously kill his emotions, at some point he became unable to easily feel pleasure either.
For that reason, he didn’t bother to hold women unless it was his heat cycle, and he also didn’t masturbate, which any male his age would do. He thought there was nothing more foolish than not being able to control himself.
‘Ah.’
Kiss’s gaze, looking at Ash expressionlessly, landed on his own thighs. The front that should have had no reaction was bulging. He definitely had no reaction at all when it wasn’t his heat cycle. Something that had been impossible even with drugs or all sorts of stimulating positions…
‘I’m hard.’
Just from those few words.
