Passion: Diaphonic Symphonia Novel - Chapter 80

The sound of water did not cease in the bathroom for a long time.

Under the shower, with streams of water hitting his eyes, Richard said not a word. Only the occasional, uncomfortable breaths, as if suppressing something deep within, revealed his state of mind.

And leaning against the bathroom threshold, Christoph watched him, his eyes subtly gleaming with feigned indifference. But whenever Richard glared at him, he would pretend not to notice and turn his head away.

Eventually, Richard turned off the shower. Seemingly calmed, he emerged from the shower booth, wiping his bloodshot eyes with a towel.

“Christoph, were you trying to blind me?”

His quiet voice was blunt. Suppressed rage seemed to have filled him to his very core.

“Of course not. If I wanted to do that, I would have used a much simpler method long ago.”

“But you already knew it was medicine not to be applied near the eyes, didn’t you? Otherwise, you wouldn’t have followed me into my room just to watch.”

Christoph did not answer Richard’s words. Instead, he merely jutted out his chin and stared directly at Richard, as if to say, ‘So what?’

“Anyway, thank you. Thanks to you, I don’t even feel the pain of the scratches. I was too touched by your tender application to even feel pain.”

Seeing Richard sarcastically rub his eyes with his knuckles, Christoph turned away, his interest seemingly lost. His attitude clearly showed that he had seen all he wanted to see and no longer wished to be there.

He hadn’t expected Richard to cry so profusely, but he had at least hoped to see him tear up, unable to properly open his eyes. His expectations were dashed.

As soon as he felt something amiss, Richard covered one eye with his hand and stood up, then left, saying he would see him again at dinner shortly.

Christoph followed behind Richard, who strode purposefully towards his own room without looking back. Presumably, those left behind would return to their assigned rooms to rest briefly before attending dinner.

Just as Christoph reached for his doorknob.

From behind, Richard, slowly drying himself with a towel, spoke as if something had just occurred to him.

“Come to think of it, you smiled quite a lot. They say you’ve been holed up in that guy’s room every night, not coming out. Does a pleasant body make for a pleasant mind?”

“What?”

Christoph frowned slightly and turned around.

“Holed up in that guy’s room every night, not coming out? Who? Whose room?”

“You. Kim Young… no, I mean, Jeong Taeui’s room.”

“……How do you know that?”

Christoph said unpleasantly. Richard tilted his head slightly and chuckled.

“Do you think such talk wouldn’t spread when we’re in the same house? Why? You said same-sex relationships were so pure, but now that you’ve done that with him, you don’t think so?”

“Me, with him?! I don’t do such things!”

Christoph burst out, shouting. He didn’t care if he did, but he had no intention of letting this man mock him.

However, Richard snorted, as if he had no intention of believing him from the start. Slowly, malice seeped into his gaze.

“Right. Then what exactly are you doing in there every night? Reading fairy tales, hm?”

At that moment, Christoph fell silent. He parted his lips a few times but eventually bit them shut and shook his head.

“……I won’t tell you. There’s no reason for me to tell you, you bastard.”

Richard stared at him silently. The hand gripping the towel he used to dry his hair had tightened at some point, but soon relaxed again.

“There’s definitely a reason to tell.”

His voice dropped. The chilling tone indicated that he was clearly angry.

Christoph frowned.

“A reason, you say. Surely you’re not saying I have to reveal every detail of my private life just because I work under you.”

“I’m not interested in your private life. It’s none of my business who you mess around with or how. ……Ah, right. If you could even manage to interact with others with that mental illness of yours, that would be something.”

Richard, who spoke with clear malice in his last words, confirmed Christoph’s expression turning cold.

“However, if your private life becomes a problem and interferes with my work, I cannot tolerate that.”

“……I don’t understand what you mean.”

Christoph’s voice also dropped. He said he didn’t understand, but his expressionless face conveyed the opposite meaning.

Richard casually tossed the towel onto the floor. Then he took out a new towel and began to wipe his damp hair with the soft, fluffy towel again. This meticulous habit of his, particular about minor details, was nothing new.

He had always been like that. While appearing to let everything pass with casual ease, he was, in fact, close to a perfectionist.

“You shouldn’t be calling me a germaphobe.”

Christoph muttered, looking down at the discarded towel, but Richard ignored him and spoke.

“Malik seems keen to take you. A leader-level position in a private security force… Isn’t that a pretty good offer?”

“Private security force? What’s that?”

Christoph frowned at the sudden words. Richard, who was walking towards the wardrobe, glanced at him.

“It means they don’t just want the debt repaid. ……Well, that’s not important, so let’s put that aside for now.”

Standing in front of the wardrobe, Richard wiped his body once more with the slightly damp towel. Then, as if to make sure he was understood, he turned back to Christoph.

“There’s still the final negotiation left, but you can probably guess what their final terms will be, Christoph.”

“……”

“If they demand his custody, what will you do?”

Christoph did not answer. He merely stared at Richard with dark, sunken eyes. Meeting his gaze, Richard’s eyes narrowed at some point. And he threw the towel to the floor.

“That’s why it’s problematic for you to be close to that man, Jeong Taeui. ……Too bad, Christoph. He’s the first person you’ve ever truly liked enough to make contact with.”

It was a chilling sneer.

Perhaps he was greatly pleased that things had turned out this way.

The person precariously balanced in the middle of the scales was almost the only person Christoph had ever truly liked. Apart from family or colleagues, Jeong Taeui was practically the first person Christoph had shown clear affection for, enough for those around him to notice.

Christoph glared at Richard silently for a while. Then, abruptly, he spoke.

“Hand Rick over. He’s the one who bombed them anyway.”

After blurting out the words, Christoph, who had been momentarily stiff as if the words were just registering in his mind, soon continued.

“I didn’t like those Saudi bastards from the start. They knew perfectly well about the relationship between Tarten and Riegrow, yet they still made that offer. Whether we fulfill the condition and capture Riegrow to hand him over, or fail to fulfill it, either way, we’re screwed.”

As he spoke, his eyes sharpened, seemingly annoyed.

When Christoph finally finished speaking, Richard had stopped rummaging in the wardrobe and was watching him with his arms crossed.

Even the sneer had vanished from his face. A faint mix of annoyance and anger was visible in his expression.

“Right, then. What if their proposal is something else? That is, a condition that can be fulfilled without harming the relationship with Riegrow, for instance, demanding the head of Jeong Jaei’s brother, who is also responsible for the violence.”

Christoph fell silent. He glared at Richard, his face slightly pale. His lips parted faintly as if to say something, but no words escaped.

Richard sighed, annoyed. Then he roughly tossed the clothes he had just taken from the wardrobe onto the bed and walked towards Christoph, staring directly at him.

Richard’s naked body, still bearing ugly scars, approached Christoph head-on.

Among them were fresh wounds that hadn’t yet healed, sustained just recently. His severely dislocated arm joint, though reset, was discolored a painful black.

“Are you planning to interfere? Just by breathing a little on your inhumanly fragile glass heart, making you so lost that anyone watching would find it laughable. ……Snap out of it, Christoph. Don’t presumptuously pretend to be human now.”

“……”

Christoph’s lips moved slightly. He seemed to say something, but his voice was too low to be heard. Only his eyes, a vivid blue, glared at Richard.

“Don’t foolishly get excited and deceive yourself. Live like yourself. You don’t even genuinely like him anyway. You can’t do that.”

Richard stood directly in front of Christoph. From a distance close enough to reach out and touch, he looked down at him, throwing unforgiving, knife-like words.

“……That’s not true.”

Christoph muttered. His voice was thin, like air escaping, and Richard, not hearing him clearly, asked, “What?”

“Who says I don’t genuinely like Taei? I like him. I like him.”

Christoph spoke, word by word, slowly but clearly. As if telling himself.

Facing that pale face, Richard’s face also lost all expression. His expressionless face, like a mannequin’s, stared blankly down at Christoph.

And then, very slowly. Very gradually.

Only Richard’s lips moved. His emotionless face remained, and a lifeless voice flowed through his lips, like a machine.

“So.”

“…—.”

“Are you going to interfere? ……You, with the Tarten name, are you saying you’ll interfere with Tarten’s affairs for that man?”

Christoph did not answer. He just stared at Richard, unable to say anything.

Angry, bewildered, anxious, and restless.

Like a child who didn’t even know what was happening to himself, his vivid blue eyes trembled faintly.

Yet, he muttered thinly, as if under a spell.

“I… I like… him…”

His voice, broken like a malfunctioning tape recorder, stopped short of finishing the sentence.

It was because Richard had grabbed Christoph by the collar and lifted him.

“Shut up. ―You haven’t forgotten, have you, Christoph? You said you would obey anything I said. You promised you would never do anything to hinder my work and would help me. Have you forgotten?”

“Let go…!”

Christoph, who had flinched the moment Richard’s hand gripped his collar, shouted harshly, as if he hadn’t heard a word Richard said. He grabbed Richard’s elbow as if to break his arm, but as his bare skin touched Richard’s palm, unlike through clothes, his fingers recoiled as if he found even that repulsive.

Richard glanced at those fingers, which twitched unpleasantly even as they gripped his elbow. Suddenly, he let out a short, “Ha,” and laughed.

“Right, it must be enough to make you want to interfere, even betraying Tarten. He’s someone you like enough to approach first, even though you hate touching people, let alone being touched, hm? You probably never dreamed such a person would appear in your life, so he must be precious, right? It must feel good to feel a little more human, right?”

“…… ……Let, let go!”

“Listen carefully, Christoph. You must never interfere with me. You must not defy my words. If you still try to interfere somehow, I’ll make sure you can’t.”

Richard finished speaking in a low voice, and at the same time, punched Christoph in the stomach. With a dull, forceful thud, Christoph’s face twitched slightly.

But that was all. As if the pain didn’t matter, he quickly returned to his harsh expression and struck Richard’s elbow from above.

“Let, let go! Don’t touch me!”

With a short but sharp punch, Richard lost his grip on Christoph’s collar. But as if he had expected it, he kicked Christoph’s leg.

Christoph swung a fist at Richard’s jaw. As Richard blocked the punch with his palm, Christoph, repulsed by the sensation of being held, quickly pulled away. He kneed Richard in the stomach, but Richard, letting out a short groan, did not avoid it. Instead, he wrapped his arms around Christoph’s knee.

“……!”

Christoph, whose knee—or rather, the lower part of his leg—was embraced by the naked Richard, shuddered and tried to shake off his arms. But those thick, firmly wrapped arms wouldn’t budge. Instead, they tightened their grip even more.

And the next moment.

It certainly wasn’t intentional, but Richard’s warm body touched Christoph’s ankle.

“……!”

“……!! Let go!!”

Richard also frowned slightly, as if he hadn’t expected it. No one liked their private parts touching someone else’s feet.

But even more so, the moment he confirmed the source of the warmth on his ankle, Christoph’s face instantly drained of color. He screamed in a voice bordering on disgust, pushing Richard away.

Richard clicked his tongue but didn’t release his leg, causing Christoph to lose his balance.

With a dull thud on the thick rug, Christoph tumbled, and Richard climbed on top of him.

“Get off me, before I kill you…!”

Christoph, his voice a mix of disgust and bewilderment, struggled desperately to shake off Richard, who was sitting on his stomach.

For an ordinary person, shaking him off and getting back up would have been easy. Unless it was someone who knew Christoph’s techniques and habits well, and who also possessed abilities that would not easily be defeated.

Richard put his weight on Christoph’s body to prevent him from thrashing, and pressed down on his chest and neck.

Both were breathing heavily from anger and excitement.

Richard also gasped for breath, exhaling roughly.

“I told you before. You’re deadly in close combat. And now you don’t have a proper weapon. Right, what are you going to do now?”

“Get off me…! Don’t touch me…!”

“You can’t do anything but growl like that.”

Under the hand gripping his throat, he deliberately slid his other hand over Christoph’s chest. Under the crumpled suit, directly over the thin silk shirt.

A trembling sensation was transmitted directly to his palm.

“Let go, ……let go, let go!!”

Christoph’s face contorted horribly. His blue eyes seemed to burn with a fierce flame within them.

Richard, as if half of his own reason had also come undone, gazed down at those eyes cruelly.

“Say it. Say you won’t interfere with me and will obey anything I say.”

His low, smooth voice came down close to Christoph’s face.

Christoph gritted his teeth. He swallowed even a scream, glaring at Richard.

Richard continued.

“Say it. Say you don’t like anyone. Don’t pretend to be human, and say you don’t know how to like anyone.”

“…—.”

“Human emotions? Why do you need those? You just need to hate me. That’s the only emotion you need to know. A human who only knows hatred, doesn’t that suit you perfectly?”

“……You might be able to inherit Tarten, but you won’t be able to inherit the Elder’s legacy.”

Christoph muttered through clenched teeth. His voice trembled thinly with intense anger and disgust.

“You are despicable and cruel. As far as I know, there will never be anyone as ruthless as you.”

Even his bluish lips trembled, and his words faltered.

The smile vanished from Richard’s face. Like a stone statue, without any expression, his masked face looked down at Christoph.

And then that mask slowly, slowly smiled. It was the kindest smile Richard could make. Enough to send shivers down one’s spine.

“I never thought I’d hear such words from you. No, no one else thinks of me that way. Only you see me like that.”

Richard’s eyes curved.

That gentle curve of his eyes, which Christoph could never achieve no matter how much he practiced, came closer to Christoph’s face. A voice as soft as his mouth touched his ear.

“I am like a mirror. I respond to the expectations of those who look at me.”

It was a gentle voice, like a quiet lullaby.