Somewhere Between Hatred and Love
I couldn’t speak. My throat was raw, my voice gone. I simply stared blankly out the window, utterly hollow. I no longer knew what would become of me. That single thought consumed everything.
As if reflecting the emptiness inside me, the rain continued to pour outside. I gazed at the window for a long time. Nothing. No emotion at all. My heart had been torn to shreds so completely that nothing remained.
“...I should wash.”
I forced my exhausted body upright and dragged myself into the bathroom. I let the scalding water pour over my gaunt, scar-riddled frame. Every cut and bruise stung fiercely. Yet I simply stood there, dazed, letting the water beat against me. I pressed my forehead to the wall and remained motionless beneath the stream.
It burned. It hurt. It was unbearably hot. But my body refused to step out from under it.
Why? Just why?
Because this was the only warmth I was allowed? Because today was my last day of leave, and once I returned to the front lines I wouldn’t even glimpse hot water again? I didn’t know.
“I don’t know… I don’t know anything anymore.”
I slammed my head against the wall twice as I spoke. Crimson blood mixed with the shower water and spiraled down the drain. When I looked in the mirror, I saw that my forehead had split open and was bleeding freely.
“......”
I brought the wound under the water.
“Ugh…?!”
An excruciating pain tore through me.
“Haa… haa… hngh?!”
It hurt. It hurt so much… and yet this pain—
“I’m alive……”
It reminded me that I was still breathing. If the pain I had once longed to escape disappeared entirely, I realized I wouldn’t even be able to recognize my own life. That bleak realization wrapped around me, yet I smiled.
I was alive. No matter how agonizing, no matter how much I screamed, I was alive. No matter how much more suffering awaited me, each new torment would simply prove once again that I still existed. That truth pierced straight through my chest.
“...Then that’s enough.”
Something hot welled up in my eyes. I couldn’t tell whether it was the water from the shower or my own tears. I only knew it was hot. That was the only feeling left.
When I finally finished showering, the numb haze returned. I wondered if I was truly alive at all. My eyes fell on a knife on the table—the same one I had used yesterday while eating dessert.
“......”
Slowly, I reached out and grasped it.
“Huu… Valentine, no……”
Even as I whispered the warning to myself, I brought the blade close to my wrist. Fear. Trembling. The desperate will to live. All of it swirled inside me, clouding my mind even further, when—
Knock. Knock. Knock.
“...?”
Into the room filled only with my ragged breathing came the sound of knocking. I stared down at my uninjured, pale arm.
“......”
I had been interrupted. The thought refused to leave my head when the knocking came again.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
“Major, are you in there?”
“…!!”
The moment I heard Eryk’s voice, I staggered to the door and opened it. He stepped inside.
“…!!”
“…Ah.”
The knife in my right hand—still uncovered—must have caught his eye. Eryk’s eyes widened. I tried to hide it in a hurry, but—
“Ahk?!”
“What is this?”
Eryk yanked my arm with brutal force, preventing me from concealing the blade. A pained groan escaped me, but it did nothing to change the atmosphere.
“…Major, I will ask you once more. What is this?”
“......”
I gave no answer. I simply stared at him with a vacant face. Once again, that familiar expression settled over Eryk’s features—the one filled with disgust. It was so painful to endure that I wanted to beg him.
Please don’t look at me with those eyes.
Yet at the same time, the agony of his gaze was nothing compared to pressing an open wound under scalding water.
“…J-just a little longer… please look at me with those eyes.”
The words slipped out before I could stop them. Eryk frowned and demanded a reason.
“Why?”
“When you look at me like that, Lieutenant Colonel… it hurts. It hurts so much I can’t bear it…”
At my answer, Eryk’s expression turned puzzled.
“Then why are you asking me to look at you that way?”
“…Because it makes me feel alive.”
“......”
“When I feel pain, I know I’m still living. I must be broken.”
I already knew that much. I knew I was broken beyond repair.
“When I look at you, Lieutenant Colonel, this small heart in my chest aches unbearably.”
“It feels like it could stop at any moment. Every sharp word, every gesture strikes me like a thorn.”
More than any bullet, more than any blade, Eryk’s gaze, his tone, his every action inflicted greater torment. Realizing this at last brought me a strange joy. Because being near him always reminded me that I was alive.
“…You told me to live. So please… keep looking at me with those eyes a little longer……”
Tears spilled down my cheeks. I cried from the sorrow of being alive. I was hated by Eryk. His fierce loathing was aimed directly at me, and I lived under constant threat of death. That truth forced me to acknowledge my own existence.
Eryk remained silent the entire time I spoke, simply watching me. Was he shocked? So what? He was the one who had made me this way.
“…Major, I—”
“Don’t say anything…!!”
I exploded in anger. I glared at his bewildered, pained expression and shouted.
“You…!! You’re the one who made me like this!!”
“......”
“What’s so wrong with me being a vampire? Am I really… that filthy to you?”
I knew better than anyone how repulsive I was. That was exactly why I had begged him not to look at me that way.
“…I know!! No, I know it better than anyone!”
“Valentine—”
“Shut up! Don’t say anything!”
The tears wouldn’t stop. I had cried so much yesterday, yet they kept pouring out.
“You’ve turned me into something strange… Now, if I don’t feel pain, I can’t even tell if I’m alive……”
“......”
“Why did you do this to me…? Was it that disgusting to you that I was alive?”
I was speaking informally to my superior. My eyes were so full of tears that I could no longer see Eryk’s face. Why did my chest ache so fiercely whenever I looked at him?
“I’m sorry… for being a vampire……”
“That is not something you need to apologize for.”
“…Then am I just supposed to sit here and take your insults? If it’s not something I need to apologize for, why am I being cursed at?”
“That’s……”
“Will you tell me?”
Eryk couldn’t answer. I kept wiping away tears as I stared at him.
“......”
He hung his head, unable to speak, gazing at me with eyes full of anguish. My broken self could not understand the emotion behind that look.
“Eryk.”
“......”
“Will you frown for me?”
For the first time, I smiled at him with genuine feeling. Even though I had asked him to frown, Eryk’s face remained smooth.
“…What is this? That’s not how it’s supposed to work.”
“You… No. Valentine.”
“......”
“I want to apologize to you.”
Eryk spoke with deadly seriousness and knelt before me. What on earth was he doing? It felt ridiculous.
“…I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?”
“I’m truly sorry that I could not look at you properly.”
“......”
“Because you are a vampire… for that one reason alone, I could not see you as you truly are. I’m sorry.”
“Why are you doing this?”
I was confused. I couldn’t understand why he was acting this way toward me.
“I’m sorry for everything.”
“......”
“I, toward you, Valentine—”
“Stop.”
“……?”
The confusion cooled my head. I finally understood.
“Eryk.”
“What is it?”
“If you were trying to confuse me and break me down, then congratulations.”
I got it. Eryk had been trying to shatter me by confusing me. At last—at last I realized what the feeling I had toward him truly was. The emotion he had been trying to plant inside me all this time. I had forgotten it. After being betrayed once, I thought I would never feel it again. The easiest and most powerful emotion with which to manipulate a person.
“…You succeeded, didn’t you?”
“......”
“I’m broken. Completely broken.”
My hands began to tremble violently. Rage surged up. Rage toward Eryk for playing such a cruel game with me. So this was how far he would go for revenge. Just how far, Eryk?
“…How much more do you have to torment me before you’re satisfied?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I—”
“Shut up.”
I didn’t want to hear it. Whatever came out of his mouth next was painfully obvious. He would toy with my weakened mind and body. I refused to be fooled by such cheap words.
“Darling, I can’t stand to see you in pain. Let’s break up.”
“I’ve already met someone else.”
“…I hope you meet someone good too. Though I don’t know how long you’ll live.”
I clenched my teeth. The emotion that had once tormented me was rising again. Because I had finally realized that every pain I felt when looking at Eryk stemmed from this feeling. I felt so sorry toward the comrades who had left before me. I was not someone who deserved to feel this.
“…Eryk, let me ask you one thing.”
“What is it?”
“Just how far… exactly how far do you have to torment me before you’re satisfied?”
I asked through sobs. Eryk said nothing as he looked at me.
“…I hate you, Eryk. But you know what?”
Tears streamed down my face as I stared at him. I hated myself like this. I hated Eryk for looking at me. I hated him for standing in front of me and confusing me like this.
“I really, really hate you… so why is my heart pounding like this?”
I confessed my honest feelings to him.
“Ugh?!”
Eryk pushed me down onto the bed and crashed his lips against mine.
“…That is what I wanted to say, Valentine!!”
“…!!”
“Even though you’re a vampire…!! Even though you’re the enemy of my family…!!!”
Tears fell from Eryk’s eyes as he spoke.
“Why are you… so beautiful?”
“…Shut up. I don’t want to hear it.”
I hated my pounding heart. I hated Eryk for making me tremble. His hand brushed my cheek. My body reacted with joy to that unpleasant touch.
“I hate you, Eryk……”
“I hate you too, Valentine……”
Even as he said it, Eryk pulled me into a tighter embrace. And I did not let him go.