My sweet death.
Nicotei.
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I met you on a summer’s day.
When twilight winds spilled over your cheeks
You — a boy forever fourteen, forever trapped within the chambers of thought, the sole heir of a damned name.

Your bloodline bore a sinner and you were her son.
I slaughtered them.
And then I slaughtered you — breaking apart the citadel that once sheltered you.

You returned to the Mother, but not gently.
I raised my gun against you and pulled the trigger — yet you did not die.
I strangled you with the cries of worship — yet you did not die.
I ended you with a single cut across your throat.
One stroke only. Deep, and gushing with blood.

You left without closing your eyes.
You lay there, cold shivers lingering in me.
Your gaze was empty, rolled white, your body sprawled upon soil soaked with blood and bone.
And yet, you were radiant.

My beloved. My sweet lemon jam.
My dear angel, my flame, my sin, my soul.
Nicotei.

______________

I still remember the curve of your smile for me.
Pretty lips, softie eyes.
You smiled with me.

And I used to wonder—did your sense of self remain? Did you know I was the man who shattered your fragile world? Or did you know, and still choose to foolishly embrace everything I called “mine” for you?

Perhaps it was only an illusion of mine.
Perhaps you never truly loved me.
Perhaps you simply didn’t recognize me as the one you destroyed, nor as the one who destroyed you.

But it no longer matters. My beloved.
You are in heaven now, with the merciful Lord.
I delivered you there.
You never needed to know who I was. From beginning to end, only this mattered: I cherished your broken body, and I granted you a sliver of release.

My beloved.
I am salvation, not a murderer.

_________

My sweet lemon jam, how tender you were.
My sweet lemon jam, who loved the sound of Auld Lang Syne.
You adored folk songs, old hymns, gentle melodies easy to hum, easy to remember.
When you sang Fly Me to the Moon, when you lost yourself in La Vie en Rose.

It was on that hymn, “Life in pink,” that you sang for me, translated for me, smiled for me.
And it was on that very hymn, like some apocalyptic liturgy, that your blood stained my hands. Crimson, pungent. Your lips pale and dry, your hair soaked scarlet as if dipped in candied hawthorn. Your tender voice fell into silence.

“La Vie en Rose” was the song you loved.
Perhaps because your life itself was a grotesque comedy, and you longed for sweetness you had never once held in your frail hands.

Ah. But of course.
Had you ever tasted happiness at all?

How absurd.

__________

Guilt?
He never carried it.

He believed he bore sins toward Nicotei, yet never regret.
He never once spoke Nicotei true name.
He used that kind of love to mask the poison of his creed.
To drape the dreadful sorrow of arnachy with his indifference.

He did not grieve,
When Chrollo found him again, when Chrollo ruined him, and planted a fragile iris flower with his corpse beneath two spans of earth.

Chrollo gave him what he longed for.
He erased him from the world, from the ledger of the dead, from the memory of kin. His one wish — to be forgotten by mankind, to die in absolution.
No one would recall the boy of fourteen, one meter fifty-six tall, with only one sock on his left foot. His body, his face, his eyes, his sweet shrill voice — all consigned to dust.

But… wasn’t that what he wanted?

He felt no remorse.
No guilt.
Hadn’t he granted it?

Hadn’t he erased Nicotei — even from his own self?
In the fragments of life, he still met him.
Not fate, but design.
He sought revenge.
And the boy — perhaps — used him as well, if only to taste a counterfeit tenderness.

He once wondered: did he ever love the boy? Did he ever sin?
The answer remained no.
He only adorned his memory with hollow words, illusory emotions.
Deceiving mankind, deceiving himself.

Yet still, he could not forget.
That face, those eyes, that voice.
He preserved everything — except the boy’s true name. That, he let slip.

__________

Nicotei was sixty-two weeks past birth when he met him.
All was orchestrated.
He became the family's heir; the man approached him.
The boy adored him, because he soothed him, gave him sweets, holy books, and “love” slapped across his face until he reeled.

But the man had no need for him.
What he needed was vengeance, the blood of his clan, to repay the massacre of his people.
His mother was a traitor. She betrayed Meteor City, stood upon corpses to reach paradise.
She deserved damnation.
And he — her son — would inherit it.
He was nothing but a puppet.
She foresaw her death, and used him as pawn: for her life, his life, and their family

“Astatine.”

__________

He was eight when loss first embraced him.
Wrapped in an oversized cloak of his sister-servant.
She held him, kissed his hair as farewell, though her hand clutched a dagger hidden in her sleeve.

“My lord Nicotei… please, run. I beg you!”

She died by his blade. Without mercy, without tears. He pinned her to the wall with his knife.
He had long known she was not the boy, only a pale disguise.

_________

And yet, the boy met him again.
Still smiling, still carefree.
Perhaps he did not recognize him.
Or perhaps he only pretended not to.

It wasn’t normal. He knew.
Yet the boy followed him.
And he did not push away his “Sweet Lemon Jam” — his relic of the past.

The boy spoke easily of revenge, of hatred.
But never once mentioned seeing him before.
Never once hinted at recognition.

Maybe he had forgotten.
Or maybe he was playing a role.

But what did it matter?
That thorn had already been plucked away.
He was dead.

__________

“My sweet lemon jam,” he mocked in the pale dawn of autumn.
His boy forever fourteen, one meter fifty-six tall, one sock missing.
They called him Camilla.

But his name was Nicotei.
The most envious child in the world.

He should have died on that birthday night.

No — he did die.
Only the man felt as though the boy still lived.
But he was truly dead.
No chains, no attachments.
Only his lips, and an iris branch by the window.

That birthday — his fourteenth.
The second of February, 1987.
And on the second of February, 2001 — he died.
Cold rain falling, in an alley of Yorknew, by the man’s hand.

_________

[ “February 7th, 2001. We have recovered a body, half-decomposed, with necrotic limbs. Likely soaked by rain. Due to conditions, investigation is hindered. The corpse was found beneath the Castor railway line. No fingerprints of the killer have yet been identified—” ]

Click.

He shut off the old radio.
No one used such relics anymore, but sometimes they served their purpose.
Now, only vexing.

He always followed the news of the case. Against his own will.

They had begun probing into the boy’s death.
But he felt no fear.

The perfect death he crafted could not be undone.

“Hmph.”

He only exhaled.
To him, Yorknew’s police were sheep, easy to lead.
Why would they care for a “brat” who obstructed their ambitions with rebellion and defiance?
A brat they despised.

And if they did care — what then?
He and the Ryodan were already marked. Already branded sinners.

The boy was no different from the others — his “red towers,” as he called his victims.
Just another corpse.

The rain still fell.
And he sat there, wind filling the room, the lamp unlit.

He never once regretted killing the boy who had destroyed his mind.