Shey’s two hands gripping the dagger were slippery with cold sweat. Ruslan rubbed his cheek against him as if there were only the two of them in the world, and bruShey back Shey’s hair with aching tenderness.

“I can only end things that way.”

“Hah, huh…”

“Can’t you do it?”

Ruslan asked. If he nodded now, it felt like the chance to ever kill him would vanish forever. Shey shook his head wildly and muttered quickly to himself as if hypnotizing himself.

“I can do it… I’ll kill you. I can kill you.”

His faintly trembling voice was pitiful and ridiculous, and Ruslan covered the back of Shey’s hand with his own.

“I’ll help a little.”

At that instant, Shey’s hand was gripped so tightly it hurt.

Puk.

A sound he had become accustomed to from living with Ruslan rang out. When Shey looked with stupid eyes, he saw the knife stuck in Ruslan’s abdomen. The entire blade was buried so deeply that the steel itself could not be seen.

“…Ha. Ha-ha. Hah…”

Seeing that, Shey’s lips twitched unsteadily, pulling up and down as though convulsing. A reflexive laugh leaked out, but Shey’s face had gone corpse-white.

“Good job.”

With a bright compliment, Ruslan tightened his grip over Shey’s hand. The blade was pulled back out, and the sound of flesh being cut again followed.

Puk. Puk. Puk!

Now the hand holding the knife was slippery with blood, making it hard even to grip the hilt. Shey’s once-clean clothes were stained scarlet as if that had always been their color, and blood droplets scattered over his face. Ruslan’s body, so clean it was hard to believe he had grown up on battlefields, began to stain with several fresh wounds.

Ruslan covered Shey’s cheek with a blood-soaked hand and kissed him. The wet hand moved downward, brushing his narrow waist and gripping his hips. With a playful laugh, the damp cock puShey into the hole.

“Hhk! Ahhk!”

“Haah…”

Soon, the wet, slick sound of movement could be heard. Lowering his blood-red hand, Ruslan stroked the clit.

“Ah… ahhhn…”

With blood pouring out, it was as if Shey himself had been stabbed full of holes. When the cock thrust against the gut and bruShey the colon, a shriek of pleasure burst out. He wanted to put the cock into the cunt too. In that unreal scene, Shey stared dumbly at the ceiling and thought.

Ah. At first, he had definitely… hated it, maybe…? It should have been hated. The touching hands feel disgusting. Unfamiliar. It feels like it isn’t my body. Please stop. It feels strange.

Please. Help me. It feels like my lower body is coming apart. I don’t want to make a sound. When he touches there, strange sounds keep coming out. Ah… it feels so good…

“For the last one… do you want to do it, Shey?”

Ruslan pressed his lips to Shey’s and whispered the question. The dagger, already leaving several scars on his body, was still lodged there. Shey, gripping the handle, was shaking violently. His cold-sweat-dampened hand tried to pull the blade out, but kept slipping, and Ruslan laughed for a while.

Covering Shey’s hand with his own, he pulled the knife out and handed it back. Even with a submissive enemy before him, Shey swung the blade weakly, eyes filled with terror. The hand that had spent his whole life copying scriptures or serving god did not even know how to hold a knife properly.

With a smile, Ruslan once again covered the back of Shey’s hand and puShey the blade into his own stomach. He stabbed the same place that had already been pierced. For the first time, a crack appeared on Ruslan’s composed face. Letting out a small groan, he pulled the knife back out.

His hand was trembling thinly. With their hands layered together, it was impossible to tell whose was whose.

Once more, as something was stabbed in, Ruslan whispered in Shey’s ear. His voice was touched with laughter.

“…See?”

“…”

“You can’t do anything without me…”

The man collapsed over Shey, soaked in blood. A heavy weight pressed down on him. When Shey slowly touched his shoulder, only the limp arm hanging down from the bed gave a faint sway.

“…Ruslan?”

His name scattered as softly as wind. The one who had sometimes demanded that Shey call his name gave no answer even when Shey did.

“…Hah. Ugh… ugh… huhh…”

A whimper, almost like an animal’s cry, burst out intermittently. Pieces of old moments floated up like fragments.

You’re now fully a family with us under the protection of god. In god’s embrace, we are all one household, do you understand?

On the day he became a formal priest, the priest who had taken him in smiled kindly and held him. A white flower symbolizing god and his first faceted jewel were placed into his neatly joined palms. Those who had ties to him, the colleagues who had served beside him, all the people who cheriShey him and loved him, blessed him.

The will of god born from his own hands. The jewel he had carefully crafted while praying desperately that it would find the rightful owner. Those beautiful radiances and congratulatory words filled with love.

So many people called his name and sincerely wiShey that this brilliance would last forever. And yet why was it that the name he had heard so many times could no longer come to mind now…?

With a face ruined by tears, Shey slid off the bed. The instant he rolled to the floor, the arm that had seemed as though it would strangle him forever dangled limply beneath the bed. Hearing the panting sob at his ear, he realized he was crying. He crawled on his knees and seized the doorknob.

He had to get away. He had to run from that ghost that brought nightmares and spread disease. That thing had ruined Shey’s life and had poured poison into it until not even a blade of grass could survive.

But his limbs, drained of strength, no longer listened to him.

Why had it become like this?

Shey sprawled on the cold floor.

What on earth was he to that man that made Ruslan so merciless?

Tears fell and pooled slowly on the floor. Covered in blood, Shey looked at his blurred vision and suddenly wondered.

Would it have been right to accept him, as the others said?

But now, at this point.

The darkness ahead blurred black, like death itself. He did not bother resisting.

✿ • ✿ • ✿

A servant’s scream as dawn was just beginning ripped sharply through the mansion. Shey and Ruslan, both collapsed on the floor, were discovered almost at the same time.

No one knew the details of what had happened that night. Shey did not speak, either. But everyone knew that nothing about the two of them made anything impossible.

Unlike Shey, who bore no visible injury, Ruslan teetered on the brink of death for a long time. The physicians warned that he had lost so much blood he might never wake again, or even if he did, the prognosis might be poor. Among the servants, rumors spread that Ruslan’s body had been covered in an uncountable number of horrific stab wounds.

Doctors, pharmacists, and even the emperor, upon hearing the unfortunate news about his nephew, threw themselves into the effort to bring him back. The smell of medicine and people never left his room.

Security in the mansion grew even tighter, and no one could even breathe properly without feeling like they were walking on thin ice. Even so, Ruslan still remained with his eyes closed.

Separated from the anxious, restless passage of time, Shey remained in that mansion like someone forgotten. Those who came to investigate the incident asked him several questions, but he never opened his mouth. After the day he had been dragged before the emperor, no one else came looking for Shey, and Shey himself did not bother doing anything to draw attention.

He simply leaned against the wall and watched morning come, or collapsed to sleep when he got tired. Someone else brought him food, and he was cleanly waShey whenever a hand tugged him along. Shey was still the precious lover whom their master cheriShey.

And then, after about a month had passed, Ruslan woke up.

When he woke, the mansion grew even noisier. The smell of medicine gradually faded, and servants busily carried food to the patient. The butler’s voice, when heard in passing, was a little brighter than before.

“He’s said to be out of danger.”

Someone brought the news to Shey, who was looking out the window. After a while, the person who had seen his unreturned back left.

Shey simply thought, He won. Then he thought, Was it supposed to end up like this? and quietly accepted that maybe it was so.

Even after waking, Ruslan did not come looking for a very long time. A period equivalent to the time he had been unconscious passed again.

It was one morning.

Shey was once again seated before the huge dining table where he had eaten with Ruslan, under the lead of someone else. The table still held the homeland dishes Shey had loved long ago. He slowly lifted his utensils and tasted the food.

Then, from the corner of his lowered gaze, he saw someone sit down opposite him. Shey raised his head.

“Hello?”

It was a gentle greeting.

“Did you miss me?”

The playfully upturned lips could easily be called handsome by anyone who saw them. Resting his chin in one hand, he smiled brightly.

“You must be happy I wasn’t around. Should’ve just dropped dead, huh?”

He tossed out a cruel joke and laughed to himself.

Slowly straightening up, he walked around the table and stood in front of Shey. Turning the chair to face him, the man cupped both of Shey’s cheeks and forced him to meet his eyes.

“What are you going to do about me being alive?”

“…”

“I’ll apologize, I guess. That I like everything you hate. But that’s not my fault, is it?”

Ruslan pressed his forehead against Shey’s.

“So let’s live like this forever. Don’t separate.”

The grip on the back of his neck was strong. The forehead touching his own was hot like a fireball.

Ruslan added cheerfully, I never expected your love anyway. But somehow, the end of his bright tone was gloomy, and it evaporated into emptiness before it could reach Shey’s ears.

“I’ll love you forever.”

Ruslan’s hand on his cheek grew warm and wet.

His lover was as ephemeral as a snowflake melting under sunlight. That was his own kind of fleetingness.

He loved that fleetingness.