BIA Ch. 86

As soon as he took off his wet clothes, the chill finally hit him. Should he have dried himself and wrapped a blanket around him? Regretting it too late, he hunched his shoulders, and Bran, who had pulled a chair over to sit, stopped and stood up again.

He went to the kitchen cabinet on one side of the greenhouse and, opening the upper cupboard, said,

“I do have port wine… but you wouldn’t drink it anyway.”

Bran took out an electric kettle from the cupboard. Of course, he also took out the port wine. Watching Bran fill the electric kettle with water and start to boil it, Isaiah asked in a serious voice.

“Do you live here by any chance? How do you know your way around so well?”

“Because Chester snores too loudly.”

Bran said nonchalantly. And then, taking out wine glasses from the cupboard again, he added, “Just kidding.”

“I’ve been invited to tea a few times.”

“A few times?”

“Grace likes me that much.”

It seemed so. This man would have succeeded even if he had become a gigolo.

Bran poured wine into the wine glasses until they were almost overflowing. He drank about half of it and then filled them up again. In the meantime, the water in the electric kettle had finished boiling. Without asking Isaiah, Bran opened one of the tin cases on the shelf and threw a tea bag into a teacup. As he poured hot water over it, the fresh scent of lemon and the sharp scent of ginger spread throughout the greenhouse.

“Here.”

Bran handed the teacup to Isaiah.

“Why lemon ginger of all things?”

Isaiah asked as he took the teacup. Could it be that Isaiah Diaz liked lemon ginger? He was secretly nervous.

“Because you always drank ginger ale.”

Isaiah murmured, “Ah,” to himself. A sense of relief and a secret joy washed over him at the same time. And then, the next moment, he felt even more miserable. He hated himself for being so easily swayed by Bran’s every word. This situation, where he was jealous of himself and no one else, was also terrible.

“You don’t like lemon?”

Bran asked, as if he thought that Isaiah didn’t like the type of tea since he was just staring intently at the teacup. He pulled his chair closer and sat directly across from Isaiah, saying,

“I do have other teas.”

Isaiah hesitated for a moment before shaking his head.

“No, it’s okay.”

“Drink it. It’ll warm you up a bit.”

After saying that, Bran took a sip of port wine. Then, putting the glass down on the table next to him, he added,

“Of course, alcohol is the best for warming up the body.”

“Then isn’t your body on fire right now?”

Isaiah threw out a remark as if it were a joke. It was a jab at his excessive drinking since the evening, but Bran just crossed his legs and said nonchalantly.

“Maybe. I thought my body was hot because you were in front of me. It could be the alcohol, though.”

Isaiah, who was about to bring the teacup to his lips, raised his head and looked at Bran. When their eyes met, Bran smiled faintly as if feigning ignorance. Seeing that, the way he had been charming Hailey all evening came to mind, and he felt a surge of anger for no reason. Isaiah lowered the hand holding the teacup and said,

“Shouldn’t you have become a gigolo instead of an FBI agent? You would have been much more successful.”

Bran chuckled softly.

“I think so too.”

He reached out and picked up the wine glass he had placed on the table.

“And I would have been much happier.”

He smiled and took a sip of wine, then raised his head to look at the ceiling. Isaiah’s gaze followed his. The night sky was visible through the transparent glass ceiling. It was definitely a bright moon, and the movement of the clouds was clearly visible. There were hardly any stars. It would be cloudy tomorrow. It might rain. As Isaiah was looking at the sky, trying to gauge the weather, Bran suddenly said,

“Looking at it now, this greenhouse looks like a birdcage.”

Isaiah was a little surprised. He had thought Bran was looking at the sky like him, but apparently not. Bran was examining the framework of the greenhouse they were in, the shape of the roof that looked like the pointed top of a birdhouse. Whether he was examining it or it just caught his eye, no one could know.

“Even in a birdcage this big, the birds would feel suffocated.”

Muttering words as if to no one, Bran took another sip of wine. The light from the stove’s heating element cast shadows on one side of his face, making him look excessively alluring. At the same time, he felt utterly cynical.

It was the first time Isaiah had seen Bran’s face looking so gloomy. He didn’t like this. Bran always had to be confident and arrogant. That suited him. He had to shine even in the darkness, and he had to be beautiful even when stained with blood. His god deserved that much.

“Bran.”

Isaiah impulsively called Bran’s name. Bran put the wine glass down on the table and blinked as if to say, ‘Go on.’ Isaiah hesitated for a moment before saying,

“I don’t know what you think, but I didn’t think the birdcage I was in was so bad.”

“You just want to believe that.”

Bran chuckled. Isaiah felt a little hurt by the blatant sneer. He was about to ask what grounds he had for making such a judgment, but then a thought that belatedly crossed his mind made him immediately curse.

“If Isaiah Diaz said something, forget it. He’s not me.”

“Why isn’t he you?”

“Because I don’t remember—”

“Let’s say you have somnambulism and talked to me while you were sleeping.”

Bran interrupted Isaiah.

“Then is that someone else and not you? Because it’s not in your memory? If you confess something under the influence of truth serum and lose your mind, does that mean the things you said aren’t your words? Because you don’t remember it?”

“……”

He felt like it was a different situation, but since he didn’t have any related knowledge in this area, he couldn’t possibly argue back. Bran looked at Isaiah, who couldn’t even open his mouth, and smiled mischievously before picking up his wine glass again.

“Isaiah Diaz didn’t say a word about that birdcage. I only know what I heard directly from you, so rest assured.”

“What?”

Isaiah’s eyes widened. He looked at Bran with an expression that said, ‘When did I say what?’ Bran said, as if he had already forgotten,

“You said you sleep with a gun under your pillow every night.”

“Ah.” Isaiah muttered quietly.

“If that birdcage wasn’t really that bad, you wouldn’t have slept like that.”

Bran spat out the words and then downed the rest of the wine in one go. And then he immediately got up from his seat. Isaiah listened to the sound of Bran approaching the cupboard and let out a light sigh.

“It wasn’t bad. That too.”

“Not bad?”

Bran asked back, opening the cupboard door. Even without looking, he could picture the face that was surely smiling with disbelief.

“Yeah.”

Isaiah answered, tapping the ground with the toe of his boot.

“That’s also a fear you can feel because you’re alive.”

Unlike the frozen ground outside, the dirt floor of the greenhouse was quite soft. It was probably because it had absorbed a lot of sunlight and heat during the day. The glass greenhouse, resembling a birdcage, also acted as a protective barrier that prevented the absorbed heat from escaping.

“I actually think I died once twenty years ago.”

He had only touched the ground a few times as if tamping it, but his boots quickly got dirty. It was because his boots were wet. Realizing that, he finally felt a slight chill in his feet. But that chilling sensation was also a sensation he could feel because he was alive. Isaiah curled his toes inside his boots and said,

“Now I live each day thinking that it doesn’t matter when I die, but back then I lived each day only wanting to die quickly.”

“So, it’s like you were already dead back then?”

Bran asked, closing the cupboard door.

“That’s right.”

After answering, Isaiah took a sip of tea. The sour and sweet tastes reached his tongue first, followed by the warm temperature flowing down his throat. Finally, the fresh and sharp scents filled his nose. They were all proof that he was alive. They were all sensations he could feel because he was alive.

“But you’re alive now.”

Bran sat in the chair opposite him, holding a wine glass.

“Yeah.”

Isaiah answered briefly. Then, he raised his head, looked at Bran’s face in front of him, and said,

“Because you saved me.”

He didn’t bother to say that he had taken away the bugs that were eating away at his body and told him the true meaning of his name. Because Bran would know it all anyway.

Indeed, he didn’t ask how he had saved him. He just drank quietly. Bran, who had filled his glass with wine again, drank almost half of it in one go and then put the glass down on the table.

“And now you’re going to kill me.”

Huh? Bran smiled as if it were amusing.

“Thanks to me, you’re alive again, but since you have to live in a birdcage forever, you have no choice but to do whatever the person who gives you that damn birdseed tells you to do. Is that it?”

Bran seemed angry. But the direction of his anger was a little unexpected. It wasn’t that he was angry that Isaiah was trying to kill him, but that he was angry that he wasn’t trying to escape the birdcage no matter what. That was the nuance of it.

It couldn’t be helped. Yes, it was something that couldn’t be helped.

Instead, he wanted to correct just one fact that he was mistaken about.

Isaiah put the teacup down on the stove and said,

“No, I’m not going to kill you.”