Nine Lives || Complete

5 || in the cold

When he opened his door the next morning, looking just the same as ever in his thick blue sweater and holding his hot cup of tea, his eyes found first the haggard form of Dane and then the battered face of Areum. Welcoming expression hardening like ice, The Professor stepped aside before Dane could ram his way through him. As the old man shouldered in without invitation, The Professor stepped into the cold and pulled the door shut.

Areum could only stand blinking as she found herself with the young man on one side of the door and Dane on the other, a situation that Havel specifically wished to avoid. Panicking, she reached for the knob. "Let's go in."

Dane would report to Havel, and Havel would beat her before hauling his hefty frame up the mountain to murder The Professor in his sleep.

The mug of tea fell to the porch and shattered in a steaming pool, and The Professor's warmed hand closed around her wrist. The cold cast a pink hue across his ears and cheeks, but the brown of his eyes was molten rage.

Her nervous gaze moved from his grip on her arm, to the powerful grasp on the doorknob that was actively keeping the door closed against Dane's efforts. The old man's shouting and pounding forced sharp claws of anxiety into her braced muscles.

She reached to break The Professor's hold on her. "No, we have to go in—"

His hand didn't budge, but it didn't bruise, either. "Did Dane do this? Or Havel?"

At the almost imperceptible tone of his voice, low and enraged, Areum stopped fighting him. "Do what?" She hadn't forgotten the state of her visage until the object of her admiration leaned in close enough to count her eyelashes.

The clasp on her wrist disappeared and his palm lightly brushed her cheek. As she stood frozen, vaguely aware of Dane's vicious endeavors against The Professor's ambivalent grip on the doorknob, his fingertips gently explored the abrasions on her face. The pad of his thumb brushed over the place where her left eye was nearly sealed shut. "I can feel the fracture—" His words fell off, teeth grinding. "Who?"

Areum couldn't breathe. Her face felt hot, more than just the hideous inflammation that obstructed her vision. "Havel."

The Professor's eyes closed. Rage radiated off him in trembling waves. "Why?"

His hand shook against her skin. She certainly wasn't going to tell him that the carved snowflake had bought her broken bones and a new nightly routine of stripping down in front of her master and his wife. "Because he's scum." She said it too loud, too firm, and when the door stopped rattling, she knew Dane had heard.

Tears sprang to her eyes.

The Professor watched, feeling her tremble under his touch. "You can't marry him."

She burned with frustration. "Are you going to marry me instead?"

The question brought everything to a screeching halt. Silence fell once more on the other side of the door.

The Professor's hand slipped from her face. He looked away from her, and her brimming tears spilled over.

Frantically pulling herself together, Areum scrubbed her cheeks and set her voice deep in her throat so he wouldn't hear it break. "It will get better." Her hollow insistence caught his attention for a second, but she knew he wasn't listening.

He pushed the door open and left her on the porch. From inside, Dane could be heard spitting and swearing at the top of his voice, threatening the younger agent until his lungs ran out.

The responding tone was so quiet and assured that Areum had to strain to hear. "If you tell anyone any part of what transpired here today, I will make sure you live long enough to count how many pieces I cut you into."