Bernard was always weak against those who approached him directly. When someone showed favor, he would hesitate and end up getting swept along, and most of the time the aftertaste was bitter. Those who showed him favor usually hid their real purpose, and because of that, Bernard would easily crumble at the interest the other person showed, even though he repeatedly thought ‘oops.’
“You’ve gotten cheeky.”
“At least I wouldn’t feel wronged if I’d actually done something.”
At the grumbling voice, the tension that had been subtly continuing snapped. Knowing this was Rhino’s way of being considerate, Bernard only made an ambiguous face.
“Let’s go. I’ll make you a sandwich.”
“With one hand?”
“It’s not like I can’t.”
When Bernard pushed the cart while making a big show, Rhino, who was holding the cart handle, also obediently moved his feet. Before he knew it, Rhino, who had taken the cart handle from Bernard, smoothly pushed the cart. Bernard was practically just resting his hand on it. However, Rhino didn’t refuse him as he stubbornly helped push it, saying he would push together.
By the time they finished shopping, diligently loaded the luggage into the car, and left the store, the time was roughly past afternoon. Because he’d skipped meals for a long time, his stomach felt like it was stuck to his back. As he crawled into the passenger seat, Rhino clicked his tongue shortly.
“You skipped a meal, didn’t you?”
“There was nothing in the refrigerator.”
Since he didn’t want to be treated like an adult who couldn’t even take care of eating properly, he stealthily added words, and Rhino’s expression softened a little. He glanced at Bernard, who was buried in the passenger seat and not moving at all, then reached his hand over Bernard’s shoulder.
For a brief moment, an instantaneous reaction occurred. Rhino’s expression subtly sank when he noticed Bernard flinching and shrinking his neck. Bernard also bit his tongue with an ‘oops’ feeling—it was really a completely… unconscious reaction.
“Rhino, th-this is……”
“I’m okay.”
Bernard tried to hurriedly make excuses in a flustered voice, but Rhino gently cut off his words. What he was thinking of was clear. Bernard must be recalling the day he rode in Rubens’s car…… That terrible moment when the call was suddenly disconnected and only crying sounds could be heard.
“I just, tried to fasten your seatbelt.”
“……”
“I won’t do something like raising my hand to you.”
Rhino seemed to be trying to make a harmless expression. He wiggled his eyebrows then furrowed them again repeatedly while swallowing a groan. He sometimes said it was troublesome because he had a fierce-looking impression. He must be thinking that now too. It seemed he’d rather tried to smile. However, the faint smile that had been on Rhino’s face soon disappeared halfway. He seemed to feel a little devastated, and along with him, Bernard’s expression also kept sinking down, down.
“I have no intention of threatening you or forcing anything.”
When he spoke, he always made eye contact. It was also a habit Rubens had, but it was somehow a different action from that man. Gray eyes looked straight at Bernard. His eyes were half-hidden between his gently curved eye lines.
“Just now was my mistake.”
“…What are you talking about?”
“If I’d said in advance what I was trying to do, you wouldn’t have been startled.”
“Getting startled at something like that every time… is weirder. You’re upset, right?”
Looking at his drooping eye corners, Rhino swallowed the words rising up from inside. There were many things he wanted to say, but there were also many things he shouldn’t say. He had no intention from the start of being frustrated with Bernard or blaming him for being so lacking in courage. Rhino simply wanted to let him know. What it felt like to be respected, and he wanted to convey the obvious fact that there was no one in this world who didn’t need to be respected.
“You rejected my confession and now you’re worrying about something like that?”
At the casually thrown words, Bernard’s eyes widened. Looking at his faintly trembling eyelids, Rhino nonchalantly reached out and pulled the seatbelt from over his shoulder. Inserting the gently pulled belt into the locking device, he lowered his gaze.
“I’m in a good mood though.”
“……What?”
At the incomprehensible words, Bernard’s face frowned slightly. Because it was an expression doubting whether he’d heard wrong, Rhino quietly burst into laughter.
“Bernard.”
It was always a gentle calling of his name. A very sweet coaxing voice… enough to feel his fingertips slightly ticklish if he listened carefully.
“I’m bothering you now, no less than that man.”
It was an ambiguous tone. At the voice half-filled with certainty and anxiety, Bernard only blinked his eyes. To say no felt like a lie, and to say yes felt like deception. Though he didn’t know where he got such an impression, Bernard substituted silence for an answer. Rhino’s hand that had fastened the seatbelt slowly came to rest on his thigh.
It was a very careful approach, as if touching glasswork. First touching with his fingertips, then slowly… very slowly pressing his entire palm, Bernard unconsciously held his breath at the action. The hand touching his thigh covered almost half of Bernard’s thigh.
Though there was no way he could feel detailed sensations through his jeans, his thigh muscles seemed to pull. Bernard held his breath and bit down hard on his molars. It felt like his breathing shouldn’t leak out. As if at any moment… something bad would happen. Something. Kept.
Weight settled on top of the hand placed on his thigh. Even though Bernard knew Rhino’s upper body was tilting, he didn’t stop him. He just pressed down on his breath until his lungs ached.
“You……”
Rhino’s voice was slightly hoarse. A round forehead briefly touched his shoulder. He didn’t feel the weight. Only the hand touching his thigh felt hot. The utterly absurd thought came to mind that it might burn him. Looking at Bernard, who couldn’t move and even held his breath, thick emotions pooled in Rhino’s eyes.
“You’re always sensitive at timings like this.”
Bernard’s body trembled with a flinch at the grip strength of the hand firmly grasping his thigh. His thumb slowly swept up the inside of his thigh. Bernard thought a mark would be left on his skin. He wanted to check inside his pants right away, but he couldn’t.
As he swept up feeling the tender flesh inside, he pressed firmly above the pelvic bone. His palm came up another handful and was now half-resting on his lower abdomen. Around the time it became difficult to hold his breath any longer, Rhino lowered his head.
“And you’re foolish in strange places.”
His lips were bitten. The act of biting and pulling his lower lip without hurting was extremely light skinship, but Bernard tasted an impulsive pleasure enough to make his lower back shiver.
“Breathe, Bernard.”
An ominous air appeared in his gray eyes. Heat spread across Bernard’s face as he read the desire that had pooled fully. However, Rhino didn’t go further than that. Even while slowly sweeping his dry lips with his tongue, he didn’t push his own tongue through the gap between those lips.
Warm breath escaped through Bernard’s lips. Only then did he release the lower lip he’d been biting and showed a gentle smile. But Bernard didn’t trust that smile. Because just moments ago, he’d witnessed right in front of his nose how thick a desire those eyes held, and how moistly they were looking at him.
“Good boy.”
Rhino was generous with praise. He always didn’t miss Bernard’s trivial aspects and added praise like a passing remark. However, even Bernard, who had absolutely no dating experience, couldn’t help but know that then and now were clearly different.
His words were very sweet and thick, seeming like things to say on a bed. Bernard’s waist bent a little. In the car, it felt like he would soon show something he shouldn’t see. He didn’t want to reveal such circumstances… that he felt like he might come from the voice of someone he’d thought of as a close friend.
“……I knew, how to kiss.”
His voice broke sporadically. His throat was choked. Bernard’s face reddened further as his own breathing leaking out rapidly made him feel like someone who had already shared bad acts once.
“I almost did.”
Even while saying that, Rhino didn’t pull his body back. It felt like if he just tilted his head wrong, their lips would touch just like that. So Bernard rolled his lips inward and bit them, then carefully closed his mouth.
“Disappointed?”
At the question back, his heart sank with a thud. He tried to answer no, but somehow an answer didn’t easily flow out. Watching Bernard blink his eyes a couple times and swallow his bewilderment up close, Rhino smiled ambiguously.
“I’m disappointed though.”
He deliberately fashioned a gentle voice. A very sweet voice that seemed to carry the scent of honey. However, the scraps of desire still remaining in it gathered roundly in his lower abdomen.
“Can’t you be disappointed with me?”
Looking at his finely curved eye corners, Bernard noticed that was the action most closely approaching the dictionary definition of ‘smiling with one’s eyes.’ Feeling the weight of the hand awkwardly resting between his waist and below, Bernard swallowed dry saliva.
“Hm?”
He blinked at the gentle urging. Chewing over brief agony, something loosely piled up inside then repeatedly collapsed softly. Whimsy is impulsive. A variable created by situation, atmosphere, and people. Bernard knew bone-deep that he would regret entrusting his body to such impulse, but…… However, nevertheless…….
“Ha.”
A groan-like empty breath sound flowed out between Rhino’s teeth. He felt with his skin the moisture stickily clinging to that breath. His fine hairs stood on end.
“You really make a person anxious.”
In front of Rhino, Bernard had his eyes closed.
