Chapter 23

—“You… sound strange.”

“I don’t.”

—“Did that Goodnight bastard say something strange to you?”

Alexei’s voice carried killing intent. Faced with a friend who truly worried about him, Yuri felt choked by unbearable melancholy. Once he stepped outside the territory where he had locked himself away, he realized how completely detached he was from an ordinary life.

“No.”

He took a deep breath. Usually, if he exhaled long and inhaled, felt his heartbeat, and reminded himself that the important thing right now was being alive, he became all right. But now, he could not shake off this dark, damp depression. Yuri silently looked down at the nail gun, then shifted his gaze toward the checkout screen.

“Cherriot is behaving himself. Even if it isn’t the same payment as at first, he said he’ll pay us for the work we do. So stop there. ”

Alexei remained silent, his breathing steady. Yuri also stood still, staring only at the numbered checkout screen. Because he did not move for some time, a red end screen appeared, and only then did Yuri take out his card and finish paying. A small beep sounded, and Alexei opened his mouth.

—“You’ve tld me I’m stubborn as hell, Yuri.”

“Yes.”

—“But sometimes, you’re worse.”

“…What?”

—“I’m not someone you need to protect. If anything, you’re the one who shouldn’t think about getting hurt and dropping dead wherever you please. Got it? I’m supposed to live long enough to watch you get old, develop dementia, and smear shit on the walls.”

“Alyosha, that’s unnecessary—”

The call cut off.

Yuri frowned and immediately called Alexei back, but Alexei rejected it openly, as if making clear he intended to ignore him. Left incredulous, Yuri sent him a text.

—Does Valeri know you’re trying to do something dangerous?

As if refusing the call meant nothing, Alexei’s reply came back quickly. —You don’t have Lerusha’s number.

—Father does.

—If you tell him, I really won’t let you get away with it.

—Then stop there if you don’t want to see your lover cry again.

—So I’m supposed to sit quietly and accept money you earn wasting effort in some place I don’t even know? Not a chance.

Yuri remembered that he had not told Alexei his location. He also recalled the burner phones he had forgotten about.

—I hid the burner phones in the men’s restroom at a gas station near Yoho National Park, in the lower compartment of the trash can beside the sink. They belonged to the men who attacked us, so see if you can find anything from them.

—Your location?

—I’ll tell you once you’re ready to answer the phone.

—You’re not funny.

As they exchanged messages quickly, Alexei seemed to have calmed slightly in the meantime. In response to Yuri’s joke that was not quite a joke, he sent a dry, capital-letter laugh—HA HA—then added another strange message.

—You must have gotten awfully close to the client in one day. It’s been a long time since I heard you call someone by first name.

Yuri, who had finished paying and had been putting items into a bag, stopped and glared at his phone. While he narrowed his eyes, wondering what Alexei was talking about, another irritating message arrived.

—If he’s that handsome, rich, and easy to use, it wouldn’t hurt to keep him around.

Yuri did not answer and put the phone into his pocket. When he checked the time, it had already just passed four in the afternoon. Since he had left Cherriot alone before the forty-minute mark, even the generous time he had given was about to be exceeded. Feeling that he had broken a promise, Yuri hurriedly gathered the bags.

When he passed through the checkout and came out, the hardware store had already finished preparing to close. The man readying the shutters looked at Yuri with displeasure, and Yuri lifted his sunglasses and gave a brief nod. Seeing Yuri’s exposed face, the man wiped the displeasure from his expression and returned a farewell.

Just as Cherriot had said, starting at four in the afternoon, every shop in the arcade closed. The attached liquor store was the same. Since buying the beer Cherriot had wanted would have to wait until tomorrow, Yuri felt a little sorry. Even though he had no particular reason to feel sorry, remembering Cherriot’s dispirited back made him regret not being able to buy beer.

The parking lot had emptied out without him noticing and was nearly vacant. As he approached his isolated car, he saw Cherriot with his arms resting on the steering wheel, his face buried in them. As Yuri drew closer, perhaps sensing someone’s presence, green eyes lifted, and when Cherriot found Yuri, they filled with wounded disappointment. But unlike at the gas station, he did not open his mouth.

Yuri silently opened the passenger door, and he felt Cherriot slowly straighten and stare at him. Perhaps because Cherriot had been riding in the car all this time, the inside was now fairly marked with his pheromones, and because of that, Yuri could clearly feel that he was sharing a space with Cherriot.

The sweetness from the wrappers of the chocolate bars Cherriot had eaten mixed with Cherriot’s distinctive scent, making the car smell like sweet whiskey. He must have been upset, because he did not speak first, but the pheromones touching Yuri’s skin the moment he got into the car made it clear that Cherriot was conscious of him. It felt like the tickle of a gently swaying tail.

Yuri slowly turned his head to face Cherriot. The moment he looked into those green eyes full of resentment, the tension running through his whole body loosened. Warmth bloomed inside his damp, dark heart, as if sunlight were falling over something moldy. It felt like stepping barefoot onto soft moss.

I need to keep my balance. I only need to accept him. I don’t need to approach.

“We’ll have to buy beer tomorrow.” Contrary to Alexei’s words that he was stubborn to the point of cruelty, Yuri broke the vow he had made thirty minutes ago and opened his mouth. “It took longer than I expected.”

Cherriot seemed displeased. His lashes fluttered as he opened his eyes wide and silently glared at Yuri. His silence did not last more than a few seconds. Yuri and Alexei could remain silent for minutes at the shortest and a full day at the longest, but Cherriot did not know how.

“Why do you keep confusing me?”

Yuri listened to him silently. He thought Cherriot had reason to be confused, so he decided to quietly accept the complaint.

“If you’re going to be nice to me, keep being nice. Don’t suddenly push me away like you did earlier.”

The man was right. Yuri had only needed to keep his balance and accept Cherriot, but the moment he saw those resentful eyes, he could not keep his mouth shut. Looking at this innocent Alpha who had lived a life so different from Yuri Kiselyov’s, he did not feel depressed the way he had while talking with Alexei. Instead, the pain stabbing at his eyes faded, and because of that, he could not remain silent.

He had expected that seeing someone so opposite, someone who had lived an ordinary life, would only make the grotesque nature of Yuri’s own life stand out and feel unbearable. Strangely, it made the life that had passed behind him fade.

“All right.”

Yuri set the bag he had brought onto the passenger-side floor and closed the car door. Watching Cherriot, who sat there rebelling without any thought of starting the engine, Yuri carefully reached out and brought his hand to Cherriot’s head. Cherriot flinched at the shoulders and stared hard at Yuri’s fingertips.

Feeling that vivid gaze on his fingers, Yuri removed Cherriot’s cap. The reddish-blond hair he had thought beautiful from the first moment he saw it was even softer than he had imagined. Afraid his callused fingers might damage the strands, Yuri stroked it with great care and quietly apologized. “I’m sorry.”

Cherriot blinked in surprise. He was so shocked that he did not move even while Yuri withdrew his hand and fastened his seat belt.

Because the weight of the past Yuri had recalled while speaking with Alexei had been too heavy, Yuri leaned back in his seat with a slightly tired air.

After several minutes of silence, Cherriot slowly started the engine, then suddenly turned toward Yuri and said, “What brought on that change of heart?”

“Nothing in particular.”

“You touched me first.”

Yuri leaned back, tipped his head against the seat, and lowered his gaze to look at Cherriot. With the reddish-blond hair that had been hidden under the cap now visible, it was easier to see his face, and Yuri liked that. His eyes curved very faintly as he swallowed a sigh. “Didn’t you say you didn’t want to feel afraid I might choke you when I touched you?” Being with Cherriot made his ears unbearably noisy, but it did not make him feel as if he was dying. “I only decided to play along with your practice from time to time.”

“…Without warning like that?”

“It’ll only work if I touch you without warning.”

At that, Cherriot’s face brightened completely, unlike before. The sun was slowly setting and the sky had darkened a little, yet his face always seemed to carry light. “Then touch me one more time. That felt really good.”

Cherriot leaned toward him, pestering him to touch him again. Yuri was so dumbfounded that he tipped his jaw back and closed his eyes. Listening to Cherriot’s voice like a radio as he babbled something incomprehensible about how unfair that was, Yuri lowered the passenger window halfway. It had been a long time since he had opened a window for no reason, a window he usually kept shut unless he was letting out cigarette smoke.

Soon, Cherriot began to drive. He started humming the song he had left unfinished at the rest stop, and his pleasant baritone filled the car along with the bright melody. Perhaps because everything surrounding Cherriot was steeped in sweetness, Yuri had the illusion that sweetness was spreading across his tongue the way it had the first time he tasted medovik.

Suddenly, Yuri thought he understood why Alexei had tried to protect Valeri. What he had once seen only as unnecessary sacrifice might have been the very force that kept Alexei alive. Creatures born in the gutter could surely understand one another better than anyone, but the motive that made them go outside was not the gutter’s filth.

Sometimes, a peaceful scene one had only admired from a distance could become a reason to live. The sense of responsibility Vasya must have felt when he met Katya, and Katya’s constant efforts to make up for Vasya’s sins, must have come from that very reason.

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