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She looked at him.
She looked at him.
But she only saw a stranger.
Their bodies collided, and her hand pressed against his chest to brace herself. A stammered apology escaped her lips, her tone bashful. She kept her gaze fixed on the ground, clearly ashamed to meet the eyes of the person she bumped into. Johan noted how much she had grown in his absent years, as expected, but he still towered over her. Perhaps that was why she avoided his gaze – intimidation.
She would not have felt as such had she known who he was. Hopefully not.
Then it happened. She finally looked up, and his heart nearly burst. It was a swift glance, so brief that there was no possibility of recognition nor comprehension of his features. But he, he could always recognize her. A millisecond was all it would take—not even. He could pick her out in any crowd, distinguish her by the way she walked, the way she dressed, spoke, the way she was described by others...
She scurried across the street, hastening her steps, to her friends seated at a nearby table in the small café, waiting for her. Johan watched as Peter "accidently" brushed Anna's hand while reaching for a menu, and his fingers lingering a fraction of a second too long. A little while later, Peter tried to hold her by snaking his hand around her waist. She removed his hand from her, which offered Johan a moment to savor his greedy joy, even if it eclipsed with the monster's cold detachment.
He continued to move along the street, passing the café. Soon, Anna was out of sight.
It was not the first time Peter had acted in his clumsy pursuits.
Firstly, and perhaps the most blatant of his tactics to mention, were his lingering gazes. Going into detail about it was unnecessary and, frankly, uncomfortable.
However, another annoying thing he would do that Johan would discuss were the attempts to initiate physical contact. Encountering her at bookstores, carrying her groceries, helping her study, offering his coat. All while he'd touch her in some way, be it her back or shoulder mostly.
It aggravated Johan every time. But he told himself it was okay, as Anna never took an interest in him.
Johan knew himself to be a hateful being. He recognized the unpleasant churning, but to expend energy on the momentary emotions or those who triggered them would grant them significance they did not deserve. The world is filled with lives as inconsequential as dust motes in the sunlight.
The chemicals in his system were only visceral responses, biological imperatives, involuntary reactions... He allowed himself to register the sensations but refused to let them consume him. And so, this hate did not warrant even a sliver of his attention, not when he understood Anna constantly rejected Peter.
This was the key to his nomadic lifestyle. Pure observation would impact no one. Forming relationships would be too troublesome. It would be inconvenient to kill everyone who knew him well enough.
With every being Johan killed afterward, there was hostility that grew imperceptibly. He never enjoyed killing, and no sloppy emotion was shown in his work, but he could not say he was completely stoic during the ordeal. He would be lying had he said so. The two of him inside waged a constant war. Johan became weary, ill, and broken. He felt everything so strongly, you could say he felt nothing at all. During those moments, with the temptation to simply end it, Johan thought of Anna.
He still knew everything about her – he should, as she was the very reason for his existence. When the Fortners' murder triggered memories of her past, shattering the peace he had built for her, Johan knew she was destined to hate him. He did not have to be there to feel it.
Any love she might have harbored for him extinguished.
The truth was undeniable when she fainted at the sight of him at the university. Yet, like a desperate, pathetic fool, he had hope. But just like her happiness, his hope was crushed. She had called him absolute evil. The want to shoot him in the head was driven by her own will, not because he manipulated her to do so.
It was okay. He could live with her hate. He needed her hate. It was the only punishment severe enough for the monsters. The pain, his physical and emotional suffering, was horrid, but this was a sacrifice he willingly made. He'd suffer it all, a million times over, if it meant Anna was happy. Let the things inside him devour him whole, so long as she was at peace.
When it came to Anna, he was incapable of hatred. The concept of it was foreign. He knew only love.
And he did love her. Deeply. With every fiber of his being.
Yet all she desired was his death.
"She wants to kill you," Roberto had stated, devoid of emotion. He talked of ways he could be protected, but Johan could not care to remember the rest of the conversation other than that one line.
He merely chuckled in response, but when alone, he broke down for the first time in years. She would never reciprocate his love, and rightfully so, for he was undeserving of it, but he drank in his tears anyway.
He never regretted shouldering her burdens. Wrapping the bandage on her arm, reading her stories, kissing her goodnight, protecting her from harm, absorbing the darkness born from those experiments, becoming the monster so she wouldn't have to, letting her heal and forget his sacrifice, his existence, their bond, continuing to adore her – this was his purpose. He sought no reward because he did not want one.
She wanted him dead. One might expect this desire to fuel his suicidal ideations. Ironically, it had the opposite effect. He would cling to life for as long as necessary to locate her and cater to her needs. If she wished to shoot him, he would toss aside his plans and oblige her. If she wished to smother him with flowers, he would not resist her. She could stuff him like an animal with thorns, and he would smile when his throat bled.
The Red Rose Mansion was where Johan thought it would happen.
But Anna ruined it.
The gun had been in her hand, pointing to his head. The moment was perfect. It was a chance to give her what she wanted and to end his pathetic life. But she ruined it. All she did was scream, cry, and turn the gun to her.
Johan could not hate her, but he loathed that moment. So much so that he hoped, with desperate vigor, that she would pull the trigger and kill herself.
That was not something he wanted before.
But he longed to hate her, to prove he could feel something other than love for her. He yearned to hate her, to prove he could have the ability to kill her. It burned within him more fiercely than any hunger he had felt for her. Yet, his hands remained paralyzed. He even left, having no capability to witness her death. He was weak in that regard. He could never endure something terrible happening to his sister, even if he begged for it. Yet, he was so detached from the world and from what little remained of his sense of self that he could do nothing to stop it either. He was just a body walking and breathing, with chemicals producing incoherent emotions, getting him upset.
Ruhenium was where Johan thought it would happen.
But Anna ruined it again.
Doctor Tenma was going to shoot him. Johan laid out the justification for his demise, and the man almost succumbed. Johan could feel it-- the internal conflict, the precipice of the decision, the twitching finger about to obey. Just a few more seconds of torment, then the impulsive pull to oblivion. But Anna interrupted his concentration. She ruined this chance for him.
Did she want him dead or not? She was so confusing.
But, again, Johan knew no hate. He could kill anybody else in the entire universe, manipulate and destroy them. He could kill Tenma. He had no desire to, but he knew if he pulled the trigger, he would hardly care about the aftermath.
There was no way he could so with her. She was an exception to every rule he knew. If Johan were interested in religion, he would be convinced she was not human but something sacred to worship. That was what he did anyway. He worshiped her.
He hated that. He hated the idea of her, the concept of them together, the consuming, all-encompassing love that gnawed at his insides. He hated that he could never, would never, be able to hate her. He hated everything about her existence and what it did to him, except for her.
In the end, when death was so close he could taste it, Johan still wanted her madly.
It made no sense.
"I forgive you."
It was the worst thing she could have said. She was not supposed to say anything.
A stake plunged through his heart, one contaminated with terror and rage and sorrow and joy, enough to infect him with overstimulation, but not kill him.
He could not face her. He stared at the rain-soaked ground, defeated.
"Even if we were the only two people in the world, I forgive you."
She repeated his own words back to him. He hated himself so much.
Taking was unforgivable. He had learned that lesson long ago. How could she offer forgiveness when he had stolen so much?
"This is what I can do for me to you."
Not much occurred later before a deafening gunshot broke the tension, and everything ceased to exist.
...
Johan was in a coma. He understood that much.
His limbs were leaden, unresponsive. His face protrayed nothing of within. All he could do was breathe, hear, and feel. Just as before, he was an empty vessel on the outside.
Of course, the one moment he was so vulnerable to his emotions and exposed himself would be his ruin.
She gave his hand an affectionate squeeze. A simple gesture, yet it reverberated through him with the force of a physical blow.
Johan hated it. The intimacy. Because he did not deserve her touch or her concern in the slightest. Did she know he was poison, and she was drinking him in?
But he loved her still. What agonizing ache, deep-seated devotion that warred with the darkness he carried...
He could not see anything, but he knew she was looking at him. Was she seeing the monster he believed himself to be? Or was she hoping that a trace of humanity remained?
But that did not matter. Not really.
What mattered was that she looked at him.