“……Thank you. Please keep up the good work.”
I bowed and went into the building. In the first-floor lobby, I stared longingly at the perfectly fine-looking elevator, then turned my feet toward the emergency stairs.
I climbed, checking the floor numbers. I’d only made it up ten floors and my thighs felt like they were about to explode, and there was still a long way to go. That was because the lunatic named Vasily lived at the very top of a sixty-story apartment building.
“I can’t just turn back like this….”
This was obviously a plan to screw me over. My thighs felt like they’d burst, so I sat on the stairs to rest for a moment. Curses rose to my lips, but I clamped my mouth shut. He had sharp ears—he might hear me.
I got up again and started up the stairs slowly. Just going up was taking forever. It felt like climbing to the top of a tower to rescue a princess kidnapped by a dragon. Except waiting for me wasn’t a princess, but a terrifying, personality-wrecked dragon.
“…What is this.”
Then a problem appeared. I started to feel a growing chill, and what spread before my eyes was a staircase frozen rock-solid. Startled, I checked the floor.
Forty-fifth floor.
Did this mean I had to crawl the remaining fifteen floors?
“Looks like I’m going to risk my life just to climb stairs….”
If I slipped while going up, I’d at least get a concussion. I couldn’t give up after coming this far…. I let out a deep sigh and started up the slick steps.
If I gripped the posts beneath the handrail tight, it was more manageable than I thought. But because my pace slowed, it took longer and longer to climb each floor. And it was so cold it felt like I’d walked into an ice cave. If I’d known, I should’ve dressed warmer.
Somehow, I made it to the sixtieth floor. But an even bigger obstacle was waiting.
“…How am I supposed to open this and go in.”
The front door leading into Vasily’s home was completely frozen over.
I couldn’t possibly force it open. Vasily must have known I’d arrived, and yet he made no move to open the door. Haa… I let out a long sigh and knocked carefully.
“Esper Vasily?”
…No response. Like a corpse.
I was about to turn around and leave. To be honest, ever since I started climbing the frozen stairs, I hadn’t had the nerve to face Vasily. This made for a perfect excuse, which I welcomed.
Just how foul was his mood… With Vasily like this, I didn’t have the courage to confront him either.
Now I had the excuse that the door was frozen and I couldn’t get in, that I even knocked and got no response, so I left—so all that was left was to run.
—Bzzzt.
Just then, my pocket vibrated. I took out my phone to check—there was a text from Vasily.
[Step back.]
“…?”
No way.
A chill ran up my spine and I flung myself to the side in a panic.
Boom!
The moment I moved, the door exploded and shattered. Through the milky smoke, I saw Vasily’s silhouette.
“……”
“……”
“Ah, hello.”
I greeted him from where I’d landed, sprawled pitifully on the floor. Vasily looked down at me with cold eyes and spoke.
“Come in.”
With that, he turned and went inside. Awkwardly, I got to my feet and followed him in.
The interior was familiar. This was the very place we’d lived together in at the beginning, after we matched. We’d lived here for about a year, hadn’t we. Naturally, I had no good memories of it.
Anyway…
'There isn’t a single intact spot.'
Everything was frozen. The living room, the kitchen, the bathroom, all of it.
Vasily headed for the bedroom. Beyond the door, the inside was frozen just the same.
This place was in even worse shape than the others.
I clicked my tongue as I quietly looked around the bedroom, and saw Vasily sit on the edge of the bed. Standing awkwardly by the door, I pulled out the excuses I’d come up with in the taxi, one by one.
“Esper Vasily, I’m sorry for taking unauthorized, impulsive action in the Gate a few days ago.”
“……”
“I knew it was dangerous… but I had no way to contact you, so I couldn’t report to you and left the safe zone.”
I bowed my head as I apologized, though I wasn’t truly repentant. Even if I went back in time, I’d do the same thing. It had been the only way to save the children.
I finished speaking and snuck a glance to read Vasily’s face.
Honestly, even as I apologized, I still didn’t understand why he was angry. Was it because he’d been pleased to have a new toy, but the toy didn’t behave? As a normal person, I couldn’t parse the psychology of a madman.
Vasily stayed silent. Head lowered, showing no reaction, which only ratcheted up the tension.
Then I noticed he was pressing a hand to his forehead like his head hurt. A familiar sight. When he went too long without sleep, he’d always look like that.
“…Esper Vasily. When was the last time you slept?”
“……”
He didn’t answer, and I was sure. Ever since he fell asleep while being guided by me the other day, Vasily hadn’t slept a wink.
So it had been over a week. I quietly reeled as I recalled the date he’d last slept in front of me.
“Because it’s cold.”
“…?”
“I couldn’t sleep because it was cold.”
After a long stretch of silence, Vasily finally answered in a murmur.
I frowned as I looked around the ice-encased room. If you froze everything like this, of course it was cold.
“Then perhaps you should sleep somewhere else…”
“If I get guided, I think I can sleep. Will you guide me?”
“What?”
“Guide Kwon is warm.”
What kind of twisted logic was that…!
With an utterly ridiculous rationale, Vasily asked me to guide him. I wanted to believe he was doing this because he still wasn’t over his anger, but the look in his eyes as he watched me was deadly serious.
Haa… I guess I have no choice. I let out a shallow sigh and stepped toward him. He lifted his head from where he sat on the bed and looked up at me.
Of all places, the bed.
Given the location, I hesitated to start guiding. After a moment’s pause, I lightly embraced him. He wrapped his arms around me in turn, and soon the tension began to drain from his body.
'…He really does look in bad shape.'
The suppression chip heated faster than usual.
Normally, just looking at an over-sensitized Vasily made it feel like a razor-edged wave would crash over me, but the cold seeping into me felt weak, which was oddly unsettling. Aware of the chip warming at the back of my neck, I focused on the faint wave I could sense.
“Ugh! Esper Vasily?”
The weight of him leaning against me grew heavier and heavier, and then he toppled backward, pulling me down on top of him. Because of that, I lost my balance too, and we both fell as we clung to each other.
“E—Esper Vasily. Please let go of my arm for a moment.”
“……”
“Esper?”
I’d ended up pinning him facedown on the bed, but he didn’t care—he held me tight and tried to sleep. And it seemed he actually did fall asleep; I could hear quiet breaths from beneath me.
In the blink of an eye, I’d become a body pillow.
“……”
I squirmed for a bit, trying to slip free of his hold, but the arm wrapped around my waist showed no sign of loosening. In the end, I gave up and let my exhausted body go limp.
A shiver ran through me. The cold flowing from Vasily into me was icy enough, but with ice on every side, it felt even colder.
Once Vasily fell asleep, the ice around us slowly began to melt. Of course, the cold was so intense that the melting was slow. As expected—when Vasily slept, his ability gradually unwound too.
Drip. Drip.
With the steady patter of water and Vasily’s heavy breathing in my ear for a lullaby, I closed my eyes for a moment as well.
***
“Esper Vasily, you really need to wake up now…”
“Mmm… just one more hour.”
“…It’s already been twelve.”
“Then… just ten more minutes…”
“I’m going to freeze to death, so get up!”
It wasn’t until twelve hours later that Vasily woke up. And even then, only after I shouted that I was about to freeze to death did he stir and make a show of getting up.
He slowly sat up. He glanced at me—soaked to the skin and shivering—and then smiled brightly and greeted me.
“Did you sleep well?”
Even his tone had turned gentle at some point. Unlike Vasily, who looked in excellent shape, my body was a wreck. I screwed up my face and didn’t answer his greeting.
Vasily finally looked around at the room, which had turned into a flooded mess, and muttered,
“Ah… we can’t use this room anymore.”
He got off the bed and took in the space. With every step he took, water sloshed underfoot.