Define The Relationship Novel - Chapter 91

Since the drinking party went on for a long time, all the guests stayed overnight in the guest rooms. Karlyle had anticipated this from the beginning, so early in the morning, he called the servants to clean the mansion and had the chef prepare breakfast. It was a weekend morning, and coupled with the late-night drinking, everyone woke up late.

Karlyle had about four hours of sleep before getting up. Ash, who had said he didn’t want Karlyle to drink, ended up drinking excessively as a penalty while playing Pyramid, a card-based drinking game.

And as a result, he seemed quite drunk.

Karlyle had thought this before, but Ash seemed weak at all card games. Throughout watching Ash smile amiably and drink, Karlyle decided that next time, he would definitely play a poker game with stakes, just the two of them. It was because he wanted to see Ash drunk again.

He hadn’t really thought about seeing Ash drunk before, but Karlyle changed his mind after yesterday. Drunk Ash was unbelievably cute, beyond what words could express. It felt like a waste to see such a sight only once.

‘Where are you going?’

Ash’s peculiar drunken habit, or rather, non-habit, began the moment Karlyle went to get a glass of water. Ash, who was sitting right next to him, losing miserably at the game, grabbed Karlyle’s hand the moment he stood up and asked. Up to that point, it was as usual. But what was different was what came after.

‘I want to go too.’

With those words, Ash obediently followed behind Karlyle. Then, standing quietly beside Karlyle as he poured water, he tightly hugged Karlyle from behind. Just like a baby bird.

Karlyle knew Ash’s size wasn’t suitable for calling him a baby bird, but Ash followed Karlyle around like a baby bird following its mother. There was no other way to describe that cuteness. Not only did he follow him around, smiling brightly, but he also obediently followed any instructions given, just in case.

When Karlyle asked if he could kiss his cheek where no one could see, Ash smiled beautifully, bowed his head, and kissed him with a smack. When Karlyle quietly pointed to several other places, Ash followed them in order.

After seeing this, the complicated feelings that had troubled him all day seemed to subside a little. Perhaps it was also due to the alcohol in his system. The strange awkwardness he had felt in the garden vanished as if it had never existed. So Karlyle felt relieved.

Everything was as usual. Karlyle told himself that only good things remained, and he greeted the morning. However, the situation, following yesterday, kept not going as Karlyle thought.

It was late morning when people started waking up one by one. Noisy chatter echoed through each floor. Exaggerated exclamations about the bathroom being so big they might get lost, or stories about how comfortable the beds were, could be heard through the doors. Karlyle, walking down the corridor of the guest room floor to check if anyone needed anything, stopped in front of a room where Aaron’s voice was heard. It was because the name Hazel was mentioned.

“Hazel contacted you?”

The voice that followed the question belonged to the Omega named Ron.

“Yeah. Johan and I are close with Hazel, you know. She asked what Ash’s new number was.”

It was a name that bothered him greatly, but Karlyle tried to turn his steps to avoid the situation. However, the moment he heard those words, he couldn’t move. His legs froze. His blood ran cold. Through the slightly open door, he could see Aaron standing, and Ron and Johan sitting on the bed.

“Did you tell her?”

“She asked so earnestly, I thought something might be wrong, so I told her. But then, meeting Karlyle yesterday, I felt so bad. What should I do?”

His own name being mentioned made him feel nauseous. Karlyle raised a hand and pressed his eyelids firmly.

“Wouldn’t it be okay since it’s Ash? Ash treats the people he dates really well. That’s why everyone wants to be with Ash.”

Johan, who was listening, said. Karlyle also thought so. He tried to. Since it was Ash, he would naturally not do anything disrespectful to him. But the words that followed completely shattered Karlyle’s composure.

“But weren’t they said to have been bonded? They were special. That’s why Hazel went to find Ash even after she came back from America, right? Weren’t you there too?”

Ron said, as if disagreeing with Johan’s opinion. The arrow of the question returned to Aaron. Karlyle blinked.

For a moment, he didn’t quite understand what he had heard.

“Is that true? It’s not confirmed, is it? Ash doesn’t talk about such private things. Were they bonded?”

Bonded… you say?

“Hmm. When Ash was having a hard time after they broke up, his state seemed like post-bonding syndrome, so there was some talk. They were so…”

He couldn’t bear to hear the rest.

Before Ron finished speaking, Karlyle turned around. With wide eyes, he immediately walked back down the corridor. He didn’t know where he was going. He felt like throwing up. Without being able to judge his own state at all, Karlyle went up to the floor where their bedroom was. And then he went into his own room, not their bedroom.

As soon as he opened the door, the nausea subsided. He stumbled and sat down on a chair. Absent-mindedly, he raised a hand and rubbed his forehead. His eyelashes trembled repeatedly. His hands were cold.

What did I just hear?

He cupped his hands and dry-washed his face. His bent fingers scraped his skin. He felt a tearing pain in his gut, like when he had to let Ash go. Exhaling a cold breath, he lowered his hands.

But truly, he literally couldn’t think of anything.

After a few minutes of stillness, Karlyle slowly tried to make sense of things. Reason began to judge first. It was not certain whether Ash had been bonded with someone named Hazel. It was merely a conjecture. If there had been someone he was bonded with, Ash would have told Karlyle first.

However, a rebuttal soon followed. Was there a need to tell Karlyle that fact? No. What good would it do to dig up past relationships and tell Karlyle? He didn’t have a child, nor was he married. Besides, Karlyle was an Alpha anyway, so he couldn’t be bonded with Ash like an Omega.

That meant Hazel was an Omega. Karlyle couldn’t even imagine Ash having dated an Omega. It was a side of Ash he had never seen. He felt like he was going crazy. His breath hitched unsteadily. It was something from the distant past, and Ash was his now, yet he couldn’t understand why he felt this way. He wanted to tear out his own brain for thinking like this.

Why not just ask him?

But he had learned about Hazel from others. They hadn’t even told him directly. He had eavesdropped on someone else’s conversation. It was something a decent person shouldn’t do.

He had known he was an inadequate person from long ago. But he thought he was becoming stronger after meeting Ash. The self-distrust that had been slowly healing by his side began to erupt starting yesterday. The disgust, flowing through the cracks, finally churned and spilled out from within.

Starting with not trusting his own lover, he was judging Ash based on overheard conversations. If everyone who knew him knew this fact, his actions would be so reprehensible that pointing fingers and cursing him wouldn’t be enough. Saying he didn’t intend to listen was no excuse. Wasn’t it his own will to stop and listen instead of leaving?

Karlyle tried hard to compose himself. He soothed his shattering insides and took a deep breath. He would ask Ash. He couldn’t endure this state any longer. He would be fine once he heard Ash’s answer.

But what should he ask? If they were bonded? If he heard “yes” to that, how should he react?

Karlyle stood up and paced like someone lost. He couldn’t find the answer. Karlyle’s life always had clear instructions and goals. But his relationship with Ash was a path he had never walked before. He had never even had a lover to begin with. In this situation, he had no idea what the right thing to do was.

Moreover, Karlyle himself hadn’t known he would be so shaken by something related to Ash’s ex-lover. For someone trained their entire life to maintain composure, to crumble like this over a past connection…

“Lyle, are you in here?”

Karlyle snapped his head up. Ash’s voice came from outside the door. He saw the doorknob turning. Karlyle stood up urgently and walked towards the door. He almost ran to it and grabbed the doorknob.

And then he locked it.

He hadn’t meant to. But Karlyle locked the door without realizing it.

“…Lyle?”

The turning doorknob rattled and stopped. The voice calling his name, sounding puzzled, seemed quite surprised. Because Karlyle had never locked a door in front of Ash before.

“Ash.”

He called his name. The hand gripping the locked doorknob twitched. Karlyle looked down at it, then slowly turned it. He unlocked it and opened the door to see Ash standing stiffly. Ash’s surprised face was looking at him.

“Did you sleep well?”

Karlyle asked, composing his expression. Ash blinked, looking at him, then immediately asked him with a serious face.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong.”

“Don’t lie. You’ve been acting strange since yesterday. Why are you hiding it?”

Ash asked Karlyle, his mouth twisting. It was an expression Karlyle had never seen before. Karlyle lowered his eyebrows, looked at him, and slowly opened his mouth.

“I am fine.”

“Then why did you lock the door?”

Ash looked down at the doorknob once and asked. Their gazes met. Seeing Ash’s eyes staring straight at him, Karlyle lost the confidence to make something up. It was hard to endure.

“It really upsets me when Lyle hides something. So tell me—”

A hand reached out. Despite the pained expression, the gesture wasn’t angry. It was the same infinitely gentle touch as usual.

However, just as that hand was about to touch his shoulder, Karlyle, just as he had locked the door, instinctively slapped Ash’s hand away. The sound of skin hitting skin echoed sharply in the air.

Ash looked at Karlyle with wide eyes. Karlyle quickly withdrew his hand and looked at Ash. Their gazes met, Ash’s frozen as if in great shock. Karlyle checked the back of Ash’s hand. He must have hit it quite hard, as the back of his hand had already turned reddish.

A chilling silence filled the space between them. Karlyle blankly replayed the scene he had imagined the moment he slapped Ash’s hand away. He had thought the absurd thought that Ash had touched that Omega named Hazel with those hands, whispered words of love, and talked about marriage. Such thoughts made Ash’s touch feel incredibly alien to him. So he rejected Ash.

But more than anything, his own self, imagining such a scene, was the most horrifying.

“I’m sorry.”

Karlyle apologized, his voice cracking. He couldn’t believe that he, of all people, had slapped Ash’s hand away. His hands trembled. Guilt surged wildly.

“Lyle.”

Ash’s voice was stiff. He let out a heavy sigh.

“Why are you… so upset? Please tell me.”

Ash clenched and unclenched his fist. The hand that had been slapped away and hovered in the air reached out to Karlyle once more. Karlyle tried hard to stay still. But the moment Ash was about to touch him again, this time he stepped back.