Vicious Darling

[4]

Chris’s face reddened. The name flowing from Yuri’s lips stimulated his sense of shame.

When Chris had stood before Yuri with that name after losing his memories, he had committed several foolish acts. This was because he fell in love at first sight with the owner of the bookstore “Magnolia” that he had entered casually at the place where he was dispatched for his first mission.

Not knowing that it was Yuri, Chris was instinctively drawn to his guide.

He courted him openly yet shyly, like a boy experiencing his first love. It was possible because he had lost his memories.

Yuri quite openly observed this impulsive and clumsy man.

He must have wondered what was going on when his subordinate, Chris Danil, who had disappeared one day, returned with the name Chris Northern Light. Not long after, when Yuri found out that he had no memories, for some reason, he didn’t take him back to Byakuya.

Instead, he merely watched what Chris Northern Light was doing, occasionally dropping information about Rosenhauer and the truth about the Esper Union.

‘It doesn’t seem like I was abandoned.’

Yuri has a strong sense of possession. It was the same whether it was for objects or people.

So Chris thought he was really fortunate. Thanks to that, despite being an Esper, he could remain by Yuri’s side.

Chris’s guide hates Espers. So he knew well that it was a great fortune for Yuri to keep him by his side.

“Let’s go.”

Yuri, unaware of the turmoil within Chris, spoke readily.

Outside the building, there was transportation waiting for them.

It was a mode of transport sent by Anong.

The driver merely nodded in greeting at Yuri and Chris’s appearance, without speaking. Yuri operated a terminal and handed the address of their destination to the driver, and the car departed immediately.

Chris looked out at the streets of the Summer Continent, which were much more bustling than the Winter Continent. Despite people living in the same era, the gap in development and recovery between continents had widened considerably.

It was partly because fewer people lived in the harsh Winter Continent, but it was also largely due to Rosenhauer intentionally isolating them.

‘It will be different now.’

What Chris believed in was not Northern Light, which would be normalized. What he believed in was only Yuri.

A place where ivy had grown long, covering the grayish-white bricks. The tightly closed rusty iron gate and the fallen leaves rolling around gloomily even in this weather indicated that this once magnificent building was no longer in use.

“Where is this place?”

Chris asked carefully.

“Where I used to live.”

Yuri’s purple eyes were gazing at a distant place. Chris looked at the old mansion following Yuri’s gaze, knowing that he couldn’t chase after the vision Yuri was seeing.

Yuri’s past, which he didn’t know about, existed in that house. The young child living with his parents, the boy oppressed by Rosenhauer, and finally, Yuri who decided to break free.

The driver left with the car, saying he would come when called. Yuri walked to the front gate of the house, which was no different from ruins, and gestured.

Chris used his power without any specific order. The iron chains tightly wrapped around the iron gate crumpled and then broke with a thud.

Clang! The chains fell to the ground with a heavy sound, and Chris opened the gate with his telekinesis.

The creaking sound from the unoiled joints was quite eerie. An ordinary person might have hesitated at the noise coupled with the gloomy atmosphere, but Yuri seemed unaffected.

“I was thinking of climbing over the wall, but this isn’t bad either.”

“…Ah.”

At Yuri’s words, Chris felt a moment of realization.

Since they weren’t going to stay here continuously or have a caretaker, they would need to close the gate, but he had just damaged the lock.

“I’ll tie the gate with the chains when we leave.”

“Let’s go in for now.”

There was quite a distance from the main gate to the house. The grass, which had grown wild with no one to manage it, had turned yellow in places, and weeds were abundant in what was once likely a well-tended garden. Not a single flower could be seen.

The fresh green made this ruin seem even more desolate.

Standing in front of the mansion, Yuri reached out before Chris could act, moved a flowerpot aside, and took out a brick from behind it.

Dusting off a key that looked very old, Yuri opened the door of the house he was returning to after more than a decade.

The gray dust settled on the wooden floor, cobwebs in the corners of the ceiling, fallen furniture, and broken windows all indicated the long absence of the owner.

“It’s not much of a house, but welcome.”

That voice was imbued with long-held emotions. Chris wanted to see Yuri’s expression, but all he could see from his current position was Yuri’s back.

“How does it feel to be the first guest I’ve invited?”

Turning his head for the first time, Yuri was smiling in a way that was unlike him.

“Am I… the first?”

The sensation of the distance between him and his master, which he had always thought was too far, suddenly closing was dizzying.

“Yes. Rosenhauer, that madman, couldn’t stand me associating with other people.”

Yuri murmured, seeming lost in thought, and nodded slightly.

“Once, I had to bring a classmate home for a project… He dunked me in a bathtub full of ice water. Saying my body was hot and needed to be cooled down.”

Chris blinked slowly at those words.

“He even brought a doctor who claimed I had a high fever. At that time, I really thought I was going crazy.”

This was really unlike the usual Yuri. From casually saying such things to giving long explanations.

It was as if this space had cast some sort of spell on Yuri.

Yuri laughed softly. However, Chris couldn’t be entirely happy about the smile he had seen after so long.

“Let’s go further in.”

A chilly wind followed the two into the mansion.

“Where are we going?”

Yuri answered Chris’s question.

“The Northern Light side doesn’t know anything about Rosenhauer’s secret organization. In other words, they couldn’t find anything in Rosenhauer’s residence.”

Chris nodded heavily, recalling Anong’s reaction.

Rosenhauer had been secretly ruling the Esper Union for several decades. There was no way he would have hidden his secrets just anywhere.

Rosenhauer must have thoroughly hidden his last thorns. To make a final counterattack even if everything was revealed.

“Rosenhauer used to come here and use one of my parents’ studies as his own office. It was like a kind of trophy.”

However, the paranoid ruler of the shadows was dead, and Rosenhauer’s legacy was drifting somewhere in this world like an unexploded bomb about to go off.

Yuri intended to find traces of him and erase them forever before that happened.

“There must be Rosenhauer’s records here.”

Yuri’s face was faintly reflected in the dusty window as he walked down the corridor.

Chris, following him from behind, had thought to read Yuri’s expression through that shadow, but it didn’t work out as he had hoped.

Yuri’s face was terribly expressionless.

“I’ll help.”

Yuri showed no reaction to Chris’s words.

“It’s here.”

After passing through the creaking wooden stairs, Yuri led Chris to an antique wooden door.

“Wait.”

Chris stopped Yuri as he was about to grab the doorknob and used his telekinesis to make a hole in the door.

After carefully examining the inside through the hole he had created, Chris returned to Yuri and reported.

“There doesn’t seem to be any separate device installed, so we should be able to open the door as is.”

“…Hmm.”

Yuri’s expression as he looked at the hole in the door was peculiar. It was too dry to be called a smile, but it was clearly a face with a hint of subtle enjoyment.

“Yuri? Is there a problem?”

“No.”

Yuri reached out and opened the door to the study.

“It’s nothing.”

The interior, with its blackout curtains drawn, was dark. Chris removed the curtains covering the windows.

Although untended trees had grown to cover half of the window, the light coming through the remaining half was enough to see the interior without difficulty.

The size of the study was considerable. It looked even larger than the Magnolia bookstore that Chris had frequented as a Northern Light agent dispatched to the 11th Continent.

‘The atmosphere is subtly similar.’

Wondering whether Yuri had intentionally decorated the bookstore like this or if it was a coincidence, he walked into the study.

“I’ll open the window.”

“…Alright.”

Yuri moved between the bookshelves.

His purple eyes, moving from bookshelf to bookshelf on the worn shelves that felt the passage of long years, were deeply immersed.

Yuri was silent, as if captured by a time Chris didn’t know about.

Chris, observing his back, moved as quietly as possible to the opposite side. The most important thing was guarding Yuri, but he didn’t feel any particular threat in this place. So it seemed more efficient to lend a hand in finding information about Rosenhauer.

As Chris looked around the interior of the study, he noticed that there was a door behind one of the bookshelves. Using his telekinesis to push the bookshelf aside, he discovered a tightly closed door. White dust had settled thickly on the doorframe and handle.

It showed signs of not having been touched by anyone for a long time. So much so that he thought it might not have been used long before this mansion was closed.

After hesitating, Chris carefully opened the door.

Creak.

The scratching sound characteristic of long-unoiled metal was sharp. Chris startled and looked towards Yuri, but he showed no reaction, either not having noticed or choosing to ignore it.

Chris bent down and stepped through.

The interior wasn’t the secret vault or laboratory that Chris had expected.

What he encountered was a study within a study. The height of the door was slightly low even for Chris, an adult, but the furniture inside was even more decidedly smaller.

As if he had entered a quaint fairy tale land.

The edges of the desk were finished in soft curves, and the chair could be easily pulled out. A small teddy bear wearing glasses sat in the corner of the desk, intently reading a book open on its lap.

Chris felt he knew who the owner of this place was.