Every day was a nightmare for Bernard. However, among many moments, he considered now to be closest to hell. Might he be dreaming? The man with a fine expression spat out more cruel words than ever. Just when would this nightmare end?
“I, no, I……”
The stammering voice was pathetic. Bernard looked around with shaking eyes as if he wanted to flee at any moment. It was around the time they had walked out to the roadside. The back door of a car that had smoothly approached right in front opened. At that moment, a sharp scream rang out long.
“Elliot!”
It was a completely cracked and rough call. A person wearing a pressed-down hat rushed at Bernard. The hand gripping his clothes was rough, and the face filled with anger was no different from a demon. Bernard was helplessly swayed by the unfamiliar person’s touch. The surroundings were in an uproar with people’s screams.
“You said, you said you thought you might love me. You have to love me! It’s right to love me! When you treated me so kindly…… how dare you. How dare you another, another person. It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense. You’re being deceived, right? This man deceived you, right? Oh, Elliot…… my Elliot!”
“Wh-what, no…… I’m……”
“You said you loved me! Me! You said you wanted me!”
The man muttering like a madman frantically clawed at Bernard’s clothes, grabbed and shook his hair, then soon cupped his cheeks. Then he finally thrust his face forward. It was as if chopping up flowing time tick-tock with a stopwatch. Bernard’s thoughts evaporated in an instant.
“Let’s meet at my place… hm? We did, didn’t we? Didn’t we?!”
“Don’t, don’t in-insult me with lies……!”
“Damn it! You lured me out! You said… you said you’d consider me!”
The thick hand gripped Bernard again. His face came close as if touching. Nausea rose at the act of struggling to forcibly kiss him. Bernard shook his head with a face pale as a sheet. He protested with all his might to protect Elliot’s honor. Rubens, who had been watching from the side as if observing, belatedly ordered the bodyguards.
“Remove him from my sight.”
Rubens roughly shoved the unfamiliar person away. There was no mercy in the action of trampling the other party with his foot. Rubens’s expression was like a well-crafted wax doll. His expression without any emotion was quickly withdrawn, and in between, a face worried about his lover filled it.
But Bernard clearly saw that gap. It was a gaze looking at something that wouldn’t matter even if damaged or scratched. Undoubtedly waiting to see if there was anything more to dig up……
“Are you alright, Elliot? For such a stalker to follow all the way to a place like this……”
“Ah, uh… ah, no, I’m……”
Bernard’s mind evaporated white. Indescribable anger and shame mixed together. Rubens embraced him like that. He pressed his face into his chest, not letting him show any expression. And the paparazzi who surrounded the two of them kept pressing camera shutters and shouting in triumph.
Bernard simply couldn’t take any words or actions. He needed to say something. To restore Elliot’s honor, he needed to act smartly, but he stupidly only shed tears.
He was afraid. It felt like those thick hands filled his entire vision. Bernard, who had been exposed to violence for a long period, was seized by terrible fear and found it hard to cope with the situation unfolding now. His urgent breath evaporated from his lungs. Bernard groaned while pathetically squeezing Rubens’s clothes.
“Well done.”
Suddenly Rubens’s grading fell at his ear. Bodyguards who had gathered before he knew it firmly held both arms of the fallen man. With flickering eyes, the man thrashed about wildly, shouting that this was all a lie, that everyone was being deceived. Everyone looked at him claiming only he was Elliot’s true love as if looking at a lunatic.
But Bernard knew the face of the man pushed and rolling on the ground. He was someone who had troubled Elliot from time to time even during their school days.
And Rhino was watching all of this situation. He who had been walking hastily stopped in place. Rubens embraced Bernard, but Bernard’s hands couldn’t embrace him back and trembled finely in the air. Undoubtedly, such a great shock had covered him.
Sighs burst out from here and there. Words asking if he was okay and the paparazzi’s joyful laughter mixed disgustingly. Everyone was noisily chattering, but there was no one truly worried about Bernard’s condition. Rhino suppressed the impulse to run over, pull Rubens away, and embrace Bernard in his arms. If he did that, their appearance would surely appear in gossip magazines or internet newspapers the next day as a third-rate love affair.
Rubens kept whispering in Bernard’s ear. Words saying he was sorry for making him experience such a thing. Content asking if he was okay, to try to calm down. Comfort saying it was all over now and there was no need to worry. However, all of that probably wasn’t words directed at Bernard.
Bernard cried. At the forlorn and painful crying sound, one of the gathered people wiped away tears. When the person next to them asked why, they answered. “He looks distressed.” Then the other party also quietly nodded their head.
Rubens lifted Bernard up. Sitting Bernard in the back seat of the prepared car and getting in the seat next to him, he had a cold face. Everyone sensed that something would happen soon. The car door closed and the car carrying them completely exited the party venue. Everyone dispersed without lingering longer at the entrance.
Excitement was embedded in the murmuring voices of the paparazzi and reporters. Their reaction was to comment that they’d caught good article material over someone else’s misfortune. And at that spot where everyone had dispersed, only Rhino was still standing.
“……Bernard.”
Are you okay? Bernard, why. Why exactly are you crying so miserably? Bernard…… I, you……
Words he couldn’t finish even in thought were words he couldn’t ask in reality either.
***
Bernard, who got in the car, gasped for breath. Unable to restrain his surging emotions, his fingertips trembled. The driver in the front seat didn’t add any words, and neither did Rubens. Only Bernard didn’t know the destination in this place.
“Let’s finish talking. About your ‘unspeakable feelings.'”
It felt like his vision went pale white. The reality he’d thought of complacently came crashing right before his eyes. The result of being thrown unprepared and forced to face it was terrible. Just the violence witnessed in front of the car a moment ago felt like squeezing his heart, but it felt like being slashed once more by Rubens’s coldly pouring gaze.
“H-Hurt-ssi…… I’m.”
“It doesn’t seem like something to say in a place where there’s a listener.”
The words pitifully opened soon closed. Bernard’s appearance, unable to continue speaking while only fidgeting with his clothes, looked much more foolish than usual, but Rubens didn’t ease his tension.
The car carrying the two moved smoothly and soon reached an unfamiliar yet familiar place. It was a place he knew. Because it hadn’t been long since he’d left. The car door that Rubens, who got out first, opened for him seemed like the entrance of a path to death. If the face smiling kindly seemed to be announcing his final sentence to him, was he having too excessive delusions?
Bernard actually imagined more while following behind Rubens. Would he call it disgusting? Or would he get angry? If not that, would he ridicule him? No prediction ended with a good conclusion. Bernard following Rubens acted exactly like someone about to die at any moment.
When he stepped on the well-laid lawn garden and opened the mansion door to enter inside, his excitement reached its peak in proportion to his anxiety. An extreme decision was made. Wouldn’t it be okay if he revealed everything? If he told everything—the reason why he couldn’t help but love him and the reason he couldn’t completely let go of this heart—at least this man wouldn’t despise him.
The surging emotions were such severe rough waves that he absolutely couldn’t get a grip. However, everything remained in imagination. Before Rubens went in first and loosened his necktie, a clear laughing voice flew between the two.
“Rubens!”
Bernard’s steps stopped abruptly. Someone who had been buried deep in the sofa jumped up and ran into Rubens’s arms to embrace him. However, Elliot’s laughter couldn’t continue longer.
“Bernard? What are you doing here?”
“You said you weren’t feeling well, Elliot.”
“I came because I wanted to see you…… is that not okay?”
Though he knew that what was contained in Elliot’s question without malice was pure curiosity, Bernard felt shame at that question. The answer came from elsewhere. Rubens kindly coaxed Elliot and touched his forehead. The thin ice that had bloomed on his cold face melted. As soon as Bernard confirmed the spring spreading across Rubens’s face, he felt the impulse to turn around and run out just like that.
“Did you do your hair? It suits you well. See? I said if I just touched it a bit, it would be much better, right? You took off your glasses too! It looks good. Are you going to go around without glasses now?”
Elliot stuck his face, which had been buried deep in Rubens’s arms, out a bit and spoke affectionately. Though in a position sufficient to interrogate what this situation was, Bernard smiled a little at his brother’s innocence of not having even a speck of suspicion. It was self-mockery.
“No…… the glasses, I just took them off for a moment because I had something to do.”
“I requested help. Because I needed a partner.”
“So that’s why you dressed up? It would be nice if you went around like this normally too……”
A puzzled gaze followed Rubens’s answer. Elliot’s face was flushed red as if his slight fever hadn’t completely gone down yet. Bernard didn’t know what to do with Elliot’s voice tinged with regret somewhere. Though Rubens’s words weren’t wrong, it was because he himself knew best just how absurd a lie those words were. Belated guilt choked his breath.
“No, something like this is a bit… it doesn’t suit me. I think it’s best to just be comfortable as usual. And…… I came here because I need to get my glasses. Yeah, that’s why I came.”
“I’ll return your glasses, so follow me.”
Even to the clumsily spilled excuse, Rubens accepted the words without particular reproach. Bernard just clenched and unclenched his hands while watching the two people exchanging several short kisses. He newly realized that he was a guest not invited to this place.
“When the article comes out, Elliot will notice too.”
“That won’t happen.”
The second-floor room he entered following Rubens seemed to be a dressing room. Bernard mumbled while keeping his gaze only on the elaborate handle pattern of the built-in closet that seemed to have been custom-made.
“Don’t treat Elliot like a fool.”
“It’s not treating him like a fool, what happened at that place will be well-packaged when it goes out, so it’s not an area for you to worry about.”
Glasses were placed on the table.
“…You can’t control all people.”
“No. That’s not impossible.”
Bernard caught his breath while fumblingly gripping the glasses. The conversation kept continuing as if it would break off. Just what words did Rubens want to hear? Even at Bernard’s wary expression, Rubens didn’t give him a chance to relax.
“Finish speaking.”
“Pardon?”
“About those disgusting feelings, Weil.”
