Never Die Villain

"Cousin Ilya, do you ever think about running away from this place?"

"Huh?"

The sudden proposal caught Ilya so completely off guard that he nearly choked on the cigarette between his lips.

"Cough! Cough...!"

He coughed into his fist, while his cousin remained seated on the stool beside the bed with an unusually serious expression.

"What are you talking about?"

"Just saying." Aleksei leaned forward, resting his elbows against his knees. "I’ve been wondering this whole time how someone like you has managed to put up with everything here."

Ilya glanced at him from the corner of his eye but said nothing, choosing to take another long drag from his cigarette instead.

Aleksei had been joking around only moments ago, yet there was nothing playful left in his expression now, and the longer Ilya refused to answer, the more obvious the concern on his cousin’s face became.

That look reminded him of Helene for some reason.

The thought came so unexpectedly that Ilya nearly frowned.

"I’ll be honest with you, Cousin," Aleksei said. "I pity you. I’ve pitied you for a long time."

"...."

"I looked down on you." Aleksei’s voice remained strangely level as he leaned forward on the stool, his hands clasped between his knees. "Do you know why I could afford to be nice to you? Because you could never do anything to me."

"...."

Ilya’s fingers twitched around the cigarette.

What the hell was Aleksei going on about?

Only moments ago, his cousin had been asking whether he wanted to run away from this family, speaking with what had seemed like genuine concern.

Yet there was something wrong with the way Aleksei spoke now, something that sent an inexplicable chill through Ilya despite the calm expression still fixed upon his face.

"I could laugh with you because there was nothing to lose." Aleksei slowly turned his head toward him. "You were Ilya Belozersky, the boy everyone had already given up on. I could treat you kindly because no matter what happened, I would always be above you."

Their eyes met.

Aleksei’s pupils were spiraling. Ilya could tell that much.

"And now, I can confidently say that I absolutely loathe you. Because of you, I’ve become a laughingstock within this family overnight. Me, Aleksei, someone personally scouted by the Northern Frontier Knights, lost to you."

His smile widened.

"To Ilya Belozersky."

"...."

"The family’s shame."

Ilya remained calm, taking another drag from his cigarette before slowly exhaling.

Outwardly, nothing about his posture changed, but his free hand had already shifted closer to the edge of the bed, and whatever relaxation remained in his body disappeared as he became increasingly wary.

"I used to love being around you, you know?" Aleksei continued. "Whenever I came here and saw how everyone treated you, I could go home feeling better about myself. Maybe I wasn’t Valentin Belozersky’s son, maybe I wasn’t some once-in-a-generation genius, but at least I wasn’t you."

"...."

"And because of that, being nice to you was easy. I could be the good cousin who still treated poor Ilya like a person when everyone else had given up on him. I could laugh with him, drink with him, invite him along whenever everyone else ignored him, and afterward, congratulate myself for being such a decent person."

"Cousin—"

"It’s funny, isn’t it?" Aleksei continued as though he hadn’t heard him. "I thought I’d be angry for a day or two after losing to you. Maybe I’d challenge you again, beat you properly, endure everyone laughing about it for a while, and eventually the whole thing would be forgotten."

Aleksei lowered his gaze toward his hands.

"But it didn’t go away."

His fingers slowly curled against his knees as the smile on his face began to strain. He looked less like someone confessing something he had kept hidden for years and more like someone being forced to examine thoughts he had never wanted to put into words.

"I kept thinking about it. Why did losing to you bother me so much? I’ve lost fights before, and I’ll lose plenty more if I join the Frontier Knights, so why was this one different?"

"...."

"Then I realized it wasn’t because I lost."

Aleksei slowly lifted his head.

"It was because I lost to you."

The cigarette stopped halfway toward Ilya’s mouth.

"All this time, I thought there was at least one person in this family I would never have to compare myself to. No matter how talented everyone else became, no matter how much the elders praised someone else’s children, there was always poor Cousin Ilya sitting somewhere in the corner, and I could look at you and think that at least I was doing better than someone."

Aleksei laughed.

"Pretty disgusting, isn’t it?"

"...At least you’re self-aware."

"I wasn’t."

Aleksei pressed two fingers against his temple.

"Not until she pointed it out."

"...She?"

"There’s this voice that just won’t shut up."

"...."

Ilya stopped bringing the cigarette toward his lips.

"It just goes on and on and on and on." Aleksei’s fingers dug harder against the side of his head. "When I’m eating, when I’m training, when I’m trying to sleep, even when I’m talking to you right now, it’s there telling me everything I’ve been trying so hard not to say."

"...A voice?"

"Yes."

Aleksei smiled.

"A very kind one."

That answer bothered Ilya more than anything else he had said.

"What does it say?"

"That I’m tired."

Aleksei’s gaze turned toward the floor.

"That I don’t actually care about disappointing Father. That I hate every bastard who laughed when they heard I lost to you, and that I hate myself even more because their laughter bothered me."

His breathing gradually became heavier.

"It keeps asking me why I bother pretending any of it matters when I could just stop."

"Stop what?"

"Everything."

The cigarette continued burning between Ilya’s fingers.

Aleksei tilted his head as though listening to someone standing immediately beside him.

"It says I don’t need their respect."

"...."

"I don’t need the Frontier Knights."

"...."

"I don’t need House Belozersky."

"...."

"And apparently... I don’t even need to be Aleksei."

A thin trail of ash fell from Ilya’s cigarette.

"...Cousin."

"Do you know what’s strange?"

Aleksei looked at him again.

"The more I listen, the better I feel."

The spirals within his pupils seemed to tremble.

"All those things I’ve swallowed because they were ugly, all those thoughts I pretended I didn’t have because they weren’t worthy of someone like me... it tells me I was never wrong for having them."

Aleksei laughed.

"It says there’s no reason to keep forcing myself to be something everyone else finds acceptable."

Ilya’s eyes narrowed.

There was something deeply wrong here.

He had seen anger before, resentment too, and there was nothing particularly unusual about Aleksei despising him after being humiliated in front of the family.

Even the sudden confession that his kindness had been built on pity was believable enough.

The eyes weren’t.

Neither was the way Aleksei occasionally stopped speaking, his attention drifting somewhere just beyond Ilya as though someone else were continuing the conversation for him.

"...Cousin Aleksei."

"Hm?"

"Who’s talking to you?"

Aleksei blinked.

Then his expression brightened with a childlike realization.

"Oh."

He turned his head toward the empty space beside him.

"You can’t hear her?"

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