Chapter 169.1

Chapter 169.1

“Hey, Yuri. Can’t you invite us to the Prime Minister’s estate?”

Yuri looked up from the book he was flipping through.

“If I don’t get to go this time, my dad’s seriously going to beat me to death!”

“Yeah, me too! Count me in!”

A small group of scruffy boys quickly gathered around Yuri. Though Yuri Solzhenitsyn carried the stigma of mixed Eastern heritage, his jet-black hair drew admiration rather than mockery.

His skin was clear of the usual teenage acne, his gaze sharp and piercing like that of Prime Minister Maxim.

Broad-shouldered, deep-voiced, and more solidly built than any freshman had a right to be, he stood out wherever he went.

“I heard your house has over a hundred bathrooms!”

“…”

“How about we explore it together over the break?”

“…Explore?”

“Y-yeah…! I bet you haven’t even seen all the rooms.”

Yuri remained silent, and one classmate’s grin wavered.

“There’s gotta be at least one room you haven’t found yet, right?”

Yuri had the aura of a model student. He was disciplined and withdrawn, but when someone crossed a line, he could turn frighteningly cold without ever raising his voice.

Just a few days ago, a kid named Boris had joked about having more body hair than Yuri, even going so far as to poke him in the side.

Without reacting, Yuri spun his pencil on the desk. Somehow, Boris was absent for two days afterward.

Rumors spread. One claimed the pencil had jabbed Boris in the belly button, another that he’d been hospitalized. But Boris never said a word.

Yuri wasn’t just handsome; he was beautiful in an unnerving, almost doll-like way. This inspired lewd jokes among classmates who wanted to provoke a reaction.

But he never rose to the bait. His smile was always faint, polite, and impenetrable.

He never let himself slip, even by accident.

That day, the class’s only entertainment came from recording who’d had wet dreams and gossiping about it. Yet Yuri carried himself as if social norms didn’t apply to him.

Even when he’d wet himself once, he’d somehow managed to stay composed, and disappointingly modest.

Some boys studied the contours of his pants when he stood, searching for something to tease. But Yuri never acted immature, which made him hard to approach.

Despite being bound for the same elite universities, there already seemed to be a wall between him and everyone else.

Just then, another boy swaggered over and leaned on Yuri’s desk.

“Hey, Yuri. You like black hair?”

“…”

“Prime Minister Solzhenitsyn married an Asian woman. So… is taste hereditary?”

‘Man, this guy has no tact,’ the others thought nervously.

“We don’t dream about black hair, so it’d be great if you did and told us. Even if no one says it, everyone’s waiting for you to open up.”

“I haven’t had one yet.”

“Huh?”

“My d!ck’s too tilted. Gotta wait a bit longer.”

“…What?”

Did he just say… d!ck? That word?

Shock rippled through the group. For someone so composed, so proper, to drop such vulgarity, it stunned them all.

“Dream or not, I won’t use it carelessly,” Yuri added with a chuckle, brushing the boy’s hand off his desk. “A beast that’s sired a cub. That would be something.”

***

For winter break, Yuri had traveled to the remote Winter Castle. One morning, he picked up a long hunting rifle.

He was growing by the day. His knees ached at night so his grandfather had started teaching him to hunt.

“Power shares qualities with God, Yuri. Don’t waste time judging good and evil. Learn to recognize what matters. Today, pick the hardest prey to catch and kill.”

“Yes, Grandfather.”

Crunching footsteps faded behind him. As his grandfather disappeared into the woods, Yuri’s expression lost its light. His smile vanished like mist.

He wandered the birch forest, eyes glazed with disinterest. A slow, listless yawn escaped him.

He might’ve been good at hunting or marksmanship if he applied himself, but none of it appealed to him. He preferred staying home, reading political theory in silence.

The world was loud. Lies came easy. Effort made him sweat, and he hated that.

How long had he been wandering now, just passing time?

Suddenly, he spotted a trail of tracks in the snow. He dragged his feet forward, barely interested, and peered into a burrow.

Inside, a cluster of newborn rabbits, hairless and slippery, huddled in a trembling pile. A mother rabbit, red-eyed and alert, raised her head and met Yuri’s gaze.

A strange stillness filled the air.

“…”

He scanned the mother’s belly, flat and deflated. Too late.

Now what…?

The boy, whose Adam’s apple had just begun to jut from his throat, sighed deeply.

He scratched his forehead, then gently stacked some twigs in front of the burrow, as if to shield it.

Then he turned and trudged back, snow crunching up to his ankles with every step.

“Great. What a disaster.”