Chapter 2

My destinationless journey with Émile continued for several months.

From the fresh green spring through the lush, dense foliage of summer, we roamed tirelessly across remote forests and open fields.

During that time, Émile collected dozens of plant species, peering into his microscope by night to draw botanical illustrations. When the sun hung high, he waded through fields of wildflowers; by evening, even seated in the back of a crudely rattling luggage cart, he flipped through his illustrated botanical manuals with eyes shining.

There were times we rented horses and times we hitched rides on wagons, but walking on foot was what we loved best. For it granted him time to inspect the roadside grasses, and granted me time to watch him.

“Adrian! Come here, look at this. Isn’t it truly lovely?”

“…What is?”

“Here, look at this charming little bud! Look closely. Right here, here.”

“Isn’t that just a dried-up bug?”

“Good grief! You don’t have a single shred of delicacy in you. Shoo, go over there. You’re only casting a shadow anyway.”

I remember looking sullenly at the back of his head as he shoved me away, thinking to myself: It isn’t a lack of delicacy; you are the one who is lovely, you are the one who is charming, so much so that I cannot see anything else.

Back then, I had no intention of revealing my heart to him—this heavy, burdensome heart that had fermented for far too long.

To have possessed him twice was enough; to have been loved in return twice was enough.

Soothing myself with that resolve, I intended merely to wish for his life to pass in comfort and safety. I intended to protect him so that it could unfold in no other way. If possible, I meant to watch over his children, and his children’s children, preserving every trace of him that would remain in this world once he was gone.

Yet when our steps brought us to a certain port city, he once again shook me to my very foundation.

Émile began displaying an oddly sour mood from the moment we stepped out of an imported clothing boutique.

Though his own eyes had sparkled as he dragged me inside, and though I had put on whatever he told me to wear and bought whatever clothes he told me to buy, his face grew increasingly petulant as we walked down the street.

“What is the problem?”

Unable to watch any longer as his lower lip jutted out so far it compromised all decorum, I asked, only for him to jerk his head around as if I had uttered something entirely preposterous.

“Problem?”

“You’ve looked displeased for some time now.”

“…Me?”

He then wore an expression of bewilderment, as though he hadn’t even realized he had been making such a face.

“I am displeased?”

Puzzled by his interrogative retort, I stopped in my tracks and looked at him.

Halting beside me, he stared at me blankly for a beat, before his face suddenly flared crimson as a flame. “What on—good grief—such utter nonsense—honestly!” he sputtered, throwing an incomprehensible temper.

I watched his back in disbelief as he stomped his feet with not a trace of the ‘dignity’ he was always preaching, before quietly falling into step behind him.

Did none of the garments satisfy him? No, he seemed quite pleased with the clothes we bought just now. Did something happen after stepping outside? Did a passerby bump into him without my noticing?

Dazed and perplexed, I walked behind him with such thoughts running through my head.

Even during that period, which was more wandering vagrancy than a proper journey, we had stopped at clothing shops periodically. Yet Émile had always worn a displeased scowl, complaining that the sleeves were too long or the shoulders felt awkward. True to a young master who had grown up wearing nothing but bespoke tailoring his entire life, he had been finicky enough to make resident tailors break out in cold sweats.

Yet that hadn’t been the case here. The imported clothing boutique in this bustling port city seemed to thoroughly satisfy even Émile’s sky-high standards.

Inside the boutique, he had undeniably been in high spirits. He had relished dressing me up in this and that as if playing with a doll, and when he stepped out in his own new attire to show me, he had lifted his chin with deep satisfaction, saying, “Does it not look as though it were tailored expressly for me?”

“Are you feeling unwell?”

“Who says I’m in a bad mood!”

“I said unwell.”

“…Your voice is so low that it’s impossible to hear in a place like this! Honestly, in a crowded area, you ought to have the sense to step closer when speaking. Do you have any idea how far your mouth is from my ears? How can you have so little manners? At this rate, you won’t even be able to dream of marriage. Women are even shorter than I am!”

I had merely probed his physical condition with my own guess, only to be showered with an even larger outburst of unprovoked temper. Dumbfounded, I simply kept my mouth shut after that.

How could I have been so dull back then? Thinking of it now, it is purely laughable.

I came to learn the answer that very night. Not long after opening the door to a knock and letting him into my room at the inn while resting.

Striding into my room as though it were his own, he held a bottle of wine and two glasses in his hands. Naturally taking a seat at the table, he filled the glasses with wine without so much as a word of explanation. And before taking even a single sip, he launched right into his complaints.

“That outfit—I’ve been thinking about it since earlier, and it really is too excessive. It seems far too small for your frame. Far too flashy, besides.”

“I only wore what you chose.”

“No, do you truly have no awareness of whether the clothes you wear fit you or suit you? Even if they looked fine to my eyes—not that I lack an eye for fashion, mind you—surely you must have seen something odd in them yourself!”

“I bought them because I liked them as well.”

“Yes, exactly my point! Why on earth did you buy such clothes? Do you know how mortified I was earlier? Every single passerby was staring at you! It felt as though I were some circus ringmaster parading around a bizarre monster!”

As I listened, it grew increasingly absurd, so I merely stared at him in silence without replying. Refusing to back down, Émile glared right back, scowling deeply as if demanding I acknowledge his displeasure, and drained his glass in an instant.

The moment he set the empty glass down, he poured another and drank it, glared at me once more, and bit his lower lip hard as though consumed by some private indignation.

“And those buttons! Why on earth do you never button them to the top? Your face draws enough attention even when you stand still, but when you dress so frivolously, is it any wonder women kept stealing glances at you? Honestly, you haven’t a speck of modest propriety!”

That was when. Precisely at that instant, I realized the reason behind his petulance.

Looking at his flushed cheeks—whether stained by the wine downed in a single gulp, the heat burning toward me, or perhaps both—I inhaled slowly and drew my gaze away.

His clumsy jealousy, poured out in full force while believing he had concealed it perfectly, was so pitiful and lovely that even letting my eyes rest on him felt precious. Not wanting to watch the fleeting moment pass by, I locked his image behind my eyelids and stared at the table for a long while.

It was a moment that should have brought unbridled joy, yet instead of leaping into a sudden thrum, my still heart plummeted.

Have I dragged him in once more? Have I, once again, altered his destiny? That thought had surfaced before any sweet gratification could take root.

“No, well… do not misunderstand, I did not come to pick a fight. I was merely concerned for your dignity. In a crowded city like this, rumors spread quickly, and if distorted, such rumors might end up standing in the way of your marriage prospects…”

Mistaking my lowered head and silence for hurt feelings, he hastily piled on excuses in visible fluster. Releasing the breath I had forcefully held within, I raised my head.

“Émile.”

What is the right answer? Which choice would make him happiest? Or, to begin with, is there even such a thing as an answer to our meeting?

Looking straight into the eyes of this difficult being—the existence who forced such thoughts upon me every single time he returned to my side—I asked.

“Do you truly wish to see me start a family?”

Half of it was provocation, but half was sincere. For I always had to look toward the future. I had to weigh the possibility that what he felt might be nothing more than a fleeting sentiment.

“Do you believe that having a house founded upon a name you bestowed would give meaning to your life?”

If inflicting brief pain upon him could allow the remainder of his days to flow smoothly, I could leave him behind—whether the pretext was a sham marriage or a fabricated death.

“What? What do you mean by… No, of course I want to see it, but it didn’t mean that…”

As if my reaction had wildly derailed his expectations once more, he stammered with a face so thoroughly bewildered he could not even attempt to mask it.

“Why are you… this isn’t something to get so angry over. I was only thinking of you…”

It was a genuine question, yet to him, it seemed to sound like sarcasm. He appeared to believe I was angry.

I did not bother clearing up the misunderstanding. Depending on his answer, I intended to decide whether to leave those words as a simple provocation or treat them as my true intent.

“If I offended you… I apologize. It was never my desire to dictate your life. And naturally, it wasn’t because I wanted to find some sense of meaning for myself.”

With an expression that laid his confusion and regret entirely bare, he continued haltingly.

“I only…”

Unlike his usual self, who would insist upon stubborn, absurd logic just to win an argument, he chose his words with utmost care, watching my face.

“I only… wished for you not to be lonely.”

I carefully examined the remorse lingering on his face. I peered deep into those eyes, which were at a loss from the mistaken belief that he had wounded and angered me.

“Because you said you didn’t even have a family name. That means… you have no family. I thought perhaps you needed someone to remember you…”

Thus, slowly, I reached a certainty.

“…I see.”

This time, too, you intend to make the very same choice.

“If that was your reason, then it is enough.”

You are an existence even more unchanging than I, who am frozen in time.

“However, I will not marry.”

Perhaps it is not I who protect you, but you who come to save me each and every time.

Only after all those thoughts became nourishment, settling layer upon layer into my barren chest, was I finally able to clear my head and speak with honesty.

“Because having you to remember me is more than enough.”

If only the breath he gasped in shock hadn’t burst forth into a coughing fit, it would have been a far better night. In the end, I had to keep my ears strained toward his room the entire night once again.

After that day, the word ‘marriage’ never crossed Émile’s lips again. Yet as if to fill the void left by a word he had clung to for months on end, his chatter in another direction multiplied.

“You shouldn’t bother combing your hair. You are no aristocrat, so there is no need to look so neat. …No, perhaps combing it a little might be better. They say women may seek a gentleman for marriage, but when it comes to objects of adoration, they invariably favor wild, feral men like you. There’s no harm in being cautious. Come here and sit down.”

This time, it was nagging intended ‘to prevent an unwanted marriage.’

“Wild? I hardly have a ferocious countenance.”

“How obtuse. The wildness women favor isn’t merely surface fierceness visible to the eye. It is something felt through the body. …According to my brother, that is.”

“…I haven’t the faintest idea.”

“First of all, your gaze is far too dangerous. It gives one the sensation of being devoured alive. In this country where blond hair and blue eyes are common, black hair and gray eyes give you an unfamiliar, chilling impression as well. That alone makes you stand out, but your physique is needlessly splendid, adding sheer intimidation to it. You’re like an enormous wolf.”

“Mm…”

“Why look at me like that? It’s not as if I made up lies. Even if you find it displeasing, there’s nothing for it. It’s the truth.”

“No, judging by how detailed your description is, I simply realized that is how I look to your eyes as well.”

“…It’s not that you look that way to my eyes; it’s simply how you were made! Why would I, a man, feel charm—no, wildness—from you? Good grief!”

Should I point out how flimsy his filter was becoming by the day, or should I leave it be? It was a time when I lost all track of time in delightful contemplation.

“In any case, mind your conduct at all times. And by minding your conduct, I mean you must not cast so much as a glance at women. A simpleton like you would probably be swept away by the slightest whiff of cosmetic powder, which is why I am worried. Do you understand?”

I obediently lowered my head, entrusting my hair to Émile, and replied.

“Yes, I shall take care.”

Noticing the laughter threading through my voice, Émile’s fingers climbing through my hair twitched. Savoring the faint tremor transmitted through the strands, I lifted my head and met his gaze with upturned eyes before he could pull his hands back and retreat.

“Well? Do I look a bit more like a gentleman now?”

I asked deliberately baring the raw, feral nature seething inside me.

Just as I anticipated, his face flared scarlet in an instant; his lips parted and closed twice before he burst out in a fiery temper.

“G-Gentleman, my foot! Does combing a bit of fur turn a wolf into a hound?!”

With that, he set down the comb he treasured so dearly almost as if tossing it aside, stamping his feet with exaggerated force to move away from me. Though all he did was head over toward his luggage across the room.

Every single day, I found myself looking forward to what preposterous reason he would conjure up to throw a temper at me next.

Of course, it was not only delightful, pleasant occurrences that met us.

Was the relentless sea wind and dust to blame? Émile’s cough worsened by the day. And he treated it as nothing of consequence.

“Let us head back inside for today. We have walked too long.”

“Walked too long? We haven’t even been out an hour. I still have books I want to buy. If you are tired, go back ahead of me.”

“You keep coughing.”

“It is only because the carriage passed by and I inhaled some dust.”

To be precise, he was trying to hide it from me.

He stubbornly refused to see a doctor under the excuse that our remaining funds were running low, and when I could bear it no longer and summoned a physician on my own, he spent that entire night pouting, refusing to even meet my eyes.

Standing before the doctor who emerged after finishing the examination, I failed to maintain my composure before a human for the first time in a very long while.

“It appears to be consumption. Judging by the wheezing sound leaking from his chest, he may soon begin coughing up blood…”

With a somber face, the doctor added that the illness had already advanced too far, and there seemed to be no possibility of a cure.

The scar left by that harsh winter was inevitably cracking him open once more.

After sending the physician away, when I returned to sit beside him as he lay pouting with his back turned, I felt trapped not in a port city of the 1880s, but inside some nameless desert tomb, or a medieval dungeon so ancient that even my memory—prodigious enough to be called a living chronicle of history—could scarcely trace it back.

“He said you must convalesce in a place with good air.”

Far sharper and more piercing than all those ancient memories of being worshipped and reviled by mankind was this single fleeting instant.

“Will you return to your family? Or else…”

“As if I would return over a mere cough like this. After declaring myself with such bold words, to go back having accomplished nothing…?”

That was why we had to depart from the port city, overflowing with sights and delicacies, after staying not even two full weeks.

Having met in the north and moved into the center, we set our course toward the south from that moment on. Toward a warm place, a quiet place, a place brimming with the grasses and blossoms he loved so dearly.

Before leaving the port city, I purchased a proper carriage and hired a coachman. The day he first laid eyes on the carriage, his bewildered gaze darted back and forth between me and the vehicle several times, yet in the end he asked nothing. Even though I was more than willing to answer had he asked.

Quietly boarding the carriage, he stroked the plush cushions a couple of times with his fair white hands, seemingly quite pleased to sit on a cushioned seat after such a long time. Then, drawing back the window curtain and peering out at an angle, he muttered a petulant grievance toward me where I sat facing him, as if speaking to himself.

“…You have the heart to prepare a carriage treating me like a weakling, yet you have no heart to keep me from swaying all alone in this vast seat, I suppose?”

Truly, how could he be so arrogantly endearing every single time?

Watching his reddened ears, I rose without a word and took the seat beside him. Unlike the countless roughly rattling freight carts of strangers, our carriage started in silence and glided smoothly forward.

Whenever the wheels caught on a pebble and jostled slightly, he would surreptitiously lean his body against mine. Entirely unaware of how painfully hard I fought to restrain my arm—an arm yearning to reach out and wrap around his shoulder.

We traveled from city to large town, from large town to small village, passing through rustic hamlets on the outskirts before heading back toward cities. Only then did our journey move like true travel rather than vagrancy. Sleeping in plush beds and eating hot food.

The coachman I hired, Olof, was a taciturn and diligent man. Even without being told, he never neglected the care of the horses and carriage, nor did he show any unnecessary curiosity toward us.

I, too, paid him no mind beyond handing over his wages, but Émile was different.

“Our next departure is the day after tomorrow, so be sure you get plenty of rest as well.”

Or,

“Don’t tend only to the horses; take care of yourself too. Stop by a tavern or two.”

In such a manner, whenever we arrived in a new town, he unfailingly added a word of encouragement and pressed a silver coin into Olof’s hand. With not the slightest inkling that it exceeded an ordinary coachman’s daily wage.

“Thank you, my lord.”

Whenever Olof bowed in thanks while stealing cautious glances at me,

“If your travel funds are ever short, tell me anytime. So long as you drive my carriage, you are my coachman. It will not do for you to live shabbily.”

Émile would lift his chin with pride.

I was the one who bought the carriage, hired the man, and paid his wages, yet Émile took all the credit and received all the gratitude. Thanks to that, before even a month had passed since our journey toward the sanatorium began, Olof was overflowing with loyalty, coming to regard him almost like a lifelong master.

In any case, that disposition of his—unable to bear being anything less than the most radiant presence in the room—remained unchanged across every lifetime.

“Oh my… Are you alright, my lord?”

“I am fine. I was merely lost in thought and failed to watch my step.”

“Your complexion looks poor, sir. How about postponing our departure?”

“No, I wish to see the open fields as soon as possible. It is rather stifling here.”

Thus Émile gained yet another stalwart ally beside myself, yet he weakened in direct proportion to the care showered upon him. As if proving his own words that his was a life accustomed to being shielded and looked after.

How many nameless villages had we passed? His shallow cough grew noticeably severe, and the hours he spent leaning against my shoulder inside the carriage lengthened.

“Nykbjär. Quite a well-crafted surname, is it not? It suits you splendidly. A family name uniquely your own, found nowhere else in the world, so be sure to cherish it and bear it with pride.”

From around that time, Émile no longer stubbornly insisted he was hale. He no longer clenched his jaw to swallow his coughs before me or disguised them as mere throat-clearing.

“Adrian, could you stay with me tonight? That is, well… I feel as though I might have a nightmare. Your hearing is sharp and you sleep so little, so you could wake me, couldn’t you?”

He did not make a show of his pain either, yet his questions about me grew frequent, and he tried never to leave my side.

“Did you know? No matter how close you are, I cannot hear a single sound from you. Neither the beating of a heart nor the drawing of breath.”

Does he sense the end?

“Still… you are alive, aren’t you?”

From the moment that thought took hold, I could no longer conceal the aching sorrow boiling within me for him.

“Yes.”

“Then, what manner of creature are you…?”

“In the eyes of humans, I am likely close to a monster.”

“…Then you must surely be the most beautiful monster in the world.”

The night of that conversation, I sat by his pillow as he slept, stroking his hair all through the night. He had no nightmares, nor did he cough. But because his hand clutched my hem tightly even in sleep, as if terrified of being left alone, I was forced to endure a torment far greater than watching him cough or suffer through nightmares.

“Adrian, I know this is a truly shameless request, but…”

Opening his eyes in the morning, the moment he confirmed I was still by his side, he whispered with a faint, relieved smile.

“If a day should come when I do not wake from my slumber… could you take me back to my family?”

It was a cruel thing to ask.

Leaving behind the cool shadows of the north, our carriage arrived in the south alongside autumn. Even though Olof, who had noticed Émile’s illness at some point, drove the carriage with utmost care, Émile inevitably coughed up blood during the journey.

“It’s nothing. My throat must be a little raw from coughing so much, that’s all.”

Neither he nor I was startled, yet he remained calm while I ached in agony.

During that time, Émile was not the only one growing weak. I was the same. With every step he took toward death, I took a step toward hell, bitterly reminded to my very bones that this was our destiny, our inescapable chain.

The sole thing that allowed me to breathe at all was the fact that he was deeply enchanted by the landscapes of Southern Europe.

As the carriage wheels cut through even dirt roads past broadleaf trees in vibrant hues, Émile, unable to tear his eyes from the window, would frequently have the carriage halted.

“These leaves are entirely new to me. A tree that doesn’t grow in our country. Ah! Here, look at this wildflower as well. Have you ever seen it? It must be a blossom that blooms only in warm lands, yes?”

Crouched like a cat beneath the pouring sunlight, inspecting the small herbs and flowers along the roadside, the sight of his back was something I watched for so long that forgetting it became impossible.

That back, trembling faintly with every hacking cough; those shoulders, which I had held back hundreds of times from gathering into my arms; that soft blond hair, gleaming as radiantly as if it had swallowed the sun itself.

“Beautiful. Truly beautiful. …Plucking just a single blossom should be fine, shouldn’t it?”

Just as his voice, unrobbed of vitality despite being devoured by illness, breathed out that admiration, I could endure it no longer and stepped beside him, blotting out the sunlight.

For in my eyes at that moment, the brilliant downpour of sun seemed neither a blessing nor light, but hellfire bent on evaporating the last of his life.

“Let us move on. We must reach a town before the sun sets.”

“What does it matter if the sun sets a little? So fussy.”

Repeating such moments time and again, we stopped in towns and sped along dirt roads past settlements great and small.

He remained steadfastly vibrant, yet he fell relentlessly ill. All while neatly collecting a few tree leaves, a handful of blossoms, and blades of grass that looked like nothing more than weeds to my eyes.

Trivial lives destined to wither, crumble, and turn to dust someday. In my eyes, there was no difference between the plants he gathered and himself, which was why I could never bear to look for long at the flora he showed off with such delight.

Thus, after a journey of several months, we finally arrived at another long-standing sanctuary of mine in the south.

As we neared the edge of the plain where the horizon shimmered, Émile, peering out the window, spotted a faded grayish-white two-story house standing solitary at the far end and turned his head toward me.

“Is that it? The house you said you built.”

Though a dry rasp mingled in his voice after traveling such a long road, his clear blue eyes, vivid enough to melt even tears, were still brimming with vitality.

A house too rustic to be called a manor, yet far too elegant to be called a farmhouse.

That was Émile’s verdict on the house. Turning his head back toward the window with a soft smile, he murmured as if to himself.

“It looks just like you.”

Looking upon that house to which I had returned across vast spans of time, I quietly reached out my arm and drew it around his shoulders.

Startled by the sudden touch, Émile looked back at me with wide eyes. Yet the instant our eyes met, he whipped his head away as if fleeing.

“…When I was banging my head against the window sleeping the whole way here, you didn’t pay me the slightest mind, and now that we’ve arrived, you wrap an arm around me—I have no idea what sort of perverse whim this is.”

Without a word, I tightened my fingers around his shoulder and pulled him close to me. Though he feigned distaste, grumbling, “What are you doing? How unseemly. Honestly, do you take me for an invalid who cannot even steady himself?” he leaned his weight against me readily without a single shred of resistance. Gazing fondly at his crimson-stained ear, I simply, quietly felt his warmth.

Before long, the carriage came to a halt. When I slowly withdrew my arm, he—having glared exclusively out the window without glancing my way once while nestled against me—stole a lingering look back at me, as if reluctant to part.

The key lay beneath a stone in the flowerbed beside the door. Watching me crouch down to retrieve the key, Émile giggled for quite a while, finding something intensely amusing about it.

“This house is just like… a ship.”

Stepping into the tidy house—free of the stale scent of old dust, as though a caretaker had stopped by not long ago—those were the first words he spoke as he looked out the window.

“I feel as though I am floating upon an ocean of earth.”

Entering behind him, I smiled faintly to myself. That he had discerned the exact feeling with which I had built this house on first impression alone, without ever knowing it—it was so entirely like him.

Leaving him settled in the second-floor bedroom, I descended the stairs once more to face Olof, who waited before the front door.

“You have worked hard.”

Handing over the pouch of coins, I gave a slow nod of acknowledgement. Yet he only habitually muttered, “Thank you, my lord,” and made no move to leave.

“I have included more than enough to cover your expenses on the journey back, so have no worry.”

Thinking he lingered because the coin seemed insufficient, I added the reassurance, but he slowly shook his head and mumbled with trembling lips.

“If you would permit it… I wish to remain with you until the very end.”

“The end?”

“I know it is presumptuous of me… but I truly wish to see you safely home to your estate.”

Pricked with sudden sensitivity at the word end, it was only then that I grasped what Olof meant.

“On the return journey, you must be the one driving our carriage. You handle the reins so smoothly and quietly that I can hardly keep from dozing off. That is why I keep stepping out to take the air like this, isn’t it?”

The trouble had been what Émile said to Olof while we stopped the carriage so he could examine the roadside grasses. At that time, Olof had seen the blood staining the handkerchief Émile clutched; with his rugged face, he had looked back at me wearing the expression of a frightened child.

“In over forty years of working as a coachman, I have never met anyone who cared for me with such kindness…. If only by driving you on your journey back, I wish to repay you.”

It had been the exact same outside the house on the plains. That very look. The expression that can only be worn by someone who has recognized one about to depart, someone bound to let them go.

“In any case, even if I return, I have no family waiting to welcome me. I will not accept a single copper for the return journey. Just… please grant your permission, my lord.”

Struck speechless, I could not answer for a long while. Only after Émile, waiting on the second floor, pushed open the window and grumbled, “What delightful secret are you two sharing that leaves me alone for so long?” did I startle and part my lips.

“…Very well. If I am to see him home safely, I shall need someone to drive the horses.”

At that, Olof raised the inner corners of his thick eyebrows, pulling another subtle, tearful grimace. Then, lowering his head deeply, he donned the cap he had been pressing against his chest.

“Then I will stay in the village. Please call for me whenever you need me.”

The radiance like light that drew living souls to him. In every lifetime, that nature of his never failed to inspire genuine devotion in others, not just in me.

Those tranquil days did not last long.

For a while after our arrival, his coughing subsided and vitality returned, leading me to believe he was benefiting from the mild weather and scenic surroundings. Yet whether it had been merely the transient afterglow of elevated spirits, after a mere ten days, he began spitting up blood once more.

During that period, I sat by his bedside every night, keeping watch over him as he slept. By habit, he would drift to sleep clutching the hem of my sleeve or clothes; even after he fell into a deep slumber and the strength in his grip loosened, I stayed completely still so his hand would not fall away, gently stroking his hair.

Then came a dawn. While I slowly stroked his hair, gazing out past the drawn curtains at the luminous full moon, I suddenly felt his head thrashing beneath my hand.

“A… dri… an….”

Émile tossed restlessly, calling my name in a groan. Without pulling my eyes away from the moon immediately, I turned my head. When I finally lowered my gaze, I saw his face contorted in agony and the cold sweat that had beaded across his brow without my noticing.

“No….”

As though a nightmare had taken physical form to strangle him, the sound of his labored, agonizing gasps shattered the dawn silence.

“No!”

My senses, which had drifted into a moonlit haze, snapped wide awake like shattering glass.

“Émile.”

Leaning down in haste, I pressed my lips near his ear. Applying a little pressure so he could feel my touch, I smoothed his hair and whispered,

“It’s all right. It’s only a dream.”

His chest, heaving with ragged pants, gradually settled.

“When you wake, you’ll forget everything. I am right here.”

The longer my whispered voice continued, the faster he calmed, and his jagged breathing soon returned to its steady rhythm. Slowly straightening my back, I wiped the sweat from his brow.

“It’s all right. It’s just a bad dream.”

Looking down at him as he coughed faintly, his throat irritated by breathing through his mouth, I incessantly muttered while daring to wear the mask of a protector. Even though I was the very protagonist of that wretched nightmare, the one who summoned it into being.

I had heard about the nightmares he suffered from his second incarnation.

Though plagued by them since childhood, he had suffered because only the pain lingered upon waking while the memories vanished; yet near the end of his life, he had remembered everything.

“Don’t remember this time. Forget it now.”

What they dreamed of was that first lifetime when he met me. A choice made to save him that had ultimately driven him to his death—the memory of a twisted, ill-fated love.

“…I was wrong.”

That night, stroking his cheek until dawn, I repeated only those words.

Yet, as always, God was not on my side. As if mocking my repentance that rotted away without ever reaching his soul across the ages, when he woke the next morning, he stared at me for a long time with a confused expression before abruptly murmuring:

“Because you were a dark being born of the sea….”

I looked at him without a word.

“I… named you Adrian.”

I merely gazed in silence at the tears pooling in his eyes, his face contorting with longing and astonishment, and the lip he bit hard to keep from crying out in pain.

We spoke of many things.

Riding horses across the plains, plucking nameless leaves at the forest’s edge, and watching the fields stain yellow and crimson in the twilight glow.

“I wondered all along. Why my heart ached so desperately for you. If this was love, whether it was wrong. It is embarrassing to admit… but unable to utter a word out of fear, my heart was endlessly restless.”

He no longer hid his feelings behind unreasonable faultfinding, nor flared with sudden anger out of bashfulness. He simply spoke with calm composure.

“Now my mind is finally at peace. It was because you were rightfully mine all along. I gave you that first name, and I gave you that surname, so you belong to me.”

Smiling with infuriating brightness, he leaned his shoulder against mine without bothering to hide his flushed cheeks.

“To think that in your ageless immortality, you have met only me three times over—surely I, without a doubt, must belong to you as well.”

Even with a voice cracked and strained with rasping metallic wheezes, he spoke such sweet words, burying himself deep into my embrace with a shy smile in his eyes.

On a night when coughing kept him from sleep, he chided me as I averted my gaze from the blood-soaked handkerchief:

“Suffering so much from merely this, how could you have been so cruel to me back then?”

Even while his own life hung by a precarious thread, he whined in petulance rather than resentment.

“Never do so again.”

As I quietly wiped his mouth and handed him a clean handkerchief, he reached out his arms like an embodied anxiety and whispered,

“Never, ever again in front of me… act so cruelly.”

Wordlessly, I let myself be drawn to him. I kissed his bloodstained lips and tenderly embraced his frail body, which felt as though it would crumble if held too tightly.

“Promise me.”

“…I swear it.”

The one who bestowed a name upon a creature that had lived only by stealing the masks of others, creating an existence; the one who gave a surname to someone wandering with nothing but a name, finally anchoring my feet to this earth.

In human history, his life might be merely a fleeting breath, but in my history, he was the omnipotent, magnificent being who gave birth to the universe.

He was such a person. To me, at least to me, he was that monumental.

The quiet time of putting things in order flowed past slowly.

He organized the botanical specimens he had carefully collected and wrote letters to leave behind for his family. He read through, from beginning to end, the notebook he had carried so dearly since the ancient winter castle, and handed it to me.

“It would be best for you to keep this.”

And then he told me to be sure to read it later. He offered no reason. Nor did I ask.

Émile sat by the window basking in the sun only during the warmest hour of the day. The rest of the time was spent mostly in bed.

Whenever I rode to the village to fetch groceries, he would hide the blood-drenched handkerchiefs under the bed and wait with a pristine white one in hand. Even though he knew how sensitive I was to the scent of blood.

While preparing to meet death with composure himself, he continually tried to hide the approaching end from me. Without realizing that it unraveled me all the more. Over and over.

That day, a gentle breeze blew.

“Adrian!”

Sitting by the window looking out, Émile called to me in a lively voice I had not heard in a long time.

“Shall we go watch the sunset together?”

I seated him at the edge of the hill overlooking the plain. Grasses swayed like heat hazes in the cool, tickling breeze. We sat shoulder to shoulder, quietly watching the distant sky turn to gold.

“See you again.”

Abruptly, he spoke in a very quiet voice.

“My Adrian.”

I felt his whispered breath brush against my neck. I did not turn to look at him. I did not clench my jaw, nor did I catch my breath. I merely gazed at the sunset and answered only in my heart.

Yes. See you again.

The world blurred. The beautiful golden scenery slowly sank into a sodden, waterlogged ash.

Thus did I send away his third incarnation. At the hour when the sun painted all creation in gold, upon the southern plains where the fields rippled like waves in the warm wind.

All night long, I sat beside Émile and read the notebook he had left behind. One by one, I carefully traced each trace his pure white hands had so painstakingly left.

Strikethroughs where he had misspelled a word, smudges where his hand had brushed the ink before it dried, steep slants where excitement had taken over, round doodles drawn in idle moments. Missing nothing, I drank them all in with meticulous care.

On the final page reached only in the deep hours of dawn, there remained a single request he had written beforehand.

A request to burn his body to ash and keep a portion of it with me—a request that was, to me at the time, unimaginably cruel.

No matter how much I think on it, if I am to return to my family held in your embrace, that seems the only way.

I departed looking beautiful enough to captivate the most beautiful monster in the world. So please, do not let me become hideous before your eyes.

I ask this of you as desperately as my heart yearns for the day we meet again.

Yet once I envisioned the arrogant, lovely face writing that last testament, I could not go against his wishes.

The next morning, I still vividly remember the expression on Olof’s face when I went down to the village and met him.

Excusing himself, Olof returned inside the inn, then emerged with his luggage, having cleanly shaved off his scruffy beard. Together, we rode our horses back to the house that looked like a ship floating upon the plains.

From that day until our return to Björnstrand Manor in Sweden, we stopped the carriage dozens of times without ever exchanging a word of agreement beforehand.

Whenever a beautiful field of flowers came into view, whenever unfamiliar wild grasses lined the roadside, whenever the sunset fell.

When Olof stopped the carriage in silence, I too silently took him—held within the urn—stepped outside, and showed him the scenery.

It was a long, endless funeral procession.

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