Vicious Darling

[68]

It was strange.

That one could inflict and receive wounds without any intention to scratch the other.

Chris thought he was a being completely dependent on Yuri. After all, his will and emotions had begun as imitations of Yuri’s.

Yet the loneliness welled up at the fact that they were ultimately separate individuals.

At the same time, looking into the purple eyes of the man standing across from him, he saw the same solitude pooled there.

Long ago, Chris had fallen in love with those eyes.

Even before he understood what that loneliness meant.

‘Is it… fortunate that we’re separate people?’

After such a terribly long, circuitous route to face each other, Yuri must have been lonely all along, to the point of pity.

Because Chris had blindly worshipped Yuri.

A being who might be unilaterally dependent, but unable to share anything mutually.

‘How was I any different from a dog that rubs itself against its owner with its whole body?’

These thoughts led Chris to self-loathing.

But shaking this off, Chris suddenly reached out.

As if he had never done it before, he grabbed Yuri’s shirt collar with both hands and pulled him closer.

Yuri’s body collapsed onto him without showing any sign of resistance.

Chris somewhat hastily pressed their lips together.

It was a desperate kiss, so intense that he thought their skin might tear if he applied just a bit more pressure where their teeth had roughly collided.

Though it was unclear why he was so impatient, Yuri didn’t push Chris away. Instead, he provocatively stared into his eyes as if daring him to do more.

Like a child who had done something wrong, Chris first acted and then anxiously watched Yuri’s reaction, feeling somewhat relieved.

He didn’t know how to show his feelings. Despite speaking the same language, they had never truly reached each other.

Only after colliding in extreme situations did they finally begin to face each other. So Chris wanted to show his intentions through actions rather than easily misunderstood words.

Though not without hesitation, from the moment he connected with Yuri, his suppressed impulses surged up.

Chris desperately explored that sweet, soft, hot sensation.

It was a passionate kiss.

But Chris’s hands gripping Yuri’s collar were trembling.

Yuri, his eyes narrowed, looked down at the man clinging to him with awkward movements.

The laughter and words that escaped between Yuri’s lips were all devoured by Chris.

Yuri felt a pleasant surprise.

He welcomed the tongue moving cautiously as if this were a first kiss, the breath that intertwined deeply while watching for his reaction.

Yuri’s hand, resting on Chris’s thigh, dug into the skin as if trying to burrow beneath it.

Yet his touch beneath the fabric, grazing Chris’s genitals, was quite rough and explicit.

“Kuh…”

A suppressed moan escaped.

Though it wasn’t even a cry of pleasure, Yuri tapped his fingers on the cheek of the man who had flinched and hunched his shoulders in surprise.

Chris swallowed his disappointment and slowly pulled his face back.

Yuri’s lips, kissed almost violently, were wet and red. They seemed swollen, perhaps from the rough kiss.

‘I should have been more careful.’

Chris inwardly scolded himself for clumsily crashing into Yuri, knowing that his skin was more delicate than his own.

“After threatening never to let me go, you immediately rub your lips against mine.”

At those words, Chris watched Yuri’s reaction.

A lifelong habit doesn’t just disappear.

“Did you… dislike it?”

“You’re clumsy.”

Yuri’s assessment was harsh.

“If you don’t intend to leave bruises on my face next time, you’d better be more careful than you were just now.”

Yuri’s fingertips brushed over Chris’s hardened genitals.

“Or… become more skilled.”

Chris, catching his breath, blinked as if he didn’t understand the words.

Before he could draw any conclusions, Yuri’s hand cupped his cheek.

“Why did you suddenly kiss me?”

Chris swallowed hard.

He needed to answer properly.

“I. I thought Yuri hated Espers.”

Yuri’s brow furrowed slightly at the clearly articulated answer.

“And I am an Esper.”

Yuri’s delicate face became horribly distorted as he listened to Chris’s words.

“You… thought I hated you?”

“You suffered every time you provided guiding. I believed that if this relationship ever ended, the reason would be me.”

After finally revealing his innermost thoughts, Chris’s gaze, which had wavered momentarily, turned to Yuri.

His face was rippling with all kinds of emotions.

Witnessing this, Chris felt the certainty he had held his entire life beginning to shake.

“…Right?”

His voice trembled as he sought Yuri’s confirmation.

The body of the man half-mounted on top of Chris shuddered. Yuri put his weight on him.

Chris, collapsed on the bed mattress, fell silent under the intense purple eyes looking down at him.

“I did hate.”

At this affirmation that slipped through clenched teeth, Chris relaxed his body.

‘Ah, as I thought.’

He wasn’t hurt anew by Yuri’s confirmation. He had always expected it. But hearing it directly from Yuri’s lips made his heart easier than when he had been trying to guess Yuri’s hidden feelings.

So it wasn’t Chris’s fault that he was shocked as if struck by lightning when Yuri added what followed.

“…Myself.”

“What? Why?”

A voice that suddenly became hoarse escaped between Chris’s lips.

It was truly an astonishing answer.

“Why, you ask? Because I hated my weak mind that would retch from mere contact.”

Yuri spat the words out.

The man, who had closed his eyes for a moment, looked at Chris again and spoke slowly.

“My parents were murdered, and I was raised by my godfather. I had fled my homeland with no shelter to turn to, struggling daily just to feed myself…”

He had thought he only needed to worry about Rosenhauser’s trackers, but why did humans need so much just to breathe?

Yuri, who had been raised as a young gentleman, faced truly enormous obstacles.

“Why couldn’t I become strong overnight? Why didn’t growing older immediately make me an adult? I thought about such things endlessly.”

When Yuri reluctantly provided guiding, Chris would fall asleep as if passing out. It seemed like his body was recovering with guiding energy.

Then Yuri would try to sleep beside him.

Since being dropped in the Winter Continent, Yuri had never slept deeply. Even if he exhausted his body and closed his eyes as if fainting, the nightmares that visited him every night would invariably wake him.

At such times, he desperately wanted the warmth of another person.

He couldn’t get close to Chris because he was an Esper, and at the same time, he couldn’t be certain that Chris would never betray him.

Nevertheless, there had been times when he burrowed into the embrace of the Esper who lay sleeping with his eyes peacefully closed on that worn-out bed.

Because Chris’s body, which was in the process of slowly recovering after entering overdrive, was hotter than an ordinary human’s.

Even with mere contact, guiding energy transferred to the other’s body. Even as he felt his insides being wrung out and twisted by that sensation, he forcibly overlapped his hand with the sleeping Esper’s and pressed their flesh together.

To adapt faster, even by just one day.

He was grateful that Chris hadn’t awakened.

Because Yuri didn’t want to show his weakness to anyone.

“Why? Is it strange that I was plagued by self-loathing?”

“…I never knew Yuri had such thoughts.”

He truly didn’t know. To be precise, he had never even dared to imagine it.

Because the Yuri that Chris knew had a truly strong soul. Even when he fell to the bottom, he would immediately get up and crawl his way back.

“Why? Is it strange?”

One corner of Yuri’s mouth turned up, creating a twisted smile.

“Have I… forgotten that I was in a position where I couldn’t sustain my life without you?”

Chris’s eyes trembled.

“When I was kidnapped after being discovered as a Guide, when Rosenhauser’s trackers found me, when I was surrounded after being caught in the conflict between organizations in the Winter Continent…”

Yuri recounted past events one by one.

“You thought you wouldn’t have been so devoted if I weren’t a Guide. Because S-class Espers are valuable anywhere. Not even accepting that I was a Guide and disgusted by the act of guiding. Yet unable to let go because I desperately needed the other’s help.”

With a scornful laugh, Yuri looked at Chris.

Chris was that magnificent S-class Esper. But even with an S-class Guide, it took quite a long time to recover from the aftereffects of overdrive.

Because he was stuck with a half-baked Guide who couldn’t even provide proper guiding.

If he had let Chris meet a proper Guide, wouldn’t he have lived much more like a human? The longer Chris’s recovery took, the longer he had to depend on Yuri.

Thus, he became a dog that couldn’t even stand properly on his own legs, crawling on all fours and rubbing his cheek against his master’s instep.

And Yuri was secretly relieved by this fact.

It was a truly base intention that he had never revealed.

“Contemptible and pathetic.”

Chris sighed while meeting Yuri’s purple eyes.

Yes, Yuri was a strict person.

Not just toward others, but also toward himself.

Why had he overlooked this fact?

He felt like a complete fool.

“I.”

Chris extended his trembling hand and grasped Yuri.

“I may have imagined myself as something other than an Esper, but I’ve never pictured you as anything other than a Guide.”

What human would dare to measure a god?

“Even if Yuri had been an ordinary civilian, it would have been the same, and even if you were an Esper, it would have been the same.”

But the fact that he was now making such assumptions was ultimately because he had realized that Yuri was no longer a god.

His mouth went completely dry under those purple eyes staring down at him.

He couldn’t tell what Yuri was thinking.

But this needed to be said.

“But I think I now understand that all of these are meaningless assumptions.”

Whether Esper or Guide.

He now realized he had been fixating on truly strange things.

Because he had discovered that Yuri had been suffering for exactly the same reasons as himself.

“I like you.”

It was a truly plain and simple confession.