It took quite a while before Henry could hear Declan’s answer.
And even then.
“Maybe.”
It was a speculative answer that didn’t carry even a hint of certainty.
How could someone not even know whether they liked or disliked something? If you like it, you like it; if you don’t, you don’t.
Henry didn’t show it outwardly, but he couldn’t understand it.
“…Then why do you keep doing it?”
Henry asked with a slightly furrowed brow at the incomprehensible words.
Declan slowly tapped his knee with the tip of his index finger. Once again, Henry could sense that he wasn’t particularly pleased, but Henry didn’t try to change the mood like before.
He waited for an answer. Because he was curious.
What does Declan Russell think of the thing I treasure most, that he can dismiss it so lightly?
Truth be told, even though Henry had asked, he didn’t expect much. He was certain Declan would give him an evasive answer. As he always did.
“Because I don’t want to quit.”
Breaking Henry’s expectations, the answer that came was of an unexpected kind.
“What? If you’re reluctant enough not to want to quit, that means you like it.”
Though having heard the answer didn’t mean he could understand it.
At Henry’s dissatisfied voice, Declan pressed his lips tightly together. Even though they were making eye contact and having a conversation, Henry somehow got the feeling that the man was looking at something else rather than at him.
The answer didn’t come back even after a long while. The faint smile felt almost like resignation, and Henry felt a persistent displeasure.
***
Early dawn, just as the sun was about to rise. The house was noisy.
He thought he could hear Richard’s voice here and there. It sounded like he was angry.
Unable to resist it, Henry opened his eyes. As he sat up, he saw Declan with a serious expression, seeming to have woken up earlier.
“What is it?”
Still unable to shake off his drowsiness, Henry sat up with his face completely scrunched up. Declan’s gaze, which had been constantly looking toward the door, finally turned to Henry.
It seemed he had woken up earlier but couldn’t go out due to the strange atmosphere.
“Stay here. I’ll go check it out.”
Henry got up from the bed and put on his slippers. He grabbed the door handle and was about to turn it.
Knock, knock.
If only the sound of knocking on the door hadn’t come first.
“Henry, Declan. Are you sleeping?”
It was Veronica’s voice.
Instead of answering, Henry opened the door.
Then, amid Richard’s voice that became even clearer, he noticed a familiar voice he hadn’t heard in a very long time was mixed in.
“Sorry. You both woke up because it was noisy.”
Seeing Henry holding the door and Declan sitting on the temporary mattress, Veronica smiled with raised eyebrows.
Henry couldn’t even think to ask her what the situation was.
“Samuel’s here?”
He only asked with gleaming eyes, extremely excited at the voice he hadn’t heard in so long.
Veronica, who quietly observed Declan’s reaction, smiled carefully and nodded.
“I’m going down…”
“Henry.”
It was Veronica who blocked Henry as he was about to cross the threshold to go see Samuel right away.
When the low voice called his name, Henry stopped. She shook her head firmly. It meant no.
“Stay here. That’s what I came up to tell you.”
Henry couldn’t understand her words. Why, when Samuel had come, was she preventing him from going to see him?
“…Why?”
“Henry, I’ll explain to you in a bit. Right now…”
Veronica hesitated for a long while as if she didn’t know how to say it.
It was when Henry was about to ask her what was going on, whether she could tell him if he closed the door to the room where Declan was.
“Are you saying you absolutely must marry that woman?”
Richard’s shout was heard.
Hearing that, he could understand without having to ask. The reason she told him not to come down.
Henry suddenly raised his head and looked at Veronica.
Veronica nodded to convey that the reason he was thinking of was correct.
“Stay inside. Okay? You understand, right? I’ll try to arrange for you to meet Samuel separately.”
Henry reluctantly nodded.
Even though he knew this wasn’t a situation where he should be stubborn, he felt a bit wronged.
That he had to be left alone in the room just because he was the youngest child.
It was even more so because it was obvious that both Iris and Veronica would be on the first floor, supposedly mediating between the two.
“Okay…”
“Don’t be too hurt. Okay?”
Henry nodded again. After patting the back of her young sibling who was much bigger than her, Veronica closed the door and left.
Even the thought that Declan Russell was watching him couldn’t resolve Henry’s gloom. Henry plopped down on the mattress.
He knows the situation is wrong.
Declan had already caught too many of his weaknesses. He didn’t want to give him any more leverage.
Even while reminding himself of that again, Henry, unable to contain his frustration, opened his mouth without realizing it.
“A few years ago…”
“Yeah.”
Unlike his expectation that no answer would come back, Declan immediately responded to Henry’s words.
I’m listening. So tell me.
It felt like someone was comforting him. Henry stopped what he was about to say and raised his face.
His gaze was caught by the man’s eyes.
“…You won’t tell anyone, right?”
He threw at him a question that would seem naive and foolish to an outsider.
“I won’t.”
A more firm answer came back than when he talked about himself.
Though he could have considered it just words, strangely enough, he felt trust in him.
“A few years ago, Samuel brought the woman he was seeing. She was a little older than Samuel and was Asian. She had immigrated when she married her ex-husband, so she also had a child from that relationship.”
Henry slowly but carefully chose his words as he continued.
“She didn’t even go to church.”
Henry paused briefly and caught his breath.
Henry examined Declan’s expression again to see if it was okay to continue.
He sat quietly listening without offering any opinion, and rather, that attitude reassured Henry.
“Dad didn’t like her very much. No… he opposed it. Mom did too. My sisters said they’d mediate in between, but in the end, Samuel didn’t come home for a while after that.”
Henry sighed softly.
“But it seems like today, he came to say he’s going to marry her.”
Henry sat still for a while, just fiddling with his fingertips for no reason.
Everything felt bleak. Imagining the argument that must be happening on the first floor without him, Henry suffered from intangible pain.
“Why do they oppose it? Will there ever come a day when Dad accepts her?”
Henry spoke almost like a lament.
But he wanted an answer to that lament-like question. He needed words of affirmation from someone else’s mouth. Henry looked at Declan with desperate eyes that demanded something.
He, who had been consistently quiet, stared intently at Henry’s face, then answered.
“It could happen.”
It was a statement that considered numerous possible futures. Henry exhaled lightly and chided his companion.
“Come on. At times like this, just tell me it will happen.”
“What about you?”
“What?”
“What about you? Your brother’s girlfriend.”
It was a question he had never thought about. Henry blinked slowly.
Henry recalled the day Samuel first brought that woman. Her height, a span shorter than even Iris. The fear on her face that made her look young enough to seem his age rather than Samuel’s.
Thinking about it, she seemed to have been shrinking back then. As if she already knew what kind of treatment she would receive even before entering this house.
“…I don’t know her well, but since she’s the person Samuel chose. I thought she’d probably be okay.”
Henry muttered as if lost in thought. His words trailed off hazily.
Declan was still looking at Henry. Calm eyes whose thoughts were unknowable. The feeling of having all his thoughts completely seen through by him.
“Isn’t that enough then?”
He asked in a low voice. Henry’s fingers, which had been endlessly wandering over the bed, unable to hide his anxiety, stopped.
Is… this enough?
His parents still haven’t accepted Samuel and his lover, though?
To Henry, who had confused eyes. Declan added.
“Your parents are your parents. And you’re you. Is there a reason you must have the same opinion as your parents? You’re a different person from your parents.”
As if hit on the head with a hammer, Henry looked at his companion with a dazed face.
The feeling of having his world shattered from the outside.
He was the first person living in a different world that Henry Lowell had ever met.
