Passion Raga Novel (Completed) - Chapter 34

“The person you exchanged contact information with at the bar the other day, aren’t you contacting them?”

“Bar?” Ling Xinlu, who had looked puzzled, soon seemed to recall, murmuring, “Ah, ah.” Only then did Yuri gradually understand his subtle reaction.

Ling Xinlu didn’t go out often, but he sometimes enjoyed nightlife. Yuri, not being under a security contract with Ling Xinlu, didn’t necessarily have to follow him, but he usually accompanied him. Nightlife for Ling Xinlu meant going to a pub with light music for a drink or two, or rarely, going to a club to enjoy the music, not some shady or suspicious place.

A while ago, in the middle of the night, he suddenly said he wanted to eat “skewers” and went to a bar in an alley not far from the mansion. While they were sitting across from each other, eating skewers and having a beer, Yuri noticed Ling Xinlu suddenly staring intently at one spot. To be precise, his gaze wasn’t fixed on a spot, but on one person, following their movements.

Perhaps noticing Yuri’s gaze following him to the employee, who seemed to be a part-timer, Ling Xinlu finally turned his head, smiled at Yuri, and said, “Don’t his eyes look a little like Taeuihyung’s?”

“……Is that so?”

Hearing that, he did seem to resemble him a little. While East Asian faces weren’t enough to be clearly distinguishable, Yuri wasn’t so unobservant that all East Asian faces looked the same to him. Even from that perspective, his eyes certainly bore some resemblance. Like the slightly downturned corners of his eyes that made him look like he was smiling even when he wasn’t.

“I guess so,” Yuri nodded, and Ling Xinlu, seemingly amused, asked, “Right?” and then suddenly raised his hand to call the employee. Yuri paused for a moment, surprised that he would call him so suddenly, but Ling Xinlu, smiling brightly, ordered another beer and struck up a conversation.

“It’s crowded today, you must be tired working. But I come here often, and I feel like this is the first time I’ve seen you.” With his skillful way of striking up a conversation and quickly making it friendly, Ling Xinlu even exchanged phone numbers with the employee. As the employee, looking a bit abashed but shyly smiling, walked to the kitchen, Ling Xinlu gave a light wave, an unknown level of experience emanating from him.

“……You’re used to this.”

“Am I? It’s my first time doing something like this.”

His innocent smile and answer seemed genuine. Indeed, Yuri nodded inwardly, thinking, “So, what they said about him being good at everything, even things he’s doing for the first time, is proven here too.”

He recalled the memory of looking at the cheerfully smiling Ling Xinlu with a somewhat heavy heart, half-admiringly thinking, “So you can get contact information from a guy even at a regular bar like this.”

“I’m not contacting them. I talked on the phone a few times, but it wasn’t very interesting.” Ling Xinlu waved his hand dismissively, as if bored. Then, as if finding it amusing, he burst out laughing.

“What? So that’s why you couldn’t answer when I asked if you were secretly dating someone?”

“Ah, really,” Ling Xinlu laughed in disbelief, then his smiling face twisted into a grimace.

“Besides, even if I date someone, I don’t do it secretly. It’s not like I’m committing a crime, why would I date secretly? I’d proudly bring them home and meet people with them.”

He stopped speaking there. He gazed at the sky, where the sun was beginning to set, lost in thought, then glanced at Yuri. He seemed to be thinking a little longer about whether to speak, then sighed, “Hmm,” and opened his mouth.

“Would it be better not to tell Mr. Gable? If you don’t deliberately try to dig into my affairs, I’m confident I can hide it as much as I want.”

Ling Xinlu spoke in a calm tone, looking directly at Yuri. And Yuri soon realized what he was saying. Perhaps he was saying it out of consideration for Yuri. No, he was definitely being considerate of Yuri’s feelings in his own way. Even if it wasn’t explicitly stated or overtly shown, they both knew that Yuri always silently watched Ling Xinlu.

The reason they didn’t particularly talk about it was that it had no impact on their current relationship. And probably wouldn’t, unless something unusual happened.

Yuri lowered his head for a moment to think, then shook his head.

“It would be better not to.”

If he were to get a lover, there would be no need to deliberately announce it, but it wouldn’t be something to hide either.

Ling Xinlu nodded, “Is that so?” as if he had expected that answer.

“I have no intention of deliberately hurting Mr. Gable’s feelings. But then again, I also have no intention of being overly considerate of Mr. Gable or doing things I don’t want to do.”

Ling Xinlu took off his shoes and sat on the floor. “A lover, huh…” he murmured, seemingly imagining a situation he had never seriously considered before. But it seemed nothing concrete came to mind, as he shook his head and looked at Yuri. His gaze was light, but somewhat serious.

“For example. Sometimes, just to relieve some tension, it wouldn’t matter if I slept with someone who liked me, right? As long as we keep our boundaries, it’s fine, isn’t it? But—I don’t really feel like it.”

Ling Xinlu shrugged. His words were a metaphor, and at the same time, a message to Yuri.

“I’m a very ambitious person in many ways, but I guess I’m naturally simple in that regard. I don’t really feel like doing it with someone I don’t even particularly like. So, if I were to sleep with Mr. Gable, that would be me ‘serving’ him, and—I originally hate doing volunteer work for others.”

“You know I’m a bit selfish, Mr. Gable. I’d rather pay for it,” Ling Xinlu added with a feigned sigh. And hearing that, Yuri chuckled.

His words, which were so overly blunt that they were almost insulting to someone’s face if they were even slightly off, somehow sounded refreshing. He had seen many direct speakers, but hardly anyone was more blatant and straightforward than Ling Xinlu when speaking to the person concerned.

“One wrong move and it’s mockery, but it doesn’t sound like mockery at all.”

So, Yuri, feeling rather amused, imitated Ling Xinlu’s frequent remarks to him. Ling Xinlu’s eyes widened for a moment, and he made a strange face that was neither smiling nor frowning.

“……It’s not a mockery.”

“I know.”

Up to this point, it was a common conversation, but the speaker was reversed. Ling Xinlu looked at Yuri with a peculiar expression, but as Yuri continued his quiet laughter, he eventually laughed along. “Ah, really, even when a person is honest, they get scolded like this,” he grumbled.

After laughing for a moment longer, Yuri said calmly, “Thank you for your consideration. I like both giving and receiving service, but I don’t like unwilling service. So, you don’t have to worry about that.”

“Really,” Yuri added, then fell silent. Ling Xinlu gazed at him intently, then smiled. “I’ll do it for you later if I feel like it,” he said playfully, and Yuri echoed, “Thank you.”

Ling Xinlu, as if his heart had lightened, smiled at Yuri, then suddenly turned his body. And lay down just like that. Ling Xinlu, lying straight at a right angle next to Yuri, stayed like that for a moment, then slowly pulled himself up and rested his head on Yuri’s thigh as a pillow.

“Anyway, if you hear anything interesting, let me know. Young girls seem to pick up a lot of strange stories from somewhere.”

“It’s hardest to keep subordinates quiet,” he murmured, and Yuri thought to himself, “If I told him about the theory of ‘the youngest young master of a tragic love affair secretly dating a commoner girl from a different social class,’ he would probably burst out laughing and enjoy it.”

Just then, as if hearing his thoughts, Ling Xinlu suddenly jerked his head up and looked at Yuri.

“If you have something to say, don’t keep it to yourself.”

“I don’t.”

“Really?”

“I don’t.”

But if he said that, Ling Xinlu would surely burst out laughing and then demand to know who was spreading such ridiculous rumors, so Yuri decided to lie with a calm face for this moment. Ling Xinlu stared at Yuri, then turned onto his side again, tapping the thigh he was resting on.

“Don’t end up unable to walk again, tell me before that. Because I’ll get angry if you say, ‘I can’t walk, so I’ll have to sleep here tonight.'”

There was a reason why Ling Xinlu, who would return to the mansion even after midnight unless it was an unavoidable situation requiring him to stay at his family home, would say such a thing.

Just a few days ago, Ling Xinlu, who had been lying with his head on Yuri’s thigh for an eye massage, had fallen asleep, leaving Yuri sitting motionless for several hours. As a result, even after Ling Xinlu woke up and quickly moved, Yuri’s legs were numb for a while, and he had to remain seated.

In hindsight, it was his own fault, but instead of apologizing or showing any remorse, Ling Xinlu had coldly reprimanded him, “Why are you just sitting there stupidly without waking me up?” Still, perhaps feeling a bit sorry, he massaged Yuri’s legs until the numbness subsided, grumbling all the while.

“About 20 minutes should be fine.”

“20 minutes, huh…… Okay.”

Ling Xinlu checked the time, as if intending to lie there for the full 20 minutes, and then settled his head more comfortably on Yuri’s thigh. Yuri, accustomed to massaging his eyes every night, placed his hand over Ling Xinlu’s eyes. Ling Xinlu seemed to flinch for a moment, and Yuri quietly asked, “Should I remove it?” But Ling Xinlu thought for a moment and then shook his head, saying, “No, it’s dark and nice.”

With his round, beautifully shaped head resting on his thigh and his hand over Ling Xinlu’s eyes, Yuri thought he looked exactly like a cat curled up like a loaf of bread.

“……”

“More like mocha bread than a loaf of bread…” Yuri thought, gently touching his hair, which was as soft as cat fur, with his fingers.

“If you lie on my lap like this, so defenselessly,” Ling Xinlu suddenly murmured in a languid, low voice.

“From Mr. Gable’s perspective, do you know it’s a really easy position to kill me if you put your mind to it?”

“……I know.”

But Yuri answered curtly, thinking he didn’t know why he was bringing that up at this moment.

Ling Xinlu was silent for a while. Yet, there was no sign of him getting up and moving away from the dangerous position. He just lay there, seemingly content.

As Yuri quietly waited for Ling Xinlu’s reply—considering it didn’t matter if he didn’t reply—and looked down at the garden, just as he was about to forget he had heard the remark, Ling Xinlu, whom he thought had fallen asleep, murmured softly.

“In Serenge, I sometimes went as a backpacker to see Taeuihyung. I didn’t go to meet him, I just went to see what he was up to.”

“……”

“That guy was lying with his head on Taeuihyung’s lap. He had completely entrusted his head, and was even napping. So comfortably that he wouldn’t wake up even if Taeuihyung grumbled about him being heavy and moved his head.”

Perhaps Ligrow wasn’t sleeping so deeply that he wouldn’t wake up from such a disturbance, but rather, even if he regained consciousness, he remained with his head resting on Jung Taeuiui’s lap like a lazy lion, not opening his eyes. But what Ling Xinlu was talking about now wasn’t that.

Yuri also knew what Ling Xinlu was talking about.

He had seen such scenes several times in Serenge as well, and each time he had looked at them with a sense of wonder.

“As if he’s confident that if I can kill him, he dares me to try,” Ling Xinlu murmured. But Ling Xinlu must also know that wasn’t the case. Just as Yuri knew.

Of course, someone like Ligrow would be able to snap the other person’s neck first, even in such a position, if they tried to harm him. But he wasn’t lazily lounging in front of Jung Taeuiui out of such confidence.