My ears were ringing. My voice echoed in my head. In my mind the stream had fallen silent.
It had drained.
I stared at Koschei with unbelieving eyes and banged my head against the headmaster's office's door involuntarily while leaning back.
I looked around.
Koschei had stopped moving against my body and gave me a peculiar look. He popped his head to one side as if listening to some kind of inner voice before blinking.

I grabbed his face by his temples and pressed my forehead against his, searching his eyes, searching my reflection eagerly.
I was relieved to find my eyes turning back to their normal colour; the glistening gold in my eyes had vanished or evaporated. I didn't care about that. All that mattered was that my eyes were finally back to normal.

I had gotten rid of Koschei. I couldn't hear him anymore. I must have done something that had stopped him, or irritated him, or distracted him...

I pushed Koschei's face away; he rolled his head into the nape of his neck.
He breathed slowly; his chest was still pressed against mine and I could feel his heart rates decreasing. He was calming down; his body was cooling and the tension released. Even the tension in his groin.

Koschei gave me an irritated look, a look I'd never seen before on Koschei. Something he'd never wanted to show me.

Uneasiness. Koschei was uneasy. I had managed to unsettle him, making him feel insecure about himself; probably the first time in his life he was feeling insecure.
And he looked so miserable, so pathetic that I felt my hearts dropping.
I felt pity. Probably for the first time in my life either I had pity with Koschei.
He couldn't help it.
He was just... himself.

I pushed those thoughts back into the deepest corners of my mind.

I couldn't have pity with him; I had to convince myself of that. Koschei had hurt me; he had hurt me the same way he'd done it before every single time he had approached me to comfort me. He used me. He abused me. He was abusive and would only use me at his discretion. At his pleasure.

I clenched my fists and raised them; I forced my hands against his chest and shoved Koschei with increasing arm pressure away. I glared at him in exasperation.

"Stay away from me" I hissed and tried to look through Koschei, I tried to look through this mask consisting of his childish features and a pair of beautiful, puerile amber eyes; I tried to look about an inch deep into his skull. I didn't want to face him as a starry eyed child, which he pretended to be, right now; I wanted to see him the way he was.

The real Koschei who had emerged from the coldness of his heart, from the darkness of his soul and the ignorance of a child's mind. I wanted to speak to him, to address him.

"You tried feeding me to the void" I stated stinted "And I don't want you to touch me ever again. I can't trust you. And I know that I'm hurt myself as bad as I'm hurting you right now. But I want you to keep away from me. And that was no request, that was an order. Stay away from me!"

I pulled my hands back and stepped away from the door.

Koschei kept staring at me with unbelieving eyes. Something beastly was protruding in his eyes. And in his smirk. As if he tried asking me: 'Are you serious?'

"I mean it!" I insisted "Stay away from me!"

Footsteps were approaching. The door beside me got pushed open and a furious figure, which later on turned out to be my father, stormed out of the headmaster's secretary's office. He stepped up to Koschei, he stood so close to him that everyone else probably would have backed away to be on the safe side. But Koschei only smirked.

And he didn't even stop after my father had slapped him in the face.

"You're nothing more than an unworthy, vile bastard! And if you ever dare to touch Theta again I'm going to kill you. And I mean it, Koschei. I know that it's your parent's privilege to take your life. But I'll see no other way but to do it instead of them; and on behalf of everyone else! You grant that?!"

Koschei retorted nothing but a vicious smile. He dared him; he wouldn't believe it until he'd seen it himself.
I backed away after catching a glimpse of the look on my father's face; I hadn't seen him this agitated since... since the day he had rushed into my room after hearing me shouting "Koschei you're hurting me!"
The look on my father's face scared me. But I wouldn't try to stop him. Even if he hit Koschei again, even if he beat him up, even if he'd beat him to death... he wanted me to be safe. And I needed to be saved from Koschei.

"I asked you if you understood that, you mischievous teratism" my father snapped. Koschei spat blood after my father had hit him again; he must have bitten his tongue.
Koschei liked the small streak of blood off his lower lip.

"Just go" I blurted out "Just run."

"I'm not like you, Theta" replied Koschei in a low voice, still smiling and cheerful in a mad way.

"Don't you ever dare touch my son again, Koschei!" yelled my father and grabbed Koschei by the shoulders, shaking him like mad "Don't you ever dare!"

Koschei escaped my father after a minute or two.
I guess he hadn't understood that I had, for any idiotic reason, still cared for him and had tried to cut a corner. But Koschei was stupid. He was too stubborn to realise it.

My father had left after embracing me and confirming that he was proud of me no matter what. And that I had to come home when I felt that I needed to.

For some reason I had felt like crying after my father had left the academy again.

I had stood on the window in my room and had watched him go.
My eyes filled with tears and my vision became blurred as the first sobs became audible.

I was grieving. I was mourning for someone. Or over someone.

And I didn't even know why.

But maybe I sensed it. Maybe I knew deep down, in the deepest depths of my mind that he was right. He knew that I would return. He knew that I had to come home again. For a reason that I wouldn't understand by now. For a reason that would scare me to death.
I had to return for a deed that would haunt me in my dreams, a deed that would traumatize me for life. And it would scar me for life.

Whatever doesn't kill you is gonna leave a scar.

And it would be an enormous scar that would define my distorted body later on.

Thanks again to Mabudachi-trio for the constant commenting :) I don't know what I'd do without you
(Well, I guess I'd post fanfiction... but I wouldn't enjoy it that much :D )