[98]
“Not at all.”
Chris shook his head.
“It’s never hurt.”
Yuri looked at Chris quietly.
What could be read in his violet eyes was persistence and doubt.
Chris hesitated for a moment before abruptly asking, “Is it very hideous?”
“Hideous?”
Yuri questioned back.
“If it were so terrible to look at, I wouldn’t have bitten… sucked…”
The man lowered his head and flicked his tongue.
The glimpse of red appearing and disappearing between his lips was provocative.
“I wouldn’t have licked it though.”
His face looked as if he was swallowing saliva, disappointed there was nothing more to devour.
“Then it’s fine. It doesn’t hurt.”
Chris shook his head.
“I just wondered if there was a reason to keep this,” Yuri murmured with narrowed eyes.
When Chris got this scar, the Godrin Family was already faltering after Susanna’s disappearance.
Nevertheless, they were once a force that divided the Winter Continent with the Luciano family.
The head of the Godrin Family proposed a final deal.
At that time, Chris was always on the front lines. It was to avoid Yuri.
After learning about the dynamics between Espers and Guides, and regaining his common sense and emotions, Chris started functioning relatively normally as a human.
The problem was that in the process, he realized he had been preying on Yuri.
Yuri, who found the act of guiding itself horrifying, would silently offer his body to Chris. So after realizing this, Chris consistently refused guiding. He even went to more dangerous places to avoid Yuri.
Because of this, on the day of the deal with the Godrin Family, they were seeing each other after quite a long time.
Needless to say, it was a trap set by the Godrin side.
Chris, who was desperately suppressing his instincts despite having a Guide right in front of him, experienced his second rampage due to an external threat.
He was desperate not to touch Yuri, but gradually distinguishing between friend and foe became difficult.
Chris, who tried to deplete his energy by destroying everything in his path, almost killed Yuri who was approaching to calm him down.
The moment he smelled Yuri’s blood, Chris suddenly regained his senses and despaired.
And he was angry with himself.
Fumbling to reach out, Chris grabbed a glass shard from a window he had shattered and drove it straight into his own chest.
He had to save Yuri.
“No!”
Fortunately, he didn’t die that day. It was thanks to Yuri who grabbed Chris and poured guiding into him.
Yuri, who had poured out guiding with a body injured from being caught in Chris’s rampage, collapsed.
Chris, whose rampage had been quelled, woke up relatively early thanks to the Esper’s inherent robust physique and recovery ability.
It was impossible not to overlay Yuri’s blood-covered, weakly unconscious face over the living, breathing one.
The self-loathing he felt then was still vivid.
Even after Yuri woke up, Chris refused guiding until the wound on his chest healed into a scar.
“I kept it as a reminder.”
Despite receiving a new life from Anastasia and losing all his memories, he regained the emotions and memories of that moment through his own effort.
This was merely an external mark of the wound deeply engraved in Chris’s heart.
So he had to make a vow.
“To never forget that if I go berserk, my Guide will inevitably get hurt too.”
After that, Chris never refused Yuri’s guiding again.
It was a determination not to hurt him with half-baked guilt, and a pledge to die alone if he had to die.
“You don’t need it anymore.”
The whisper of the man pressed close tickled his chest.
Chris hesitated before moving his hand.
His fingers dug through Yuri’s hair, pulling the man closer.
Chris gently pressed his lips to the corner of Yuri’s mouth and looked at him.
“If it doesn’t bother you to look at.”
Strangely, his voice came out hoarse.
After clearing his throat, Chris continued.
“Couldn’t you… just bear with it?”
It was an incredibly awkward gesture.
During the time it took for Yuri’s eyes to narrow slightly and then return to normal, Chris’s heart raced immeasurably.
“How brazen.”
His reproachful voice was husky.
It was hard to gauge whether he was pleased or displeased.
Chris thought Yuri was like a book written in an unknown language.
Even if he spent his entire life turning its pages, he would never be able to read what was written there.
But still.
‘I feel like I could copy it with my eyes closed.’
Wouldn’t that be good enough?
Chris opened his eyes at the gentle tap on his cheek. Yuri’s hand enveloped his face.
Despite having such delicately shaped hands, they were large enough to half-bury Chris’s face. That disparity made his insides strangely flutter.
A ticklish, somehow excited feeling.
Come to think of it, it might have been fortunate that Yuri was the type not to readily remove his gloves.
Otherwise, countless people might have been inexplicably enchanted like Chris.
“Alright.”
Permission dropped casually from Yuri’s lips.
Like a cub without claws, nuzzling up.
‘He’s crazy.’
Yuri inwardly clicked his tongue.
That this big man should look like a newborn who had just opened its eyes.
“But there’s no need to add more.”
“…Understood.”
Chris, who had been hesitantly gauging the situation, added a qualification.
“What if I’m inevitably injured?”
In Chris’s mind, he still had much to do.
They were barely starting to outline what kind of person the Thorns Order’s Leader was—how many battles were yet to come?
Even without intending to be reckless with his body, it was difficult to prevent getting scratched up.
Chris wanted a definitive answer about such unavoidable situations.
“I’m not saying don’t get hurt. Just…”
Yuri pressed his lips tightly shut, then, unable to resist Chris’s gaze, whispered:
“Don’t wear what I haven’t given you.”
Even if it’s a wound made by your own hand.
“…I’ll try.”
Yuri brought his lips to the edge of Chris’s chin.
It was a simple kiss, not particularly wet, but Chris unconsciously swallowed.
“Just trying won’t be enough.”
Yuri murmured.
“I’m holding back too, you know.”
The man’s eyes darkened.
There are times when he wants to split open that chest and see what’s inside.
Yet he endures.
Because even if he flayed the flesh and stripped the bones, he wouldn’t know what was there.
Rather, he would forever lose the opportunity to uncover and learn it.
Yuri knew this impulse came from impatience.
And the impatience came from loss.
Despite having him by his side for so many years, when Chris suddenly disappeared, everything went dark.
He didn’t know enough to refute those who suggested Chris might have gone to die.
Ironically, this ignorance stemmed from trust.
He had thought someone who displayed such unwavering loyalty wouldn’t suddenly vanish.
Chris was that blindly devoted.
“Yuri…”
Chris, grasping the wrist that cupped his face, moved his lips. There was concern in the blue eyes looking back.
Without knowing what he’s thinking, he instinctively draws out his master.
“Did your body get heated up just from a little rest?”
Yuri whispered in a mischievous tone. But his gaze was quite gentle.
“Touch me more.”
Chris moved his lips.
It was still difficult to say such things.
A desert can’t suddenly become an ocean, can it?
But now he knows this relationship isn’t one-sided exploitation.
Because Yuri had let him know that he too gains something from Chris.
“Hah…”
The man, with the faintest hint of a smile, flicked his fingers that were clutching Chris’s chest.
“Can you feel it?”
A shiver ran through him as those fingers glided along, gently caressing the protrusion.
Chris’s waist bent involuntarily.
He now knows that it’s not just a simple shiver but evidence of some sensation awakening.
“Acting insensitive while pretending not to notice, and yet it’s already quite pointed here.”
He clenched his mouth shut to suppress something, but the moaning sound still leaked out in a distorted form.
“If I had known you had such potential, I would have acted sooner.”
Though it was hard to immediately discern from his dry voice, there seemed to be genuine regret.
Chris licked his parched lips. As if on cue, Yuri’s kiss followed.
While their tongues intertwined and they shared breaths, Chris could feel Yuri fumbling to remove his shirt. Moving his hands downward, Chris reached for the belt buckle on behalf of Yuri.
Slightly parting his lips, Yuri’s laughter settled on the bridge of Chris’s nose.
“I was planning to take it slow. But you’re already eager to put your hands down there.”
“No, that’s not. That’s not it.”
Chris jerked his hand back as if burnt.
Yuri sat on top of him with his knees raised and began to finish removing his shirt.
He wasn’t toying with Chris’s body in any other way, just undoing the buttons of the clothes he was wearing.
And yet Chris couldn’t take his eyes off him.
Even though it wasn’t night, Yuri’s chest was pale to the point of being pallid.
Chris swallowed as he watched those well-shaped fingers brush across it.
The way he disregarded Chris’s intense stare was provocative in itself.
‘This is maddening.’
When he reached the last button, Yuri inwardly suppressed a laugh.
He couldn’t even wait a moment, tearing off his own clothes using telekinesis, but now he sits still no matter how slowly Yuri moves his hands.
‘Perhaps I taught “wait” too faithfully.’
When would Chris realize that this gap drives one crazy?
Clearly, Yuri himself had lost his mind, pretending to do a sort of striptease because he wanted to see Chris cross the line.
But what did it matter?
Yuri casually threw off his clothes as if all his deliberate teasing had been a lie.
“Spread your legs, Chris.”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
