Chapter 1

Where should I begin?

If possible, I would like to record events in chronological order, but because memories do not necessarily surface along the flow of time, I shall write them as they come to mind.

To begin with, I wish to start from the time I first considered leaving a ‘record’.

1883. That is how I remember it.

Winter came early that year. Was it Norway, or a neighboring land? I do not recall with certainty, but it was at the northern edge of Europe, and there stood an ancient, weathered little castle.

In truth, calling it a castle was rather embarrassing; it was more like a small fortress or watchtower, possessing nothing more than a hall, a kitchen, and a few bedchambers.

After spending a season in places densely crowded with humans rather than nature, I often secluded myself in such retreats. That year was no different.

A night when the icy shattering of North Sea waves below the cliff was the sole sound. Outside the window, snowflakes drifted down, and I sat turning the pages of a book written in archaic tongues from centuries past, preserving myself like a taxidermied specimen.

Back then, I needed such intervals. A time when I wished to step into a coffin of my own accord, to digest the futility that inevitably settled in from living mingled in human time.

That was precisely such a moment. For I had just seen off numerous souls in the village where I had stayed before heading there.

It was because of a plague that had crossed over from the neighboring village. Many humans died.

The baker who welcomed me, an outsider appearing out of nowhere, like a long-lost relative met again after years; the freckled lady who loathed getting dirt on her hem and always walked with cautious steps, watching her feet; the shaggy-haired boy who, whenever scolded by his grandfather, would run to my secluded house at the edge of the village, face smeared with tears and snot, to bury his head in my lap.

There was nothing I could do for them. I possessed no means to cure the disease, nor could I bring medicine from the city, which would have taken days to reach in an era before railways were laid.

I went so far as to summon a physician from the neighboring village, which had already been swept through once, but that was all. From the moment I arrived and noticed the terrible stench of death already hanging in the air, I already knew the conclusion.

In a mere month or two, the lively, warm scenery of the village was overtaken by a hollow silence. The stench I had smelled in the neighboring village crawled through every corner of the streets.

I quietly departed the village. Instead of lingering over dull emotions like sorrow or loneliness, I pressed northward without pause. It was time to enter my coffin.

I climbed the hill, pushed open the weathered door, and stepped into the musty space. Even if the ache dulled again during the time spent alone, it never entirely vanished; though I had experienced it countless times, it was never easy.

The day I was turning those pages was one such day, after spending several days or perhaps a few weeks in that manner.

A night when heavy snowflakes swallowed the sounds of the world. As though even the roar of the waves had been devoured by the snow, it felt exceptionally quiet, more so than usual. It was just as I turned another page by the moonlight filtering through glass clouded with salt and dust.

Crunch.

From somewhere came the sound of accumulated snow being trodden underfoot.

Having stayed in the same spot for days like newly sprouted mold in an old hilltop castle, I assumed it was an auditory hallucination.

Such things occasionally occurred when I was inside my coffin. Whenever I let go of humans who had engraved me into a corner of their lives, I would head to places where no human presence could possibly exist, and there, sensing phantom traces of life from time to time, I would chew over my solitude. To me, that was a form of mourning.

Crunch, crunch.

Yet the hallucination that day lasted unusually long. Whether I was imagining the snow piling up without end, or the dead returning to my life by breaking through those snowy drifts, the sound was even drawing closer.

It was only when the precarious, crunching footsteps finally reached the front door that I realized I had not closed off my hearing, since only the sounds of waves and wind usually existed here.

Just as I turned my head toward the window, wondering what it could be, the sound of a knock came through.

The mere fact that someone had climbed the snow-covered hill made it obvious they were in peril, yet the knocking was neither urgent nor rough.

Merely a quiet tap, tap, so faint it seemed frail.

He must have known from the exterior alone that this was no inhabited castle. Even so, he knocked on the door. That was the reason I, who had not wanted to stir so much as an inch while dust gathered over my entire body, finally rose to my feet.

I descended the stairs and stood before the door. By then, the knocking had ceased. All that could be heard was a faint breathing. Breaths shivering with cold. The chattering of teeth.

Only then did I realize that not only heavy snow, but a severe cold wave had descended.

When I quietly opened the door, there was no one before me. To be precise, there was no one directly in my line of sight as I looked forward.

He was down below. Leaning his shoulder obliquely against the pillar beside the door. Wearing an expression as if preparing for death, he showed a faint trace of color upon seeing me, parting pale blue lips.

“Are you… the master of this castle, sir?”

The upturned face was corpse-pale yet flushed. His long eyelashes looked bleached white, frosted over with clinging condensation from his breath, while his cheeks and the tip of his nose were frozen crimson, on the verge of frostbite.

“I was passing through the forest… and became stranded by the snow. My coachman went to find a village, but he hasn’t returned… It seems I must… impose on your hospitality…”

That petty pride, stubbornly clinging to propriety even in such a state, put a period to my mourning that year.

Because I did not wish to begin mourning anew the very instant I had concluded it, I brought him inside, smashing old chairs and bookshelves to kindle a fire in the hearth.

Winter of 1883, in an old castle atop a hill. There, we met for the third time.

No—perhaps there were more encounters, including lifetimes I failed to count. Whether there was ever a lifetime in which he did not come to me, I will never know.

The only certainty was that the moment he sought me out and knocked on my door once more, my quiet coffin was shattered, and I had no choice but to plunge yet again into the fever of that terrible futility.

He was sick for three days.

On the first day, he lost consciousness the moment he stepped inside. In front of the hearth, I stripped him of his frozen clothes, wrapped his body tightly in an old blanket from my bag, and held him in my arms. From then until he woke, I did not move an inch.

On the second day, he opened his eyes only in the late afternoon. After a faint blush of color had returned to his pale face and blue lips.

“Water…”

He had not awakened in his right senses. Only then did I rise from holding him and step outside. I scooped a pot full of snow, melting and boiling it before the flames of the fireplace.

Having fallen back asleep in the meantime, he did not wake even while I carried the boiling pot outside to set it in the snow to cool.

Pouring the lukewarm water into a cup, I lifted his side-lying body into my arms. As I trickled the water into his faintly parted mouth, his closed eyelids twitched slightly.

His dry throat bobbed, swallowing down life. I did not rush. Slowly, taking ample time, I fed him the entire cup. Wiping away the water that trickled down the corner of his mouth, I traced his white, chapped lips with my fingertips.

Setting down the cup, I quietly listened to his breathing. The harsh, gasping breath that had sounded near death throughout the night had calmed considerably.

I remember the quiet relief easing the anxious tension in my chest only then.

At that time, I was astonishingly dull to my own feelings compared to now, so even then, it was only upon seeing my fingertips tremble faintly as they brushed his cheek that I realized how tense I had been.

On the third day, he slowly opened his eyes the moment my hand lifted from checking the fever on his forehead. Our eyes met as he lay there. With an expression mingled with slight confusion and embarrassment, he parted his lips.

“How long… have I been like this?”

Eyes chillingly blue, like a mirror reflecting a winter sky. Dangerously clear, as if they might shatter and melt even under the warmth of tears, like embedded zircons.

Facing those eyes head-on—eyes I had yearned for across long ages—words deserted me for a brief spell.

“Three days.”

That I had to steady my breath three times just to utter that single word is one of my old secrets, one I never confessed to him.

“Good heavens… I have incurred a great debt. I shall certainly repay you once I return.”

Once conscious, he recovered his strength swiftly. To be precise, his body was not entirely healed, but his spirit grew excessively healthy, verging on brazen.

“I require boiled water. I wish to wash.”

“The pot is over there, so boil it yourself.”

“…As one indebted to you, I will overlook it this once, but you would do well to polish your words. You will surely be shocked once you hear my surname.”

“I can tell you’re a young nobleman just by looking at you. But do you think that title is of any use here? I don’t know where you came from, but there is no nobility in this country. Here, you’re merely a lad who would die if left alone.”

Hesitating with a somewhat flustered expression as my attitude diverged from his expectations, he composed his features the instant I glanced at him, acting as if nothing had happened. Then, pretending not to be startled, he snorted deliberately louder.

“Well, since you saved my life, I shall tolerate your tone. And noblemen these days are not as incompetent as the aristocracy of old. We know how to do most things ourselves.”

Rambling on about things no one had asked, he gallantly picked up the pot and headed for the kitchen. Of course, before I could even turn a single page, he reemerged looking sheepish, saying things like, “By the way, where is the water?”

When told to scoop snow and melt it, he glared with wide eyes as if subjected to some grave insult, but in the end, he boiled the water and washed himself. He put on his clothes, which had dried thoroughly before the fireplace over the past three days, and took a comb from the bag he had clutched tightly even while freezing to death, combing his hair.

His muted, pale blond hair showed no brittleness despite having brushed against death, but the shallow coughs he let out from time to time continued to grate on my nerves.

“By the way, when do we eat? It seems this place is a castle in name only, without a single servant to command. Are you preparing it yourself, sir?”

Aside from the cough, another major problem was food. I possessed no provisions. Naturally, neither did the castle. Outside, snow had piled waist-high, and the nearest inhabited village was a half-day’s ride away even on horseback.

“I’ll go fetch some.”

Under the circumstances, those were the only words I could offer, so I spoke them and rose to my feet.

Seeming somewhat flustered, he called out after my retreating back, saying things like, “Fetch some? Do you mean to hunt in this weather? If you’re trying to scare me by leaving me alone on purpose, it won’t work!”

Wading through waist-deep snow was no trouble for me. Hunting in a forest locked in brutal frost was no issue either. To me in that moment, the greatest problem was ensuring that the vivid voice following behind my back would not cease.

“Sir! I say! Look here!”

“Adrian.”

“What?”

“Adrian. Not ‘Look here.’”

“…Ahem. Émile. Third son of House Björnstrand.”

Meeting him for the third time, he was strikingly similar to his first incarnation. His gaze, his voice, and the way he would puff himself up only to tuck in his tail in startlement once pinched. Old memories surfaced, and I had smiled quietly to myself.

“Émile.”

“Lord Émile!”

“I’m not trying to scare you; I’m truly going to fetch food, so wait quietly.”

His prudish eyes, slightly tilted upward at the corners, rounded briefly, narrowed pointedly, then rolled to the side in hesitation. He looked both mortified at having revealed his fear of being left alone, and relieved. Without adding another word, I turned away.

“…Be sure to return before sunset. My hunger is severe.”

I decided to overlook the faint tremor in that haughty voice. Worrying only over his shallow coughs, I stepped out through the castle gates.

Crunch, crunch. Behind my back as I trudged forward, breaking through the snow that had frozen relatively hard, the faint sound of a door opening drifted out. As if watching me recede into the distance, his gaze lingered long against the nape of my neck.

That was likely the reason that day’s hunt proved so successful.

When I returned to the castle through the wind that had grown fiercer as the sun began to set, he was tossing in scraps of furniture he seemed to have gathered while roaming the castle, trying to revive the dwindling hearth fire.

“Ah, you’re back.”

At the sound of my approach, he turned his head briskly with an expression of relief, only to draw a sharp breath upon seeing the two neck-snapped grouse dangling from my grip. Soon, with a subtle expression, he rose to his feet.

“Are those… to be dressed by hand?”

“It’s a castle in name only, without a single servant, so what choice is there? We’ll each have to take one.”

“…”

Though I noticed from his wavering gaze that he had no idea how, I handed one over while feigning ignorance. A troubled look crossed his face, yet he never uttered that he could not do it. Wishing to tease him, I pretended not to notice until the end.

As I sat calmly at the table and began plucking feathers, Émile—who had been gingerly pinching the grouse’s neck with only two fingers—approached awkwardly, glancing at my hands as he plucked feathers of his own.

“Since I am indebted, I shall help, but your housekeeping is truly barbaric. To place a feathered beast directly upon the very table where we dine…”

Naturally, he did not forget to lodge his haughty complaints. Still, I decided to give him credit for refusing to give up, clumsy though his hands were.

“Ah, I forgot to boil water. Would you boil some for us? I’ll handle the rest of the dressing.”

“Forgetting such a thing when melting snow takes so long—you appear capable, yet you have a careless streak. Well, since you ask, I suppose I have no choice.”

Sure enough, Émile, whose expression had grown increasingly strained as the feathers disappeared to reveal bare flesh, brightened instantly and sprang up from his seat.

Watching his rapidly retreating back, I smiled only inwardly. Even as Émile, he detests appearing incompetent. Finding such small commonalities brought me a quiet delight.

The snow did not cease for over a week.

The castle was plunged into complete isolation, and he appeared inwardly anxious as the duration of his confinement dragged on.

Yet to me, that week held greater density than the past several decades spent without him. For it was a time spent learning about him—the man who now bore the name Émile Björnstrand.

Björnstrand.

The family was an ancient comital house possessing northern forests and coastlines. An aristocratic lineage that lived off privileges and land rents, presiding over timberlands and managing harbors without ever soiling their hands with dirt.

However, by that era in the late nineteenth century, such ways were already losing their luster. Only the renown and estates of their glorious days remained like a faded crown; revenues were no longer what they once were, yet the costs of maintaining appearances remained unchanged, causing many noble families to decline helplessly.

“Broaden your horizons, cultivate your scholarship—they make it sound so simple.”

Though he spoke with an aristocratic accent suited for the opulent courts of Stockholm, in the end he was merely the third son of a declining house. Neither the firstborn nor the second, but the third. With neither estate, nor title, nor fortune to inherit, all that remained to him was his name.

The family had not cast him out, but neither did they assume responsibility for his future life.

“Of course, do not misunderstand—I chose to become a scholar because I wished it. It is not because I had no other choice.”

Thus, he was traveling. Under the pretext of having been ordered to broaden his horizons, he was in truth roaming to find his own place in the world.

“Plants reveal a great deal. If you know how to read the flora of a forest, you can perceive every living creature that dwells within it. It is truly a discipline that expands one’s vision.”

The discipline he had chosen was botany. Quite uncharacteristically.

“Lately, I have also been studying medicinal herbs little by little. I am still clumsy, but in about five years, I should be able to handle medicinal ingredients quite well. When that happens, it will help extend the lifespans of our estate’s people, and once it becomes widely known that our folk enjoy long and healthy lives, people will flock to our lands. The revival of our house will be only a matter of time.”

Having become Émile Björnstrand, he was an existence like a strange and beautiful relic born of that era—possessing no practical power, yet with an elitism engraved in his bloodline that permeated straight to the marrow.

“By the way, they say there is a winter flower in this region that blooms even amid blizzards. Have you ever heard of it?”

Holding feathers in one hand and a knife in the other as I listened in silence, I smiled secretly when he, having produced dried roots from his bag and spoken in quiet tones, suddenly grew excited and began babbling about that winter flower.

The existence that was him had always been this way. Proud and curt, yet brimming with curiosity and an intense vitality. That coexistence of prickliness and brilliance never failed to stir a peculiar protective instinct within me.

And he always harbored one particular thing—something that could unfailingly bring him happiness.

“Is it not a truly wondrous life? In weather where even animals in constant motion freeze to death, it stands steadfast in one place and bursts into bloom!”

The thing I always sought to find first whenever I met him. At that time, it was plants.

“…Why do you do nothing but listen, sir?”

Having chattered away excitedly by himself for quite some time, he suddenly grew self-conscious. Just then, reflecting on his past self, I let out an inadvertent snicker at the novel sensation; embarrassed once more, he glared at me and pressed his lips tightly shut.

From his fingertips as he steeped the roots from his bag in hot water and handed me the cup, there drifted the scent of nature. It was an exceedingly faint scent, yet distinct enough for me to savor for a long time.

In his childhood, a boy with no standing of his own must have turned the pages of difficult tomes and studied the grasses in the backyard instead of lamenting his lot. Rather than withering in the shadows of his elder brothers, he had yearned for the wild life that stubbornly drew breath even in the midst of a blizzard. That was likely why he was able to find me once again.

That curiosity that never waned across multiple lifetimes, that vibrancy, that light-like essence to which life naturally flocked.

How deeply that comforted me, he would likely never know.

Perhaps that was why. Finding it somewhat vexing that he had shut his mouth, I did not tell him what that pitiful life, blooming even amid the blizzard, looked like. I merely swallowed the tea he offered in silence. It tasted dreadful.

Even after the snow ceased, the winter remained long. Yet snow that no longer accumulated could not keep him confined.

“Who said I would get in your way? You’re going out anyway, so I only wish to go and look around the forest a bit.”

Even though the danger of being swept away by a blizzard was gone, the temperature remained brutal, yet he insisted on following behind me as I went out to hunt. For me, who could not show him the sight of catching animals barehanded without gun, bow, or trap, it was a troublesome matter.

“Even if you don’t intend to interfere, more presence makes hunting harder. You wouldn’t want to starve, would you?”

“Are you th-threatening to starve me right now?”

“Seeing as you take it as a threat, you clearly don’t want to starve. Then staying inside will solve everything.”

“It is not that I took it that way; your tone made it so! …If you are that adamant, I will only follow to the edge of the forest—just the entrance. I’ll simply take in some fresh air, so you may hunt or not as you please, can you not?”

“It seems starving isn’t enough; you wish to fall ill again as well.”

What stubbornness, when he still lived with a lingering cough. As I snorted and turned to leave, he flinched and grabbed my forearm. When I turned my head, he snatched his hand back in a startle, as if burned by something scalding.

“I can wait… and if you are late, I can simply return first, can I not?”

He then muttered, fidgeting with his fur-gloved hands. He desperately wanted to step outside, yet knowing he could hardly manage alone unless I forged a path through the snow, wounded pride was plain on his face.

Standing as though blocking the doorway, I looked down at him in silence.

“Examine the forest after the snow has melted a bit more. When that time comes, I’ll even tell you what that flower you seek looks like.”

Those words were spoken to make him stand down. But though I thought he would surely be pleased, he glared up sharply instead, looking quite aggrieved.

“It will take months for the snow to melt! How long must I be alone…!”

His cheeks and the wings of his nose, reddening from the draft seeping through the door crack alone, urged me toward cold reason, yet—

“No, I mean… I only meant that it is boring to be left alone.”

Those stubborn eyes, crying out as if the anxiety of being left alone were a far greater torment than shivering in the cold, dissolved my coldness before it could harden into resolve.

In the end, stepping out through the door alongside him, I grumbled to myself all the way down the hill against the frozen sea wind, lamenting how exceptionally weak I was only toward him.

Even when my mood lifted at the crunching footsteps diligently following behind; even when I stationed him beside a sunlit boulder at the forest’s edge and warned him not to enter the woods; even when the fellow—furrowing his brow with cheeks already flushed red from the cold, demanding, “Do you take me for a child?”—slyly probed, “By the way, do you truly know of that flower?”… I had to struggle continuously to rein in my softening heart.

I remember hurrying that day’s hunt twice as fast as usual.

Normally, I would track a scent and, once the quarry drew near, conceal my presence before snatching it, but that day, the moment a deer appeared across the woods, I pounced like a long-starved beast and snapped its neck.

Though I knew that heavy physical exertion meant I too would require a proper ‘meal’, I simply could not contain myself.

So childishly and unseemly, my heart was as rushed as a human falling in love for the very first time.

When I returned to the boulder carrying the limp deer over my shoulder, Émile, who had been digging through the snow to examine frozen moss beneath the rock, widened his eyes in utter astonishment.

“I heard no gunshot… Do you keep a hunting bow and arrows hidden in the forest?”

“Something like that.”

“Yet there is no arrow lodged in it. If you retrieved it, there would be blood, but not a drop is flowing…”

“I threw a stone.”

“…Do you take me for a fool, sir?”

Leaving him behind as he hesitated in bewilderment, I led the way out of the forest. Throughout the climb up the hill, he stuck close behind me, constantly trying to inspect the deer. The problem was that having snapped the neck vertebrae directly without piercing or tearing the hide, there were no visible wounds.

I quickened my pace, doing my best to ignore that tenacious, observant gaze.

“To hunt down a winter deer, so difficult to find, in less than thirty minutes after entering the woods…”

Only when we reached the castle gates did I realize that the true reason for his suspicion was not ‘there is no blood’, but ‘it was too fast’.

Pathetic, in every sense.

After that day, the time his gaze lingered upon me lengthened.

In truth, to me, this was nothing new. Keeping myself from being consumed by hunger before winter came to an end was the only matter that demanded my attention.

Still, thanks to the deer caught that day, neither he nor I had to worry about food for a while. While small birds or rabbits were hardly better than fasting, a deer could adequately serve to appease my hunger as well.

Above all, with game of that size, he could not even come near, let alone pretend to help dress it, which greatly facilitated setting aside and hiding my portion.

I hid the capped glass jars high in the cupboard out of his reach. And only when the faint hunger constantly underlying my senses threatened to deepen did I check that he was asleep before emptying a jar.

“For your stature, you eat far too little, sir. Isn’t it a bit excessive?”

“From time immemorial, it has been a man’s virtue to eat little and move much.”

“Good grief, holed up in a place like this, you truly know nothing of how the world turns. To be sure, there was once a trend where sparse eating was deemed a virtue, but these days, a man with a hearty appetite is considered far more attractive. It gives the impression of a robust and potent male, does it not?”

During a meal, when Émile made such a remark, I came close to bursting into laughter.

Because the gaze with which he scrutinized me was so innocent, and because the brazen-faced version of me reflected in those eyes was an existence so close to a beast that applying the term ‘male’ would not even feel out of place—it was all suddenly so comical.

Of course, in reality, I neither laughed nor answered. I merely pushed another piece of rubbery meat into my mouth—flesh cooling on the plate, nourishment to him, but utterly devoid of taste to me.

Even after that, he would prod at me out of the blue. With an air that left it unclear whether it was intentional or mere coincidence, tossed out like passing remarks.

“Did you stay up all night again? You look identical to how you were before I fell asleep last night…”

Or,

“Are your hands made of steel, sir? After roaming outside in this bitter cold, you never once come to warm them.”

Or,

“Come to think of it… I have never seen you drink water either. You wouldn’t happen to be hiding wine somewhere and drinking it alone, would you?”

Things of that nature.

A botanist’s observation possessed a terribly tenacious quality. Except for the times he drew botanical illustrations in the notebook brought in his bag, he dedicated most of his hours to scrutinizing me.

From the window whenever I stepped into the backyard for firewood; loitering beyond the wall pretending to brew tea whenever I sharpened a knife in the kitchen; sitting on the sofa and clearing his throat needlessly whenever I wiped myself down with a cloth dipped in boiled water.

Even when he sat quietly reading a book or idling away the hours, he always held a book up, gazing at me over its edge.

I was aware of it all, yet I feigned ignorance to the very end. I did not ask what he wished to know. Even while knowing that, in any case, he would come to learn everything.

In the end, trouble erupted when those days stretched past weeks and the need to hunt arose once more.

That day, for some reason, he did not pester me to come along, and I did not find it strange. Thinking he had finally grown somewhat accustomed to life here, I made my way down the hillside path.

That day, I caught a rabbit and a grouse. To avoid needless suspicion, I did not return immediately after finishing the hunt. Sitting atop the thick bough of a massive tree, I let meaningless time slip by, returning at a leisurely pace only when the setting sun stained the white inferno with a reddish hue.

As always, Émile sat before the fireplace, turning the pages of an illustrated compendium. Acting nonchalant, he turned to look at me as usual and offered a greeting, “You’re back.” Even holding a chipped cup, his elegant demeanor was no different from any other time.

Yet it did not take long for me to notice the abnormality.

When I went to the kitchen to fetch a knife to dress the game immediately, a bucket positioned differently from when I had left caught my eye. Picking up the knife as my gaze drifted slowly, sure enough, the cupboard door hung askew.

Someone who felt compelled to open it despite seeing nothing through the glass pane, someone who could not have known that because the hinges were rusted, one had to lift slightly before pushing it shut.

I quietly turned and stepped out. Sitting at the table as I always did, I began dressing the game. In a manner not a whit different from usual, calm and unruffled.

Yet unlike other days, only a single thought circled in my mind.

When did he see?

That night, unlike his usual hearty appetite, he merely picked at his food, continuously darting glances at my mouth. I silently chewed and swallowed the meat. Over the table, where his chattering voice usually flowed, hung an awkwardly subtle silence.

“…You eat well today.”

When he finally squeezed out a word, that was what he said.

Shrugging a brow, I pushed another piece of meat into my mouth. I do not recall in detail what I was thinking. Well, perhaps I thought something along the lines of, Now that it has come to this, should I just tell him quickly and feed him more of the meat instead? After all, whatever went into my mouth would only be vomited up within hours and turn to waste.

If there was one less mouth to feed, there would be more for him to eat; if there was more to feed him, I would not have to hunt as often; and if I hunted less often, the time I could spend with him would increase.

Though I cannot be entirely certain, if I know myself, I surely must have thought something like that.

It was dawn about two days after that incident.

When night settled into silence on all sides, my hearing opened even if I tried to keep it closed. In the midst of deep focus, at some point even the sound of an animal treading crunchingly upon the snowy fields deep in the forest would drift in unbidden, forcing me to consciously narrow my range. That day was one such night.

As usual, I was by the window, turning pages using the moonlight as my lamp.

Just as I was narrowing the range because my ears had grown too noisy, the sound of Émile tossing and turning downstairs reached me. I pulled my eyes from the book. The blanket rustled, and then his breathing began to fray slightly.

That nightmare again?

The instant that forgotten memory surfaced, my heart dropped with a heavy thud.

Setting down the book, I rose from my seat. As my foot touched the stairs, a faint, pained whimper sounded.

Steadying my breath and erasing my presence, I descended the stairs. Though I intended to soothe him in the grip of his nightmare, I had no intention of waking him, so I suppressed all sound until I reached the sofa facing away from the stairs before the dwindling firelight.

Stopping behind the sofa, I felt his hot breath irregularly trembling the air.

Tormented by a painful dream, he furrowed his brow and exhaled ragged breaths. Even before the dim yellow glow of the fireplace embers, a sheen of cold sweat glistened over his skin, pure and white as milk, while his two hands—resting atop his stomach outside the blanket—twitched incessantly as if longing to grasp something.

Stepping around the backrest, I sat beside him. I knew that stroking his hair and whispering that everything was all right would soon soothe him.

I quietly reached out my hand. At that exact moment, Émile flinched slightly and turned his head. My outstretched hand froze. Not because he had awakened. Rather, the one who had awakened was me.

For his sweat-dampened white neck—a long neck pulsing faintly in rhythm with his quickened heartbeat—had laid itself completely bare, slender veins taut and defenseless.

Before I could do anything to stop it, my field of vision flared wide. A vision that had likely resembled a human’s flared open like a bird of prey hunting quarry, then constricted, locking its focus entirely upon him.

My gums throbbed.

For several seconds—no, perhaps several minutes—all my consciousness remained fixed on that throat, until, realizing that the fingertips frozen in midair were tilting his chin back of their own volition, I sprang up in shock.

“…Sir.”

Was it a mistake to move so hastily, forgetting that I had been suppressing my presence? Toward the back of my head as I turned toward the kitchen, a voice that should never have sounded reached my ears.

“Lord Adrian.”

To the best of my recollection, that was the first moment ‘Émile’ ever called my name.

Unable to bring myself to ignore it, I turned my head. I saw eyes barely illuminated by the fireplace light, flickering as though drawing its dying breath. He closed his mouth briefly as if catching his breath, then spoke, letting out a shallow cough like a sigh.

“You may feed.”

Those eyes, chillingly clear as if they would melt once winter passed, held a cruelly innocent light as they looked straight at me.

“You have been starving for so long.”

Even as he uttered such words, those eyes did not waver in the slightest.

“However little I may have attended society… I know how best to repay a debt of grace.”

My throat constricted. I knew not what emotion’s aftershock it was. Whether anger or sorrow. Whether longing or joy. I did not know on that day, and I do not know today.

Without answering, I turned around. Going into the kitchen, I pointedly opened the cupboard and retrieved the glass jar hidden in the highest reach. The congealed, cold deer blood—half I drank, half I chewed and swallowed.

The contents of that glass jar did not radiate the scorching warmth of life like the nape of his neck I had seen just moments before, nor were they sweet, yet it had to be enough. I had to prove that it was.

Setting down the empty jar with a careless clatter, I stepped out of the kitchen. Émile, who had sat up in the meantime, watched me silently with unreadable eyes. Without casting him a single glance, I climbed the stairs.

Returning to the window, I stared out at the white inferno beyond the glass. The hand I dropped atop the upside-down book cover tensed, veins standing out. As I clamped my molars together hard enough to make my jaw bulge, my persistently throbbing gums seemed to scream, straining to push out hidden fangs.

It was then. Within the quiet castle, a sound that should not have been heard echoed once more.

Tap, tap.

The sound of someone ascending the stairs. The footsteps, approaching at an even pace without haste or hesitation, stopped behind my back before long.

“…Is it agonizing?”

He asked. I did not answer.

“Am I… making you suffer more, sir?”

I did not answer.

“If that is so, I shall depart at first light.”

Yet to those words, I could not remain silent.

“By what means?”

“If not for the blizzard, a snow-covered forest is something even I could easily—”

“It’s not the blizzard that makes a winter forest terrifying. Have you already forgotten after wandering through it yourself? If you have the energy to spout such foolishness, go back and finish having your nightmare.”

I did not look back at him. Keeping my gaze fixed outside the window, deliberately avoiding the faint reflection of his form on the murky glass, I spoke coldly on purpose.

It was not that I wished to wound him. Rather, it was precisely because I did not want him harmed. The pores opened by his nightmare were giving off a sweet scent of flesh that stimulated my nose. My gums were still throbbing. I wanted him to stay away.

Yet he did not shout in offense, nor did he hurl words sharp as his wounded pride and stomp back down the stairs.

“…You, too, have a rather childish side, sir.”

Instead, he reached out and took hold of my arm, pulling gently as if coaxing me as I refused to turn around, placing my fingertips over his pulsing throat.

“If you are worried, simply say you are worried. I appreciate such expressions. Well, of course, I understand that it may be a bit embarrassing.”

It was a frail, feeble strength. A force that was nothing to me, so slight that I could have sent his entire body flying without even consciously meaning to shake him off.

“Yet there is no need to feel embarrassed before me. For as you said, I am a spoiled youngest young master. A life of being worried over, cared for, and protected is only natural to me.”

Yet as always, I could not cast it aside. Though entirely capable of resisting the pull, I had no choice but to turn my head as if yielding.

“If I do not feel awkward, there is no reason for you to feel awkward either, is there?”

My fingertips rested upon two red marks aligned vertically on his neck—those two dots. As if daring me to recognize that he was ‘him’. When he himself did not even know.

“Lord Adrian.”

Our eyes met. Reflected in his pale blue eyes, mine burned crimson. Irises that had been a lifeless silver now laid bare their true nature, ignited by provoked desire.

Yet even upon seeing that, he did not hesitate.

“This is neither pity nor a plea. As a nobleman, I am merely sharing. Giving what I possess to someone in need. It is only my rightful duty. When you think of it that way, it is hardly a grand matter, is it?”

He was always like that. Cruelly tender, arrogantly endearing. In whichever life, in whatever form, he had never once denied or rejected me.

And that was the very reason I hurled myself into fate each and every time, even knowing full well the agony and futility waiting at the end.

Lest there be any misunderstanding, I will set this down: I feel no revulsion whatsoever toward sustaining my life on the blood of living creatures, humans included. No inner conflict, no guilt. Just as a bird never hesitates to catch an insect, and a wolf feels no remorse for devouring a deer.

I was not born a human and turned into this; I was born this way from the very beginning.

There was only ever a single moment when I hesitated. When the one thing capable of making me feel small, making me cautious, making me falter and freeze, stood before my eyes.

If anyone happens to be reading this, they would already know without my having to spell it out, but that sole exception was always him. And the one who tore through that exception, rushing in to shake me to my very core, was also always him.

For some time after that day, whenever he wished to shirk chores or whenever I refused one of his requests, he weaponized the two round new puncture marks over his red mole.

“Do not misunderstand. It isn’t that I don’t want to. I am simply so completely drained of strength that I cannot manage it.”

When the skin around the wound was entirely flushed red, when it turned into a purplish bruise, and even when it faded to a sickly yellow.

“A man of your caliber could fashion a bathtub in no time, Sir Knight! With hands as deft as yours, how long could it possibly take…?”

“There is nothing preventing you from wiping your body and washing your hair as things are. Why must I labor for the sake of your luxuries?”

“What? Luxuries? Ha, fine, forget it. Refuse if you must. The chill strangely refuses to leave my bones, so I merely wanted to warm myself, and here you are, slandering my character.”

Even when the puncture wounds had completely healed over, leaving only the crimson mole behind.

His schemes were transparent as glass. In the truest sense of being obnoxiously brazen, he played his shameless little tricks without a shred of shame.

“To begin with, he fails to realize how miraculous it is to survive winter with only a single thin blanket. Honestly, how can anyone be so callous? He’s no different from a bear.”

And yet, the fact that he could not stop darting sidelong glances at me through it all was precisely what drove me to move in the end.

“…Would fir be better, or oak?”

“Fir, of course! The scent is sweet. I knew it—you secretly wanted a soak yourself, didn’t you, Sir Knight?”

No matter how many times I say or write it, words feel insufficient, so I am forced to write it once more: truly, I was utterly pathetic.

Yet the moment Émile broke into a radiant smile of pure delight over the bathtub I spent an entire day building, that self-directed pitifulness melted away like a snowflake before spring sunlight. Well, I had built it knowing from the start that this was exactly what would happen.

I installed the tub by renovating a small shed attached to the outside of the castle. The method was simple: pack the tub full of snow and stoke a fire in the hearth beneath to boil it.

Trailing after me the entire time I renovated the shed with eyes sparkling—even while burdened with a cough that showed no sign of stopping—Émile promptly hauled out his bag the moment everything was finished and I began shoveling in snow, unpacking one bath amenity after another in a steady stream.

“Do you always carry things like that with you?”

“Of course! Though I haven’t sprayed it here, I even have perfume.”

“You must have room to spare in that bag.”

“You know nothing. Maintaining proper conduct and preserving one’s dignity at all times is a nobleman’s duty. One must always set an example.”

“It certainly looks like the bag of an aristocrat, but it doesn’t look like a scholar’s bag in the least. Weren’t you the one who left a noble house to become a scholar?”

Amused by how poorly he concealed the excitement brimming in his voice despite trying to act nonchalant, I teased him lightly. Émile, who had been carefully unwrapping a bar of soap packaged in thin paper, glared up at me with narrowed eyes.

“…I believe I must drop the title of ‘Sir.’ Given that I was indebted to you, and you possessed a castle—small though it may be—I intended to treat you as a knight to the very end. But the more I see of you, the farther you seem from any title of nobility. You don’t even understand the importance of dignity.”

He spoke with great solemnity, but at the sight of his unmistakably sulking expression, a laugh escaped me.

Far from a title. If I told him that, despite how I appear, there was once a time when he served me with trembling devotion as his master and lord, how utterly flabbergasted would he be?

Because I kept smirking with those thoughts in mind, Émile became thoroughly piqued. He truly revoked the courtesies due to a ‘Sir,’ making me stand guard over the firewood the entire time he bathed.

“Adrian.”

From that day forth, Émile called me by that name. If only he knew who had given me that name, he wouldn’t have been able to utter it so casually.

“Come to think of it, I have never heard about your house. What is your family name? Are you from these parts?”

Even after learning that I was something different, he continued to treat me as a human without a hint of awkwardness. Not because he had forgotten what he had witnessed and experienced, but in a way that felt as if he naturally regarded me as an equal, a being just like himself.

Of course, that might have simply been because I never explicitly revealed what manner of creature I was. But I believed in the man I had come to know. The man I had seen, heard, and experienced—the one I knew.

“Who knows. At present, I have no family name worth mentioning.”

And so I told him. Just as I had done before, effortlessly and naturally.

“You have no family name?”

After pressing his lips tightly together and stroking his chin in brief bewilderment, he brushed it off just as quickly, lifting his chin with lofty pride.

“Then I shall bestow one upon you. A family is something you can build from now on. When spring arrives, why not leave this place and come to the city with me? You can meet someone there and start a household. You have fine features and a good build, so you will be exceptionally well-received in the marriage market.”

Stunned by this sudden talk of marriage, I set down the cup I had been tilting, but Émile, worked up all on his own, rattled on about marriage without an ounce of tact.

“Especially since your hunting prowess is superb and your craftsmanship is excellent—you build things so well—you’d never let a wife suffer hardship. Mm. You will make a most beloved husband. Ah, but you really ought to speak a bit more. My elder brother always said that what melts a lady’s heart is not a gift, but a single tender word.”

I was so dumbfounded that words failed me. Yet a chuckle slipped past my lips all the same.

The marriage market, of all things. A memory rose of him in a past life, attending to me and stealing glances in secret. Back then, he used to bite his lip in agonizing anxiety, dreading the day I might be betrothed to a daughter of another noble house. Watching him eagerly volunteer to put me on the marriage market now, I found the irony of time almost absurd.

The more I thought about it, the more ridiculous it was, but watching him was entertaining enough that I played along to a reasonable degree.

“I choose not to speak; it isn’t that I cannot.”

“Ha, taciturn men like you always say that. Yet it’s plain as day you would turn stiff and fidget awkwardly the moment you’re placed before a woman.”

“And what of you? Have you ever even held a young lady’s hand?”

“Of course I have! I am a grown adult; do you truly think I have never once held a hand?”

“A kiss?”

“…Why ask such a thing out of the blue? This topic is a bit… hm, improper.”

“Aha. A virgin through and through, plainly.”

“Did you not hear me say it is improper? And besides, I am not yet married, so is it not only natural to preserve my chastity? Why make it sound like a mockery…?”

Looking at his flushed red ears, I drew my finger slowly across the rim of the cup. It was a gesture born of instinct—the very motion that, long ago, used to dye the ears of the boy who stole glances at me from every corner a vivid, burning red.

Sure enough, in his life as Émile, he reacted sharply to that very movement.

“Y-You seem to take pride in having lived loosely, but I am no such frivolous man, so don’t even think of teasing me! This is something to be proud of, not a laughingstock!”

Though I had not said a single word, seeing him turn crimson and sputter in embarrassment proved without a doubt that it had worked.

Looking at that face, the delight of teasing him in the past resurfaced, stirring a mischievous urge within me. So from that day forward, whenever I felt his gaze resting upon me, I made a point of slowly, deliberately tracing my fingers over something.

“…Ahem!”

Whenever I did, his eyes would invariably track my fingertips as if entranced, only for him to belatedly register his own behavior, startle in panic, and let out a noisy throat-clearing.

If only those throat-clearings didn’t erupt into coughing fits, watching that spectacle once a day made for days of matchless delight.

Thus the winter at the old castle drifted by.

Hunting together more and more frequently, taking turns tending the fire when the other soaked in the tub, describing to him the appearance of the winter flower he sought, and ceasing to set unnecessary plates of food before me at mealtimes.

I prayed for spring never to come, yet he awaited spring with ardent longing. Even though he had not found his winter flower. How unkind of him.

I, bound by no passage of time, wished for time to stand still; he, collared to time and marching day by day toward death, wished for time to flow. Hearts bearing different weights were cruel things indeed.

At times he suffered nightmares, and low fevers struck him often. The lingering dry cough, which I had thought to be merely the residual aftermath of a severe illness, clung stubbornly to his throat even after the weather softened. In the end, I had to accept that this was the scar that winter had carved into him.

And so, spring inevitably arrived. The frozen forest breathed once more, and the landscape below the hill, which had been blindingly white wherever one looked, dyed itself in lush green.

“Adrian! It is time to depart!”

The winter meant for me had reached its end, but the spring meant for him had begun; thus, I willingly stepped out into the clamor of the world he yearned for.

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