Andrea slowly clenched and unclenched the hand he had extended forward. In it were numerous invisible things. His power, the things he could do. And even my lifeline.
“Love is troublesome, irrational, and makes one commit cruel acts. Just as I did to you.”
Though there was a look of reminiscing about the past, it was brief. He soon shook off the past that had stuck like pollen and smiled at me. Andrea’s smile was so bright that I, watching it, felt dizzy. Just like the moment we first met, he still—
“What I couldn’t bear was that you, whom I thought would naturally be in my grasp, actually weren’t there.”
“…”
He didn’t feel like a person. But while he had seemed simply beautiful then, now he looks like a form that has gathered all the fears I know. Andrea stepped forward in front of me as I tried to escape. Both my hands were caught, and he kissed the backs of them in turn.
“Though Ran Icanoth seems indifferent to surrounding matters, in reality, that’s not the case. You’re excessively delicate and timid. You easily sharpen your edge and always look for a place to escape. I thought so from the moment I first saw you. So I was planning to approach you, who was wary of me, very slowly.”
I was speechless. Each following word penetrated my heart. Andrea knew me extremely well. And only now, he was showing off his knowledge and demonstrating that he had a grip on my lifeline.
“But it was my miscalculation. Moreover, there were others besides me who coveted you… and you were easily captivated and fell in.”
“Andrea-ssi, you—”
Though I hesitated because that word wouldn’t come out of my mouth.
“Would you like me to say it again? I love you.”
Andrea brought that word to his lips so easily. He said love. He says he loves me.
“Until now, no one has moved me as much as you, and no one has made me harbor such deep feelings. I love you, Ran Icanoth. To the extent that even I wonder if feelings toward another person can be this deep.”
I rather wished Andrea would say he hated me. Or because he disliked me. That he wanted to torment me because he disliked me so much, that he felt he could only feel better by doing this… that he had done this because he didn’t want to see me happy. I might have accepted if he had said that.
“I’m sincere. There wasn’t a single moment of falsehood.”
After confessing with an expression suggesting that stating an obvious fact was somewhat troublesome, he looked at me. Though he didn’t pull up the corners of his mouth, he was smiling with his eyes.
I… still find it difficult to bring up the word love.
“Andrea-ssi calls this.”
I reviewed everything that had happened. The things he had done to me. How many things had occurred before I, who once thought Andrea was a good person, changed to the point where I couldn’t even breathe comfortably in front of him. And yet that… Andrea.
“When you call it love—”
“It’s just not a good love.”
“Ha.”
“That’s all it is.”
“Ha, ha.”
Something with a thin membrane inside burst with a loud noise.
“Haha.”
I couldn’t hold back my laughter at how such acts could possibly become love. I started crying while laughing, but I couldn’t stop laughing, so I held my stomach and laughed, tried to hold my breath to stop, but laughter burst forth again and I kept laughing. Andrea Carp said he loved me. He said he did these things because he loved me. And this, he said, is love.
“Ha… hahaha… haha. Ha.”
My laughter didn’t last long before it crumpled. My lips were frozen as if smiling, but the laughter that had been erupting easily until just now no longer came out. Though the cause of my tears was surely all Andrea, the situation where he wiped my tears was an excessively miserable comedy.
“Is Andrea-ssi… ha, haha… pitying me?”
“Because you’re the only one who draws compassion from me.”
“Me?”
“Yes.”
No words could express my feelings. After crying and laughing, I could finally utter one sentence.
“Crazy bastard…”
“You curse too. But it’s too novel.”
Despite pouring out all kinds of curses I could manage, starting with that short one, Andrea still pitied me. The thought that he would make the same expression and harbor unchanged feelings even if I held a knife and screamed made me fall into an even deeper hell.
Andrea kissed my forehead. After kissing my continuously laughing cheek, he looked at me with eyes that found me utterly lovable.
The brilliantly blue eyes were saying this is love.
This is my love.
Andrea’s love.
With a gentle smile, he spoke loudly. The sound I had been trying not to hear by covering my ears all along penetrated without any interference. I love you. I love you. I love you. I, I love you. At the center of all those echoes was Andrea.
“My love.”
I will never respond to those words with love. I hope. That someday my hand will turn into an ice pick, and I can stab his nape. That the shattered pieces will fall at my feet, and I can trample them.
## Epilogue: Exceptional Hunter, Unregretful Alpha
He, who said he was born in a city frequently isolated due to heavy snowfall, was a living person but at the same time like white snow. Not a person made of snow but just that itself. That’s how Andrea thought. He had been a person who caught his eye from the moment he saw just the name written on the resume.
He remembers looking at Ran Icanoth’s name for quite a while, though he didn’t know why. Though it was a resume without a photo attached, like other resumes, when he looked at it quietly, he felt as if he caught a glimpse of someone’s face.
Andrea looked again and again at the name [Ran Icanoth] and the small signature next to it. And only after seeing his signature, which wrote R large and the rest small, enough to be able to copy it identically, could he turn his gaze elsewhere.
From then on, he had been curious about what kind of person he was. Perhaps he had been counting the days until they would meet. Then finally, on the day of the interview, the day to meet Ran Icanoth, Andrea Carp knew. That he had been waiting for this person all along.
“I am Ran Icanoth.”
Because the recessive omega’s faint pheromones were dim, one had to approach first to catch the trace. When he stood beside him and inhaled, Andrea was so enraptured that he didn’t notice the heat gathering around his eyes.
Such thoughts and impressions hadn’t changed much even after several years. Andrea loved Ran to no end and still wanted him, and would willingly do anything to sink him into his embrace.
That’s what love inherently is. At least, that was the essence of love as Andrea knew it.
* * *
“Were you eating?”
Approaching Ran sitting at the dining table, he gently wrapped an arm around his shoulders. Perhaps due to exhaustion from last night, even Ran’s movement of the spoon seemed weak. It would be troublesome if his meal portions decreased further. Looking at the soup with a thin membrane on its surface, Andrea silently examined Ran. Like well-fired and glazed pottery, his white and smooth skin faintly showed veins. Though it had been so flushed the previous night, now it had subsided again.
Why do the traces I leave on you seem to disappear no matter how many I leave?
Bending down to kiss the pale cheek, Andrea stroked Ran’s drooping hair several times, then saw his eyelids open, revealing red pupils between them. He thought it was similar to a jewelry box opening. Unable to resist, he pressed his lips near there. Though any appearance would be good, the sight of him staring blankly at himself was also pleasing.
“I have work to do now and must go out. I’ll probably return late.”
Indeed, deciding not to inflict permanent damage was the right choice. Even if when seen the next morning, Ran seemed to bear none of his traces…
“Was last night difficult? Rest well.”
Above all, it wasn’t that traces didn’t remain completely. Just endlessly insufficient compared to his desires. Ran’s body was full of red marks. It became evident when making eye contact with Ran looking up at him that it wasn’t just his body. That Andrea Carp was a person who had an immense influence on Ran Icanoth more than anyone else.
Andrea remembers the first time he forcibly embraced Ran.
It was during a rut cycle that came once a month, and he released his pheromones, thicker than ever, forcibly pulling him into his embrace. He also didn’t forget the moment when his eyes, unable to accept reality and bewildered, distorted with fear.
He screamed and then was crushed by the pheromones. The face that clenched his teeth trying not to even moan and shed tears was vivid. Though he could have let him suffer, considering himself miserable, for the first day at least, Andrea inevitably made that face change color with pleasure.
The expression when feeling unwanted orgasm. The pain he felt. The moment of collapse. All those things came to Andrea and became ecstasy. He interlocked fingers with Ran, who blushed with shame and resisted the seemingly surging pleasure.
The base of the ring finger, which had been wearing an engagement ring throughout, had thinned. It didn’t take much time for the pressed flesh to find its place and return to its original shape after no longer wearing the ring. Andrea knows. That Ran shed sorrowful tears searching for that trace. Ran loved Bjorn that much.
If it were a good love, he would naturally have blessed Bjorn and Ran’s marriage and wished for their happiness.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
