“I didn’t mean anything by it. I didn’t even know it was underfoot… I can’t reattach what’s already been crushed.”
The shock and rage left behind by Igrit’s death were pathetically crushed by the survival instinct that swiftly raised its head. Despite the 200 years they’d spent together, it seemed his feelings had been too shallow after all.
“Elijah… are you angry?”
“……”
“If you want, I’ll make you a new one. It’s just a pomegranate.”
Rose said with a languid face, as if it were a trivial matter. He even seemed to find it a bit bothersome.
“…I-I’m fine. I don’t need it.”
Elijah desperately shook his head. Matching Rose’s attitude, he felt he had no choice but to dismiss this matter as nothing important himself.
“Really? You don’t need it? When did you stop treasuring it so much?”
“I never… treasured it. Just like you said, it’s just a pomegranate.”
He felt like crossing his fingers behind his back, hidden from Rose. Just like that, Elijah denied 200 years of friendship in a single moment.
Rose slowly tilted his head and stared intently at Elijah. Those red eyes that seemed to scrutinize his innermost thoughts were so eerily clear and pristine they sent chills down his spine.
“You don’t look well, Elijah.”
“I’m… still not fully recovered.”
His body stiffened instinctively as he was pulled by those firm arms. Elijah curled up tightly in Rose’s embrace, hiding his trembling. His body, lifted as light as a feather, was moved onto the bed.
…I can’t live like this.
No matter how much he cared for Rose, he couldn’t endure this. He could no longer lean on the comfort Rose provided while desperately turning a blind eye to this precarious daily life.
For the first time in nearly 200 years, Elijah felt he wanted to leave this forest. More precisely, it was an awakening that he needed to escape from Rose.
* * *
It was a day at the peak of burning summer.
“Ah, ngh……”
Elijah barely emerged from the edge of a hellish climax while embracing Rose’s neck. The trick to hiding extreme fear was, in the end, to immerse himself in pleasure.
With his fingers thrust between strands of silver-white hair, Elijah blankly stared at the empty wall. His green eyes, hazily wet with heat, slowly traced their orbit.
The line that had already bent sharply plummeted once more. It was both the line precariously drawn between Elijah and Rose, and the flow of daily life that Elijah had desperately been holding onto.
Even when scraped, broken, and everything twisted into a mess, daily life continued like an unbreakable thread.
“Elijah……”
Breath heated with passion covered Elijah’s lips. Elijah reflexively coiled around the invading tongue and weakly sucked on the soft flesh. These were all methods he’d learned from Rose. When he did this, Rose would sometimes let out pleasant moans.
He caught his breath while obediently receiving Rose’s kisses that tenderly fell all over his body. The table Rose had repaired was so solid without even the slightest wobble that it was rather burdensome for Elijah lying on top of it. It couldn’t absorb any of the impact that rushed through his body at all. His back hurt, scraped and bruised against the hard surface.
“…I’d prefer if we didn’t do it on the table anymore. My back hurts, Rose.”
“I didn’t intend to lay you down, I’m sorry. Let me see.”
Rose’s words probably weren’t a lie. It always started lightly at first. That was the problem. It was his own fault for not begging to go to the bed even though he knew it would end up like this.
“You should have said it hurt.”
“I didn’t realize it while we were doing it.”
If Rose were the kind of person who listened to such words, they absolutely wouldn’t be doing this sort of thing right now. Elijah didn’t bother saying that out loud.
“I guess it felt too good.”
Instead, he habitually repeated that it felt good. Of course, it wasn’t a lie since he’d felt it well and climaxed thoroughly.
“I felt good too……”
A languid voice still heated with passion pooled in his ear. Elijah barely managed to sit up his upper body, supporting himself with his arms wrapped around Rose’s neck. His overworked thigh muscles trembled with spasms.
“……”
Elijah had decided to leave Rose. Just having made that decision alone made his heart tremble all day at first, unable to calm down. It was because of a baseless anxiety that Rose seemed to know all his thoughts.
However, after several days of constantly plotting his escape while actually doing nothing and comfortably eating and sleeping—Rose was too frightening to rashly put his decision into action, and he himself was too cowardly.
Moreover, he worried about who Rose would get blood from if he disappeared. If Rose starved because of him, it would hurt his heart, but if he didn’t starve, that would be frightening in its own way.
Just imagining Rose getting blood from someone other than himself made Elijah feel unpleasant. Whether it was because of fear or something else, he didn’t know.
“…I’m hungry, Rose.”
If Igrit had heard, he would have scolded him, asking how food could go down comfortably. However, this was Elijah’s own meticulous strategy. He had to eat diligently to store up strength for escaping, and primarily, he needed to quickly deplete the food supplies so Rose would go down to the settlement.
“You seem to be eating especially well these days.”
Kisses fell on his nose bridge and cheeks. Still-heated hands fondled his waist. Elijah looked up at Rose, who wore a gentle smile.
“Like you’re pregnant.”
He didn’t know whether to laugh or not at the absurd joke. Elijah tried to force an expression resembling a smile and failed.
He knew that men couldn’t get pregnant, but it was through his joke that he first realized exactly what principle allowed women to become pregnant.
Suddenly, Elijah became newly aware that the act he and Rose shared every day was originally an act that should be performed between a man and a woman. He couldn’t understand why he hadn’t known such an obvious fact until now.
It felt both like learning knowledge he’d never known from the beginning, and like recovering a memory he’d forgotten for a very long time. It was an indescribably strange and peculiar sensation.
Belatedly, Elijah’s ears heated up intensely. It was because Rose’s joke now felt too embarrassing.
“…Maybe it’s because I exercise, I get hungry quickly.”
Avoiding his gaze, Elijah lowered his eyes and finally made an excuse. In any case, their bodies tangled together and straining could be considered a kind of exercise for him. After all, his whole body tingled with muscle pain when it was over.
“Wait just a bit.”
The affectionate hand that had been fondling his cheek and nape moved away. Elijah sat quietly, drinking water and observing Rose in the kitchen. His broad back, clad only in pants with his upper body bare, was completely clean without a single scratch despite being clawed so much during the act.
Based on the countless repeated acts and experiences, Rose had almost no weaknesses. Not only was he strong, but his wounds healed instantly. Though it was only a guess, he seemed to have the ability to enchant and control people.
“……”
What if he himself had also been enchanted by him? What if that’s why he couldn’t rashly run away, and was being deceived into mistaking the pain of mingling bodies with him for pleasure?
Now Elijah even doubted the heart that had loved Rose. The suspicion that all the affection and bond he’d felt for him might be an illusion made Elijah more anxious than anything else.
‘No, that can’t be it.’
He changed his thinking. If Rose could control him at will in the first place, such physical restraints wouldn’t have been necessary.
From past experience, Elijah was almost certain that Rose’s only weakness was fire. Because the one time Rose, who remained clean without a single scratch even when constantly getting caught on trees, falling, and tripping, had shown an injury before his eyes—it was a burn scar.
Come to think of it, he didn’t particularly like being in front of fire. While ordinary people would naturally warm themselves by fire to avoid the cold in midwinter, Rose never went near fire unless it was for Elijah’s sake. When he was young, Rose on his back would whine that it was hot, so Elijah ended up keeping his distance from fire as well.
A fragrant stew smell vibrated from the pot that began to bubble. The kitchen hearth blazed even in midsummer. The hand stirring the stew in the large pot was red and cooked.
Watching him struggle to prepare a meal to feed him while he himself was calculating his weakness felt a bit sorry. But it couldn’t be helped. If he wasn’t this underhanded, there was no way to beat Rose…….
That didn’t mean he would burn Rose, absolutely not. If he got caught while running away, he should at least be able to defend himself minimally, shouldn’t he?
He didn’t want to harm Rose beyond that. No matter what, he was a child raised by hand since infancy. He didn’t want to avenge the already dead Igrit, nor did he hate Rose that much.
It was simply that Rose’s persistent temperament didn’t suit him, making it hard to stay together anymore.
He would leave as far away as possible so Rose couldn’t chase him. Since this was the eastern edge, if he ran all the way to the western edge, even the clever Rose wouldn’t be able to find him.
“Elijah.”
The hand reddened with heat placed a bowl of stew before him. Steam rose from the stew filled with finely torn chicken and potatoes.
“Shall we take a walk after you finish eating?”
Sitting beside him and watching Elijah take a spoonful of stew, Rose asked. Elijah, swallowing the potato that melted smoothly in his mouth down his throat, replied.
“…I’m fine with it. If you want to, I can go with you.”
