The voice that cracked murkily was parched dry. As expected, it seemed he had been trying to come out to drink water because his throat was dry.
Ruslan’s heart pounded wildly, feeling like he had been blocking the way for no reason.
Ruslan tried to discern Sarka’s complexion even a little in the darkness and mumbled worriedly.
“I, I was worried something might happen……so I slept here. If you needed to go to the bathroom at night, I thought it would be better to have someone nearby……”
Even at the mumbled excuse, Sarka in the darkness still didn’t move and remained quietly locked in place.
Sarka’s body was like a pile of firewood someone had stacked there carelessly.
Ruslan, who had been worriedly examining the limbs that hung lifelessly like a doll with cut strings, carefully asked.
“……Are you okay? If by any chance……you can’t get up……”
Sarka silently stared at Ruslan without answering.
Unable to do anything either way, Ruslan watched for cues, curled up his body, and held his breath.
Sarka, who had been submerged in darkness like an inanimate object for quite a while, finally let out a faint voice.
“……What’s the reason?”
“……?”
At the question of unclear meaning, Ruslan hesitated.
Sarka’s head, whose only faint outline was visible buried in darkness, slowly moved.
Faint moonlight fell on Sarka’s profile as he slowly turned his head to look at the living room. Sarka’s face, dimly revealed, was dried up.
Sarka, who had been locked in place staring at empty air with his cracked lips closed, slowly opened his mouth. A voice as dry as if it would catch fire the moment a match was struck floated through the air like thin straw and slowly fell.
“……Even kin……don’t trust each other.
Someone of a different race who wanted to cut off your breath for no reason, and actually tried to do so……why do you try to trust them?”
Ruslan blankly parted his lips and looked at Sarka’s profile.
Sarka’s face was dry. Rather than wanting any answer, he seemed like someone who had powerlessly pushed out a question for which no answer would come.
Like dropping and letting go of a small ball from hands that had lost the strength to keep gripping it.
Ruslan hesitated, then slowly released the strength in his legs and sat back down.
Sitting facing each other with knees raised as if mirroring one another, the two boys were submerged in darkness for a moment.
Ruslan, who had been hesitating for a long time about how to answer, finally mumbled in a murky voice.
“……You……helped me.”
Sarka slowly turned his head.
In Ruslan’s vision grown accustomed to the darkness, Sarka’s features began to be faintly visible.
Sarka was staring at Ruslan with an emotionless face like an empty doll.
Quietly meeting that gaze like dried brush, Ruslan suddenly thought of the moment he first encountered this boy.
The day when Ruslan’s world, which had been trapped in a narrow, narrow field of vision for 8 years, obsessed and attached, with his nose buried in books and curled up, had been broken open.
When Ruslan, who had even forgotten how to treat people, had rushed at him recklessly and grabbed those neat clothes.
The noble boy who had simply quietly accepted the unrelated, rude, and shabby commoner.
Ruslan, as if returning to that day again, looked at that boy’s face and slowly whispered.
“……You saved me from getting beaten under the annex library, and when I rushed at you to do a group project together, when I was ridiculed by your friends, when I absurdly pressed you wanting to become friends…….you treated me kindly.”
Sarka stared at Ruslan.
Sarka, who had been silent for a moment, retorted in a murky voice.
“……That had no meaning. I was imitating what you humans do.”
Sarka’s voice, containing no emotion, was indifferent.
Hearing that excuse-like answer, Ruslan suddenly recalled the day he first sat facing Baigarten in the old book storage room.
Baigarten had said that Sarka was forcibly acting ‘the same’ as other humans and pretending to be a polite student because of his father’s orders.
But……
“……Sarka. Not a single person in this school treated me that way.”
Like a small ball, Ruslan’s voice popped out.
Sarka slowly blinked his eyelashes and stared at Ruslan as if hit by a ball that had returned unexpectedly.
Ruslan quietly looked at the boy submerged in darkness and suddenly thought it was strange.
You who hate and despise humans, why did you send me the black dog that day?
Even Baigarten had left on vacation, so no one would see your actions.
When all your friends were ridiculing me……why didn’t you laugh along with those kids?
If you were only imitating humans, it would have been more natural to ridicule me along with those kids.
You said the clinging commoner was annoying, that the friend talk wasn’t even funny,
Why did you let that annoying and rude commoner follow you around until right before your identity was revealed?
As if protecting me, covered in bruises, from Bruce’s gang.
Baigarten said Sarka had been causing minor incidents to get on his nerves.
That he tried to upset his watcher through pranks like smacking the back of the heads of kids he didn’t like.
……But why were your targets specifically <Bruce’s gang>?
Why did you, out of everyone else……
Hate those ‘lowly thugs’ who specifically picked on and bullied ‘powerless’ scholarship students?
Baigarten said that Sarka was a beast who could threaten humans whenever his mind changed.
Because Sarka hadn’t changed, because he was a child who couldn’t change from the beginning……Sarka’s father chose the method of crushing Sarka with force, he said.
But why……
Even when that beast was angry enough to completely lose reason
Was no one in that space hurt?
Ruslan stared at Sarka’s face and thought it was truly strange.
Baigarten said Sarka wanted to kill all the humans at this school like slaughtering a herd of pigs to relieve his anger.
He said Ruslan, who rushed at him wanting to become a vampire’s friend, was practically a target for venting the anger accumulated toward his father.
To Sarka, Ruslan was an impudent dog, a trivial gnat, an unbearably irritating and arrogant human.
But why did you……
Always give even me <choices>?
Ruslan thought of the first conversation he had with this boy in the old book storage room.
When a strange human suddenly brought up the vampire story out of nowhere.
When he said he wanted to become friends with a surviving vampire, that they were equal beings.
Why did you ask me……
Not ridicule me saying <that’s impossible>, <don’t talk nonsense>……
But ask <can you trust a vampire>?
“……”
Ruslan looked with a strange expression at the unfamiliar boy who was faintly revealed in the place where what had seemed like a giant glacier had shattered and even those sharp fragments had scattered.
That boy who would have been standing at the fourth-floor window, looking down at the small fleeing commoner.
In a strange feeling, Ruslan spoke to the vampire who had controlled the black dog for that commoner. To the boy who had casually extended a hand of protection to the weakest person who crumbled before power.
“……Everyone at this school ignored me, left me alone, or wielded violence.
The only one in this school who stopped the violence inflicted on me was you. In a way no one else could imitate.”
Sarka stared at Ruslan.
Sarka was silent for a moment as if not knowing how to answer, then replied bluntly.
“……It was meaningless killing time. It had nothing to do with your circumstances.”
That voice was blurred. Looking straight at that boy’s face that seemed to be making awkward excuses, Ruslan replied stiffly.
“……I have nothing to do with your circumstances either.”
Sarka stared straight at Ruslan’s face.
Ruslan looked at those dry green eyes with an unwavering gaze, and like an athlete who had pushed away long questions and confusion and returned to the starting point, slowly inhaled.
Like redrawing and arranging scattered lines, words imbued with strength fell one by one, one by one, onto the dry air.
“Whatever world you were born in, whatever bloodline, however you were educated and raised. I don’t care.”
Sarka’s green eyes wavered minutely.
Ruslan looked into Sarka’s eyes with a firm gaze, as if gripping that confusion and wrapping and fixing it tightly.
Like a builder persistently erecting bridge piers on water currents and tarring over them, Ruslan calmly declared. That old oath he had once uttered in the old book storage room, looking up at those cold red eyes.
“Because you said it was okay for me to become your <friend>, to do as I please, I’ll protect you in any situation.
Whatever you do to me……I’m on your side.”
Sarka didn’t move and looked into Ruslan’s eyes with a strange gaze.
Suddenly, like a calm water surface disturbed by wind, the green eyes wavered.
Ruslan silently watched the scene of Sarka’s dry eyes vibrating finely and finally lowering.
With eyes lowered and head bowed, submerged in darkness, the boy didn’t say anything for a long time.
Sitting on the living room floor where quiet breathing scattered, looking at that profile, Ruslan thought Sarka looked strangely more pained than ever before.
The boy curled up in darkness looked somehow devastated, looked frightened, absurdly lonely, tired, and……
Wore an expression that looked painfully as if about to collapse.
Ruslan, in a feeling of his chest being crushed by the weight of that pain, stared at that face.
Sarka’s face minutely contorted and his unfocused, blurred eyes turned toward empty air.
Minute spasms occurred around Sarka’s eyes that looked forlorn, and his slowly blinking eyes looked terribly exhausted.
Looking at empty air with a gaze miserably fragile and futile, Sarka was silent for a long time.
What was still making this beautiful boy suffer this much?
“……”
Ruslan, who had been looking at the boy submerged in darkness without a word, raised his knees and stood up from his spot.
The blurred gaze flowed following Ruslan’s movement. Ruslan opened the cupboard, took out a cup, picked up the water bottle by the stove, and poured water. Sarka was staring at those movements.
Ruslan, who had returned holding the water cup, crouched down in front of Sarka and held out the cup.
Blurred emotions crossed Sarka’s face as he silently looked at that cup, but soon scattered and disappeared like waves breaking in wind.
Sarka slowly extended his hand.
Sarka’s hand gripped the cup with clumsy movements.
Ruslan, seeing that Sarka’s fingers, more exhausted than in the evening, couldn’t put in strength well, instead of setting down the water cup, supported the bottom so Sarka’s hand wouldn’t sway from the weight of the water.
Sarka stared down at the swaying water surface, then slowly lowered his head.
Ruslan, matching Sarka’s movements, tilted the cup’s center of gravity. Sarka’s parched lips touched the cup and the water surface tilted.
Sarka slowly drank the water, resting bit by bit.
Like a young bird drinking water, one sip at a time, one sip at a time, Sarka’s Adam’s apple moved up and down as he swallowed water and faint breathing sounds came.
Ruslan quietly supported the cup until Sarka emptied it, and delicately tilted his hand to help those movements, as if he had become Sarka’s second body.
Finally, when the water cup was empty, Sarka exhaled a wet breath. Moisture settled into the breath that had been dry and sank murkily.
Ruslan quietly received the empty cup, set it down on the floor, and said softly as if whispering.
“……Go back in and sleep more.”
“……”
Sarka stared up at Ruslan.
Ruslan lowered his gaze and carefully lowered his voice to add.
“If you need anything, call me. Like this, if you knock on the wall……I’ll come in right away.”
“……”
Ruslan lightly raised his hand and knocked on the wall. Sarka was silently watching Ruslan’s movements.
Sarka didn’t answer, but Ruslan silently lowered his hand and bent his upper body. At the angle he had become completely accustomed to while receiving Sarka’s dominance a few hours ago.
Sarka, who had been quietly looking at those shoulders, slowly moved his arms. Ruslan silently waited until Sarka wrapped his arms around his shoulders, then familiarly extended his arms in return and supported Sarka’s waist.
Sarka raised his body while putting weight on Ruslan’s body. Ruslan received that weight in a stable posture, and slowly bent his body so Sarka could recover his center of gravity, then gently straightened.
Sarka, finally standing upright, stopped for a moment while embracing Ruslan’s shoulders.
Like they had briefly done in the bathroom, leaning body against human body without any dominance.
The two boys were silent for a moment, arms wrapped around each other’s bodies, listening to each other’s breathing.
Slowly, Sarka’s arms loosened.
Ruslan also carefully released the arms wrapped around Sarka’s waist.
Sarka, who turned his body wobbling slightly, groped through the darkness to grab the doorknob and slowly began closing the bedroom door.
Ruslan stepped back a couple steps and moved behind the threshold. Ruslan quietly watched Sarka’s back gradually narrowing through the closing door.
Click.
The door closed.
Ruslan looked at that door for a long time, listening carefully. No sound was heard from beyond the door.
Ruslan quietly looked down at the slightly twisted doorknob.
After a moment, the twisted doorknob was released and returned to its original position.
The sound of Sarka, who had released the doorknob, walking slowly while touching the wall came.
Ruslan remained still, listening to Sarka’s slow footsteps stop and the faint sound of the bed curtain closing.
Finally, when complete silence submerged beyond the bedroom door, Ruslan walked near the wall where Sarka’s bed would be, gauged the position, then crouched down with his back against the wall.
Ruslan, who had deliberately positioned his body in an uncomfortable posture, turned his head and looked at the moon floating outside the window.
Until the moon set, the pitch-black sky slowly dyed golden, and finally shone bright blue.
Ruslan quietly sat with his back against the wall and looked up at the sky.
The clear autumn sky of morning was pristine.
