Rubens tasted Rhino’s crying voice on the tip of his tongue. The sensation sticking thickly inside his mouth was sweet. The man occupying Bernard’s upper body breathed slowly and looked down at the crumpled person beneath him.
Bernard was only exhaling rapid breaths without even being able to open his eyes. Rubens felt the impulse to strangle him to death just like this. Yet at the same time, he felt the desire to kiss him violently and pull out his hidden tongue. How could such disgusting and pretty emotions coexist like this…….
He gripped Bernard’s chin as he desperately shook his head and kissed his nose tip a couple of times. He hoped there was nothing left around him. So he wanted to quickly see him lose everything and cling to him, begging for whatever emotions remained.
Bernard’s breathing, gripping the seatbelt, became erratic. All kinds of memories from the past flooded and covered his body. His body repeatedly heated up and then became cold. He had the idiotic thought that he might be going back and forth between winter and summer naked right now.
“Why are you acting like a fucking idiot?”
“I told you to beat me in moderation.”
“I’m going to tell Elliot I rolled down the stairs anyway, so.”
“Let’s do well, Weil. Hmm?”
In his memory, they spoke kindly and Bernard just nodded his head and bowed down. It was when he was in 6th grade. The day he returned covered in wounds all over his body, he couldn’t see Elliot’s face. It was the day Elliot had sulked and gone home alone saying he wanted to go home by himself, and while getting off the school bus, he collapsed from sudden breathing difficulties and was taken to the emergency room just like that. When Elliot’s condition improved and Liam came to his senses, he raised his fist. Bernard thought it was the price for his own negligence.
“You should have been together! Elliot only looked for you the whole time!”
“I, I was wrong…… I was wrong!”
“Clumsily rolling down the stairs and…… this goddamn son! How anxious Elliot must have been!”
Even when his wounds burst and bled, Bernard was more afraid of the fact that Elliot could have died because of him than the beating. Elliot’s collapse wasn’t his fault, but it wasn’t something Bernard, neglected in long-term abuse, could properly discern. One of the most frightening memories was his childhood staying up for three days and nights by Elliot’s hospital bed in fear that his brother might die.
“Elliot, Ell…iot. Elliot…….”
Bernard wasn’t in his right mind. However, Rubens didn’t shake him awake or comfort him. He just roughly tapped his cheek, but Bernard’s focus wouldn’t settle properly.
– Please…… put Bernard on.
Rhino’s voice coming from the phone was trembling finely with anger. Rubens pondered with a satisfied face and then held the phone to Bernard’s ear.
Rhino gritted his teeth at Bernard’s crying out, crushed by fear. Rage surged up as if about to lose focus, and simultaneously anguish as if about to go mad followed. How should he explain the sensation of his entire brain burning up? Resentment? Anger? It would have been nice if it could be defined by such brief words.
– Bernard, calm down. Breathe…… breathe. Can you hear me? Bernard, it’s me. Rhino. Yes, Bernard?
“…….”
– ……Elliot is safe. Nothing happened. I confirmed he’s sleeping at home. Bernard. No one can harm Elliot.
Rhino carefully steadied his voice, but not a single syllable seemed to reach Bernard. Rubens, who had been watching that appearance, laughed weakly. The tenderness was a spectacle money couldn’t buy.
Bernard curled up his body. He seemed to want to hide somewhere. When Rubens slowly extended his hand, the body flinching and trembling was visible intact. When Rubens stroked Bernard’s cheek, Bernard’s gaze turned toward Rubens. The gazes that met blinked slowly.
Had some button been pressed? Only then did Bernard burst into low crying. At the crying sound pouring out like a floodgate bursting, Rhino’s voice grew a bit louder. However, Bernard shook his head as if Rhino’s voice didn’t reach him at all, and then nodded repeatedly.
‘He’ll stop breathing at this rate.’
Either Rhino or Bernard seemed about to do so. Soon Rhino, perhaps judging he couldn’t handle Bernard, quickly changed course.
– Mr. Hurt.
Thanks to having it on speaker mode, his voice was heard clearly.
– ……Please help him.
Rubens recalled the appearance at the party venue. Gray eyes filled with contempt were looking straight at him. Eyes as if his possession had been taken away. That gaze that acted as if Bernard had been his lover from the beginning grated on his nerves. Bernard Weil was an existence placed in Rubens’ hands anyway. That excited emotion of having a one-sided love for his brother’s lover was so cheap that it had no value whatsoever to Rubens. Yet that Bernard seemed quite valuable to Rhino.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
– I can’t leave Bernard like this.
“Didn’t you hear what I said earlier?”
– …….
“I don’t understand why you’re so devoted to someone who casually threw away your feelings and turned around.”
– Please…….
Rhino’s voice that came out like a strangled person was infinitely earnest. Rubens couldn’t help but laugh out loud. Pure devotion at its finest. He tapped Bernard’s nape lightly with his index finger. If he pressed down just like this, would he cough dirtily? His index fingernail slid smoothly along the artery. Bernard’s shoulders curved inward more. The hand that crept in stealthily groped near his collarbone.
– It doesn’t matter. What’s important to me isn’t returned affection but the fact that Bernard is doing well.
“Aha?”
– When Bernard can be Bernard. I’m satisfied.
It was a pathetic loser’s answer, but Rubens’ mood became slightly low. He threw the phone he’d been holding to the floor. He couldn’t look for the phone that had fallen somewhere under the passenger seat. When Rubens extended his hand and reclined the passenger seat, Bernard’s curled body fell back with a thud.
“Ah, ngh… I…….”
“Be quiet.”
Roughly covering Bernard’s mouth, Rubens groped under his t-shirt. Bernard struggled with his coldly cooled body, but crushed under Rubens, it ended as a pathetic struggle.
Rubens acted like someone whose reason had evaporated. He chewed his swollen lips and pulled out the flesh that had stiffened inside. When he rubbed and scraped with his tongue, familiar heat rose. However, Bernard couldn’t follow that progression at all and only let out dying sounds. Rubens roughly grabbed the shoulders of curled-up Bernard and frowned. The sensation of the artery pulsing under the neck he gripped tightly felt unpleasant.
Rhino’s shouting voice was heard from under the seat, but neither of them responded. It might be right to say they couldn’t. Rubens didn’t hide his heavy breathing and skillfully sucked the stiffened tongue, then repeatedly crushed it with his canines. Saliva stuck together stickily and overflowed. The hand that entered under the t-shirt busily groped Bernard’s chest. The act of stroking the palely blanched skin and then pressing and rubbing the sharply erect nipple at its center with his thumb was natural.
“Ah, mmm…….”
Bernard’s nape stiffened at the pleasure forcibly imposed. He trembled and shook his head again trying to compensate for his insufficient breathing, but forcibly having his breathing controlled, he only let out weak crying sounds. Rubens repeatedly swallowed his erratic breath and blew in refined breath.
Veins stood out thickly on the back of Rubens’ hand gripping Bernard’s nape. Blazing blue eyes glistened with desire. He found Bernard crushed beneath him unbearably disgusting, yet at the same time was lusting after him. Rhino’s rough shouting was heard from the invisible phone, but Rubens laughed.
Beneath him, Bernard convulsed tremblingly and then soon went limp. His erratic focus faded and then became clear repeatedly. As if discerning the distance between near and far.
“Haha…….”
A short laugh. For some whim, Rubens messily embraced Bernard who had gone limp from crying exhaustedly. How perfectly could an adult male fit in his arms, but the emaciated body fit reasonably well in his embrace. He slowly stroked Bernard’s back and left a light kiss on his ear.
Rubens was clearly erect from just that much contact. He wanted to spread the legs of Bernard crushed beneath him right now and strip off his pants and tear open the narrow hole with his genitals. However, he didn’t do so. The sound of grinding his molars was heard ominously.
“Bernard Weil.”
“…….”
“Like this, shall I strangle you to death?”
Though it took the form of a question, it was sincere. Bernard blinked his eyes, then nodded his head and shook it again. He surely didn’t properly recognize what was being said. Because of being slapped several times, his cheek was already swelling. When he kissed him, a stinging taste came from inside his mouth. The flesh inside his mouth seemed to have burst.
Rubens pulled out the crouched Bernard. Bernard lay sprawled on the reclined passenger seat, opening and closing his mouth before shutting it tight again. His ears were muffled. As if submerged in water, no sound could be heard. Rubens let out a long sigh while their lower bodies were pressed together. That breath was excessively damp and also sinister. Bernard opened his mouth with difficulty.
“Ell, Ell, what about Elliot?”
It was a shabby question. Rubens looked carefully at Bernard’s face. His viewpoint kept going astray, but he didn’t urge. Only after quite a while did the dark green eyes that properly met his gaze look wet. At that moment, Rubens strangely…… briefly thought those eyes were excessively familiar.
The front bulging as if to pierce through his dress pants was blatant. However, Rubens didn’t move further and licked Bernard’s wet cheek, then wet his eyelids with saliva again. Belatedly, Bernard realized the situation he was in.
“……What about Elliot?”
This was an unavoidable reflexive reaction. Remaining like a scar, learned over a long time, so it popped out before Bernard could even think. At the question repeating like a recorder, a faint crack appeared in Rubens’ expression. Bernard realized he had asked a foolish question again. In the overflowing shadows of the past, he barely regained a sense of reality.
“Seems that’s all you have to ask.”
“I’m, I’m sorry…….”
“I wasn’t asking you to apologize.”
Rubens’ tone became neat again, but blue anger still rippled on his face. Bernard had to carefully choose his words. His heart that couldn’t calm down pounded, making him nauseous.
Rubens just felt like shit. He couldn’t say it, but it was exactly that. With a messy feeling, he just tightly embraced Bernard. He was erect, and since he was going to be a sex partner, he could just thrust and ejaculate, but he didn’t. The feeling of wanting to do so and the feeling of not wanting to do so collided. In the end, Rubens prioritized the situation over his feelings.
“Ha.”
He was just holding him, but Bernard also hesitantly embraced him back. At the empty laugh that burst out, Bernard’s body flinched. Bernard trembled at his fingertips as if frightened by just that much action. He seemed vulnerable to violence. He seemed to have trauma and actually looked very unstable.
Rhino’s voice was no longer heard from the phone that must have been rolling on the floor somewhere. Whether the battery had run out and it turned off, or the other party had hung up. Rubens thought it was rather fortunate. Because the phone sound was very noisy and his mood was even more ruined.
As he released the tightly embraced body, his hand momentarily passed over Bernard’s shoulder. Bernard hurriedly covered his head and curled up his body. Rubens’ hand stopped abruptly in mid-air. It was an instant. Nothing happened and Bernard, only now seeming to recognize his own reaction, urgently removed his hands. He had a desperate face but couldn’t salvage anything.
A cold silence flowed. To Rubens, it was an unsurprising reaction. Perhaps it was an expected reaction. Rubens looked at Bernard’s cheek for a long time, then quietly fastened his seatbelt for him. Then he returned to the driver’s seat and locked his own seatbelt. The car started afterward.
“Take care of your eyes. Looking at them is so unpleasant I’d rather gouge them out. They’re unbearably gloomy.”
“Ah, yes… yes…….”
“……Useless things come to mind.”
Bernard was startled and bowed his head, but Rubens didn’t care and only watched ahead. He had a displeased expression. Rolling down the car window and hooking his left arm on the window frame, he muttered.
“I said you’d regret it.”
Bernard realized those words were from the conversation on graduation night and his face turned deathly pale. He thought Rubens wouldn’t remember the details since he had been drunk. However, it was hard to gauge whether it was good fortune or bad fortune that he remembered a part of it.
However, Rubens would never know why Bernard was so terrified by that soliloquy.
