Paint Me as Villain ✔

Two

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That year, when Ady and Mir were about fifteen, it was a sultry September evening.

Both their families, as usual, gathered at the Lishan's mansion for a Friday dinner, Ady's parents and Mir's father and stepmother, drinking a bottle of whiskey, chatted about work in the living room, waiting for a duck to roast in the oven, and Ady's sister convinced Mir's younger brother— adventurous and mischievous unlike Mir himself--to play hide-and-seek... On a swing in the backyard, Ady suddenly found himself side by side with Mir. Alone.

Adélard felt strange, anxious. Goosebumps ran down Ady's spine, because Mir was close but far away at the same time, as if in another dimension, looking at nothingness in front of him or—watching something that Ady couldn't possibly see.

Caressed by the deceptive light of sunset, Mir slowly, gently swayed, rhythmically kicking the yellowing grass with his heel, and the warm breeze, as if enchanted, ruffled his hair in unison with that rhythm. Praejis didn't say a word, sat with his back straight as always, no exemptions, and no matter how long Ady looked at him, he didn't seem to notice. He was silent.

For a moment, Adélard seriously thought about asking: Are you the devil? Yes or no? It was believed that evil spirits weren't capable of lying, although they still could confuse you until the line between lies and truth blurred in your head.

And yet, Ady didn't ask.

Something, like a curse, stopped him every time. Besides, Mir just laughed in response to all the gossip at school, so there was no point in prying. Therefore, Ady also huddled on the swing seat, cold as Praejis's presence, and glanced at Mir again and again in the hope that sooner or later his friend would say something.

He didn't.

Yes, Mir kept silent like a shadow and even held himself like a shadow. Like a bottomless shadow, patiently waiting for the end of its mortal imprisonment in a tight human body, reacting only when its time came. When the sun, as it was now, sank below the horizon, and the legionaries of the underworld stretched across the earth, conquering the whole world, plunging it into desperate darkness.

So when did Adélard begin to like this darkness? At the moment when he realized that he wouldn't find a single flaw in Mir? When he began to believe in all that beautiful nonsense, after listening to the boys at school talking about how smart and strong Mir was, and after watching the girls, batting their eyelashes, sigh from afar while they stared at Mir's broad shoulders and chiseled, like a Greek statue of a god, nose and cheekbones?

But a person with a living, breathing soul couldn't always be loved without an exception, Ady convinced himself. It was magic. It was evil. You couldn't love a person and be afraid of them at the same time. A person couldn't be perfect and broken to the very core at the same time!

Mir Praejis could. And this mystery was killing, scaring, driving Ady mad.

And what maddened Ady even more--probably, like everyone who fell for this bait—was that no matter how much coldness Mir's eyes contained, something else still flickered in them--if you looked very, very close...At moments when Adélard occasionally managed to notice Mir walking home after school alone or, like today, when they found themselves somewhere in silence and Praejis was seemingly sure that no one was watching him or simply forgot himself...then there was a spark of longing in Mir's eyes. Omniscient longing. Or was Ady already making things up when he fell in love? Or was it his own longing?..

Longing that, despite its perfection, was ready to accept you with all your vices. Longing that would drag you into a trap, deceive, trample and destroy, but you would still remain grateful to it, because at first, in that trap, it would listen to you. It would be there as a faithful companion at the moment of your death. It would help, hint, make your deepest dreams come true, even though it would also take away everything else in return...Just ask.