By Zephyria 
“I’ve been wondering about it ever since. Why only you and I can enter that Ruins. I knew there must be a reason, but I didn’t think about it too deeply.”
It was because he thought there would be no answer no matter how much he pondered the unknown phenomenon alone. Besides, Aska seemed to know something, so he just let it go.
Very simply, it was because he believed that Aska would never harm him. No, to be precise, not him, but them.
He believed that if there was anything that would negatively affect their future, Aska would have told him. But his expectations were completely wrong.
“You knew it back then, didn’t you? How I got into that Ruins. And the reason why I see hallucinations that I don’t know if they’re dreams or reality, and why I can read books written in languages I’ve never seen before.”
So, if Aska’s biometric information had been registered in that Ruins a long time ago, and that’s why only they could go there…
In the past, Aska, despite being young, opened his chest and directly compressed his heart. Seeing how naturally such a young child did such a thing, he would now be capable of much more advanced surgery.
Even transplanting some of his organs into him.
“What the hell did you do to my body?”
As he sorted out his thoughts, he suddenly felt a surge of anger again. At the same time, he couldn’t help but get goosebumps. It was a physiological revulsion at the fact that a part of someone else had taken root inside his skin without him knowing.
If he hadn’t noticed something strange, he would have remained ignorant until now. Aska would never have told him first.
“I didn’t do anything bad.”
Aska, who couldn’t hide his embarrassment at the time and just stared at him, stammered. He stared blankly at Aska’s twitching lips. When he was collapsed, he was pale and looked like a corpse, but now he had his usual complexion.
Even as he was angry, he thought it was a relief and said,
“It’s not about whether it’s good or bad. Why are you putting things into my body without my permission?”
“You said it’s okay to put anything in without permission.”
“……”
The atmosphere, as sharp as a knife, instantly became awkward. It was something he had said in bed. Under normal circumstances, he would have laughed it off, but it was absurd to joke in this situation.
Besides, their first time was after moving to the Ruins. So it was certain that Aska had already done something to his body before that.
“Are you kidding me?”
When he became serious, Aska’s expression quickly turned sullen. It seemed he was trying to gloss over it with his usual charm. But this was not a matter to be taken lightly.
“Do you think I’ll let you off just because you’re pouting?”
As he frowned, Pipi, who was rolling his eyes and didn’t know what to do, gradually shrank in size.
—Pee-yoong…….
Then, he quietly moved away without a sound and soon disappeared up the stairs. Aska could only stare blankly at the spot where Pipi had run away, like a child left alone.
Now they were really alone. He pressed his throbbing head with his fingertips and sighed.
“I’m asking you seriously now. I’m barely holding back my anger, so answer me properly. What did you do to my body?”
He felt like he knew to some extent, but he wanted to hear it directly from Aska. And he hoped that his expectations would be wrong.
He gave Aska, who kept hesitating, a final warning.
“Answer me when I’m asking nicely.”
“What are you going to do if I don’t answer? Are you going to get angry?”
Even though he already knew this much and asked, he still had no intention of telling him? At this point, he was beyond angry and just dumbfounded.
Seeing Aska looking at him, trying to find a way out, he had no choice but to warn him more directly.
“I’m going to open my chest right now and see what’s inside.”
“What?”
“I’m going to cut open my chest with a sword, break and tear apart every single rib, and see with my own two eyes what’s inside.”
“……”
This was neither a threat nor intimidation. It was the plain truth. Even now, he wanted to check it himself rather than just asking Aska.
The only reason he wasn’t doing it was because of Aska. For Aska’s sake, who would be more distressed than him if he got hurt and bled.
“Are you crazy?”
“I don’t die anyway, so why?”
At his words, Aska’s expression was already distorted like someone who had been deeply hurt.
“Don’t talk like that! Why do you always……!”
As soon as he heard Aska shout, he couldn’t bear it and raised his voice as well. As he stood up, the robe covering his body fell to the floor.
He felt the cold air and his fine hairs stood on end, but that was it. There was no coughing, no convulsions, and his muscles didn’t stiffen. Nothing hurt.
That fact made him even more agitated.
“I can’t die no matter what I do! No matter how much blood I lose or how much I get hurt! Even if my head is smashed right now, I’ll just faint for a moment and wake up perfectly fine!”
Had he ever been this angry at Aska before? Probably not. How could he raise his voice at Aska, who would tremble like a leaf in a storm even if he was just slightly upset?
Even now, Aska looked as shocked as if he had seen his corpse. But the emotions that had been suppressed for so long did not subside easily.
“Aska.”
Irritation and anger soared to the top of his head. Along with the sudden surge of violence, he loosened his grip on his clenched fist. If he lost his mind even a little, he felt like he would run outside and start stabbing people.
“Whatever you put inside my body, that’s not really the important thing. What I’m curious about is what kind of difficulties you’re experiencing because of it. Do you understand what I mean?”
When he thought about it, he had already received semen in his stomach several times, so what would be so different about something else entering?
“You’re not even healing from your injuries, are you? You’re just hiding it with some method right now, aren’t you? Take it off, that thin membrane-like thing.”
Now it was almost certain. Something of a very thin material that he couldn’t explain in words was stuck to Aska’s body like rags.
It was so identical to real skin that it was impossible to distinguish, and even the texture felt perfectly normal when touched. It wasn’t just a simple touch, but he had copulated, sucked, and licked several times, yet he couldn’t feel anything strange.
Then Aska, with an almost tearful face, finally confessed.
“It’s true that I put something in your body. And it’s also true that it’s because of that that you were able to enter the Ruins.”
“What did you put in? Stop making me ask the same useless questions and tell me properly from the beginning. Don’t try to gloss over it.”
As he frowned and spoke, an even greater shock appeared on Aska’s face, which he thought couldn’t be shocked any further. On the other hand, he couldn’t help but be dumbfounded by Aska’s excessive reaction.
It wasn’t like the world had turned upside down, was it really that hurtful to just get angry and tell him to speak properly?
“Okay, I’ll tell you. I’m going to tell you.”
Aska muttered, looking down at the floor. He seemed to have made up his mind, so he didn’t urge him any further and waited quietly.
Aska didn’t look at him and kept looking at the floor, took a few breaths, and then opened his mouth.
“First of all, I didn’t do it on purpose, and I did it because I had no other choice. I felt like I was going to die if I left it like this…….”
“What did you put in?”
He asked again because Aska was changing the subject again. At his sighing rebuke, Aska’s eyes began to turn redder and redder.
“My heart…….”
As the expected words flowed out, his vision blurred.
“Then you don’t have a heart right now? How are you alive without a heart?”
“Maybe it’s because I’m a monster.”
Aska muttered, glaring at him. Tears were welling up in his bloodshot eyes.
“To keep it from drying out when I took it out of my body, I had to keep my consciousness, but as soon as I got here, so many memories suddenly came flooding back…….”
As Aska’s sobbing grew worse, his speech began to slur. The moisture, hanging precariously as if it would fall with just a touch, almost covered Aska’s entire eyeball.
“My heart stopped while I was briefly unconscious. So you were sick again too…….”
It was getting harder and harder to understand Aska’s words as he continued to pant.
So, his body wasn’t completely healed and fine, but it was just barely maintaining its condition without pain because of Aska’s heart? But Aska lost consciousness and his own heart inside his body stopped working for a moment?
Then what Aska did to him wasn’t treatment…….
“I tried to replace it with something easier to handle than a heart, but there was nothing as good as that.”
“What’s so good about it?”
“Life force……. Ha.”
Aska, who had been stammering, lowered his head as he let out a trembling breath, and tears began to fall. They fell endlessly, like a faucet that wasn’t fully closed.
He wanted to comfort Aska, but he couldn’t move. Of course. If what he understood was correct, then he was sucking Aska’s life force like a leech and prolonging his life.
“If I go into a state of suspended animation where my physical activity completely stops, not just sleeping or something like that, then, eugh…….”
Aska’s voice broke as he struggled to speak.
“My heart, stops……. So that’s why you……. This…….”
“…….”
“Is this, is this something to get so angry about?”
Aska’s sobbing face was full of injustice.
“For you to get so angry at me……. Is it something to get angry about? To yell at me and threaten me, ribs……. Thre…….”
Aska, who was sobbing and mumbling in a trembling voice, raised his hand and covered his face.