(TL: By meat, the author means the interaction between two people â or more â that is highly pleasuring. Put simply, âmeatâ is the Chinese circleâs way of referring to the act of doing it)
In the first episode, when he accidentally witnessed that wilderness play between Beauty and Beast, Bright has always thought it strange how rape turned into sex. Now he thinks he understands it a bit, and it is certainly something you have to experience to understand.
The creature known as man has a set of self-protection mechanisms that will self-adjust when faced with strong stimulations, so that the mind can properly deal with those emotional signals that are too violent.
Humans, by instinct, are also ones to pursue sensory stimulations. Releasing their sexual desire is the best way to transform pain and relieve discomfort. While Bright is servicing the aristocrat, he is also starting to feel something.
He is both thrilled and in pain. His soul seems to have left his physical self, and watching from mid-air his body getting coloured in gradually by lust. He is ashamed that he has lost his moral baseline. He is ashamed he is attracted by the aristocratâs body. He is deeply worried over this loss of control. He has reminded himself of its dangers countless times, about how he is walking on thin ice, and every step of the way he might fall and never surface again. Yet it is too appetising, he would want to try it even if it were poison.
A perfect body that is free for him to take and request, that has awakened a pure sexual desire in him.
Donât think, donât hesitate, donât mind. Just indulge yourself for a while.
The seduction is lethal.
The scariest part is not the seduction, what is even scarier is that Bright is experiencing a syncing of emotions on Hopkin.
A syncing in emotion with him.
Bright refuses to believe that he is the same as him, with pleasure and pain mixed together, struggling, resisting, yet still immersing within.
How could this be possible?
The Shithead should be purely evil, without any other complex emotions. He is his target for revenge, a symbol, a character in a novel, a psychopathic antagonist, a bad guy he will beat.
But why is he painful? He should be enjoying him, his spoil of war!
Bright cannot understand.
A voice is warning him not to think any further, or he willâŚ
Bright asks, will what?
I will⌠will⌠Argh! What will happen to me?!
The word seems to be just there, but has also disappeared from there, losing its original meaning. All words, all language seem to have lost their meaning, or that Bright has lost the ability to use language, the symbolism has lost its link with its intended meaning.
Bright is focusing on resisting his sexual desire, so he misses that part of the warning of the voice, itâs âloveâ! you will fall in love with him!
To fall in love with your enemy. The most terrible of all curses in the world.
Even if Bright can hear that warning, he will not have taken it seriously. Who will believe that the one in resistance will fall in love with their oppressor? It is as ridiculous as rabbits falling in love with foxes, or Pleasant Goat falling in love with Big Big Wolf .
Also, that oppressor, besides his appearance, has nothing of virtue. He is rotten to the core. He only makes Bright feel disgust and fear.
He is just feeling odd that there is such a conflicting yet intense emotion on him. It is the same as when Bright thought of Hopkin with his disguise on as some kind of victim. This is terribly, terribly strange.
The contradictory emotions on Hopkin are so strong that his brows are furrowing, as if in displeasure, as if in resistance, yet his mouth is perking up, and there is a brightness in his eyes. It is like flickering obsidian. His mouth is as deep as roses in colour because of the violent kissing session just now.
All these are telling Bright that Hopkin is a creature full of emotion, not like the impression he has of him that he is heartless and deep as an endless abyss.
Who he is hugging, who he is kissing, is human.
A human who is alive, who has blood and flesh, who can feel pain but also laugh.
This idea has hit Bright. He is not a symbol, he is not a fake character, he is not a label for the Inner City aristocrats.
He is a human, just like himself.
Bright hates his own rationality. Why is he thinking so much? Why the hesitation? Why canât he lie to both himself and to him? His body is pursuing pleasure, every cell is screaming, fuck him before anything else!
Itâs just squeezing in and making a motion like a piston. Treating himself like a stick, to punish his mortal enemy in a unique way. Since he is degrading him in this way anyway, so in this way he shall have his revenge on him. Thereâs nothing wrong with that, sounding fair, even.
Yet, Bright discovers that his inner devil is singing. He is happy, the kind of happiness that makes you want to fly up into the sky and sing along with the sun.
The devil in Bright is urging him to undress himself, push the aristocrat onto the ground, onto the bookshelves, onto the desks and conquer him, make him into a slave of his own desires for him instead.
How great will an aristocrat like that be! Look, he is mad for you, he is so eager for your penetration. At this moment, right now, he can put up no resistance against you, or rather, his desire.
The two people are both enjoying this degrading and torturous gesture. If this interaction between the two has to be given a definition, itâs basically Iâll fuck you dry before I fuck you to death.
Bright does not know the principles of it. He doesnât know why Hopkin is acting so. He only knows his devil is laughing, and so thereâs something wrong with it!
The logic is simple and rudimentary, but itâs effective.
Besides, faced with his mortal enemy, Bright is more interested in having a fair and square fight where they each take blows from each otherâs weapons with the shadows and the lights clashings. Not this kind of act that labels itself revenge but is just a venting of sexual desire.
This will certainly make him hate Hopkin further, but it will also add some other emotion in it. Bright does not know what those emotions will be, but his hate will become impure. He believes it will be dangerous.
Hopkin has collected his wits about him. After the disappearance of the stimulations, there is a deeper desire arousing.
And yet, right now, the man has stopped. He stands up, looking into his eyes, and says, âyou can torture me, and fight against me in any way you want, but I really donât want to continue this.â
Hopkin did not expect the man to resist himself to resolutely. He still couldnât twist his willpower after threatening him.
It is a painful experience. He can feel all of his innards twisting and churning, but it is apparent that he did not receive any physical damage. It is just an illusion of the mind, the consciousness believes that he has been harmed, that he âshouldâ feel pain, so the nerves produce the pain and make him feel so.
Why does he think he is harmed?
Why can the man so easily make him feel pain?
Because I have allowed it to be so.
Hopkin thinks, Iâve allowed the damn man to hurt myself.
He is so clear in his head, yet also so lost. He is happy the man does not know about this state of his that he can use against him, while also hating how dense the man is. He is furious of his ignorance of him, of how he does not relieve his desire, of how he is making him fall into a state of endless loneliness.
After being rejected again and again, Hopkin is starting to hate everything. Everything in this world.
He hates the useless experiment sample, to be worth so little in the manâs mind, to fail to act as an effective bargaining chip.
He hates the useless show, which has no other means to act besides making up CPs and making up controversies
He hates the rude and reckless Scientist who has interfered with his hunting plans and making him lose his chance to completely capture the man.
Of course, the one who he hates the most, is this damnable man before him.
Driven by his hate, Hopkin decides to act on his threats. He will treat Bright in the harshest and cruellest way possible. He will force the man to destroy with his own hands the son for whom he sees himself as his father. His heart is filled with violence, sarcasm and disdain.
The slave said, he doesnât want to continue.
Itâs not wanting, not incapable of.
The slave is always making his will known at inappropriate times. This should not have affected the aristocrat at all, because, after all, you will have to do it whether you want to or not.
And yet, Hopkin has already been affected. It might be because he has experienced that joy and satisfaction when the slave wanted to become familiar with himself. He knows what the tone, voice, gaze and expressions are like when the man is like that. A kindness in his care, a protection in his goodwill. It is highly attractive to Hopkin.
What Hopkin wants is for the slave to act familiar with him. And for the slave to do it of his own volition, of his own desire, or even beg him to let him do it.
He suddenly recalls the Scientistâs suggestion, to just modify number 199âs brain and body, so that the problem is solved forever without repercussions.
The two people are in a strange stand-off. Bright does not continue the silence though, and voices his own judgement, âyou donât want this either.â
The aristocrat does not seem to have been enjoying it. It canât be that he has a strange fetish and likes to be forced? To explore pleasure in pain sounds like being masochistic, but when taking Hopkinâs usual personality and actions in consideration, he is definitely a dominating person. He is a definite sadist. Like the master and servant game he has played with Bright before the identity of the Shithead was exposed. He really did enjoy that feeling of controlling everything before.
Hopkin counters in his mind, no, I do, I want it so much my body is heating up in pain, do you not feel it?
âWhen it comes to sexual desire, I think it is the same for both of us, Hopkin.â
It is the first time Bright has called the aristocratâs name after falling out with him. He is trying to wake the aristocrat up from his succumbing to his sexual desires.
If none of us wants it, then why should we continue it?
Hopkin sees through the manâs intentions instantly. He is trying to protect his dignity doing this after all, and not be forced to do something like this. Yet he wants to continue hearing the man say it, because he is nostalgic of the times when the man is divulging his heart like that. He does not stop this.
âEven if you donât do this, I will still hate you. Nobody hates you more than me in this world, and I will never hate anyone else like I hate you. So, to use your own body as the price to insult me is meaningless.â
Bright believes they are destined mortal enemies, so there is no need to add to this hate further, nor should they add anything to the destined fate. He has been deceived, toyed with, tortured. He cannot possibly harbour anything else for Bright besides hate and fear. No matter whether they do it or not, or how Hopkin tortures him, his hate and fear of Hopkin will be at their maximum values, impossible to increase. So it is âmeaningless.â
He believes Hopkin is similar to himself in this respect. In the logic of the Inner City residents, he has intrigued the aristocrat so the other person has decided to hide their superiority to play a game of peasant visitation. Yet the game has been ruined by him, and he, this inferior slave has tried to retaliate and challenge their power, and even degraded him by injecting him with substance and almost let him be treated cruelly by the lower class rung.
In particular, Hopkin has even tried to ask him for sex under the influence and has been rejected. This must be highly insulting to a grand aristocrat. He must hate him to the bone, only death can do them apart.
Which is why he is so preoccupied with owning his body. Probably wanting to up him one with this.
Authorâs notes: Theyâre still pure mortal enemies in the canon.