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?!”