Define The Relationship Novel - Chapter 48

Ah.

He felt his insides drop. For a moment, his stomach stung. His gut twisted in pain, and his stomach ached terribly. Karlyle quietly raised a hand and pressed it against his suit.

Below his firm chest, he rubbed his sternum, where his ribs were located, with his fingers. His breath hitched. His heart painfully squeezed and then released. His chilling hands felt nothing.

Breathing…

“So don’t spread unnecessary rumors, Julie.”

Inside his chest…

“The director is so sharp when it comes to this.”

“Then won’t you introduce us?”

The sounds echoed dully, as if from a very distant place. He couldn’t hear well. He felt like running away. A chill ran down his spine. Slowly, an ominous premonition settled in.

“Mikhaila.”

The gentle voice was as always, yet it reached his ears with an unusual coolness.

“If there’s no relationship, how could that be possible?”

Someone whispered. Perhaps… all the thoughts he had been having.

“You looked close!”

“That has nothing to do with it.”

Everything.

“Oh, that’s a shame.”

“No, if the director is single, many people will be relieved. Like Olivia from HR.”

“It’s the best outcome for everyone.”

Was it a delusion?

“Yes, now everyone, go inside.”

The footsteps stopped. Karlyle looked ahead. His eyelids blinked, very heavily and slowly. He saw Ash.

His Ash was smiling. As always.

“Oh, Karlyle?”

His name was called. Three pairs of eyes next to Ash turned towards him. Their gazes stung, piercing his body. Though it was just the curious gazes of three people, Karlyle felt a dizzying sensation, as if standing before thousands. He felt exposed, his vulnerability laid bare. He was so, so embarrassed.

“Were you waiting there?”

His lips wouldn’t part. His eyes blinked again. He felt dizzy. Karlyle endured the urge to foolishly fumble at his throat.

No, he simply couldn’t move. He felt that if he moved even a little more, he would crumble. The people who had been observing the silent Karlyle spoke to Ash.

“Oh, then we’ll get going.”

“See you Monday!”

Ash was seen accepting brief hugs with natural, familiar movements. Karlyle quietly watched the hands that touched Ash and then pulled away. Without understanding the situation, he silently suppressed the foolishly surging jealousy.

Upon closer thought, Ash’s smile for Karlyle was nothing special to Ash. His charming and gentle smile was not Karlyle’s exclusive preserve. The fact he thought he knew now felt utterly alien.

“Karlyle?”

Ash walked towards him with a puzzled expression. The scent of Ash, whom he thought he loved so dearly, gently wafted towards him.

Karlyle’s conditioned body reacted even when encountering an Alpha’s pheromones. Instead of showing repulsion towards another Alpha, it expressed a subtle fondness. Foolishly so. And then, he felt overwhelmed.

His entire body, his soul, every element that made up Karlyle reacted so strongly to Ash.

“Why are you like this? Is something wrong?”

A worried expression appeared on Ash’s face. In a few steps, Ash was in front of him, looking down at him gently. Karlyle quietly scrutinized his face, like someone searching for something new.

Nothing had changed. Ash always looked at him that way. He smiled at Karlyle as he did to others, spoke gently, and simply showed him consideration.

Karlyle looked down at his feet. He was standing on the floor. This was not a dream. The heavy gravity, crushing him as if he would collapse, proved it was reality.

Yet, Karlyle was dreaming with his eyes open.

“Just now…”

He managed to open his mouth.

“I heard what you said.”

“You did?”

Ash was neither flustered nor found it strange. He just smiled and tilted his head slightly. A hot lump surged up. This wasn’t the expression he wanted to see.

“Those other people… they were curious about our relationship.”

Hoping it wasn’t a dream, Karlyle asked, as if to confirm. He didn’t want to wake up. An earnest wish soared within him. He didn’t want to hear that they were nothing. He wanted to believe that all the time they had spent together had meaning.

“My colleagues are a little too interested in my affairs.”

But Ash smiled apologetically.

“Just in case, I’ll tell them again when I see them on Monday.”

The words he wanted to hear were:

“We’re really not nothing.”

This wasn’t it.

A silent, screaming silence flowed. Like someone who had lost his voice, Karlyle barely managed to open and close his lips repeatedly. The inside of his ribs ached unbearably. It was so painful he felt like bending over, but Karlyle endured again.

His head was spinning. What should he do? It felt distant. His vision turned black. Everything he had planned and hoped for crumbled in an instant. The most basic premise supporting them was flawed.

A painting came to mind. Ash’s face, happy upon receiving it, was now painted over in black, making it incredibly difficult to imagine. There was no way he would be happy to receive something like that from someone who was “nothing.”

Ash might have endured the affection and actions Karlyle showed him all this time. No, he must have endured them. Karlyle had earned Ash’s disapproval from the start. How many times had he displeased a man who seemed unlikely to get angry?

Yet, unable to gauge Ash’s goodwill and patience, Karlyle had mistakenly taken it for affection. He was so foolish. Stupid and utterly inadequate. It made sense that his grandfather would belittle him. How frustrating it must have been to have someone who couldn’t even grasp the most basic things serving as Kyle’s proxy.

“You don’t need to do that.”

Karlyle barely managed to dig out the reason that had been buried and rusted away. Gripping it as if his fingernails would break, Karlyle somehow opened his mouth.

“Hm?”

Ash looked at him with a puzzled expression, as if he didn’t understand. Moving his frozen, stiff hands as if his brain was struggling to rotate clearly, Karlyle continued.

“What I wanted to tell you today was…”

He was angry, sad, and in pain.

“There’s no need…”

It hurt so much that Karlyle could only say this:

“To continue our meetings next time, I wanted to tell you…”

This wasn’t what Karlyle wanted to say. On sleepless nights, Karlyle had formed a myriad of sentences in his mind.

He wanted to say this: He wanted to ask if he could be allowed to love Ash, insignificant as he was. He wanted to ask if his humble heart could be reborn as the most precious thing in the world.

“…I was going to tell you that.”

The blood slowly circulating through his body was cold, as if it had flowed from a cleaved heart. Karlyle, who had barely finished speaking, stared at Ash’s face. He didn’t know what expression he was making himself.

Ash was silent. Still smiling, he quietly looked down at him. His long eyelashes calmly lowered and then rose.

“Is that so?”

After a long pause, Ash briefly asked. This time, Karlyle was silent.

“I wondered what you were going to say.”

Ash’s voice was calm and gentle. It still hadn’t changed. This, too, was not the reaction Karlyle had expected. Though he was hurt, wronged, and sad, an overwhelming lingering attachment imagined a different response.

Perhaps he would be flustered. Would he say it was a misunderstanding? Would he say he didn’t want to end their meetings? Would he hold him and prove that everything Karlyle had experienced wasn’t a dream?

“I didn’t expect this at all.”

A slightly sharp voice was heard. That subtle difference brought a futile hope. Perhaps.

“Karlyle is truly… an unfathomable person.”

If Ash denied his words, if he wanted to continue their meetings, there might be hope.

“Alright.”

But dreams always shatter at unexpected moments.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

And Karlyle was no exception.

Ash crossed his arms. Staring at the calm expression looking down at him, Karlyle exhaled a faint, trembling breath without making a sound.

A strange and awkward silence hung in the air. It felt as if they had returned to the very beginning. No, it was worse than the beginning. Slowly, it sank in.

Just now, Karlyle had made a statement that ended their relationship. Ash did not deny it. He simply accepted it.

“During that time…”

He cleared his choked throat and made a sound. Ash was just looking at Karlyle. His gentle face seemed colder than anyone else’s. Of course. He was probably dumbfounded.

To initiate a meeting, claim to have something to say, and then suddenly blurt out such words would be unexpected for Ash. Meaningless thoughts crumbled and flowed away.

“You’ve had a lot of trouble.”

Ash frowned slightly. A dizzy spell came over him the moment he uttered those words. He couldn’t endure it any longer. If he stayed like this, he felt he would end up asking Ash.

If they were truly nothing, if Ash hadn’t liked him even a little, why he had said those things – he felt he would press Ash, making a pathetic spectacle of himself.

Karlyle slowly walked past Ash. He had no mental capacity to continue any further conversation. Mentioning compensation or reward for maintaining their relationship was also impossible now. He couldn’t think of anything. He steadied his swaying legs and walked. He walked forward.

His trembling wrists and hands were not held. And so, he left the lobby.

After leaving the lobby, Karlyle just kept walking. He moved his feet without knowing where he was going. After walking for a long time, Karlyle stopped. He had passed Covent Garden and was heading towards Trafalgar Square. Karlyle, staring blankly ahead, slowly turned around.

There was no one there. Ash didn’t stop him. Didn’t follow him. No calls, no texts, nothing rang.

All that remained on the empty street was a foolish man who had woken from a terribly happy dream.

Karlyle arrived home at five-thirty in the afternoon. Mayhem asked about his well-being, and Karlyle replied that he was fine. To the question of what happened with the guest, he answered that the appointment was canceled and that what had been prepared didn’t need to be served.

He came out of the bathroom a little after six. After that, he familiarized himself with the schedule delivered by his secretary and worked until midnight. He reviewed documents for approval and reinforced all ongoing projects.

Lying in bed at one in the morning, Karlyle quietly closed his eyes. But he couldn’t sleep. The things he had consciously suppressed raised their heads and clung to his entire body. A shallow sweat formed. His complexion was pale. His stomach ached severely. It felt twisted and wrung out.

Sighing deeply, he sat up in bed. Since it wasn’t a frequent symptom, there was no emergency medicine. Moreover, the cause was clear. Karlyle didn’t know how to resolve the root of this stress. Because it stemmed from his own inadequacy.