Passion Raga Novel (Completed) - Chapter 61

Then, suddenly.

“But thank you for worrying.”

Yuri turned his head at the seemingly casual, dismissive remark. He saw Ling Xinlu looking out the car window. Their eyes met in Ling Xinlu’s reflection in the window.

Yuri involuntarily smiled. His expression was almost blank, but his eyes curved slightly, and Ling Xinlu probably noticed it even through the misty car window. He too briefly raised the corners of his mouth a moment later.

Yuri nodded slightly in reply.

Up to this point.

This was enough.

If Ling Xinlu had accepted something, there was no more room for Yuri to say anything.

Then, what remained was.

If he truly started getting busy, it wasn’t something Yuri himself could handle long-term, even if he could for a while. He needed to find someone more accustomed to helping run a business, someone more professional than Yuri.

James was a great loss, but it would probably be impossible to bring him over. Should he ask him to find someone? If he said, ‘Someone like you would be good,’ James would undoubtedly grumble unsatisfactorily, ‘That doesn’t sound like a compliment.’

Thinking that, Yuri shook his head.

Again. This wasn’t something he should be thinking about.

Unless Ling Xinlu directly asked him, choosing people was Ling Xinlu’s job. Moreover, even if Yuri didn’t ask anyone, Linga would provide capable people. Yuri had nothing to worry about.

Instead, Yuri should worry about his own affairs —though he didn’t need to worry—.

What should he do after he finishes this contract and returns?

Surely, mail was piling up in his mailbox at home in Berlin even now. Hanna—who occasionally visited his house to look after it while he was away—would have taken good care of it and placed it on the table.

Yuri let out a silent sigh. Time, when he looked back, had already flowed by like this.

It had been wonderful while he was with Ling Xinlu. Although sometimes unexpected things happened, leaving him flustered, just looking at him was enough. So, those times couldn’t be anything but good.

He hoped they could occasionally keep in touch even after he returned.

Human relationships cannot be sustained by one-sided effort alone, so he didn’t know with whom he could maintain long-term contact and friendship. It wasn’t a problem that depended on one person.

He felt that this person would probably just smile calmly and say, ‘How have you been? I missed you,’ even if he called suddenly after ten or twenty years without contact, yet somehow he didn’t think they would regularly exchange intimate news. Even though he always smiled kindly, there were parts of him that were coldly decisive.

Then, I’ll just contact him occasionally. On New Year’s, his birthday, Christmas. Whenever there’s an excuse.

Thinking that, his heart felt a little lighter, and Yuri let out a quiet sigh. It was then.

“By the way.”

Ling Xinlu opened his mouth just as Yuri reached out to turn on the radio. Yuri stopped his hand, which was about to press the button, withdrew it, and silently waited for Ling Xinlu to speak.

Ling Xinlu, who had started to speak, didn’t continue for a while.

He remained silent, seeming somewhat hesitant, and then finally spoke when Yuri guessed he wouldn’t say anything at all. Slowly, as if a little reluctant.

“You seem to be on good terms with Fei.”

“Fei? Ah, well, we’ve known each other for a very long time.”

Fei’s name out of nowhere? Had he intended to say something else and stopped? Yuri tilted his head. But it didn’t matter. If he didn’t want to talk about it, Yuri didn’t particularly want to hear it. So, Yuri smiled feintly and obligingly followed Ling Xinlu’s topic.

“Even though we’ve known each other for a long time, if you count the actual days we’ve met, it’s not that long. But I’ve known him since he was a little kid, so I feel like I know him inside and out. Plus, he’s naturally very sociable. His mischievousness was the same when he was little, and it still is now that he’s grown up.”

His audaciousness, constantly prodding and smiling even at those who seemed unlikely to play along with his jokes, remained. Yuri smiled, recalling how Fei would sometimes even tease Ling Xinlu, who consistently maintained an indifferent attitude.

Glimpse, Ling Xinlu’s gaze approached. “Is that so?” he mumbled, his voice somehow sounding displeased. There was a brief silence again.

“It’s good to be close, but still.”

His subtly slow voice sounded sharp, perhaps due to Yuri’s imagination, but Ling Xinlu soon lightened his tone and grumbled complainingly.

“Did you really have to embarrass me in that situation? That measly contract, we can just rewrite it. We can rewrite it as a lifelong contract, what’s the problem that you had to tell him, one by one, that it’s not a lifelong contract, it’s a yearly contract?”

Yuri flinched. Ling Xinlu in the mirror was still looking out the car window. He didn’t know if Yuri was still reflected in that window.

“”

He spoke in a light tone, but it seemed he was half-genuinely upset because of it. Had this proud young man felt that he had lost face?

But at that very moment, Ling Xinlu seemed to regret having said it. Perhaps he thought he had revealed his childish inner feelings by speaking unnecessarily. He scratched his forehead with a finger, clicked his tongue, then glanced at Yuri. He seemed aware that he had been unnecessarily stubborn. Soon, he waved his hand as if it didn’t matter.

“It’s fine. We can just change that part to a lifelong contract when we renew it next time.”

“Excuse me?”

“?”

But as soon as he said it, Ling Xinlu looked at Yuri, who had asked a bewildered question, with a puzzled look at himself, as if asking “Why?” Yuri tilted his head inwardly, wondering if he had misunderstood something, and looked at Ling Xinlu. Then, he spoke slowly.

“I don’t sign lifelong contracts.”

It had always been like that. Even if he could renew a contract for several years or even decades, getting close to a lifelong contract—he had actually worked for T&R for almost ten years—the contracts themselves were never long. At most, they were for two or three years, and only in cases where the nature of the work inevitably required a longer contract did he agree to such terms.

Ling Xinlu looked at Yuri, who was speaking calmly and decisively, with a strange expression. Then, at some point, he subtly frowned.

“Why? The conditions will, of course, be better than elsewhere. If the compensation is a concern, we can even add a condition that it will fluctuate yearly to reflect market prices.”

“No, it’s not a matter of compensation or conditions. Regardless of that, I don’t sign lifelong contracts.”

Yuri shook his head again. This time, Ling Xinlu’s silence lasted a little longer.

He stared intently at Yuri for a while, then only asked, “Why?”

Yuri, on the contrary, found that question strange. He tilted his head, unable to understand why he would ask such an obvious thing, yet he still opened his mouth.

“Because I don’t know my future self. Where I’ll want to go, what I’ll want to do. I want to be able to leave whenever I want, whenever a place I want to go appears.”

Ling Xinlu said nothing.

His face was devoid of expression.

It was as if he had heard something he hadn’t even thought of. No, it was as if he had heard something he shouldn’t have heard.

For a moment, Yuri tilted his head, wondering if he had misspoken something, then quickly waved his hand, thinking there might have been room for misunderstanding.

“No, but of course, I don’t mean I’ll just leave before the contract ends. What I’m saying is, when the contract period ends——”

“You’ll leave?”

As if cutting off Yuri’s words, Ling Xinlu, who had been silent until then, suddenly interjected. His low voice was somewhat cold. Yuri thought for a moment, then tilted his head and said, “Well…”

“As of now, I don’t have a long-term destination in mind, so I haven’t really thought about it. …But personally, I think it would be better not to renew the contract.”

If Ling Xinlu were to truly step into the family business, it would be better for someone who understood that work better to be by his side than Yuri assisting him. At least, it wasn’t Yuri.

Thinking that Ling Xinlu probably already had such considerations in mind, Yuri conveyed his intention in his words that it wouldn’t matter if Ling Xinlu ended his contract with Yuri as a short-term one.

However, Yuri thought, looking at Ling Xinlu’s utterly expressionless face, perhaps Ling Xinlu hadn’t considered such a point.

“Someone who can assist Ling Xinlu more effectively in his work—”

“That thought didn’t just come to you now, did it?”

Yuri tried to add to his words, but Ling Xinlu cut him off midway.

His voice was quiet. But there was no warmth in it whatsoever.

“It seems you’ve been thinking that for a long time, Mr. Gable. Isn’t that right?”

The low voice questioning him sounded almost accusatory. Yuri subtly frowned.

“Well… even if I don’t know the far future, I usually think about the near future in advance.”

“So, Mr. Gable, you were already planning to go back once this contract ended. Since when?”

Yuri fell silent. The flow of the conversation was heading in a strange direction.

He hadn’t necessarily planned to return once this contract ended. He had merely thought that if circumstances flowed naturally, it would be better for Ling Xinlu to contract with someone more suitable than himself, so there would be no need to renew his own contract. He could renew it, or not, but if Ling Xinlu contracted with a more suitable person, there was no need for him to contract with Yuri. It would be a waste for him.

From where, and how, should he explain this? Yuri pondered, silently looking at him. And seeing Yuri remain silently unyielding, Ling Xinlu’s face slowly hardened.

“It would be better to find someone who can assist Ling Xinlu more effectively than I can.”

Finally, after much deliberation, Yuri said that. It would likely be the most understandable explanation for Ling Xinlu.

Ling Xinlu dropped his gaze from Yuri. He looked down, silently lost in thought for a while, but then raised his head again, his face still cold.

“I don’t understand.”

He said sharply, as if he couldn’t comprehend, and glared at Yuri.

“Did I do something wrong during the contract period? Were you dissatisfied with the work?”

“That’s not it. On the contrary, the work was excessively comfortable for the compensation I received. It’s not like that. Regardless of that, in this situation, it is rational to do so.”

Yuri shook his head, thinking it was highly unexpected that Ling Xinlu hadn’t considered such aspects at all until now.

Ling Xinlu stared intently at Yuri. Or rather, glared at him with eyes that would be better described as glaring.

And after a brief silence.

“Was it… not good, being by my side?”

The voice adding that, as if confirming, was low and sunken. In the face of that arrogant question, knowing clearly that in the relationship of emotions, Yuri was the weaker one, Yuri fell silent.

Being by his side. —It was good.

He was beautiful, vibrant, and lovely. He still was. Yuri still liked being by his side, and he had never thought of leaving him. He merely anticipated that circumstances might naturally flow in that direction and had engraved that possibility in his heart.

But regardless of that.

“What does that have to do with Ling Xinlu?”

Yuri stated his cold conclusion. A cold conclusion for himself.

He was the one who loved. He was the one who would leave—if he were to leave, that is—. He was the one whose heart would be heavy and depressed because of it.

But at the same time, it was also he who chose whether to renew the contract—the renewal period—which Ling Xinlu was offering as if it were a generous grace.

Ling Xinlu was frozen, not even blinking. His dark eyes stared intently at Yuri. As if searching to see if there was something hidden within that he didn’t know.

Yuri, who had been silently meeting Ling Xinlu’s gaze without turning away, sighed soundlessly at some point. He muttered in a subdued voice.

“I don’t know why you’re angry. No matter how much I think about it, Ling Xinlu, you have no reason to be angry.”

Did I do my job that well? I don’t remember doing anything particularly noteworthy, he said jokingly, yet his heart felt heavy. He didn’t know why Ling Xinlu was angry, or why he was incurring his wrath. Perhaps it was because Yuri had unilaterally assumed and concluded things about his work—whether the contract would end, or if he would contract with a new person, and so on.

Ling Xinlu remained silent for a long time, as if lost in thought. His dark, sunken eyes seemed fixed, staring at Yuri. It was a pale gaze that would be more accurate to call a glare.

“Yes.”

Finally, Ling Xinlu opened his mouth. His voice, contrasting with his dark eyes, flowed out with an icy chill.

“Since I have no intention of holding back someone who wants to leave, I suppose I’ll have to find someone else before the period is up. Thank you for telling me in advance.”

Flap, Yuri’s hand on the steering wheel recoiled.

Ling Xinlu was enveloped in an atmosphere so cold it seemed to freeze anyone who heard him. He then turned his body towards the car window and turned his head away.