Page 136 of Ghost Ribbon

He tried to pull away. “Let go,” he said, and his voice had changed. Dimitri released his wrist. But only so he could grab his sleeve.

He rolled the fabric up.

My eyes went a little wider than usual.

Ilya’s arm was a mess.

From the wrist up to the elbow - and possibly above, the sleeve hadn’t been rolled high enough to tell - the skin was covered in bruises. Layer upon layer of them, in various stages of healing, a map of damage painted in shades of yellow and blue and purple. Some were fresh, others were older, and between the bruises, there were cuts.

“What the fuck is this?” Dimitri’s voice shook a bit.

Ilya didn’t answer.

His eyes weren’t looking at either of us. They were looking at his front.

I followed his gaze.

It led to Kento.

He was standing a few feet away from us. Not close enough to be part of the conversation, his eyes were on Ilya’s arm.

I had never seen Kento show much emotion. He was often smiling and threatening people with that sweet tone, but it was all very surface-level. I had never seen him show true emotion. Even when he was angry before he would smile and make fun of the situation in a very deranged way.

He was a bit similar to me, but not really. We both didn’t show emotions in normal ways. For a long time I thought I didn’t have them so there was nothing to show, so my control came from the void, but his came from somewhere else - as if he was keeping something enormous locked behind a very small door. He wasn’t a cold wall like me for sure. I always reacted with boredom; he reacts with… disinterest? I can’t find the word for it. He just seems to not care for anything in this world, even his own life. I mean, Ilya stabbed him once and the idiot laughed like a maniac and said to do it again.

So this expression is something I hadn’t seen on him before. His pupils blown wide, the irises swallowed by the expansion. His jaw was clenched so hard I could see the muscles jumping beneath the skin. His nostrils were flared, his breathing visible, his whole body coiled tight like something about to spring.

He looked like an animal.

Absolute rage lived in his face when he looked at Ilya’s bruises.

Ilya swallowed. He ripped his hand free from Dimitri’s grip. “Mind your fucking business, Dimitri,” he snapped. “I got into a fight. No big deal, alright?”

The lie was so transparent.

The marks on Ilya’s arm weren’t the result of a single confrontation. They were the result of sustained, ongoing harm, and I’m pretty sure it was one-sided.

Then he was rushing out and I knew it wasn’t a good idea for either of us to follow him right now.

Dimitri and I stood there, side by side. “Do you think it’s his father?”

Dimitri was still staring at the door Ilya had disappeared through, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. His face had gone through several expressions in the past thirty seconds.

“I don’t know. But I’ll find out.” He paused. “And I’ll fucking end them.”

I called Ilya but he didn’t answer. I should probably look more into it. I was usually the person who handled things but I couldn’t because right now, the only thing I could think about was the door Marco had walked through and the minutes that had passed since and the way my chest tightened every second he wasn’t in my line of sight.

Ilya’s bruises would have to wait.

When the party was over, I drove Marco to my apartment.

He was quiet in the car. He was looking out the window, his curls falling into his face, his green ribbon slightly askew, his hand resting on his thigh in that familiar position that meant his chest was hurting and he didn’t want me to know.

When we got to the apartment, I parked and we went inside.

“Are you alright?” I asked.

He didn’t answer me. He reached for my collar, pulled me down, and he dragged my lips to his.