CHAPTER XIV: Alexiei Sergeevich Baranov

Born to Sergei Baranov, Alexiei Sergeevich Baranov wasn't a child born out of love, he was just a tool. For Sergei to use. 

Intentionally, Sergei had wanted a girl, because marrying off a daughter is a more stronger bond than being friends, or at least that's what he thought... 

"It's dangerous for you to live here Sergeevich, that's why I'm sending you away, it's for your own good" Sergei had reassured Alexiei, it was a lie of course but it worked... He had said when Alexei had run off with Shadow—his Pomeranian, although he had white fur, he was still called shadow. Sergei killed him later...

He begged to stay with his mother. But he was sent away anyway. Who was he to disobey his father?

The fifteen year old Alexiei knew a lot of things, like the fact that the Great Pyramid of Giza is made of 2.3 million limestone blocks, each weighing 2.5 tons or that the shortest war in history lasted for only 38 minutes, or that there are more than 4 quadrillion bacteria on earth, or maybe the fact that Antartica is basically a desert... 

But it felt like general information to him, everyone I mean everyone knew that a quarter of the bones in our body are in our feet, so it wasn't that great. Right? 

"En passant is a move that allows you to capture your opponent's pawn when it has only moved two squares forward from its starting position..." He had explained to a classmate when he was accused of cheating in seventh grade... He was never asked to play with again...

Somewhere along the way, he had met Rurik Mikhailovich Sokolov, someone who praised him, for what felt like the first time... 

Alexiei was just finishing off an enemy, but since Alexiei was kind, he gave the man a chance. 

"What goes up with four legs and comes down with three?" He asked pointing his gun at the fallen man in front of him. The man's amber eyes were wide with fear, Alexiei could feel the gears turning in the man's head as he waited patiently, the fresh scar across his cheek bleeding heavily, staining his usually stainless undershirt of his black suit. 

"I-I don't know...!" The man said trembling as he put a hand in front of him and tried to cover his head with the other, he was sweating, panting. 

"Wrong." He said as he pulled the trigger, finishing off the man from what he used to be, to a lifeless shell of it. Death is werid no? In an instant, everything is gone, what you were or what you used to be, becomes a memory, forged into the seemingly impossible concept of "infinity." 

"The answer was nothing." He said as he threw the gun beside the man's corpse and took off his gloves. He was about to exit the alley when he heard a whistle echo through the emptiness that seemed to strech on and on. 

Maybe the soul was never in the needle anyway... Three crows flew over them, probably in search of land, rain was fast approaching...

Alexiei liked Rurik, they shared similar thoughts... Or maybe he didn't...? Alexiei was an enigmatic person, what he said or thought was always confusing, or maybe too syntactically convulated for decipher? 

But whatever Alexiei Sergeevich Baranov was or was not, he definitely wasn't the Alexiei that was holding his gun against Rurik's pale and cold head, the gun's metal seemingly colder than Rurik's skin. 

Tae Dong-hwan.

"You're under arrest."