Bernard was leaning his cheek against the car window, holding onto the seatbelt like a lifeline. Occasionally, he looked at Rubens’s right hand gripping the steering wheel tightly, then dropped his gaze. He was afraid that if their eyes met, he would really gouge out his eyeballs.
“You said you sorted out the relationship.”
“I, I refused, refused…”
He didn’t want to stutter, but his tongue must have hardened completely.
“Refused?”
The anger in Rubens’s voice was livid. Bernard tried to squeeze his body into the corner even a little.
“What.”
“That, that is…”
“McPherson must have confessed.”
Rubens casually shoved Bernard’s emotions into the mud with a light tone. Rubens had a truly calm expression, but Bernard’s body froze stiff. Bernard shook his head rapidly to deny his words, but it was an action that wouldn’t work on Rubens.
“I can’t not know those eyes.”
“No, it’s not like that.”
“Do you believe the words ‘I love you’?”
When Bernard was finally relieved that he wasn’t stuttering anymore, Rubens grimaced again. He seemed to be recalling the past. Looking at Rubens’s profile, Bernard just weighed whether he should apologize for doing wrong now. If he wasn’t quick to judge the situation, the ending was usually violence, so he always had to prostrate himself flatter.
“Did it seem that true? You’re a person not worth loving like that… I vaguely know about McPherson too. I didn’t pay much attention since it’s a different track from mine anyway, but I can’t even imagine that household tolerating an idiot like you.”
Rubens’s voice tinged with laughter was so cruel… Bernard just clasped his own hands, not knowing what to do. Should he jump out even now? Should he kick open the door of the moving car and leave? Or should he just prostrate himself and beg him to stop? Irrational thoughts spun tautly in his head.
“McPherson must have found you amusing.”
“No…”
“You must have been easy. Like me.”
Bernard’s mouth that had been opening haltingly closed like a deflated balloon. He only blinked his eyes, and soon his eyelashes became wetly soaked. Unable to make any protest, he just quietly shed tears. Every time tears grazed the wound on his cheek, his shoulders trembled finely, and that was all.
“So he must have wanted to play around with you once. If it’s you, ‘that McPherson’s’ rumors. It doesn’t seem like you wouldn’t know at all.”
Rubens whispered gently. Bernard suspected his neck had become a stiff dead tree. Rhino had been mocked in front of him, yet he couldn’t shake his head at all. He should act like when Rhino had beaten up that classmate thoroughly when Bernard had been insulted, but his body wouldn’t gain strength.
“You’re a person not even worth that, yet I don’t understand why he acts like that.”
Rubens despised such types. Idiots who don’t know how to judge properly and needlessly believe in goodness. If he had been completely vile or completely good instead, he might have respected Bernard. However, he couldn’t like an empty shell… It was close to fundamental disgust.
However, Rubens occasionally wanted to kiss Bernard’s tear-soaked cheek. He also wanted to see him suffer and twist his body as he licked his wet eyeballs thoroughly with his tongue. He felt a false sense of fullness at the sight of him trembling before him yet obeying without disobeying a single word.
Rubens judged that this too might be close to possessiveness. So he proposed the absurd sex partner arrangement to him, and the idiot Bernard Weil accepted it. The only curiosity was, even though he had seized both brothers, why did he still feel so lacking?
The unquenched frustration sat like indigestion. Throughout the drive, he heard the noise of suppressed sniffling from the seat next to him.
When they reached the corner of the familiar residential area, the car stopped abruptly. Bernard, who was gripping the seatbelt tightly, blinked rapidly.
“Wear the ring. I won’t say it again.”
“…Yes.”
“It suits you, so don’t take it off.”
Rubens Hurt was an unpredictable man. A man so capricious that Bernard absolutely couldn’t grasp him. At the hand reaching out, Bernard’s shoulders shrank again. Rubens’s hand stopped in midair. Bernard anticipated the violence to follow, but there was no hitting. Rubens just traced the wound on Bernard’s cheek with his fingertips and let out a breath similar to a sigh. Bernard felt a strange emptiness.
Bernard, who never raised his head throughout, didn’t know what expression Rubens made. He thought the hand tracing his cheek lingered too long, but without even the right to refuse, he endured that touch while frozen stiff.
What if we’re discovered? What if Elliot finds out? Such crumb-like questions swam inside his body. He had swallowed so many questions that his insides tickled.
“Go now.”
He needed to unlock the seatbelt, but his hands kept slipping. Even while fumbling, Bernard couldn’t quite calm down at the thought that he had to get out right away. He was afraid of upsetting Rubens’s mood again.
However, Rubens didn’t get angry. His roundly trimmed nails traced down the back of Bernard’s hand. When the fingertips touched, Bernard unknowingly swallowed an empty breath. With his large hand overlapping and covering the back of Bernard’s hand, Rubens pressed the seatbelt button. The click of the lock releasing sounded unusually loud, and Bernard fled without even facing his expression.
“Stop crying.”
Why did he say such things while releasing his seatbelt? He couldn’t understand at all. Even though he himself had directly slapped his cheek, the hand pushing him to go back was strangely kind. Bernard thought he had dreamed while running. His breath rose to his chin. His head was filled with Rubens’s damp voice.
At the voice that kept echoing, the congratulatory words came to mind. The day when no one congratulated him, but only Rubens uniquely congratulated him. The man who embraced the waist of Bernard, who remained alone, and told him he was beautiful. The person who said he would go find him, and when he found him, they should date passionately.
Uniquely…
In the world Bernard admired, only he had responded to Bernard.
Bernard stood on the main street of the residential area and cried like a child. He just cried like a lost child in messily crumpled clothes. He was just aggrieved by everything. The swollen cheek, Rubens’s harassment, and himself who had his heart completely stolen by the kindness he had glimpsed before.
He thought he would never see that appearance again, yet at this small candy piece suddenly given like this, Bernard wavered pathetically again. He felt insignificant. He knew himself who would obediently comply even if Rubens continued to treat him as cheap goods and shake his heart.
The star candy seemed to have melted in his mouth. The emotion that stuck persistently under his tongue was chillingly sweet. So he felt bad.
***
Rubens was lost in thought. While driving the car, he contacted his secretary. The ring tone didn’t continue for long.
– Yes, this is Dale Roman.
“Something came up that I need you to check.”
– What might that be?
“Do you remember the university graduation ceremony of the student I used to sponsor?”
– Ah… Yes. Isn’t that where you met Mr. Weil?
“Find out if Elliot attended the party, and what Weil did at that party.”
– Is there a particular part I should check?
At Dale’s question, Rubens’s lips stretched long. Only silence lingered inside the car body that had smoothly stopped at the red light signal.
“If possible, the whereabouts of both people.”
– Yes, understood.
The call ended. Rubens tapped the car handle with his index finger with a displeased face. Déjà vu stabbed his mind. He felt like he was missing some obvious fact.
“Don’t you remember the moment we met?”
“That time… I drank too much.”
“Well, you did smell a bit of alcohol.”
“You’re the one who drank a lot!”
“I won’t deny it.”
Whenever the topic of their first meeting came up, Elliot would burst into laughter every time. Saying it was regrettable that he didn’t remember the first night well, he would hug his neck and beg for kisses. Since they were both heavily drunk, it was natural that they didn’t remember.
“You said you’d become something shabby.”
“Me? No, I want to become the most sparkling thing for Rubens.”
Why did that conversation suddenly come to mind? The face that had just been crumpled in the passenger seat sniffling continuously came to mind in succession. An uncomfortable assumption pressed down on his chest.
“Still, I remember this one thing. The fact that you kissed amazingly well.”
“How shameless.”
Twins who looked more alike than he thought when he thought they were different. The noisy party after the graduation ceremony. The entry records that couldn’t be properly confirmed because the university alumni association had chartered it. And unclear memories.
“I’m glad you found me.”
The horn sounded loudly.
