Huh, what’s this?
The faint pressure that had been against Levia’s lips disappeared. It had simply pulled away, yet silence poured out as if someone had flicked off the world’s switch.
Levia’s eyelids blinked once slowly, and in that gap, Miros stumbled back two steps and froze. His breath pounded against his ribcage from the inside. His heart rang like a war drum, but his arms and legs wouldn’t follow instructions at all.
“No, that… This is, I mean….”
His mouth produced empty words first. Sounds that were neither excuses nor explanations. Miros lowered his head. It felt like he shouldn’t raise it. At the edge of his vision, Levia’s white fingers, collar, and the depth of his eyes were in the way. Strangely, his throat constricted. He felt feverish though it wasn’t hot.
Even until that moment, Levia didn’t move. A face devoid of expression, without composure to say anything, just stopped. In the stillness, the sound of his own heartbeat was strangely loud.
“S-sorry.”
Miros spoke first. It was an apology to himself. Strength drained from his knees. A tingling sensation in his fingertips. As he precariously retreated backward, his heel caught on a protruding root. He didn’t fall. While desperately holding on not to fall, a thought shot through.
What did I just do? Why did I do that? Why?
His breathing went askew. His hand rose to his chest. His palm trembled as it pressed against his flesh, as if measuring his heartbeat. There had been no such trembling even on the battlefield. No, at least on the battlefield there had been a reason. It was a place where life and death crossed. Just now there had been no reason. No reason? His head went blank for a moment, then turned red again.
Levia drew in a breath very slowly. His slender neck moved like a turtle crawling out slowly. His pupils blinked once, then fixed. Still no words. That silence made Miros more anxious.
“Really… sorry. On purpose, that… that intention, it wasn’t.”
The more he spoke, the more it sounded like an excuse. The awareness that it sounded like an excuse spurred more words.
“I was, for a moment… strange. I don’t know why either….”
“Miros.”
Levia called. One name. A sound neither gentle as usual nor scolding. A ripple without amplitude, like a small stone touching water. With that single call, a chill swept along Miros’s spine. The signal that he should flee flashed from his spinal cord first.
He reflexively raised his head.
Levia’s face standing directly in front filled his vision completely. In that moment, his heart pounded hard. His breath caught.
“Ah, no, that… I mean…!”
Words tangled and caught in his throat. Both hands flailed helplessly in the air, and fragments of excuses and apologies mixed and burst out.
“Sorry! Really… no, that… it wasn’t on purpose…. Just, I also, I don’t know why I did that either….”
As the words collided with each other and shattered, his speech became more of a mess. Levia didn’t move a single step. That stillness rather pressed on Miros’s chest. His breathing grew rougher.
“Wait, I’m really sorry!”
His voice grew louder. Both hands grabbed Levia’s shoulders. The force was careful but desperate. His lips still trembled violently.
“Just, I can’t right now. I can’t, so….”
I don’t even know what I’m saying. Only the thought of wanting to escape this situation right now. Before Levia could say anything to stop him, his body moved first.
Miros pushed Levia toward the door. One step back, two steps. The moment Levia’s heel caught on the threshold, he opened the door rather roughly. His wrist twisted as the door was pushed fully open, and cold air rushed through the gap. He almost reflexively pushed Levia out. It wasn’t rough, but it was definite force.
The moment Levia’s heel crossed the threshold, he twisted his wrist and gripped the doorknob. Through that brief gap as the door was closing halfway, Miros’s breathing poured out.
“Really, I can’t right now…!”
With those words, the door closed completely. Levia, left outside, stood there for a moment.
“Um… Miros? What can’t you do?”
“S-sorry! Really, I, right now I don’t really know what’s what either, you know? I’ll tell you later!”
What incomprehensible business is this? Levia wondered how he should take this.
This side was just as flustered. No, from the position of being suddenly wronged, this side was much more serious. Levia was half out of it, just staring at the closed door.
He couldn’t even think of chasing back inside. He was overwhelmed just trying to interpret this phenomenon.
Inside, Miros’s rough breathing hit the wall and spread thinly. That resonance transmitted through the door panel vibrated inside Levia’s ears for a long time.
“Um, Miros?”
No answer. He could sense the presence of Miros holed up inside, but that was all. Levia stood there blankly before speaking quietly.
“Well… then, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
Only after Levia left the front of the door did Miros’s breath finally burst. The cold air cutting through the void scraped his lungs. Each rib trembled minutely in its place.
He covered his mouth with the back of his hand. Why did I kiss him? I’m not that kind of person. No, even whether that sentence was correct was doubtful. What kind of person am I now? He recalled himself after returning from the battlefield, going mad every night looking at the mountain range outside the window.
The gaze that burned like fever, the faint trembling of his wrists, the reason he couldn’t close the window. All lines converged to one point. The name of that point was Levia.
He groped along the wall and sat in a chair. His fingers tapped the edge of the table twice, thud, thud. A habit of nailing down his reality. This time it was useless. Even through his fingertips, reason didn’t return.
The sensation remaining on the tip of his tongue was the problem. It had been soft. The sensation was simple, and that simplicity was fatal. Not the complex smells of the battlefield, not the taste of iron, but the warmth of a living being. That one thing had broken him down.
He jumped up from his seat. He looked for water. He picked up a cup and gulped down the half-emptied water in one go.
Cool down. If I cool down, it’ll pass. This is delirium. Fatigue, tension, aftereffects, and… and? The word wouldn’t continue. And love. That word flashed through his mind. Miros stopped right there. The cup almost slipped from his hand. He gritted his teeth.
“No. No… it’s not, that kind of thing.”
He denied it first without even knowing what. Miros couldn’t judge the situation at all right now.
He gripped the doorknob again. Levia was out there. He couldn’t sense any presence beyond the door, but that silence filled the room. If I go out now, it’ll get worse. The judgment was clear. He lowered the latch and locked it.
Organize, catch your breath, again. Finally a soldier-like plan was made. First, wash hands. Wash face. Match breathing. Choose clear vocabulary. Apologize, yes. Don’t make excuses. Don’t determine the cause. Avoid contact. Keep distance.
In the meantime, his heart kept beating. He closed his eyes. In the darkness, the instant from just before replayed like a rewind. I touched first. That one confession stabbed his flesh.
Like an old ghost, Levia in a faded appearance trudged into the shadowy part of his nest. Actually, he didn’t even know where his footsteps were heading. He just moved his feet without any thought.
There was no strength in his fingertips. He tilted his head just a little, then straightened it right away. One Dryad carefully approached and whispered.
—Progenitor, why? Are you okay?
“…Yeah.”
His voice was the same as usual. However, the reaction was half a beat late. Facts moved before emotions.
I’m surprised right now, and I couldn’t recognize it immediately. The recognition that he didn’t understand belatedly created the outline of emotion. Surprise. Confusion. After that, a blank space difficult to name.
When he closed his eyes, the pressure from just before returned. It had really been very brief. What was that? Why did Miros do such an act to me?
It was a known fact that Miros was an adult. Even before that, he’d been aware that Miros could look at him from a sexual perspective. But he hadn’t really thought it could actually happen. Because it didn’t make sense. Back then he’d just thought it was because of some confusion since Miros was a young being.
No, wait. Was that really sexual?
Levia asked himself. He didn’t reproduce. He had no gender. I am origin and proof. The Progenitor of Oak Trees, everything of those who have taken root.
Would ordinary humans perceive sexual sensations toward such a thing? At least as far as Levia knew, they didn’t. Very occasionally there were individuals who showed abnormal behavior driven mad by lust, but he hadn’t detected anything like that from Miros just now.
It really was literally out of the blue, a simple accident. He had no idea at all how such an accident happened.
Levia thought for a long time, but even so, that contact wasn’t explained only by the vocabulary of prescribed classifications. The Dryads hovered near Levia, then seeing no reaction at all, they watched carefully and stood far away.
The forest’s air changed very subtly. The speed of moisture flowing along the leaf veins was cut in half. Levia noticed it late. His emotions were affecting the forest. This won’t do.
In that small cabin standing alone far away, beyond that wooden threshold, Miros’s presence trembled very faintly. Levia matched his breathing once to the rhythm of that trembling. And very slowly, he turned around in place.
Waiting is right for now.
He’ll tell me. He’ll be able to speak. He believed so. Actually, he didn’t even have the energy to chase after and press him. Levia himself was just as bewildered.
Levia, who had stopped for a moment, moved his steps again. Moss pressed softly under his feet. The forest imitated tranquility again.
But it was only an imitation. Levia detected a fine crack of texture he’d never seen before in his center. Why, now? The question hung in the air without finishing.
Only on the next breath did he realize. I don’t know what I’m becoming. A faint fear seeped in that he might be corrupted into something else.
But into what? Why? Why am I afraid of that?
Levia Rishian was an absolute being. Such an existence had been dragged down to ‘a sexual being’ by a mere human, a lowly creature. He’d been forcibly pulled down. It was no different from being suddenly thrown down. He didn’t realize it himself, but this was clear defilement.
