TCWGRF 27

‘Ah…!’

When Isaac grasped hold of the thread of consciousness he had let go of, the first thing he realized was that the world was still dark, and that he was lying alone, occupying the Superintendent General’s bed.

“Ugh.”

As he hastily raised his battered body, which felt as if it had been severely beaten, he saw the Superintendent General sitting on the sofa. Perhaps he had just come out of the shower; his golden hair was still wet and hung limply, and his gown was loosely draped over him.

“Come here.”

Since he had called, Isaac had to get up somehow. A pain spread through him as if his insides were falling out, and a pained groan escaped him on its own, but the right thing to do was to approach as if nothing was wrong and wait for his next words.

However, he did not have the confidence to stand there naked, so after a moment’s thought, he decided to pull the thin blanket and wrap it around his body. Dragging the edge of the fabric on the floor, he stood before the Superintendent General with a limping gait.

On the antique wooden coffee table situated between the two sofas was a meal for one person. Today’s menu, likely brought by Walter, was a glass of milk and thick slices of bread dipped in egg wash and toasted, placed appetizingly on a silver tray.

“Sit.”

He gestured toward Isaac with his chin, then drank alcohol himself instead of eating.

He did not know if it was really all right to sit on the sofa, or if anything would go down his throat with him sitting across from him, but his body moved as the other man ordered, carefully settling onto the green sofa.

Stepping into the space he had failed to reach last time, where he had fallen and flailed right in front of it, he was overcome with a strange feeling. After eating while sitting on the floor like a dog, sitting in a place that had only been permitted to the Superintendent General felt like he was receiving a great privilege.

Should he interpret this as a sign that he would be spared? If not that, then….

“Eat.”

His stomach, having starved for a full day, roared loudly at the sight of the appetizing food, but he did not want to eat anything. A nauseating taste still lingered at the root of his tongue. It was because during their lovemaking last night, the Superintendent General had ordered him to swallow his bodily fluids.

I think I’d be fine with water. But the only thing to drink on the tray was milk. Out in the world, these were precious foods people could not get enough of, yet it seemed he could not swallow a single sip.

Glancing over, the other man did not give him a single look. Could he say he did not want to, that he had no appetite right now? No, no. There was no way that was possible.

With a listless hand, Isaac picked up the fork and pretended to eat by cutting off a very small piece of the corner of the bread and putting it in his mouth. Then, he lightly wet his lips with the milk, whose color alone induced nausea.

At first, he had thought there was nothing softer or more delicious in the entire world, but now, he could not taste anything on the tip of his tongue. It was as if he were holding gritty sand in his mouth; he had to chew a small piece for a long time just to be able to swallow it.

All the while, wary of Samuel’s mood, Isaac could not put down his fork and made a show of pecking at his food several times. Finishing the plate seemed a distant task, but shouldn’t he force it down somehow? The uncomfortable rhythm tapped out by the liquor glass and fingertips was growing faster and faster.

Gag, gag. He stuffed his cheeks with bread until they were bursting and gulped down the milk while holding his breath. When the plate was more or less empty, the Superintendent General, who had been silently swirling his glass, began to speak.

“I can spare your life, and I can find that person you’re so desperate for.”

“……”

“And not the fake one, but the real one.”

“…!”

He let it be known that he had seen through the prisoner’s lie, yet he drained the clear, strong liquid at the bottom of the glass as if it were nothing, without so much as a frown.

So far, there had been no beatings, curses, or sadistic acts. There was no death either. All he did was look at him from across the table and put down the glass he was holding with a clack.

In that time, Isaac, his face ashen, tried with all his might to place the fork he was holding with a trembling hand back on the tray without dropping it.

“Now, what should you do?”

“…I, I…”

This was definitely the last time. He knew there would absolutely be no next time, that the other man was not a being who possessed that much patience.

His eyes held no human-like emotion whatsoever. Only interest, a temporary inquiry into an incomprehensible being, and curiosity toward a struggling, weak animal.

This was, in its own way, a form of mercy. A paltry mercy for a prisoner who had offered up his very rock bottom for the sake of survival. It was also an opportunity he would not have gotten if he had not taken off his clothes in front of him, if he had not obediently accepted him into his body.

“So, so I…”

He knew everything, yet he did not reveal it, pushing Isaac until he would cling to him in desperation. There was no way he could be a match for the Superintendent General, a masterful hunter and a butcher, so why had he thought he could buy time against him, that he could deceive him? Daring to do so, at that.

“I…”

Unlike the calm blue eyes, a fierce storm raged in the grayish ones. In an instant, his mind went stiff and his tongue grew rigid, so he could not utter a single letter of the answer to the question he had been asked.

Instead, tears he thought had dried up streamed down his face, and his whole body shivered uncontrollably as if battling an intense cold.

Ha, tsk. A sigh mixed with annoyance and a clicking of the tongue were heard, and the Superintendent General rose from his seat, stepped onto the coffee table with one foot, and leaned in as if to reach Isaac.

There was no gentle comfort, no wiping away of tears or embrace of his trembling shoulders. His hand slowly approached his face, and then he slapped him hard across the cheek.

“Now. Isaac?”

His head whipped to the side, and a stinging pain belatedly spread across his face. He did not even know why he had been hit, or when. The best he could do was to answer the man who called his name in a gentle voice, albeit in a daze.

“Yes, yes…”

“I don’t like it when things are frustrating. You know that, right?”

He smiled. His reddish lips drew a fresh, clear line, and Isaac, too, with his split lip, awkwardly yet reflexively mimicked his smile and nodded.

“You have to confess honestly, don’t you? Be a good boy.”

Creak. The coffee table, bearing more weight than necessary, screamed, but Samuel paid it no mind and shifted his center of gravity further forward, grasping Isaac’s chin, which had been busily bobbing up and down. It was as if he were now checking how badly he was hurt, turning it from side to side after having hit him himself.

“Surely, you don’t want to go to the basement again, do you?”

This time, he had to shake his head. But his chin, which kept trying to hide between his shrunken shoulders, was held high by the Superintendent General, making it impossible to control. Squeezing a thin voice from his trembling body, he barely managed to utter the word, ‘No.’

“That’s right. That’s how it should be.”

He let out a satisfied laugh, released the hand that had been gripping his face, and returned to his original seat.

Isaac swallowed the welling tears down his throat along with his saliva and tried to smile as best he could to please the other man, but he could not tell if he was smiling properly.

The belated interrogation of the prisoner confined to the official residence followed immediately. The process was graciously handled by the Superintendent General himself.

There was not much to ask. Just who he was really trying to find, and what the basis was for his boast that he knew about the rebel leader.

“Outside the city, there are several camps…”

It seemed our prisoner was born and raised in one of the rebel camps scattered sporadically outside.

He must have been one of the rejects who were not selected as comrades of the rebels, an orphan who handled all the menial chores. Ah, was that why he had so desperately denied being a rebel?

“The, the leader originally appeared and disappeared as he pleased, but there was a day he always came every year.”

“Is that so?”

“On December 14th, always…”

“What’s so special about that day?”

“A special, birthday…”

“A birthday?”

“……”

Despite being thoroughly intimidated, whenever the story turned to his friend, the prisoner would once again clamp his mouth shut and cast anxious glances, as if afraid of being dragged to the basement.

It was puzzling that even while begging for his life with his whole body, he would shut his mouth to protect one person. Was it some silly sense of loyalty, or what? Samuel wanted to press him, even yell at him right away, but he also knew how to moderately coax and placate a prisoner to get what he wanted.

“Aren’t you curious if your friend is alive?”

“……”

“While you hesitate. Your friend could be stuck in a sewer at the edge of the city, dying, or could have already been captured and be getting tortured in the basement.”

“N-no. I, I was wrong…”

Oh my. Seeing his violently shaken eyes, it was clear he had only ever imagined his friend was either dead or perfectly fine, and had never considered that he might be in the middle of a gruesome death.

The prisoner, realizing that keeping his mouth shut and protecting the secret to the end was not the only way, finally let out the name ‘Asher’ with an exhale in a barely audible voice. And then he burst into tears, crying, ‘Please, can’t you save him too?’

“…We’ll see.”

How greedy. Asking him to save not only his own life, but his friend’s life as well.

But thanks to that, the interrogation ended early. It was because Samuel became aroused by the man who could do nothing but cry helplessly while obediently spewing out everything he knew.

The body that trembled faintly at every touch, the eyes and heart that had given up everything and broken in helpless terror, excited Samuel.

This selfless desire he had never possessed was what excited him.

“Haah.”

There was not even time to move to the bed. He snatched away the carelessly wrapped blanket, threw it aside, and toppled him on the sofa, ramming his member right into the ruined inner walls.

Until Sarah later came to inform him from outside that there was an important report, Samuel came again and again inside the man who sobbed and wailed, begging to be spared.