Chapter 25

A white horse resembling the snowy fields of Siberia snorted softly. Pfoo, pfoo, white breath scattered into the air from its nostrils.

The villa keeper, who had led over two white horses side by side, brought the slightly smaller one toward her.

“It’s the foal of the horse Madam used to ride.”

The elderly man added the explanation curtly. Since they would be going a little farther out, they decided to leave the hunting dogs behind and have only the two of them go.

She slung the gun with the leather strap over her shoulder and placed into the saddlebag the jerky Anton had prepared, which she could chew while riding if she got hungry, along with sandwiches wrapped in plastic.

Karlena’s clothes did not fit her. They were loose on her, so she had to fold them over several times. But the warmth was excellent, and with no other choice, Gayeon decided to wear them anyway.

“Pull this up here. Branches might brush against you.”

“I’ve hunted in forests too, so I know that much.”

“So you won’t get hurt. If you get aroused while riding, it feels like that part is going to split apart. Every time the horse runs, it feels like it’s biting down on the d*ck.”

Even the tips of Gayeon’s ears turned red.

“Did you imagine it?”

She could imagine it. The problem was that in that imagination, Kiril riding the horse was n*ked. She had seen this man n*ked far too often. In truth, there had not really been a single day when she had not seen him.

She was afraid that at this rate, if he asked her to have s*x next time, she might nod as if it were nothing.

“I think you imagined something even dirtier than I did.”

With an untroubled face, he rubbed the exposed tip of Gayeon’s ear with his hand.

“Which way should we go?”

Forcing herself to change the subject, Gayeon looked toward the forest, already growing dark. He had said it was a good day for hunting, but from what she could see, it was nothing of the sort.

The sullen sky had clouds moving quickly as though it might pour something down at any moment, and the wind blew as if it would slice the exposed skin outside.

Since Russia was originally this kind of place, perhaps adapting was the right thing to do, but in truth, on a day like this, she did not want to go outside.

Kiril pointed toward a very dark path among the several trails leading into the forest.

“Twenty kilometers west from here is a wild tiger habitat. Over there is a reindeer habitat.”

The places he pointed to felt close enough to one another to be unsettling. A bear had not been enough, and now it seemed she might face a tiger too. When Gayeon tightly gripped the handle of the gun slung over her shoulder, Kiril laughed low.

“I’ll give you a reindeer head as a gift.”

“What?”

When Gayeon asked back, eyes wide, he said,

“A long time ago, the nomads who wandered around this area used to cut off a reindeer’s head and give it to someone as a gift.”

“What kind of someone?”

“Someone they were courting. Someone they wanted to sleep with.”

Straightening Gayeon’s slightly crooked hat, he lifted her in one motion and set her on the saddle.

“And someone they wanted to plant their seed in.”

“……I understand that you must be very confused because I’m the only woman near you right now, but……”

“Would that be so wrong?”

“Yes, well, that is……”

Kiril was holding the horse by the neck and looking up at Gayeon. His eyes were like the gray sky reflected in a windowpane. She realized for the first time that eyes could shine this cleanly.

“The truth is, I also don’t really have anyone…… around me…… so I don’t know very well.”

Elin was the only person Lloyd had never touched. Perhaps because she had raised him since childhood, maybe he had not been able to bring himself to kill her.

Afraid someone might die because of her, Gayeon could not even go alone to buy coffee, nor could she speak to anyone directly. Everything had to be said through Elin.

He was the first unfamiliar stranger she had spoken with in a long time.

“I think you might die too.”

If she could not escape anyway, then she thought it might be fine to drag him into it too, and in truth, if both of them ended up destroying themselves, that would be fine as well.

That thought had changed after she saw the small box he had brought out of the general store.

“So stay right by my side.”

Kiril phrased it indirectly, that he himself would not die. And then he added something chilling.

“So that even if I go to hell, I can drag you with me.”

“Why am I going to hell with you too?”

“Because you’re the only one close to me.”

The face of the man speaking so sweetly, as though making a proposal, looked bright and innocent. He handed the reins to Gayeon and mounted his own horse.

He lightly drove his heel into the horse’s side. As though it had been waiting, the vast birch forest swallowed the man in an instant. Gayeon watched his back for a moment, then hurriedly kicked her horse’s side and followed after him.

A sharp wind brushed past her ears.

The horses ran through the dense forest, stepping over snow that had remained unmelted in the shade. Kiril rode ahead, slowing down from time to time so that she could keep up.

At first the cold in her eyes had been so sharp that it was hard to keep them open, but as time passed she gradually grew used to it, and now she could even look around her.

The forest that had looked dark from outside was even darker once they entered it. It felt as though something might leap out from that pitch-black interior, and Gayeon forced herself to keep her eyes on Kiril’s back.

Neigh!

Then, once they had gone a little deeper into the forest, she saw his horse standing in the distance.

“From here on, we have to walk.”

“We’re tying the horses up?”

“We should send them back.”

Before she even had time to think it was strange, Kiril lifted Gayeon down, and before she could stop him, he kicked the horse on the hindquarters and sent it away.

“We rode pretty far on horseback. How are we supposed to get back?”

“Anton will send them again.”

“I thought we were just going to hunt for a little while and then head back.”

“To catch the best prey, you have to be patient.”

“……I thought you said your patience was short.”

“Forget that.”

Kiril had taken back what he said. Just as he had said, what lay ahead looked like rougher and harsher ground. Truly, this was exactly as far as they could have come on horseback. If they tied the horses in the forest, it felt as though they would be helpless against an attack from wild beasts, so Gayeon caught hold of his hand.

Come to think of it, while all she carried was one bag of food, the backpack he was carrying was fairly large.

“Only step where I step.”

Thinking it must be because it was slippery, Gayeon stepped exactly into the tracks Kiril had left behind. Footprints bigger than hers were deeper and clearer too. Before long, weighed down by the thick layers of clothing, her body quickly grew heavy and her breath rose all the way to her throat.

“Haa…… haa……”

Only then did Kiril stop walking. He took out a thermos, poured warm coffee into a cup, and held it out to her.

“We still have quite a long way to go.”

The sun sets quickly in the forest. They had left before afternoon, yet already dusk had fallen all the way to her feet. Before she could even check the time and while she was only thinking that the sun was setting, drifting snowflakes fell from the sky and melted softly into the hot coffee.

“It’s snowing.”

“It’ll turn to rain soon.”

Drinking coffee from another cup at leisure, Kiril corrected her.

“What?”

“The weather on the plains changes quickly. It’ll probably pour down so hard you won’t be able to see an inch ahead.”

He sounded almost indifferent, as though he were talking about someone else’s business.

There were no threatening wild beasts around, and yet Gayeon felt her life was in danger. She thought that if they could not find somewhere to shelter from the rain here, she would surely freeze to death. Snowflakes fell one after another into the coffee. Gayeon drank down the hot coffee in one gulp.

“Let’s walk quickly. There has to be somewhere we can get out of the rain, right?”

“At this pace, it’ll take a long time. We won’t make it.”

The man was looking the truth squarely in the face. We really won’t make it, and he said it almost like a joke.

Shaking her head, Gayeon instead grabbed the man’s arm and urged him onward. Sprinkling the rest of his coffee onto the piled snow, Kiril started walking again.

Just as he had said, the snow soon turned into a blizzard. She could not make out even an inch ahead. Then before long, the snowflakes turned into raindrops, and it began to rain.

The ominous premonition that, in a Russian forest, caught in the rain, she might freeze to death like this became reality.

“……Kiril.”

Her clothes were soaked through in no time.

Walking had already been hard enough, and with her clothes now heavy, it felt as though she were being driven down into the ground.

She thought her thin voice must have been lost in the rain, but he turned around.

“Is it…… still far?”

She could not see the look in his eyes through the rainwater. But Kiril soon set the bag down under any bit of tree cover he could find, then knelt on one knee in front of her.

“Kiril?”

“Climb on.”

“It’ll be slippery.”

“I think it’ll be faster if I carry you.”

She wanted to refuse, but both her body and hands had gone stiff. In the coldest chill she had ever felt in her life, Gayeon was trembling violently.

When she climbed onto his back and wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, he gave a short laugh. Then he began cutting through the forest even faster than when the two of them had walked together.

To Gayeon’s eyes, it was a dark and frightening place where nothing could be seen.

On top of that, the rain made visibility unclear. But Kiril did not slip even once, and unfailingly found the places where he could step securely.

At first she stayed fully alert because she was anxious, but gradually his shifting back became comforting. The sound of his breathing, steady and regular, felt to Gayeon, with her head pressed close against his shoulder, like a lullaby.

And then she lost consciousness, sinking into a far-off darkness.