“Get up, take the medicine. Rinse your mouth thoroughly. Hold it in your mouth for a while before spitting. And wash yourself; you’re dirty, covered in dust.”

Nik stood up silently, took the mug, and without looking at Kors, went into the bathroom. Kors exhaled heavily. He continued to shake from the fact that Nik had been beaten and what Kors had done in front of everyone. But he was sure he was right.

Kors entered the bathroom and saw that Nik had removed his protection and was standing slightly bent over the bathtub, holding the medicine in his mouth. Kors approached Nik from behind and roughly undid the buckle on his belt, pulling his pants down, and bent him over the bathroom, jerking him sharply. From a strong jolt, Nik only bent more, resting his hands on the opposite edge of the tub, and healing water poured out of his mouth, mixed with blood. Kors wheezed, panting with orgasm, and fell off:

“Clean up and go back to the room,” he ordered.

When Nik returned to their room, Kors was sitting at the table and smoking. He looked at Nik, so sad and silent now:

“Was I wrong now?” Asked Kors and put out his cigarette. “Have I done the wrong thing to take you away?”

Nik was silent.

“Answer me!”

“I don’t know.”

“No, you know. You know perfectly well that I was right! And that’s why you obeyed me!”

In frustration, Nik reached for the bottle on the table.

“Eh, no! Give it back!” Kors jerked the bottle out of his hands.

“Vitor, give me a drink! I’m tired!”

“Of course you’re tired! Who made you fight?! You don’t need this final and prize money, you don’t need it all! I will give you as much money as you want! That’s it, Nik! Relax, you don’t need money anymore, you have a rich father who will give you everything! And when we return to the Black City, I will buy you many of the best clothes and cure you with the best doctors. You will no longer fight in the Colosseum and risk your life for the amusement of the crowd. Forget it!”

“I’m not poor myself!” Nik shouted. “I have enough money! I just had fun!”

“I understand, and I didn’t interfere until I saw that it would end badly for you now!”

Nik sat down heavily on the edge of the bed and looked at Kors:

“Please give me a drink.”

Kors stood up abruptly and poured him a full glass.

“Here it is!”

Nik immediately drained it in two gulps, and Kors involuntarily winced and lit a cigarette:

“Take this as well!”

Nik took it.

“So, was I wrong now?” Kors asked again.

Nik smoked in silence.

“How tired I am!” Kors tugged at his hair with all his might, forcing him to close his eyes in pain and almost drop his cigarette. “What’s in your head? And on the head?! I explained to you how to comb your hair! When are you going to behave well, Nik?”

“Never,” Nik muttered.

“What?!” And Kors hit him again, so that Nik dropped his almost smoked cigarette, and Kors rudely extinguished it, pressing his boot into the expensive carpet:

“No, you will!” He grabbed his bangs, strongly throwing his head up so that Nik would look at him.

“You will obey me, because it is right, and you need to learn to behave normally in order to advance further in your Mission, therefore you obey me! You understand that I am right and that you need it!”

“I don’t need anything! I obey you because I love you! And I don’t want to upset you!”

“I love you too,” Kors slowed down and let him go, “so I do all this and take care of you.”

“I understand,” Nik said.

“Show me your lip. Oh fuck! You ruined your beautiful face again!” Kors clasped his head in his hands in absolutely genuine despair. “What is it!” He grabbed a small round mirror from the table and handed it to Nik:

“Look! Look what’s wrong with your lips! My beautiful, lovely lips, what have you done to them… damn…”

Nik completely indifferently looked in the mirror at his now crooked and swollen lip, which slightly turned upward from the incipient edema.

Kors tossed the mirror aside and thrust the opener into his hand.

“Take out the rings!”

“Why? It hurts,” Nik disagreed.

“You have edema, they interfere, don’t you see?!”

“It happened a hundred times, it will subside and everything will be fine a bit later.”

“Get it out, fuck!” Kors growled with such anger that Nik immediately grabbed the unclamping instrument, hastily removing the jewelry from the purple lip.

“You ruined your tender lips, you don’t take care of your beauty at all!”

“What’s the difference? I’m not a piece of cake for everyone to lick at me.”

“What does this have to do with it? How stupid you are! You don’t know how to use your advantage. Good looks, correct posture, unaccented speech and noble manners – that’s it! You are sitting pretty!”

Nik shook his disheveled head a little.

“I’m not a girl! I fought and they broke my lip a little, what’s wrong with that?!”

Kors looked at his beautiful face, like a girl’s, and involuntarily smiled, realizing that Nik had completely misinterpreted his phrase “you are sitting pretty”, and seeing also Kors’ condescending smile, he literally burst inside with indignation, but endured and kept silent.

“You misunderstood me a little,” nevertheless tried to explain Kors, rather not because he felt that Nik was unpleasant, but simply because he loved to teach:

“To be sitting pretty” – this is a phrase from a game on a chess board, you can still play a simpler game of checkers, and if a checker crosses the entire field and has not been eaten…

Nik looked up at him.

“Maybe it’s enough? Please…”

“Nik, you don’t understand your advantages and don’t use them. You have not only a beautiful appearance, but also a good voice, I am not kidding. In fact, you have a beautiful voice.”

Nik looked at Kors dubiously.

“I speak seriously. Yes, your voice is low and hoarse, but there is something exciting about it. If you remove gross mistakes in words, it will be very good.”

Kors calmed down a bit:

“What will your unclean ones think now? I yelled at you in front of them, won’t that hurt your reputation as a commander?”

“They won’t think anything, everything is fine…”

Zaf came to them, he grinned like a satisfied cat:

“What, my Lord, are you getting away with your greyhound daddy?” Zaf, unable to resist, laughed. Kors froze.

“No,” Nik said.

“I left to feed Barla,” Zaf continued, “and when I returned, I saw that you were not there, and they told me how dad yelled at you and took you away.”

Zaf turned to Kors:

“You did everything right. I never fight for fun, combat is not a game! And you?”

“Never! And I won’t let him anymore!” Kors replied sharply.

“If only he still listened to you,” Zaf smiled again, “he doesn’t listen to anyone.”

And Nik, as if confirming Zaf’s words, showed Kors a tattooed finger with the image of an inverted ace of spades on the “ring”.

“And what does it mean?” Kors asked with a grin. “That you didn’t have enough money for real jewelry, and that’s why you drew them for yourself?” He looked at Zaf. “Nik is just not used to obeying. I was not with him, and no one raised him. But I’ll catch up. He will stop behaving like a thoughtless boy and become a worthy warrior, become a truly great, powerful Demon, the way he really is! I will grind this rough diamond into brilliant! I will put the best in him!”

Zaf shook his head, and Nik sat down and was sad and silent.

“Vi-i-tor,” Zaf suddenly said tenderly, as he did in the Limit and in the Ore Town, slightly stretching the vowel, and after “v” he did not insert this rough sound “kh” into his name, as did Nik. Zafa managed to pronounce the name of Kors softer, almost correctly. And Kors froze.

“You are beautiful,” said Zaf, and he didn’t need to say that already. Kors understood everything perfectly, he was shaking, unconsciously and even in some kind of panic. Kors mentally darted to Nik: “What should I do?”