Chapter 98
# 98
98. The Still Strange Guest (12)
“This just makes me curious.”
“About what?”
“If you’re going so far as to come here and bring this up, I can’t help but think there really is something going on.”
He spoke in a nonchalant voice, but I could sense the sarcasm.
Vincent closed his mouth and narrowed his brow slightly. Ethan smiled at the sight, giving me an unsettling feeling. Vincent probably knew it too. When he was smiling, he was at his most ominous.
“This makes me feel like I have to do something, even if I wasn’t planning to.”
Sure enough, ominous words spilled out. Ethan tilted his head further. Anyone watching would think he was a good-for-nothing nobleman.
“If I’m getting in your way, are you going to kick me out of here?”
“……”
Vincent didn’t answer right away. His emerald eyes, slightly lowered, betrayed a hint of annoyance. I thought he would immediately lash out with all sorts of irritation. But contrary to my expectations, he squeezed his eyes shut and opened them, as if trying to collect himself.
“What are you doing? Let me in on it.”
Ethan sneered. Vincent remained silent. He acted like he wouldn’t even start, afraid he wouldn’t be able to stop once he said a word. I sensed hesitation in him.
Watching him from across the table, I realized.
‘Vincent is watching Ethan’s every move.’
He wasn’t making it obvious, but it was clear that he was strangely under Ethan’s thumb. Even with words and attitudes that were clearly intended to be sarcastic, he didn’t rebuke him.
It wasn’t that he wasn’t annoyed. He hid the emotion the moment it surfaced. The fingertips gripping the teacup handle curled inward slightly. It was subtle, but the hesitation implied caution.
It was the moment when the lopsided relationship became clear.
“Just kidding. I really did just come to relax, so don’t get any strange ideas.”
Ethan smiled lightly, defusing the atmosphere. He straightened his posture and sat up straight. Then, he picked up his empty teacup and held it out to me. I, who had been watching him carefully, belatedly tilted the teapot and filled his cup.
Ethan slurped down the tea.
“More importantly, now that I’m here, tell me about yourself. How have you been? Are you busy these days? Everyone seems to be so hectic, I heard they can’t even sleep properly. You’ll get sick that way. Are you hurting anywhere?”
Questions poured out in a torrent. As if he had been waiting for this moment, Ethan fired off words without a break. Vincent’s brow furrowed even more.
“Yeah.”
It was a curt reply, and it was impossible to tell which question he was answering. Ethan’s voice stopped abruptly. But he quickly opened his mouth again.
“What’s ‘yeah’ to?”
“‘Yeah’ to everything you asked.”
“Really? Is work that hard?”
“Yeah.”
“Is there anything you need my help with? Just say the word. I’ll help.”
“No.”
“……Have you had anything special happen lately? Anything fun?”
“Not really.”
“…….”
The conversation was choppy. Vincent replied insincerely, as if he had no desire to talk. Ethan must have sensed it, because his voice stopped again. The corners of his tightly closed lips stretched out, but his eyes didn’t smile.
“So, are you still afraid of the night?”
Night…? As I looked at Ethan in bewilderment, he glared at Vincent with a smile only on his lips. Vincent’s gaze, which had been fixed on the teacup, was lifted again. I expected him to ask what he meant, but a calm answer came back.
“No.”
Another curt reply.
Silence followed as if it were a natural procedure. A small sigh escaped from beside me.
“Is there anything else you want to say to me?”
“No.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Weren’t you curious about how I was doing?”
“It was enough to see that you were doing well.”
“……Still, let’s talk some more. It’s been a while, let’s catch up.”
“Later.”
The rejection was quick and firm. He offered the rejection without even looking this way. Ethan probably knew that the words “later” were just a formality.
With those words, Vincent rose from the sofa. The way he smoothed out the wrinkles in his jacket clearly showed that he was done here.
At that moment, I heard a loud bang as something hit the table! Startled, I turned around and saw Ethan’s fist trembling on the table.
Despite making such a loud noise, Ethan smiled as if nothing had happened. I looked at Ethan in confusion, then turned my gaze back to Vincent. He, too, was looking at Ethan without the slightest movement, as if he hadn’t heard anything.
“How long are you going to keep this up?”
Ethan murmured in a low voice.
“How long are you going to keep acting like this?”
Emotion was poured into every word he uttered. It was as if something that had been suppressed was slowly seeping out through the cracks of its confinement. He smiled more intensely than usual and pretended to be nonchalant, but his fist on the table was still trembling slightly.
Vincent glanced at me. I bowed deeply.
“I’ll go out now.”
This time, no one stopped me.
The conversation was getting quite long. I paced anxiously in the hallway. Not a single word leaked out from beyond the tightly closed door. Should I be relieved? But the anxiety grew larger and larger.
Just as I was wondering if I should go in, the door opened. Soon after, Vincent came out.
He glanced at me as I paced in the hallway. I gave a short bow and passed him, entering the room.
I gently closed the door and looked at Ethan. He was sitting on the sofa in the same position as before. His profile as he sipped his tea looked as calm as if nothing had happened. I looked that far, then quickly went to his side and sat down.
“Ethan-nim.”
Ethan slowly turned his head. I hadn’t noticed when we were further apart, but his face looked tired up close.
Watching the two of them talk today, I was convinced. Something had definitely happened between them. What had changed their relationship like this?
Should I ask? I hesitated, pondering. Then, he smiled faintly.
“It’s okay, ask me.”
Permission granted. I slowly parted my lips.
“Did something happen with the Master?”
“I’ve been found out. We’ve grown apart.”
“Did you fight?”
“Something like that.”
“Did you even have a Fistfight?”
“I’d rather have done that than what’s happening now.”
Then what?
“Things got a little twisted because of Lucas. Or rather, because of this.”
Ethan pointed to his eyes with his fingertips.
“I did it behind Vincent’s back.”
“……!”
My breath caught in my throat. It was a brief statement, but I knew what it meant. I was that shocked.
“So, the Master received them without knowing?”
“That’s right. To be exact, he received them without knowing they were Lucas’s.”
“Why, why? Why would you……”
“Because it was what Lucas wanted. So I did it for him.”
But I thought I was hiding it well, but he found out quickly. Ethan added as if it were nothing. But the situation just now was enough to explain that it was definitely not nothing.
And I couldn’t even begin to imagine how Vincent must have felt when he learned about all of this. It must have been the moment he had been longing for so much, but the truth was too cruel.
I replied bleakly.
“……But it must have been something the Master didn’t want.”
“Exactly. He went ballistic as soon as he found out.”
“He might have told you to turn it back.”
“Lucas had already left by then. That kind of option didn’t exist from the start. Well, even if Lucas had been alive, it would have been impossible to turn it back.”
That’s a lie. If Lucas had somehow managed to stay alive, even if he had been unconscious, if there had been a chance of him coming back to life, Ethan would never have made that choice.
What must Ethan have felt when Lucas told him what he wanted?
Being given the power to choose can be nice, but sometimes it’s too cruel. Which is more delicious, what is more necessary, who is better, which is more important: the thread-like life of his younger brother or the hope of the friend his younger brother had plunged into despair?
That was the kind of choice Ethan had to make. What is more important? The truth is that nothing is unimportant, but he had to choose to let go of one of the two. Perhaps Lucas chose for him, in order to ease his pain even a little.
Vincent was right. Ethan was good at lying. He was a man who perfectly hid even his own emotions in lies.
“It’s been like this ever since. It’s not like we’ve had a big fight or are openly cold to each other. It’s just that we’ve grown a little distant. Vincent doesn’t try to talk to me, and even when we do talk, he acts awkwardly. And then he watches my every move, which is so uncomfortable that I end up avoiding him. Actually, it’s been quite a while since we’ve seen each other. We’ve both been busy. I made time to come and see him for the first time in a while.”
“…….”
“I didn’t want to say it because I thought this would happen.”
What? When I asked, Ethan smiled awkwardly.
“Because you look like you’re about to cry.”
“I’m not crying.”
“I know.”
With those words, Ethan leaned his upper body, resting one hand on the edge of the sofa. The distance narrowed a little. His face, tilted at an angle, had a gentle air about it.
“But if you want to cry, I hope you won’t hold it back. Paula doesn’t need to do that too.”
Sadness seeped into his smile.
As I quietly met his gaze, I reached out and grabbed the back of the sofa with one hand, bringing my body closer to him. As I tilted my head, a question arose in his brown eyes.
“You scolded me for not living happily, but you lied about not doing well either, Ethan-nim.”
At my small grumble, his brown eyes curved.
“Oh dear, I’ve been found out again.”
“You were scolding me a lot just now too.”
“I’m sorry.”
His tone was playful. It seemed to be his way of defending himself, which made my heart ache.
“I’ll do as you say, Ethan-nim. But please grant me a request too.”
“Haha, what are you going to say?”
“Promise me you’ll grant it.”
“Okay. Tell me.”
“I hope you won’t hold back when you want to cry either, Ethan-nim.”
The smile disappeared from Ethan’s face again. I slowly recalled the situation that had unfolded since noon today.
Ethan, who was holed up in his room and oversleeping, the terrified expressions of the servants who saw him following me, even the maids who were begging him for their lives over nothing.
In such situations, Ethan was unfazed. He seemed used to it. Perhaps such scenes were now natural for Ethan. It was unfamiliar to me, but not to him. The Count who survived by devouring his own flesh and blood. He would have to live with that stigma for the rest of his life.
Even now, he can’t express his feelings even in front of his precious friend. I wondered if he was surrounded only by people who were suffocating him, with no place to vent his feelings. That bothered me the most.
“Even if you can’t show it to anyone, even if you shouldn’t, I hope you won’t hide it from me, at least.”
“…….”
“I hope you won’t hold back.”
So I hope you won’t do that to me either.
He and I had memories together. So I could empathize with his pain to some extent. I knew that he was now in a position where he had to be aware of other people’s feelings, so he would try to hide his emotions even more, but he didn’t need to do that in front of me. It’s okay to have at least one person you can be honest with, right?
“You will, won’t you?”
And this was the only thing I could give him. I hoped that it would ease his breathing even a little. With that in mind, I looked at Ethan and smiled softly.
“And I hope you won’t hold back now either. It’s just me here.”
At that, Ethan’s face crumbled in an instant. He distorted his expression as if he were about to cry at any moment and buried his face in my shoulder. Shaking emotions flowed out in ragged breaths. Just as he had done for me, I patted his back repeatedly.
