Ruslan stole a glance at Sarka’s profile as he did his assignment.
The two boys were sitting at their respective desks doing their assignments, side by side with a small breakfast table between them.
When Sarka finished his assignment and began organizing his books, Ruslan, who had been lost in thought, suddenly asked.
“Can I ask you something?”
Sarka turned his head.
Ruslan shrugged and added.
“You didn’t answer my question last time.”
In that day’s chess match, Sarka, the loser, had avoided answering. As the victor, Ruslan had one right to ask a question remaining.
Sarka looked at Ruslan for a moment, then nodded readily.
“Speak.”
Ruslan swallowed dryly for a moment and quietly looked at Sarka.
Ruslan, who had been carefully choosing his words, asked cautiously.
“If you hadn’t come to this school……what would you have wanted to do?”
Sarka looked at Ruslan, then turned his head and fell silent for a moment, gazing at the edge of his desk.
He seemed to be calculating something.
Ruslan waited quietly for Sarka’s answer with tense shoulders.
After a moment, Sarka spoke in a low voice.
“……I don’t want to answer.”
Ruslan gazed at Sarka’s face intently, but Sarka didn’t meet Ruslan’s eyes.
That question just now was a <ball that shouldn’t be thrown>.
But Sarka hadn’t left the court yet.
Ruslan thought carefully.
There were clear lines between Sarka and Ruslan that shouldn’t be crossed.
Ruslan couldn’t yet pinpoint the exact location of those lines.
But Sarka hadn’t rejected the ball itself.
Sarka’s rule was still valid. If Ruslan could throw the ball inside the safe zone.
After gauging the precarious boundary line for a moment, Ruslan soon retreated readily.
“Okay, then I’ll ask something else.”
Sarka nodded readily.
Ruslan looked at the edge of his desk for a long while choosing his words, then carefully changed direction.
“……That day, below the auxiliary library……why did you save me?”
Sarka slowly turned his head to look at Ruslan, then fell silent for a moment.
Ruslan, who had been tense wondering if this question also crossed the line, was relieved when Sarka readily opened his mouth after a moment.
Sarka answered indifferently.
“……I was reading a book when it got noisy outside the window, so I looked out and some guys were chasing a small guy around calling it <vampire hunting>.
It was an unpleasant sight, so I just tried to chase them away from the area.”
Ruslan blinked.
After looking at Sarka’s profile for a moment, Ruslan asked again.
“Then, why didn’t you chase me away?”
Sarka turned his head to look at Ruslan.
Ruslan looked directly at Sarka and added.
“That day, that dog didn’t lunge at me. It was approaching me but stopped when it looked at you.”
The explanation that he’d been imitating Baigarten could explain his kind attitudes inside the classroom, but it didn’t explain his actions on the 4th floor of the auxiliary library.
That was an action done in a situation where no one was watching, thinking no one would notice.
If the goal had simply been to chase them away from the area because it was noisy as Sarka had answered, he could have just sent Ruslan, the target, far away.
But when the dog approached Ruslan, Sarka immediately stopped it and released the hypnosis.
As if that human hadn’t been the target from the beginning.
Ruslan carefully looked into Sarka’s eyes and waited.
Sarka hesitated for a moment, then frowned slightly.
Sarka, who blinked as if he didn’t know how to answer, replied dryly.
“……There wasn’t any particular reason. I just, wasn’t really concerned about it, so I left you alone.”
It was a blunt answer.
Ruslan observed Sarka’s profile intently, then asked carefully.
“……Then why were you concerned about those guys?”
Sarka grimaced slightly.
It seemed to be truly an action done without much thought, so even he seemed to find it difficult to explain.
Sarka began showing signs of annoyance, then spat out somewhat irritably.
“They were noisy and vulgar, yet strutting around as if they were something special—it was ridiculous.”
Ruslan’s eyes widened.
“‘Vulgar’?”
When Ruslan asked back, Sarka turned to look at Ruslan with a frown.
Sarka retorted with a displeased expression.
“When four of them gang up on someone who’s obviously no physical match and feel proud about it, what else should I call it?”
At that aggressive answer, Ruslan’s eyes widened and he blinked.
Sarka’s face held sincere contempt and hostility.
While suppressing a smile that was unconsciously seeping to the corners of his lips, Ruslan looked at Sarka with a curious gaze.
“……You think bullying weak people is a ‘vulgar act’?”
When Ruslan asked with interest, Sarka seemed to be getting somewhat irritated.
While organizing the books on his desk, Sarka retorted in a cold voice.
“If they want to test their strength, they can fight one-on-one face to face.
Turning away from guys stronger than themselves and only acting like something in front of weak guys—that’s what cowards with nothing to boast about do.
They’re not confident in their own strength, so they bully someone who’s no match to salvage a thread of self-respect.”
Ruslan’s mouth fell open.
To speak at such length like that…… He must really, truly, completely hate Bruce’s gang.
Ruslan firmly suppressed the laughter that was about to emerge.
After staring intently at Sarka’s profile with an unfamiliar gaze, Ruslan, who suddenly wore a faint smile, slyly asked.
“……Then, why did you bully me?”
Sarka’s movements stopped dead, and he turned his head to look at Ruslan.
Ruslan shrugged while wearing a faint smile.
“I’m obviously weak, have no superpowers, and am completely ‘no match.'”
Sarka glared at Ruslan with furrowed eyes for a moment.
Turning his head and irritably organizing books and shoving them into the bookshelf, Sarka frowned with an uncomfortable expression.
A curt answer flowed out roughly.
“Because you act arrogantly.”
The growling voice was aggressive, but Ruslan felt laughter gradually rising from deep in his stomach.
Ruslan looked at Sarka’s profile and asked with keen interest.
“What’s arrogant about me?”
Sarka seemed to be truly irritated now.
Turning his head to glare straight at Ruslan, Sarka snapped viciously.
“The way you refuse to acknowledge your ‘position’ and stubbornly defy it, trying to climb up.”
The corners of Ruslan’s mouth rose slightly.
Sarka’s gaze looking at such a Ruslan was utterly displeased, but Ruslan somehow didn’t feel tense at all.
Ruslan, who had been staring intently at Sarka with an amused gaze, slyly asked while subtly suppressing his laughter.
“……But why……did you accept me?”
Sarka closed his mouth and silently glared at Ruslan.
Ruslan couldn’t erase the smile lingering on his lips and stared intently into Sarka’s eyes.
Sarka glared at Ruslan with a furrowed brow as if he wanted to retort, but didn’t open his mouth.
“……”
After a brief silence, Sarka turned his head.
Watching Sarka organize things on his desk into drawers without answering, Ruslan let out a light breath.
That’s as far as it goes.
Sarka closed the drawer with a furrowed brow and stood up as he was.
Ruslan felt strange things squirming in his chest as he glanced at that retreating figure.
Sarka’s lines were drawn at very subtle points.
Ruslan was dying to know what lay beyond them, but Sarka didn’t seem to have any intention of pulling back those lines yet.
Ruslan, who had been biting his tongue while looking at Sarka, soon readily turned his head.
Let’s wait a little longer.
As long as Sarka didn’t leave from beyond the court, there was no reason for Ruslan to be impatient.
The opportunity to look inside that sensitive and delicate boy would come slowly.
If Ruslan didn’t cross the line and gradually closed the distance.
Compared to the beginning, the distance had clearly narrowed, even if at a slow pace.
He didn’t yet know how far it would narrow, but Ruslan decided to match the pace of that cautious boy.
Just as Sarka had slowed down his meals to match Ruslan’s pace.
The game was still in progress.
Ruslan carefully thought about Sarka’s answers, as if gauging the weight of the balls he’d received.
One day.
Ruslan, sitting in the classroom, was lost in thought while looking at Sarka’s back as usual.
Thwack,
At the feeling of something hitting the back of his head, Ruslan emerged from his thoughts and raised his head.
Thwack, something hit near his shoulder and fell again.
When he turned his head, Bruce’s gang was throwing erasers at Ruslan as a target.
Bruce, who had just hit Ruslan’s nose bridge as he turned around, laughed triumphantly.
They never tire.
Ruslan awkwardly smiled back and turned his head.
Bruce’s gang kept throwing erasers while giggling among themselves. Ruslan pulled things on his desk a little closer so they wouldn’t fall when hit by erasers.
As Ruslan scratched his nose bridge while letting Bruce’s mocking words flow past, just as he turned his gaze to look at Sarka’s back again.
Ruslan paused.
Sarka had turned his head and was staring intently at Bruce’s gang.
“……”
An expressionless gaze flowed briefly, then soon turned back to his friends.
Sarka’s expression listening to his friends’ jokes was gentle.
Ruslan blinked.
Some time after that.
Bruce’s gang began to disintegrate.
Ruslan found that process difficult to explain clearly.
From what he could vaguely see, some discord seemed to arise between Bruce and Minion 3.
At some point when Bruce and Minion 3 seemed to antagonize each other, at first it seemed Minion 1 and Minion 2 each took Bruce’s and Minion 3’s sides respectively and split.
However, soon minor conflicts arose between them too, and before long Bruce was isolated alone.
Minion 2 and Minion 3 stuck together, and it seemed Minion 1 was absorbed into another group.
Bruce, who had lost his followers, became deflated and looked around nervously before slyly moving to a corner seat, and Minion 2 and Minion 3 stuck together for a while but soon became an awkward relationship and scattered to different places.
That was the limit of what Ruslan could explain.
Ruslan couldn’t guess at all what route that discord took to occur and develop.
What was certain was that Bruce’s gang had completely disintegrated.
And that each one’s power had completely dissolved, falling to a position where they held no power in the class.
Ruslan, who had been staring blankly at Bruce who was left alone and completely deflated, suddenly noticed that not only Bruce’s gang but the atmosphere in the classroom was subtly changing.
It wasn’t something he could definitely pinpoint and say.
But the gazes that had mocked and ignored Ruslan gradually scattered, and aggressive reactions and insulting treatment faded and soon almost disappeared.
Like the tide going out, Ruslan felt the force that had been hostile toward him was smoothly draining away.
It was a strange thing.
When the mockery and ridicule that had floated around him like air for a year and a half disappeared, Ruslan felt his daily life had become strangely quiet.
Ruslan thought it was as if someone had swept around him with a broom.
And the only person who could intentionally cause such an artificial change was, as far as Ruslan knew, one person.
Ruslan, who had been observing his quieted daily life with a dazed face, came back to his room one day and said carefully.
“……Thank you.”
Sarka, who had been sitting on the sofa reading a book, raised his head and looked back at Ruslan.
Ruslan swallowed dryly and quietly faced Sarka.
“……”
Sarka, who had been looking at Ruslan for a moment, soon lowered his head without answering.
Watching Sarka read his book again without saying anything, Ruslan’s mouth finally fell open.
……Sarka really did it.
His heart pounded.
If this change had been unrelated to Sarka, Sarka would definitely have asked back what he was talking about.
But Sarka acknowledged that intervention with silence.
Ruslan felt like his chest would burst.
Ruslan had no idea what Sarka had done or how.
He could only guess that Sarka, who as Baigarten said was adept at handling people when he put his mind to it, had cleverly moved people in some place he couldn’t know.
Sarka was the boy who had pulled the most powerful people in this class onto his side in less than half a year and claimed a leader role among them.
If Sarka put his mind to it, he could have moved anyone in the class.
For a year and a half, Sarka had left the humans in the class alone without carelessly touching them.
He sometimes pulled pranks like tapping the backs of the heads of guys he found disgusting, but that was just momentary emotional expression or a level of killing time.
Sarka fundamentally hadn’t tried to intervene in the class ecosystem.
That boy, who had to expend much energy just maintaining his family’s obligations, always tried to step back to avoid unnecessary conflicts.
Such a Sarka had now stepped forward and moved the class ecosystem.
Unrelated to his family’s obligations, solely for Ruslan alone.
Even if he didn’t know what method was used, it was clear that he’d pulled some threads in a place Ruslan couldn’t see.
Like sitting on a finely woven spider web, Ruslan could only feel the vibrations of those threads.
It was a strange feeling.
That someone cares about me, watches over me, tries to protect me.
That was a feeling Ruslan hadn’t felt for a very long time since Kanya died.
His heart beat.
His insides grew hot, and lumps he didn’t know how to explain rose to his throat.
He felt like complex emotions were swirling inside his body.
The Sarka in the room was still quiet, and never initiated conversation unless Ruslan spoke first.
He didn’t particularly treat him affectionately, nor did he answer all the questions asked.
The two remained awkward roommates staying in quiet silence.
But Ruslan could now be completely certain.
It wasn’t only Ruslan who was trying to close the distance.
Sarka was also clearly closing the distance and moving toward Ruslan.
He couldn’t be certain how far he was trying to come, how far he was trying to intervene.
The two boys were still carefully measuring the distance while facing each other.
Groping across the court searching for each other’s boundaries, they seemed to be gauging where the limit line they could approach was.
Ruslan was gradually gaining courage, but at the same time became anxious.
He felt like he’d go crazy with curiosity about where the boundary line Sarka was trying to draw was, how far the distance between them could narrow.
Questions he couldn’t ask lingered at the root of his tongue.
If he could, Ruslan felt he’d want to open up Sarka’s head to check.
How far can I go?
How far can you accept me?
Where exactly is the line between us drawn?
What kind of relationship are we right now?
