CAR 18

For a while, even when he tried to sleep, it was far from a sound sleep. Dennis couldn’t help but suspect that his head was inviting insomnia in a desperate attempt to refuse to accumulate unrealistic situations. He was slumped on the sheets, trying hard to put his consciousness to sleep.

Someone knocked on the door.

Dennis, who had instinctively gotten up, approached the door. Here, no one could rush him, but it was just an old habit. Quachi extremely disliked Dennis delaying even a little. For he measured all time in value. Being so impatient, he would have probably trampled his own father on the wall without even looking around.

Dennis, having finished his brief reminiscence, placed his hand on the doorknob.

‘Don’t open it.’

He whispered into his ear.

To his right was a desk, to his left a blank wall with nothing. That was all. So, the auditory hallucination must also be part of the dream. Dennis tried to calm his grogginess, but his mind was clouded like a drug addict. He pushed the door open.

Vittorio stood in the doorway.

As if to prove that this situation was a dream, he was wet from head to toe. Vittorio had an indifferent face, like a god just pulled from the sea.

He held both hands behind his back, then extended his intact left hand. On it lay Vittorio’s silk handkerchief. The cloth that had covered Laurent’s face. Dennis squinted his eyes with bewilderment and an unrealistic sensation.

Surely that had been… handed to Sami. Vittorio had no way of knowing its path, yet it felt strangely ominous that it had returned to him like a boomerang. When Dennis stood there idly without taking it, Vittorio tilted his head.

Then he carefully folded the handkerchief in half and tucked it into Dennis’s pants pocket. The large hand moved past the pants pocket towards Dennis’s backside. For a long time, he silently massaged both cheeks of Dennis’s rear alternately. He was truly an unexpected fellow.

Vittorio, shaking off the water, closed the distance with Dennis. Dennis held onto the door. He planned to shut it roughly and block him. As if he knew, Vittorio thrust his leg in. Dennis had intended to crush his leg, but Vittorio seemed unconcerned, not afraid at all.

Wasn’t he a dancer? On the contrary, Dennis was the one who was scared. In the end, he couldn’t close the door.

“Dennis Kahler.”

“…”

“Dennis Kahler, Dennis Kahler, Dennis Kahler, Dennis Kahler, Dennis Kahler, Dennis Kahler…”

It was a total of seven calls. Vittorio now even tried to make fun of someone else’s name. A long shiver ran down Dennis’s spine, so he unconsciously hunched his upper body. When Vittorio twisted his body, raindrops fell like a shower.

“I’ll be away from school for a while.”

“…Why do you need to tell me that?”

“I thought you were drunk, but you’re sober.”

“Just get to the point and get lost.”

“Don’t be so cold. It just excites me more.”

Vittorio’s large hand gripped Dennis’s jaw. He merely looked down at Dennis without a word. Even with just that, his whole body felt cold.

His flat-cut fingernails and deep fingerprints traced Dennis’s mouth. His fingers moved up his cheek and lingered on the mole under Dennis’s eye for a long time. It was enough to be seized by the illusion that it would wear away.

“I’ll be back before the performance, so enjoy your freedom.”

“How very kind of you.”

He had an extremely affectionate face, as if he were speaking to his wife. It was completely different from when he would urinate on Dennis’s lower body. Dennis couldn’t tell which was his true self. Dennis shook his head and pushed his hand away.

“How sharp.”

Every word he used was a great insult to Dennis. He no longer wanted to face Vittorio. Vittorio, who had called Dennis back once more as he was about to turn back into the room, licked the corner of his mouth with his tongue.

“When I come back, I’ll definitely take you.”

“Crazy bastard.”

“I told you it excites me.”

When Dennis clamped his mouth shut like a clam, Vittorio burst into laughter. He leaned his head against the doorframe and continued speaking.

“Tell Quachi.”

“…What?”

“Your master, I mean.”

There was no excuse he could make. Master and dog. Besides that, there were no other words to describe the relationship between Quachi and himself.

“Tell him Vittorio Bonaparte is leaving the fortress and going to the mainland.”

“…What’s your game?”

“The game of sleeping with Mr. Kahler.”

“Damn it.”

He felt like spitting. But Vittorio would probably lick that up too, so he didn’t want to show any agitation in front of him.

As if he had said all he needed to say, Vittorio stood up. He had kept his right arm hidden behind him the whole time. Dennis looked with hopeful eyes, wondering if it had been cut off, but unfortunately, it seemed to be fully attached.

Vittorio, who was walking down the hallway, suddenly came back to Dennis. He asked curtly.

“I want to know if Quachi screams when he’s being penetrated, or if he’s the one doing the penetrating.”

“…What?”

“Sweet dreams, Kahler.”

The next day, Dennis belatedly realized that yesterday’s encounter was reality, not a dream. This was because Vittorio’s handkerchief fell out when he took off his pajamas.

He tossed Vittorio’s handkerchief into the trash can. But this time, fearing it might return, he roughly stuffed it into his suit pants to cut it up completely.

He then immediately sent a telegram to Quachi. Unlike Quachi’s passionate cards, his sons were not allowed to send letters longer than three lines. Not only would he not read them, but they weren’t actual father and son. Quachi was greatly annoyed by his sons acting spoiled.

[The prince is going to the mainland.

The purpose is probably treatment and rehabilitation.]

Seeing that he never revealed his right arm, Dennis figured he would also receive treatment for his right hand in addition to his ankle. In any case, it was a significant blow. Having realized that he wasn’t an alien being from whom not a drop of blood would spill even if pricked, the next target was his neck or head.

Before the returning Vittorio could take him, Dennis planned to slit his throat first. Dennis was planning a very, very quiet murder.

The school was enjoying its last holiday before the performance. On holidays, they would either hole up in their respective practice rooms or not come out of their rooms at all. The hallway was eerily silent, and the teachers had also disappeared.

Dennis, having sent the telegram, headed to the faculty office. By now, the spare clothes he had ordered must have arrived. He freely crossed the empty hallway, enjoying the peace he hadn’t experienced in a long time. The yellowish midday sun followed Dennis through the large window.

He encountered ‘it’ in the last hallway leading to the faculty office. A young man with platinum blonde hair was looking into the faculty office.

Dennis simply tried to pass him by. Although not outwardly expressed, the students here harbored a slight hostility towards Dennis.

It might have been Yan’s nonsense, but it was said that some of them firmly claimed that Dennis was a former prostitute who had warmed someone’s bed and been illicitly appointed to his position.

Therefore, he especially didn’t want to talk to the students. They, too, being of noble birth, must have been quite displeased with the situation of calling Dennis “teacher.”

Rather, Vittorio, who meticulously used the title “teacher” to mock Dennis, was an exceptional kind of person.

‘Teacher.’

Someone called Dennis. It was a husky voice, scattered like fog and low.

Dennis knew this voice. There was no way he could forget it.

The platinum blonde young man slowly turned around. His neck was twisted. As Dennis became aware of it, he tried to properly reattach his own neck with both hands.

It was Eric.

More precisely, Eric’s ghost, a hallucination, Dennis’s psychopathological problem… In any case, it was a kind of insubstantial specter.

Nevertheless, it came clearly. Eric, with his twisted neck, smiled brightly and linked his arm through Dennis’s.

‘Vittorio is scary.’

Eric trembled. Every time he trembled, his head shook. The joint between his neck and head was so loose that its fall was questionable. It was bruised blue, and his cervical vertebrae protruded. Faced with the distorted illusion of Eric, Dennis instinctively stepped backward.

‘You’re scared too, aren’t you, teacher?’

Dennis didn’t answer. Because it was just an illusion. He turned away from it coldly.

‘So instead of Vittorio… you made me like this, didn’t you?’

Eric’s two hands gripped Dennis’s shoulders. His body felt heavy, as if he were having a nightmare. Dennis twisted his arms, trying to move his fingertips somehow.

The faculty office door opened at that moment. Yan and Thomer came out side-by-side from inside. They seemed quite surprised to see Dennis standing idly in front of the faculty office.

Dennis slowly turned his head. Looking back, Eric’s illusion was nowhere to be seen. Dennis’s knees buckled, drained of energy. Yan supported and embraced such a Dennis.

Dennis barely managed to avoid losing consciousness. Dennis, who had fallen in an unseemly manner, struggled to get up. Yan, however, did not let go of Dennis.

If Vittorio was a beast, Yan was closer to a carnivorous plant.

Yan, who kindly tidied Dennis’s suddenly damp bangs, was doubly bothersome today. Perhaps it was also because Thomer, the supplies manager, was looking intently at him and Yan alternately.

“Your condition recently has been quite…”

“…I apologize.”