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The door behind me got pushed open and slammed shut after a second.

I turned my head and cocked an eyebrow.

"It's entering by door then again, is it?" I asked Koschei who stockpiled several books on the floor, as well as some handouts and memos.

"You'd expect me to come through the window" explained Koschei and placed the last book on top of the others "I figured it'd be boring."

He looked up to me. His mad grin seemed to hit my face.

I didn't like his expression.
He looked mad and incalculable.

In fact it was nothing unusual that Koschei looked like this.

But he seemed unsuspicious; which made him appear more suspicious than ever before.

Or he was just getting on my nerves.

I leaned my back against the headboard of the bed.

I shook my head.

My bed. I had intended to think about it as my bed.

Koschei rumbled about the things he'd stored in my room. He tossed some books aside, scattered papers around the floor, found an apple and threw it at me.

I tried to duck, but it landed beside me nonetheless.

"You could have caught it" mumbled Koschei without turning his head.

"I thought you'd wanted me to get hit by it."

"If I had intended to hit you with it you wouldn't even have seen it coming" replied Koschei and sorted through his belongings.

I sighed.

"Did you ever hurt yourself?" I blurted out.

The room remained silent for quite a while; only the constant noise of sheets getting torn out of books or floating through the air and towards the ground seemed to disturb it.

"Not intentionally, if that's what you're referring to" answered Koschei, without giving it much thought, I assumed. "Why?"

"No reason" I replied quietly.

I could hear him chuckling.

"And you never hurt yourself?" I asked again.

"I'd rather kill myself than hurting myself wilfully" replied Koschei.

I shook my head. "That doesn't make sense."
"Give it a second thought" smiled Koschei "it makes perfectly sense. Not only to me. Killing implies short suffering. Hurting lasts longer, a lot longer I think."

"You could do it in small amounts" I pointed out "you could kill yourself really slowly."

"Then it's hurting and not killing yourself" replied Koschei "to some people simply living is hurting yourself. Get your head around it, Theta: killing is fast and hurting is slow. And that's that."

I folded my arms and shrugged.

"By the way" Koschei took up the issue again after a while "Why are you talking about all this?"

I shrugged again.

"Theta, you don't do anything just because. You shouldn't even be allowed to use the words "no" and "reason" together in one sentence."

I didn't reply.

"If I had started talking about suffering and killing I know what you'd have said to me..." grumbled Koschei before sitting down on my bed beside me.

"You know that I don't mean it" I mumbled "With you I never know..."

Koschei grasped my hands. He stroked them carefully before placing them on his thighs.

I sighed and rested my head against the wall behind me.

Koschei moved my hands across his thighs.

I looked down uninterested.

"I didn't like it when you hurt yourself" explained Koschei without searching my gaze "But I know that you did."

I gave no answer and stared at the ceiling.

"Though your parents didn't notice..."

"Let's not talk about it, Koschei" was the only thing I had to say about it.

Koschei didn't expect more.

He simply nodded and placed his hands on top of mine; he caressed them fondly.

I shifted and tried to get comfortable. I couldn't stretch my legs as long as Koschei was sitting so close to me. It made me feel uncomfortable.

Koschei handed me an apple.

I looked at it absent-mindedly, my gaze piercing right though it.

Koschei grabbed me by the wrist and placed my hand on his thighs.

"Want a rub?" he asked smiling.

I frowned and pulled my hand away. Then I shook my head unbelievingly.

"I just wanted to be fair" added Koschei "Suit yourself, as always."

"I still don't know why you liked doing this to me" I replied and placed the apple on my bed.

Koschei picked it up and hold it out to me again. I shook my head once more.

He grinned broadly. "You still don't know why I like doing this to you" he corrected me and placed the apple on my thighs.

I sighed and rolled my eyes.

"Can't you just tell me?"

"You don't want to know" replied Koschei and rubbed the apple across my legs.

"No, I'm pretty sure I want to know" I folded my arms again and stared at him angrily.

"You won't be happy about it."

"What is it?" I asked.

"You're not gonna be satisfied."

"What IS IT?" I yelled.

Koschei smiled calm and quietly.

"No Reason" he replied and bit into the apple "It's just No Reason. But I know that you don't like that. That's no proper excuse, not in your eyes."

I sighed and leaned my head against his shoulder.

"You're weird" I concluded.

"And you're not very hungry."

"I don't really like apples, I guess" I mumbled, adding in a lower voice "Not after you've rubbed them all over my body."

"That's why I offered you one I hadn't touched" countered Koschei.

"Koschei, I just don't know what it is with you. I just don't understand that."

Koschei smirked.

"Believe me" he chuckled "there are so many other things you don't understand about me as well."
"Don't I know that" I sighed and bit into his apple as well.

Koschei laid an arm around me.

Hurting myself had been the most personal thing I'd ever done.

I know that it sounds stupid.

And I probably shouldn't think about it like that.

But that's how I felt about it. There had never been anything more intimate to me.
Hurting others meant losing control.

Hurting yourself meant total control.

Or something like that.

And Koschei had known about it. He'd always known.

He'd seen the bandages around my feet. He'd seen the abrasions.

But he'd never said a word. He'd never asked.

And back then he'd never smiled.

I guess Koschei wouldn't have understood that thing with the self-inflicted pain.
I assume he'd been irritated back then, when he'd seen me scratching my ankles sore; he might have been worried, probably for the first time in his life.
He couldn't understand it.

I guess he'll never do.

But I shouldn't wonder; you can't hurt yourself when you're selfish.

And Koschei had never been different.

I've always wondered if I had hurt myself because I had felt hurt by my father.

Those had been the most horrible years of my youth.
I tend to deny them, or pretend to forget about them. It's the same thing, I guess.

I had been scared. I had been so scared. And I hadn't known what I should have been afraid of.

My fears had been irrational as well as absurd.

At first I had been afraid of my father because I knew he'd come to my bed every night and tie me up against my will.

And then it got worse; as soon as I had realized that my father accepted injuring me in order to protect me from something worse...
I had learned to obey. I had tied my legs together at night myself.

And I hadn't slept in months.

I had been afraid. I had always been afraid.

I guess this had been one of the main reasons why I'd taught myself to run faster than all the others...