Without answering, Yuri concentrated on applying foam to his chin and around his mouth with the brush. Along with the sensation of the brush, the feeling of foam enveloping his lower face was ticklish.
“Shut up and stay still.”
Lifting the razor, Yuri said sternly while fixing his chin.
“This is my first time shaving someone else’s face, so if you keep moving I might make a cut here.”
At those words, Chris froze.
First time.
“…You’ve never helped Danil shave?”
Yuri’s eyes met Chris’s. The clean purple eyes didn’t hold much emotion. Chris desperately hoped Yuri wouldn’t notice his heart beating faster.
“At least back then he groomed his own fur.”
Having attempted escape recently, it was impossible for him to shave himself. Both arms were still restrained and surveillance had become twice as strict as before.
He couldn’t have had the luxury of grabbing shaving cream and a razor while running away.
“Back then and now, you’re lacking all the same….”
Yuri’s following words were close to a mutter.
Chris felt like he could almost grasp the reason. His hunting dog was probably desperate not to fall out of Yuri’s favor.
Chris could almost tangibly feel the mood of the disappeared ‘Danil.’ At the same time, he wanted to know more about Yuri.
Not because he wanted to understand him. Because you had to know your enemy to know how to defeat them too.
Since he couldn’t tear Yuri apart with his own hands, he’d have to find his weakness and slip through it.
While Chris was lost in thought with his mouth closed, the sound of Yuri moving the razor to scrape away the foam and beard was quite brisk. Whether because of his personality, while moving his hands meticulously, his eyes were checking every corner of his face.
Most people Chris knew used electric razors, so this was the first time he’d seen a man handle a straight razor as skillfully as Yuri.
Perhaps because using a straight razor required more concentration than an electric one, Yuri’s purple eyes were focused like an artisan examining a craft. The fact that they’d gotten close enough to feel each other’s breath was perhaps an inevitable progression.
It couldn’t be helped. This was the first time he’d faced Yuri’s face like this with a completely sober mind, not soaked in Guiding or pleasure.
“Stay still.”
Feeling like his breathing would become rough at this rate, Chris unconsciously pulled back. Yuri’s brow furrowed slightly.
“If you lean back like that, you’ll fall into the bathtub.”
Though the bathtub wasn’t filled with water, if he fell backwards he could hit his head badly.
“I can’t use my abilities, but my sense of balance isn’t broken.”
Chris replied calmly. As if finding it amusing, Yuri said, placing his hand on his thigh.
“Still think you’re fine?”
The deliberately placed hand touched Chris’s right leg where he’d tucked his genitals. Chris’s face reddened at the pressure from the hand sliding inside his inner thigh and pressing down on his genitals.
In the end, he had no choice but to return to his original position. Yuri removed his hand from Chris’s thigh as if that had been his entire business. The lingering heat and embarrassment remained Chris’s alone, as always.
Chris opened his mouth to change the subject.
“Why do you always come in yourself?”
“Would you prefer someone else came?”
Yuri’s gesture of jerking his chin toward the room with the bed where he’d cried and soaked it several times from rough Guiding seemed faintly mocking. But Chris knew this was meant to shut him up.
So he answered Yuri’s question with a question.
“I thought someone in your position would be busy, so I was just curious why you’re personally managing a mere prisoner.”
“Being careless with an S-rank Esper is foolish. Even now, if someone other than me came in, you’d strangle them, steal their clothes, and run away. Wouldn’t you?”
Yuri opened up readily. He was evaluating Chris’s current state relatively coldly.
“Besides, your abilities will return soon…. Who in White Night but me could subdue you?”
Telekinesis was a difficult ability to deal with. Not only was long-range attack possible, but the ways to utilize it were infinite. If he were an ordinary Esper, there would at least be limits to the range in which he could exert or utilize his power, but Danil was so powerful that he should be discussed as out of spec rather than just S-rank.
For Yuri, who thought of Chris as the same person as the disappeared Danil, it was best for him to step forward since he could wield absolute power over Espers.
The sound of the razor scraping at his chin made his hair stand on end. Even knowing it wouldn’t turn toward his throat, a sharply honed blade had that kind of power.
Chris instinctively knew that escaping this time would also be difficult. Because he couldn’t snatch that razor from Yuri’s hand and slash his throat.
Thinking about it made him curious about something else again.
“You’re strong. I’ve never seen a Guide who fights like you, like Mr. Sobolev. But why didn’t you face Northern Light yourself and instead put Chris Danil forward?”
Having blurted out the questions in a rush, Chris thought he needed to organize them a bit and added.
“I don’t understand why it’s Chris Danil and not you who’s rumored to be the November Continent’s watchdog.”
Are you interrogating me? Yuri asked back and readily opened his mouth.
“Don’t you know a Guide’s position? People admire Espers but despise Guides.”
The moment Chris heard that, he understood.
This was the public perception that subtly permeated. Guides with the power to heal Espers enjoyed affluent lives without lifting a finger. It wasn’t a power earned through effort, nor was that power seen as directly helping citizens’ lives.
So Guides were indispensable to Espers, but among ordinary people they were branded as lucky people who lived idle lives. In this kind of jealousy, facts like Guides being constantly threatened with kidnapping and unable to have normal jobs weren’t very important.
Without Guides, Espers couldn’t live, and even the fact that they could become disasters wasn’t important. There had even been a case where a bereaved family member whose relative died caught up in an Esper’s Rampage killed a Guide. The reason was that they’d allowed such Espers to breathe in this world. Twisted anger had turned toward the Guide.
In the end, it was just that they killed a Guide who couldn’t protect themselves because they didn’t have the ability to kill an Esper.
“If ordinary person Yuri Sobolev controlled the November Continent with Chris Danil and various Espers, to some people it would be terrifying and to others an object of admiration. But what if a Guide is acting as a mafia boss?”
Yuri let out a deliberately exaggerated laugh, “Haha.”
“Shall we bet on how many holes would appear in White Night the day after that rumor spreads?”
The tone was acerbic rather than self-deprecating. He didn’t seem to feel disappointment in the people who would gossip.
“To do this kind of thing, reputation is important. Including notoriety. Since no one fears an existence they don’t respect, I have no choice but to not bother mentioning I’m a Guide.”
Because there had been no expectations from the start.
Yuri was a powerful Guide he’d never seen even at Northern Light headquarters. Now he knew a unique method of utilization, subduing Espers through Guiding, but it probably wasn’t like that from the beginning.
As someone who knew what situation Guides, especially Guides of the winter continent, were placed in, Chris could understand Yuri’s distrust of humans and hatred of Espers a little.
“…You said Northern Light’s Rosenhower was your enemy.”
Yuri, who was moving the razor with the blade slightly tilted while gripping near Chris’s temple, answered.
“Your enemy too.”
He couldn’t remember, but apparently they were comrades with a common enemy, or something more than that.
While Chris chewed over Yuri’s words, he finished the other side as well. It was impressive that he hadn’t cut him even once. Chris felt anew that Yuri handled the blade well. Especially the movement of his wrist would catch his eye sometimes.
Having finished shaving, Yuri wiped the blade clean and said.
“You can wash now.”
Chris wiped off all the remaining shaving cream still on his face. When he lifted his face, Yuri handed him a towel.
After wiping off the moisture and sliding his fingers over his chin, he felt somehow even smoother skin than when he’d used an electric razor. He seemed to understand the reason for going through the trouble of using a straight razor.
Turning his body and leaning against the sink, Chris suddenly opened his mouth while watching Yuri tidy up the tools.
“If I prove my usefulness, if I promise to do so, what happens?”
Though it wasn’t connected to the previous conversation, it was a topic Yuri had brought up when Chris was first confined here.
Find the drug dealer Anastasia who wasn’t dead and find out if she really had resurrection abilities.
“You could buy limited freedom.”
“After I prove it?”
To Chris’s question, Yuri answered.
“You’ll go back to how things were before.”
It didn’t sound like a sweet dream or clumsy hope. It was just solid, like ground hardened after rain.
What about Chris Danil had planted such firm belief in that distrustful man?
“…I know you won’t believe me if I say I’ll cooperate with you.”
