After spending two more days by Sarka’s side, Ruslan became certain that Sarka truly regarded him as nothing more than a gnat buzzing around his ear.
A gnat that he sometimes thought about just killing when it got too noisy, but when he thought about the cleanup afterward, that seemed bothersome too, so he’d just roughly trap it in a glass cup and poke at it whenever he remembered.
Sometimes it was interesting to watch it wriggle energetically, and it was more lively than expected so it was fun, but fundamentally, it didn’t matter when or how it ended up.
Observing Sarka more closely, Ruslan realized that this attitude wasn’t applied only to him, but was commonly applied to all the humans existing in this school.
He wore different masks depending on convenience when dealing with them, but fundamentally, humans in Sarka’s categories seemed to be divided into about four types.
- Swarms of gnats that don’t matter either way (the entire student body including Ruslan)
- Somewhat well-managed houseflies (Sarka’s friends)
- Stag beetles that are bothersome but must be dealt with carefully (the professors)
- A few occasionally unpleasant cockroaches (Bruce’s gang)
This was Ruslan’s thinking, but it probably wasn’t far off the mark.
Ruslan was observing Sarka sitting and reading a book in the rare book archive as always, when he suddenly asked in a prodding manner.
“……You don’t have any friends, do you.”
At the sudden accusation, Sarka unconsciously raised his head and looked at Ruslan.
Even today, those moss-green eyes held no warmth whatsoever, like dead fish eyes. To Sarka, who had his usual expression of listening to a dog bark, Ruslan narrowed his eyes and asked with conviction.
“You don’t think of those four guys you hang out with as friends, do you. There’s not a single person in our class you consider close, right?”
Sarka looked at Ruslan like looking at a dog that was particularly yappy today, then slowly asked back.
“……Are you deliberately picking only stupid questions to ask? Or are you just naturally stupid?”
……The ability to phrase ‘why are you asking something so obvious?’ in such an unpleasant roundabout way was also a talent.
While pretending not to hear the cold rebuke and completely ignoring it, Ruslan pondered by himself.
Was it because his abilities were too outstanding that he didn’t even want to get close to ordinary humans?
Since they were targets he could make feel affection toward him or conversely make hate him at any time if he wanted to, perhaps it was bothersome to work at gaining their favor and building friendship.
However, living a life treating all humans like dogs or insects and living like a zookeeper working at a kennel—that couldn’t possibly be an enjoyable life.
People were creatures that suffered from loneliness. Even dogs and cats, if you raised them and grew attached, you’d regard them like family and cherish them, yet if everyone was still just flying insects even after spending a year and a half among peers he could communicate with, then Sarka was no different from always sitting alone inside a beast cage or insect den. Could such a life be happy?
……Did Kanya also live like that, perhaps?
At the thought that suddenly occurred to him, Ruslan blinked.
In the cold boy before his eyes, Ruslan saw an overlap with Kanya’s youth that he didn’t know. A girl who once had vivid red hair and beautiful skin.
Did Kanya, did that woman also spend her youth unable to trust anyone among the humans surrounding her and unable to open her heart to anyone, just like Sarka was doing now, and grow old without children?
Was it only then that she cherished the family that had never been permitted to her in her lifetime, cherishing young children as if they were her own blood?
When her hair had turned white and she began to see the end of her life, was it because she couldn’t endure the loneliness that she picked up a small baby, picked up Ruslan?
“……”
Ruslan felt a dull ache below his heart.
Kanya hadn’t told Ruslan about her youth. Even when Ruslan occasionally asked, she’d just brush it off with jokes or nonsense, never telling him in detail.
For a rural village herbalist, she was educated and learned, so even the village elders would sometimes visit to seek her advice, but no one knew where Kanya had been or what she’d done in her youth.
What her surname was, whether she had family, whether Kanya was even her real name—no one knew.
People said even that was suspicious, that she must have been a woman who committed some wrongdoing and fled to the countryside to hide, but whenever Ruslan thought of Kanya’s life, his heart felt like it was being crushed.
When he thought that a woman who had drifted through a lifetime of anxiety, fear, and loneliness had finally left this world in such a manner at a rural village’s stake, his heart ached as if being wildly clawed from the inside by a sharp blade.
Ruslan stared at Sarka’s dry profile with a heavily sunken gaze, then asked in a trembling voice.
“……For your whole life……do you plan never to become friends with a human?”
Sarka raised his head, then looked back at Ruslan expressionlessly. Ruslan bit his lips and carefully looked into Sarka’s eyes. A voice filled with worry and pain trembled as it flowed out.
“You’re worried……about your identity being discovered, right? Because it becomes dangerous if you’re found out……”
At that gaze filled with sadness and tenderness, however, Sarka made an expression where his sense of absurdity completely evaporated.
The look in Sarka’s eyes as he stared at Ruslan with an expression that words couldn’t come out was like witnessing a dog not just barking but shitting out of its mouth.
Sarka finally let out an annoyed breath and turned his gaze away from the book he’d been reading. Today’s dog shit seemed too absurd to just let pass.
Leaning his body against the backrest, Sarka wore an expression exhausted from dealing with utterly pathetic nonsense, then spat out in a cold tone as if teaching 1+1.
“<Friends> can only be established in equal relationships.”
Though it was an irritated voice, it was a conversation that had started for the first time in a while. Not wanting to miss this opportunity, Ruslan leaned his upper body forward to meet Sarka’s eyes and asked more seriously than ever.
“Do you think <equality> is determined by the presence or absence of ability?”
“Then what determines it? A <generous and magnanimous heart>?”
Sarka was openly sarcastic. Sarka’s brow was filled with annoyance as he tilted his head diagonally in a languid posture and looked at Ruslan.
Still, worried that Sarka’s attention in continuing to respond might break off, Ruslan bent his upper body forward and asserted in a crisp voice.
“I think it’s determined by the <magnitude of emotions>.”
Sarka was still staring at Ruslan expressionlessly. His expression showed he wasn’t even listening halfheartedly, but Ruslan’s eyes shone as he continued speaking in an utterly serious and convinced tone.
“If you like each other equally, that relationship becomes <equal>. When people come to like someone, they want to respect that person the same as themselves.”
Sarka made an expression wondering what kind of novel dog shit this was. It was an insulting gaze, but Ruslan didn’t care at all and began pouring out words with his eyes full of vitality. His navy blue eyes sparkled as blue as the midday sea reflecting sunlight.
“Grandmother said she and I were equal. Though grandmother was smarter than me, stronger, and had lived several times more life, she said because you and I like each other equally, our relationship is equal. Even though grandmother was a vampire with tremendous supernatural powers like you, and I was just a young kid……”
Thud.
Ruslan, who had been passionately pouring out stories about Kanya, suddenly felt his mouth clamp tightly shut as if someone had pushed his chin up from below.
“……! ……!”
Flustered, Ruslan blinked and tried to open his mouth again, but his teeth wouldn’t separate as if glue had stuck them together. It was like invisible hands were firmly gripping his jaw from above and below.
Ruslan struggled while making muffled sounds, and tried to touch his mouth area with his hand in the process, but before his fingers could even reach below his chin, this time both arms moved on their own and stuck to his sides.
Ruslan blinked his eyes, then rolled his eyeballs to look down. Ruslan’s body was frozen like a statue, stuck to the chair in an at-attention posture. His entire body felt paralyzed.
Ruslan unconsciously rolled his eyes, which were the only thing that could move, and looked back at Sarka.
However, the moment he met those red eyes looking straight at him, he instinctively swallowed empty air.
“……I told you not to act familiar and ramble on about your stories.”
The low, damp voice was close to the faint growl a beast emits just before attacking.
Ruslan unconsciously swallowed.
Sarka’s gaze was still expressionless, but like a sword drawn from its sheath, a sharp blade was bristling. The rippling red eyes were more fierce than usual, exhausted and weary, and eerie. It was a look saying to cut it out.
Dangerous. Ruslan instinctively felt warning lights going off in his head.
Sarka, that cold and stern zookeeper, had warned him.
You’re nothing but an animal I’m playing with for amusement, and if you get on my nerves I can do whatever I want to you, so ‘don’t act familiar and ramble on about your stories.’
Sarka, looking at the dog that had disobeyed orders, faintly frowned.
Ruslan felt his insides freeze and tremble faintly. This zookeeper didn’t like repeating himself twice. Not for stupid dogs without learning ability, nor for gnats that presumptuously tried to crawl up.
The child who discovered that the gnat inside the glass cup he’d been casually poking at was trying to crawl out onto the bed now seemed to feel more displeasure than interest.
……If I mess up, this could be the end right here.
In that eerie gaze, just as Ruslan was beginning to feel fear in his body that still wouldn’t move as if dead, it happened.
Bang!
Suddenly with a cheerful sound, the door to the rare book archive opened wide, and a lively voice poured out boisterously.
“Sarka! As expected, I knew you’d be looking at books in this gloomy place.”
The moment the door opened, Ruslan felt the restraints holding his body suddenly slip away smoothly.
While unconsciously opening his mouth wide and exhaling the breath that had been blocked, Ruslan turned his head to look toward where the unfamiliar voice came from.
A well-built upperclassman was holding the wide-open door handle in sophisticated outdoor clothing, grinning broadly.
It was a face Ruslan knew too.
Baigarten Jung.
As the Head Boy of fifth year, he was one of the upperclassmen in the noble group that often hung around with Sarka.
Since he controlled students from the front row at every official school event, Ruslan had often seen his face.
With fine brown hair, serious teal eyes, and a masculine jaw, Baigarten had the feel of a young man rather than a student, befitting a graduating class member.
Instead of a school uniform, he wore a fashionable brown checkered lounge suit with a cape coat, and instead of a stuffy top hat, he wore a hunting cap lightly pressed down—it seemed he’d come to find Sarka as soon as he returned to school, as he hadn’t even removed his gloves.
Baigarten walked inside with big strides while spinning his outdoor walking stick, then pulled out the chair right next to Ruslan and plopped down on it.
Sarka’s gaze left Ruslan and turned toward the man before him. Ruslan unconsciously felt relieved like someone who’d moved away from a loaded gun barrel.
The man, who couldn’t possibly know the tension that had filled this room just moments ago, was leisurely pouring out words in a cheerful attitude with his legs crossed.
“Dear Sarka. End-of-term vacation is very precious for graduating class students. And yet, after hearing this news, I absolutely couldn’t stay at home. Sarka, my boy. You got a roommate while I was on vacation? Is this the guy?”
Baigarten playfully extended his thumb to point at Ruslan sitting next to him.
When Ruslan suddenly realized he’d missed the timing to greet him and flustered about, Baigarten casually draped his arm over Ruslan’s shoulder as if to say it was fine and to stay still, then winked.
When Ruslan closed his mouth, he turned his head back toward Sarka and began listing complaints full of hurt feelings.
“How cruel! How could you never introduce me to a friend close enough to be your roommate? Sarka, was our relationship only that much? I still thought we were the kind who had nothing to hide from each other. This senior is so hurt. To think that was just my delusion alone.”
Baigarten raised his hand to his heart area with a dramatic gesture, even making a properly pained expression playfully. The sight of a well-built nineteen-year-old man good-naturedly throwing a tantrum couldn’t have been more amusing.
However, the moment Ruslan unconsciously turned his gaze to check Sarka’s expression, he was startled.
Sarka’s eyes looking at Baigarten were so cold they were no different from how he’d just been looking at Ruslan.
“……”
Sarka frowned and turned his head as if an annoying guy had arrived, then exhaled with an exhausted expression. It was a blatant sigh with no intention of hiding his irritation.
Ruslan’s eyes widened.
Unlike usual, Sarka’s face wasn’t hypocritical. Sarka’s expression, clearly showing even raw annoyance and displeasure, felt honest to the point of being rude.
Ruslan was seeing Sarka display such blatant emotions to someone for the first time. And to an upperclassman who should be treated carefully, someone he would normally greet with a polite smile and respectfully.
Baigarten, undeterred by Sarka’s reaction, looked at Ruslan’s face with an amused expression, then cheerfully extended his hand.
“Let’s see. Since it seems Sarka has no intention of introducing us like a proper Imperial gentleman, shall we impatient folks exchange names first? I’m Baigarten Jung. I’m serving as the Head Boy of fifth year. You might have seen my face a few times.”
“Ah……Yes. I’ve, I’ve seen you. I’m Ru……Ruslan. I don’t have a surname, so you can just call me Ruslan.”
Ruslan hurriedly clasped hands while stammering his greeting.
Baigarten smiled broadly, then pulled the clasped hand toward him and playfully whispered in the ear of Ruslan who’d been pulled along. Though he’d bent his upper body down as if sharing a secret story, his voice wasn’t lowered at all as if for Sarka to hear.
“So, what’s the secret?”
“Pardon?”
“The forbidden zone that no one could invade for a year and a half, Sarka Hütivras’s <bedroom>! As the first man to set foot in that pure place, what’s the secret to breaking down that iron wall? No, no, that’s not it. I can hear that later. Let me ask this first. How was the <first night> with Sarka? Did you find any of that guy’s secret weaknesses or anything? Tell just me quietly. Hey, does that guy snore?”
It was the moment when Ruslan was frozen, not knowing how to respond to the jokes that poured out slickly without even time to answer.
Swoosh.
The book that had been spread open in front of Sarka lightly bounced up, then flew straight into the mouth area of the chattering Baigarten.
Surprised at Sarka using his supernatural powers while nonchalantly flashing red light in his eyes was brief—Ruslan ended up gaping at an even more surprising sight.
Baigarten had naturally avoided Sarka’s book by just slightly turning his head, as if he’d known it would happen.
……Huh?
