“……!!!”
Ruslan glared at Sarka with bloodshot eyes, his mouth tightly sealed.
Sarka was looking into Ruslan’s eyes with slightly furrowed brows. As if annoyed by a stupid dog that never learned no matter how much you taught it.
Ruslan felt a maddening rage. It felt like all the blood vessels in his body were expanding in all directions as if cursed by a demon.
Ruslan struggled and tried to pry his mouth open with his hands as if tearing it apart. If necessary, he wanted to rip his mouth open to shake off this cowardly oppression and pour curses onto that cold boy’s face. Not elegant Imperial curses, but all of Frükan’s rough and harsh profanities.
However, as soon as Ruslan’s fingers touched his mouth, his fingers moved in reverse to block his mouth more firmly. Ruslan felt his own fingers gently intertwining like a net to capture his lips and pressing down with solid force like tightly packed bricks.
“……!! ……!!!!”
What was raging inside Ruslan’s body was no longer anger but hatred. His blue eyes blazed cold like blue fire.
While glaring at Sarka with a murderous gaze, Ruslan flailed both arms. Strength entered his elbows and his fingernails trying to scratch down the skin around his mouth trembled. Ruslan could hear the bones in his fingers making cracking sounds while resisting the tremendous force.
However, after exerting force for only a moment, this time his legs gave way on their own and Ruslan’s body fell forward lightly like a stick toppling over.
Bang!
Ruslan, who fell like a statue burying his face in the carpet, wriggled his back while frozen stiff. Ruslan’s mouth was now blocked not by the force of his two hands but pressed down by Ruslan’s own body weight.
Ruslan tried to flip his body by flailing his legs, but the moment Ruslan exerted force, his two feet instead stood on tiptoes pressing the floor as if punishing that resistance. Ruslan felt like he would go crazy realizing that his two feet were helping to bury his face deeper into the carpet by putting weight toward his head.
“……!! ……!!!”
His nose was crushed against the carpet and he began to suffocate.
While quietly looking down at Ruslan who was struggling to thrash his body as if having convulsions, Sarka gently admonished him like teaching an immature young dog.
“……You have no right to speak. You don’t have the power to earn the right to speak. No matter how hard you try to speak, people stronger than you will block your mouth, and the more you try, the more you’ll get hurt.
People live according to their station from where they were born—that’s the rule. If you try to break that rule, you’ll only endanger yourself.”
Sarka’s voice was calm. As if sincerely advising while sympathizing with a foolish dog slow to learn.
At that voice indifferent and composed without even any malice, Ruslan felt his eyes would roll back.
Ruslan twisted his whole body and struggled somehow to escape the control, but not a single muscle in his entire body obeyed Ruslan’s commands.
Ruslan began suffocating while wriggling face-down on the floor with his face buried in the carpet.
As air became insufficient, his chest grew tight and finally his head began to grow hazy. Tears of pain welled up and were rubbed onto the carpet leaving stains. Ruslan thought he would die suffocating like this. That he would die wriggling like a caterpillar in such a stupid and miserable state.
“……Kah!!”
At that moment, the control disappeared as if his whole body was released from ropes.
His mouth came loose and breath burst out with tremendous force.
“Kuh, cough, kah……keugh! Cough! Cough!!”
Ruslan bounced his body like a flopping fish to lift his upper body off the carpet and spat out violent coughs. Saliva flowed from his wheezing throat making the tear stains that had been smeared on the carpet darker.
While blankly watching Ruslan suffering, unable to immediately recover his breathing from inhaling too urgently, Sarka asked affectionately.
“Do you still have strength left to be stubborn? ……Should you get hurt a bit more to understand?”
Like soothing a stubborn small child, Sarka’s voice was soft. Like a zookeeper promising food to an obedient dog.
Ruslan, who had been coughing several times, lay prostrate on the carpet soaked with his own tears and saliva, then pressed the floor while staggering.
Ruslan’s navy blue eyes, slowly raising his head to look at Sarka, trembled bluish.
After crumpling and gripping the threads of the luxury carpet as if to tear them out, Ruslan, who had ground his teeth tight, glared straight at Sarka and shouted.
“Yes!! I’m weak!!”
His voice strained with resentment cracked roughly. Pronouncing the Imperial language that had completely transformed into Frükan accent as if chewing and spitting it, Ruslan shouted loudly in a tough and violent voice.
“I have no strength! My status is lowly! I have no abilities!! ……But even you aren’t always strong!!!”
Ruslan’s voice was fierce as if he would grab someone by the collar. Sarka finally frowned slightly as if looking at an ill-mannered dog that was barking.
While glaring at that indifferent face with a gaze close to murderous intent, Ruslan ground his teeth.
His bloodshot eyes blazed. Ruslan glared at Sarka as if to kill him while pronouncing each word as if chewing it.
“My grandmother was strong too. Like you, she could control animals at will!! But when she got old and smelled <Angel’s Fangs>, she couldn’t move at all!!!”
The end of his voice was torn to shreds with fear and hatred. Sarka narrowed his eyes.
Ruslan plopped down sprawling on the floor as if throwing his exhausted body down. With both legs stretched in any direction, Ruslan propped his upper body up with both arms behind his back and looked straight up at Sarka while breathing heavily.
While staring at the green eyes with a frightening gaze, Ruslan pronounced each word as if crushing them with a voice sunken low and dark.
“……Vampires were strong and once ruled the world, but you all become powerless when you smell fang flower fragrance too. The stronger the bloodline, the greater the effect of fang flowers, right?
You’re no different from humans in front of <Angel’s Fangs>! Rather, you’re a more powerless existence than humans!!”
His blazing gaze burned fiercely. Ruslan glared at Sarka with eyes that looked like they would chew him up.
Sarka, who had been blankly looking down at such a Ruslan with faintly furrowed eyes, slowly opened his mouth.
“……So, you need my help?”
At the dry question, Ruslan exhaled a huge breath as if expelling all the air inside his body. Ruslan’s eyes shook as he exhaled, inflating his heaving chest.
Ruslan’s eyes distorted as he recalled the fang flower fragrance and Kanya bound to the stake. That acrid fragrance that had been momentarily pushed back by anger began creeping like smoke to occupy his mind again.
Ruslan felt his whole body soaked with anger being pressed down again by heart-wrenching sadness and despair. His hot chest gradually cooled coldly and his fingertips trembled finely.
Ruslan blinked while distorting his mouth area with wet eyes. Moisture seeped into his wavering voice.
“……If again……if such a situation comes again, if such danger……approaches you……I……”
The unstably wavering voice was swallowed by the welling tears and faded away.
Before he knew it, Ruslan’s gaze, which had stopped breathing with a distorted face, was directed toward a distant place. Ruslan’s large eyes trembled damply as they grew moist.
Sarka, who had been staring at Ruslan freezing and hardening while gripped by enormous faith and obsession, opened his mouth quietly.
“……To become friends with me, do you wish for me to fall into danger?”
Ruslan flinched and raised his head.
As if suddenly returning to reality, Ruslan, frozen pale blue, looked vacantly at Sarka’s face.
Expressionless Sarka was observing Ruslan’s face intently with a gaze sunken coldly.
Ruslan unconsciously swallowed and shook his head while panting.
“N……no.”
“……”
Sarka blinked while blankly looking down at Ruslan. Ruslan raised his upper body unsteadily while sobbing.
While crouching on the carpet and looking up at Sarka desperately, Ruslan whispered in a trembling voice.
“I don’t wish for it. I absolutely don’t wish for such a thing. But……such dangers exist in the world.”
“……”
Sarka was still staring into Ruslan’s eyes without even blinking. It was a sharp gaze full of wariness like a beast at which a blade was aimed.
Ruslan, as if finally coming to his senses, whispered pitifully while crushing all the sharpness remaining in his voice.
“……I……just want to protect you from dangers that might arise. You might be safe in the Empire that made a treaty with humans, but outside there, vampires are all being brutally murdered. Countless times it’s been so, and it will continue. I……just don’t want to see that anymore.”
“……”
Sarka was still quietly looking down at Ruslan with an extremely cold gaze.
Ruslan, like someone trying to piece together a broken mirror, frantically met Sarka’s gaze without caring that his skin was being cut by that gaze.
While trembling his chin, Ruslan sobbed as if desperately and miserably pleading.
“Someone……someone must stop this fight and trust each other……. Otherwise, this tragedy will never end.”
After the earnest declaration ended, Sarka was silent for a moment.
The corners of Sarka’s mouth, which had been blankly looking at Ruslan’s tear-soaked face, rose faintly and smoothly.
“……Excellent.”
That voice was close to cynicism.
Smiling with only one corner of his mouth twisted, Sarka exhaled a breath mixed with dry laughter. A low voice dropped heavily with a thud.
“……Now you’re threatening.”
Ruslan shook his head helplessly. Sarka’s green eyes grew colder and colder, now looking like moss preserved in ice.
Sarka snickered, then slowly buried his body against the backrest. As if fed up with the tiresome logic, Sarka tilted his head back to rest his neck on the sofa backrest and made an exhausted expression.
Slowly, cold words leaked from his twisted lips. Carried on a voice so dry it would crumble if touched.
“To survive, you must respect each other with humans. You must treat each other as equals and become friends……. ……My father said that too.”
Sarka’s green eyes suddenly became quiet as if lost in thought.
Looking into the distance, Sarka narrowed his eyes as if recalling the past.
With his face still languid from being lost in thought, Sarka blinked. A low murmur flowed indifferently between his dry lips.
“……And when I refused, he said he would kill me.”
“……!”
Huk,
Ruslan unconsciously inhaled while opening his eyes wide.
Sarka was still looking into the distance as if thinking of someone.
His blurred gaze blinked slowly.
As if carefully ruminating on his father’s words, Sarka stared into empty space in silence for several seconds.
Sarka, who had been lost in deep thought with slightly furrowed eyes, finally muttered hazily in a voice full of doubt.
“……No matter how much I think about it, I don’t think such a thing can be called a <friend>.”
That voice was completely empty.
Sarka, submerged in bewilderment so profound it was impossible to understand—deeper even than malice or murderous intent—slowly tilted his head. One eyebrow rose minutely containing a question.
In a tone closer to talking to himself than asking a question, Sarka muttered languidly.
“……Is a wolf that doesn’t refuse the collar humans put on because it wants to live, a <friend> of humans?”
Ruslan had lost his words and was blankly looking up at Sarka. As if his throat was blocked, no words came out.
Sarka, who had still been lost in deep thought, suddenly looked back at Ruslan, then nodded annoyedly while frowning.
“……Yes, you people do sometimes call it that.”
Ruslan closed his mouth and swallowed.
Sarka was still quietly looking down at Ruslan while lost in deep thought.
As if tracing again in doubt a claim he couldn’t accept no matter how he thought about it, Sarka, who had been blankly staring at Ruslan’s eyes for a moment, finally let out a faint sigh.
While slowly raising his body, Sarka reached a conclusion quietly with an exhausted expression.
“……To my eyes, it’s just a well-trained <dog>.”
Leaving behind a dry voice, Sarka who raised his body picked up the paper airplane.
Ruslan froze unable to say anything as if his mouth was sealed shut, staring at Sarka’s back.
Thud, thud.
Sarka, who walked with neat steps, stood in front of the fireplace and looked up at the frame hanging on the wall.
When Sarka’s eyes flashed red, soon the frame smoothly came out of the nail and descended as if sliding.
Sarka, who leaned the frame against the floor, raised his hand and slowly began inserting the paper airplane onto the empty nail.
Thud, the sound of paper being torn as it was pushed by the nail was heard.
Unable to say anything, Ruslan watched the scene where Sarka’s white fingers slowly pressed the paper airplane onto the nail head to pierce a hole.
Like a child pinning a dead butterfly for display, Sarka carefully pushed the paper airplane deep past the nail head.
Finally, when the paper airplane was pierced through and fixed to the nail, Sarka stepped back and blankly looked up at that scene.
As if indifferently confirming his unchanging conviction.
“……”
Sarka’s gaze was dry.
Sarka, who had been appreciating the symbol of his conviction with an emotionless face where no satisfaction could be felt, soon turned his head with an exhausted expression.
Thud, thud. Click.
Sarka, who crossed the living room, entered his room without looking back at Ruslan and closed the door. Ruslan was still sitting alone on the living room floor like an abandoned doll.
Ruslan looked at the room door where Sarka had disappeared with a face frozen pale blue, then turned his head to look back at the paper airplane hanging on the wall.
“……”
Silence heavily pressed down on the living room.
The paper airplane pierced on the nail and fixed to the wall reminded him exactly of a hunted deer with its throat cut. The kind of trophy that skilled hunters taxidermy and proudly hang on walls.
However, looking at that paper airplane, Ruslan thought his own neck seemed to be pierced there.
As the loser and trophy of this game, he felt like his neck was penetrated and hung on that nail head.
And Sarka wouldn’t think that trophy was the least bit proud.
Because that conviction was precisely the reason that beast was trapped in this tiresome and disgusting livestock pen.
Sitting in the middle of the luxurious living room gradually brightening in the sunlight, Ruslan felt his eyes grow dark.
In a sea so deep and cold that no answer could possibly emerge.
At the tremendous weight of the glacier beginning to reveal itself, Ruslan was dazed.
