[130]
He didn’t intend to show how much he was enjoying this.
“When did you start preparing for this?”
“Since the day after I applied for the match, I suppose.”
Just then, an enraged person in the audience could be heard shouting loudly.
The voice was so loud that one could understand what was being said even from this distance.
“Crazy Colosseum! What is this!”
“My money! My money!”
“You can’t do this! Step back!”
Agent-like figures rushed forward, only to stagger backward when struck by drink cups to their foreheads.
Amid this chaos, some people stood holding the papers with pale faces, while others fell backward from the excessive shock.
Controlling the excited crowd seemed impossible.
Yuri slowly savored the scene.
It was a moment where the audience and the clowns had switched places.
‘This is pleasing to see.’
With a cold smile on his lips, Yuri then fixed his gaze back on Chris, waiting for his reaction.
“Meredith came to me and forced me to participate in the match. I realized that one of us would definitely have to leave as a corpse.”
“You… you could have given me a hint.”
Chris’s voice trembled uncontrollably.
“We were being monitored.”
Yuri found his reaction quite unexpected. Chris was accustomed to being a part in the plans he made.
Chris never complained whether he was thrown into a trap, made part of a trap, or used as bait to draw someone out.
Yuri had always been the one to give directives, and Chris always accepted them.
Neither of them questioned this imbalanced relationship.
“This is dangerous!”
Having raised his voice without realizing it, Chris covered his mouth.
He didn’t understand why his insides were boiling so much.
Was it because a well-progressing operation had been flipped at the end? Because Yuri had deceived him? Because they had threatened Yuri?
‘No. It’s none of those.’
Chris, with tightly closed lips, slowly chose his words.
“Please, let me do my part.”
“You’ve performed your role excellently. You’ve kept their attention, haven’t you?”
Yuri spoke in an uncharacteristically gentle tone.
Though others might find his voice dry, the fact that he didn’t dismiss this conversation and offered an explanation was unlike Yuri.
Being someone who thought more and saw further than others, he never spoke of everything he did. Maintaining secrecy was important.
Furthermore, Chris was good at intuitively accepting and understanding such tendencies of Yuri.
It was almost an animal-like sense.
“No. I was in a safe zone.”
Chris slowly shook his head.
This was Yuri stepping forward to protect Chris.
The man who treasured his possessions terribly never recklessly sent his subordinates out.
But it was the first time he threw himself in as well.
It was unsettling and frightening.
Chris remembered how Yuri had seemed somehow precarious after Rosenhauser’s downfall.
He had clearly changed from his former self who tenaciously preserved his life.
So what if, like himself, Yuri had sacrificed himself for a lover?
‘What if that’s the case?’
Only today did Chris discover something more frightening than Yuri.
It was Yuri who no longer feared death.
“I’m an Esper, and I recover quickly. I’m also good at these kinds of things. If the infiltration failed, I could just partially destroy the Colosseum and extract myself.”
“That’s what I thought.”
Yuri muttered as if talking to himself.
“You were thinking of bringing this place down? By applying pressure to the pillars supporting the underground and crushing it…”
“Yes. I was planning to bury everything.”
Chris didn’t deny it.
“It’s not that difficult to create a barrier to protect just Yuri and myself. And if I call Peter Garrett…”
He explained slowly. Though it’s a crude method, if they were going to overturn things anyway, it wouldn’t be bad to destroy one of the enemy’s bases.
“Then instead of being buried in the ruins of the Colosseum, they’ll be buried in distrust.”
Yuri’s tone was light.
Chris somehow found it hard to breathe.
The paper rain that Yuri had written and Peter had printed was gradually reaching its end.
“Just…”
Chris said.
“Couldn’t you just shoot me again?”
This question came out quite impulsively.
“Kill you again, you mean?”
Yuri, standing on the opposite side of the arena, whispered.
But that small voice struck Chris’s ears like thunder.
“Kill me. And if Yuri becomes the Champion… there would have been no need to make things so complicated.”
Don’t you know?
Chris moved his lips so only Yuri could see.
‘I’d survive anyway.’
Wasn’t Anastasia’s ability like a spare life for Chris? Though after dying, he would lose his therianthropy ability.
After all, it was a fake identity with a fake life. What did it matter if it was destroyed?
If what lay on the other side of the scale was Yuri’s life and his goal, Chris wouldn’t hesitate to give everything he had.
“I don’t want to.”
Yuri said in a matter-of-fact voice.
His gaze meeting Chris’s was direct.
“…I don’t want to have your blood on my hands again.”
He thought he had killed an Esper pretending to be a wild animal, only to find it was his runaway dog bleeding.
Even if he had really died, Yuri would have survived. As he always had.
Killing Rosenhauser as if completing a long-standing assignment. He would have settled his grudge.
And only then would he have realized.
That he had no attachment to his own life.
No reason to get up in the morning. No particular reason to eat meals.
No tomorrow to look forward to. Because there were more days to endure being alive than days that were good to be alive.
“Stop talking nonsense and come here.”
Yuri beckoned with his hand.
Chris stared intently at that hand.
Everything used to be simple.
Catch. Bring. Handle. Kill.
Undress. Kneel. Suck. Bend over. Spread.
Following such commands was easier.
But this is difficult.
Intertwining fingers, overlapping lips, occasionally meeting gazes.
Yuri prioritizing him in decisions and accepting risks and losses.
When he took the hand extended to him and was pulled up, had he ever thought such a moment would come?
Had he ever thought he would feel such excitement and fear simultaneously when meeting the other’s eyes at the same level?
“I don’t think… I deserve this.”
Chris tried to say something several times but ended up just mumbling and giving up.
And then suddenly, that’s what came to mind.
“What do you mean by ‘deserve’?”
“The qualification to receive Yuri’s devotion. The right to put you in danger.”
Chris’s expression was very complex yet also empty at the same time.
“So… I shouldn’t be on equal footing with Yuri.”
Yuri rubbed his eyes as if tired.
Chris, tensing up without realizing it, followed only his lips with his gaze.
“There’s no such thing as qualification for something like that.”
Probably not.
“We’re not standing on a ring.”
Eligibility to compete. Win-loss record.
What use are such things?
“This isn’t a game where you have to fight and win. And becoming the champion here doesn’t make you a real champion.”
If they were aiming for a laurel wreath, they would have fought elsewhere with a more plausible cause.
“I can’t grant your wish. And you can’t fulfill my desire.”
Yuri continued as if singing.
“It just happened that way, Chris.”
“…Just happened that way?”
Chris murmured.
“We’ve somehow ended up living… ordinarily.”
An Esper who tried to bring down a huge underground arena and a Guide who turned it inside out stood facing each other.
The two were brought to this arena as opponents, yet they were in a relationship where mutual warfare couldn’t exist.
Like fire that can’t extinguish water and water that can’t extinguish fire.
When such two meet, they just become boiling water.
“I don’t like Yuri taking risks.”
“I know. But you did too.”
It was such a childish statement that it was hard to believe it came from Yuri’s mouth.
“I’m sturdy, so I’m fine.”
“How nice to be an Esper.”
Though it sounded like sarcasm at first glance, it was a calm statement without any hint of mockery.
This was just picking at harmless details.
Like playing with hands while walking side by side. Like deliberately saying something frivolous and waiting for a response.
“…I am.”
At that moment, flames broke out in one corner of the arena, and evacuation alarms sounded.
“Fire! Fire!”
The chaos Yuri had created was now riding its momentum and growing bigger.
It seemed to be just one step away from pandemonium.
Sighing, Chris silently used his telekinesis to activate the sprinklers.
He was already busy focusing only on Yuri and ruminating on this emotion, but the surroundings weren’t being cooperative.
After the paper rain, it seemed like real rain was falling.
Amid the confusion and chaos, Espers wearing Northern Light uniforms could be seen pouring in.
Even as they were being arrested one by one, Yuri didn’t withdraw the hand he had extended to Chris.
“If you don’t plan on getting arrested at the scene, we should slip away soon.”
After hesitating, Chris, who had become half-wet, overlapped his hand with Yuri’s. The palm touching his skin was cooler than usual.
‘Was he nervous?’
A nervous Yuri? It’s hard to imagine.
“I’m not sure about ‘ordinary.'”
Chris mumbled.
“But being here is, yes, dangerous so…”
The sudden burst of emotion was embarrassing. But at the same time, he felt strangely relieved.
If he hadn’t opened up to Yuri at least once, it would have been a powder keg that would have exploded someday.
Though it was just opening the door a little, there would be opportunities to talk about this anxiety in the future.
‘…At least it wasn’t something Yuri did because he wanted to die.’
His heart was still heavy, but even that alone dampened his greatest fear.
“Let’s get out of here.”
Yuri nodded.
Maybe it was his imagination, but his lips seemed to be smiling, just barely perceptibly.
When Yuri touched his terminal, a Rabbit-hole just for the two of them revealed itself.
They threw themselves without hesitation toward the locksmith’s “door,” which looked like a black, dark pit.
As if it wasn’t a fall, but a flight.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
