#117

“You’re the one who twisted me like this. You’re also the one… who showed me that twisted form like a mirror…. So beg me for forgiveness. Fear that I might leave you forever and tremble, endlessly prove that you belong to me. Want me as if you can’t live without me. Love me…! Like that, like that…!”

“…..”

“Kill….”

…Kill me.

At that moment, I seemed to open my eyes wide. My lips, which had ended a long string of curses with self-harm, parted as if breaking off. The last word I spat out carelessly seemed to strike the back of my head.

Kill me. It was the deepest inner thought that even I didn’t know. The turbid river inside me formed a rapid current, unintentionally revealing the muck beneath.

Kill me.

I felt as if I was taking my first breath. The feeling was as if I had wandered in fog for decades or centuries, and with one inadvertent step, crossed that boundary. The white-stained, rather dark view before my eyes suddenly cleared.

How consumed by evil was this twelve-year-old girl in my head? Why did she stomp on even clear affection with near-mad kicks, stand tall on it, and scream for his death? Why on earth did she push me into such confusion? Good heavens. That child….

She was trying to save ‘me’.

Kretzman.

At that moment, I remembered. The nights. The cruel nights when I had to endure lovemaking with Johannes as if being assaulted. The secret and terrible ecstasy I felt each night, tied limb to limb by Johannes’ hands.

In other words, I would tremble, reaching the most intense climax when I could feel Johannes obsessing over me with my whole body, when I was crumbling in his grasp.

Seeing Johannes suffering because of me made me feel as if I had regained the power I had lost, making me leap with joy. When I sobbed in Johannes’ violent embrace, obsessing over me to the point of pain, I felt his affection more clearly than ever. Ah, so cruel and….

Such an unholy ecstasy.

To confess now, my destructive desire seems to have been one of the symptoms of my chronic illness that I’ve suffered since childhood. That illness I suffered from had no name. If I were to name that chronic illness today, I would call it hunger. Or severe inferiority complex.

All of it, born together, originated from my Johannes, who was like the sun alone, leaving only me out. Robbed of father’s affection, robbed of the rights I thought were rightfully mine, even robbed of life….

That’s how I was, a woman who barely stood up, weaving an empty shell, whose insides had all been taken away by others, with only a vain supreme pride. A woman who went mad with thirst because no one cared for her, no one loved her.

All that was left for me was twisted love, a twisted mindset. Where did I go wrong and how did I become so hideous? Ah, if I’m such a starving woman, I’d rather die. I want to die….

So I wished to die once by suffering in Johannes’ embrace, and once again by hating myself for willingly sobbing in that embrace. However, since what propped me up was pride of all things, I couldn’t admit to the dirty ecstasy or impulse. Me, that kind of woman? Impossible. Yes, it was better to cut off my own roots with my own hands than to admit it.

I am chaste and flawless like a virtuous lady, strong like a Valdemar. Those dark things, I don’t know them. I ignored them. I blamed Johannes for all the causes of anxiety that seeped out from the gaps where my roots had been pulled out.

It’s because Johannes was obsessed with me. I resented him. As it was an old grudge anyway, it seemed to fit the circumstances. I’ve been prescribing the wrong medicine for a chronic illness, unable to cool down a fever that was about to go out, constantly boiling the inside of my heart. That lukewarm heat burned me knowingly and unknowingly.

The whole world knows. I am incompetent. I am powerless. I am weak. I am selfish. I am so worthless that….

A woman who wouldn’t even have a mouth to make excuses if she were beaten to death without anyone knowing.

Somehow or other. While listening to Alyona’s story, seeing Johannes’ demonic power unfold like a hallucination, I rather acutely felt how weak I was compared to him, and at that moment, nightmares and auditory hallucinations saved me, who habitually wished for death. The tip of the intimate murderous intent directed at myself was turned towards Johannes.

I grew resentment into hatred, saying that all this pain was due to the misfortune you brought, and that it would all go away if only you disappeared. Isn’t it such a pathetic struggle? A life that couldn’t survive a single day without him, a bottomless barrel that could never be filled without that man’s affection, that’s exactly what I am.

Nevertheless, was the reason I could prioritize my own life over love, to the extent that even the distant past became an auditory hallucination and stepped up, simply because my nature was selfish? Was it because my resentment towards you was as deep as my affection?

Ah, Johannes.

In the end, I can’t let you go, going round and round all day, rather wishing we would kill each other. Wanting to kill you to fill my stomach hungry for power, and to be killed by you to quench my throat thirsty for love.

Where did I go wrong and how did I become so hideous?

Tears fell in drops. I lowered my gaze, trembling, to look at Johannes. Johannes, his cheeks wet with fallen tears, was staring at my brow with a somewhat numb expression, his eyes half-open. However, at that time, I was so shocked by the sight of my terrible nakedness that I failed to notice Johannes’ strange expression.

“The devil was me….”

Only a desperate certainty leaked through my lips without my knowing.

“I… I can no longer hide the monstrous me…. My insides have been burning for so long that they’re no different from ashes now, and unless I vomit them out… I feel like I absolutely can’t survive. I… Johannes. I… want to be able to feel you…. It’s not enough for you to want me just with your mouth. You should kneel at my every word, and if I tell you to lick, you should even lick my feet. Like that, hanging onto me… watching my every move… living only for me…. Please, beg for my worthless glance or touch, asking me to cherish your rotten self. Like that, like that! Like a sinner…!”

“…..”

“You will live your whole life writhing by my side.”

For a very brief moment. I thought Johannes had died right there, with his eyes open, alive. The dragon’s gaze, wide open, was fixed on my brow. The change that had been raging like a wildfire in Johannes’ body suddenly stopped, and it seemed as if the time of his flesh had been cut in two, even his breath had been cut off.

Except for the wings and limbs, the rest of his body remained in human form. His platinum hair was black only at the ends, and his skin retained a shadow of unfinished bronze color.

In the end, what remained before me was neither Johannes nor a devil, but a half-human, half-demon.

Johannes, as if he had fallen alone into stopped time, remained stiff, without any answer.

A silence sharp as a needle point. Suddenly, my whole body shuddered. It was because Johannes’ back turned away from me suddenly came to mind. That back was as distant as the back I had secretly glimpsed in the women’s quarters when I was young. I reached out with my trembling hand and grasped Johannes’ cheek.

“You…. You don’t like me like this, do you?”

“…..”

“Are you… going to leave me?”

But Johannes seemed not to feel even the touch of my hand on his face. Like someone completely stiffened by some shock, he couldn’t even blink his wide-open eyes once. His strange attitude fueled my anxiety. To my eyes, which had been pitch black in my head for a while, his appearance looked just like hesitation right before giving the answer ‘yes’.

“No…. Ah, no…. No. No.”

A ripple-like tremor rose from my ankles to the top of my head. My fingertips grasping Johannes’ cheek involuntarily tensed. Even though I knew Johannes wasn’t someone who could dare abandon me, the possibility of ‘what if’ became a black curtain covering my eyes, swallowing me. I couldn’t see anything.

“I, I feel wronged…. Why should I be abandoned? You’re the one who planted this unmanageable mass of contradictions, this monster inside me…. You’re the one… who made me like this…. Why should I… suffer…?”

Johannes showed no reaction. He didn’t comfort me, nor did he embrace me. It was when I bit my lip and cried out softly that life suddenly returned to his eyes, which had been motionless until then.

“…Then I’d rather die together.”

“…..”

“Whether I die this way or that way… I’m not even a fully living person anyway…! If I have to see your back again now, I’d rather somehow die an unnatural death with you!”

I panted, unable to hide my rising anxiety and anger. I hated Johannes for not giving me a clear answer, and I loathed myself for being full of flaws, my eyes, which had been soaked for a while, all stinging.

Suddenly, I reached for a sword lying nearby. Because tears blurred my vision and I couldn’t distinguish between the hilt and the blade, the blue edge deeply cut into my palm as I grasped it anywhere. I didn’t mind the burning pain. After all, it’s a body that will soon rot and decay, so what!

A fire seemed to light up in Johannes’ pupils. He stretched out his arm as if almost jumping up from his seat and grabbed my forearm. With that fierce momentum, I was sucked into Johannes’ arms, dragging the sword tip on the floor, and ended up kneeling with a thud. I had no mind to complain about the pain. I started hitting the back of his hand that restrained me.

“Let go of this! Johannes…!”

Johannes shook his head urgently. If a speechless beast were to wail, would it have such an expression? His eyes, distorted as if very flustered, were so heated that it seemed he might burst into tears at any moment.

I still didn’t let go of the sword, and the grip of his hand holding my arm instantly increased in strength. The muscle of my arm was completely pressed down by that force, which gripped as widely as possible, making even my shoulder tremble.

“Why are you doing this, are you scared I might really die? Even if I don’t, you, possessed by a devil, might survive. So just hurt once in front of me…! Pretend to be dead so I don’t notice!”

“Stop…. You. You’re getting hurt…. Don’t…. Please….”

Johannes gasped out. I struggled to somehow remove his fingers, shouting.

“No, you let go first! I’ll grip it right away, I’ll grip it right away…! Then it’s fine, isn’t it…!”

“…Net. Hand….”

“Ah…! You’re detestable. Don’t act in front of me. If you’re going to abandon me anyway, if you don’t mean it, don’t pretend to worry about me. I don’t need, don’t need that kind of magnanimity…!”

I swallowed the end of the sharp voice that was desperately forcing its way out of my throat. Because the side of my face was suddenly buried under Johannes’ shoulder. The impact was so sudden that even my darkened vision seemed to flash white.

Johannes had wrapped my upper body and pressed it against his own.