Rejected by Daughter’s Second Male Lead Chapter 117

“That’s right. But what of it?”

“What do you mean, what of it! You know very well that if an imprinted pair is separated for a long time, they’ll waste away and die!”

Gillen was already convinced that Yuan must have been severely ill during his absence.

“Why didn’t you tell me? If you had—”

“If I had, what? Would you have had sex, no, an exchange with me out of a sense of duty?”

“Yuan.”

Gillen called his name in a warning tone to Yuan, who seemed about to spew insults with eyes glazed over, intoxicated by the drug that paralyzed his pheromone glands. However, Yuan was not one to be swayed by such a warning.

“Besides, Gill… no, Your Lordship the Duke never liked me anyway. Coming here now… pretending to be concerned is unsightly.”

“Pretending to be concerned? Are you going to keep talking like that? I think of you as a friend…!”

“Ah, so I’m twisting your words again. Is that what you want to say? You were so desperate to avoid me… how on earth did you end up imprinting?”

At those words, Gillen was pricked by guilt and retorted.

“H-how should I know! Well then, did you imprint because you loved me so much? Can you clearly explain your feelings?”

“Ah—then, Your Lordship the Duke, who doesn’t even love me… did you imprint because the exchange was just so good? If that’s the reason, can we just meet periodically as exchange partners?”

“What…?”

Gillen knew that Yuan liked him. He also knew that no matter how much Yuan pretended to be overcome with malice, pretending to despise him and saying such things, every word became a blade that stabbed Yuan himself. And that pained Gillen’s heart as well.

“Don’t talk like that.”

Yuan rose from his seat. He pulled a certain book from one of the bookshelves along the wall, walked over to Gillen, and handed it to him.

“In there, it talks about a special magic stone that can store pheromones. I sent my aide to find that magic stone a while ago, so he should be bringing it soon. We can put our respective pheromones in them, exchange the stones, and just carry them around. Then, just by touching the stone, an appropriate amount of pheromones will be absorbed. We… won’t need to meet.”

Yuan’s voice was low and cold. He seemed to have already organized all the theories in his head. It seemed he had sorted out his feelings as well.

If so, perhaps this was a relief for Gillen too? He had no intention of dating Yuan or becoming his partner and blocking his future path anyway, and if there was even a solution for the pheromone deficiency… then there was no need to appear before him.

Although he felt a strange sense of emptiness and bitterness, Gillen judged that this was better. He also thought that Yuan was indeed wise. He maintained his composure and nodded his head.

“Alright, I understand. If that magic stone arrives, please send it to the Blake estate. I will fill it with my pheromones and send it back.”

“…I will do the same.”

“Alright. Well then… I heard you’ll be leaving the empire soon, so fare thee well.”

Gillen forced a smile and turned to leave. He had arrived via teleportation thanks to Yuan, but since Yuan didn’t use it for his departure, he had no choice but to walk out himself.

When Gillen came out of the laboratory, the waiting robot aide, maids, and the parrot greeted him with tears of longing welling in their eyes.

“Your Grace the Duke!”

“Your Lordship! Your Lordship! Long time no see! Long time no see!”

“Your Grace the Duke, it is an honor to see you after so long.”

“Hahaha! Yes, yes, have you all been well? Shall we chat on the way down?”

If he had walked alone, he would surely have been lost in all sorts of idle thoughts and felt sad, but being greeted and spoken to by these other people (robots) distracted him.

Besides, they were genuinely happy to see Gillen, so Gillen also felt happy to see them and grateful. The fact that they were robots with feelings was poignant in a new way.

But Yuan… Yuan, who must have personally implanted emotions into these robots, had suppressed his own feelings even after seeing Gillen. The thought that it was because of him made him feel guilty.

‘Yes, it’s better for me to disappear from Yuan’s life quickly.’

Gillen left the Hampton estate, pretending to be nonchalant, chatting and laughing, Ha! Ha! Ha! with the robots. The carriage, thankfully, had passed through the main gate and was waiting for Gillen in front of the mansion.

“I thought I would have to walk this entire vast garden with you all, but fortunately or unfortunately, the carriage was here. All of you, take care.”

“Your Grace the Duke…!”

“Your Lordship! I’ll miss you! Goodbye!”

“Yes, you too, parrot, goodbye. I’ll miss you.”

As he said his last words, Gillen discreetly glanced up at the second-floor magic laboratory of the mansion. Unlike before, the curtains were drawn, and he couldn’t see anything.

“Well then, I’ll really be going now.”

Gillen climbed into the carriage. The carriage carrying him soon departed.

‘How can he laugh and chat with them but part with me so cleanly? Who was it that saved him! And he even imprinted on me!’

Yuan, lying on the sofa with the curtains drawn, clenched his fists and trembled with rage. Gillen’s voice was so loud that the sound of him talking and laughing with the aide and maids could be heard all the way inside the laboratory. It was truly a sound of laughter he hadn’t heard in a long time. The annoying sound of laughter… that he hadn’t let Yuan hear even once today.

“Does he not know that he was able to get out of bed because of me? No, from the way he spoke, he did know.”

Gradually, Yuan’s inner thoughts spilled out as a monologue. His chest began to heave with agitation.

“What? Send the magic stone to the estate when it arrives? In the end, all he needed was my actual pheromones. That son of a bitch…”

Yuan, who had been lying down, shot up. On the table lay the magic book he had taken out earlier and shown to Gillen. Yuan picked up the book and threw it forcefully anywhere. Crash! It must have hit a flask, as the sound of shattering glass was heard along with the book falling to the floor with a thud. Still, his anger did not subside.

“Fare thee well? Is that all? Fare thee well? I’m leaving the empire and it’s just fare thee well?!”

Yuan’s long, silvery hair floated up into the air. Uncontrollable rage possessed him. It was as if lightning was flashing from his blue eyes.

He felt that he had gained more strength and magic power from being intoxicated by Gillen’s pheromones again, just from that brief meeting, but even that he didn’t like.

He’s not interested in me. He said his only thought from the beginning was to block me… from Cecil. He said he was just playing along with me…

Come to think of it, Yuan was the one who proposed the contract relationship in the first place.

‘I will date you.’

What was Gillen’s expression when he heard those words? He looked extremely surprised and dumbfounded, but at the time, Yuan had just assumed Gillen was stunned to have a confession he’d only imagined become reality.

But Gillen had really just been surprised and dumbfounded! He had never once thought about dating Yuan. Because he had never… liked Yuan.

Suddenly, his hair fell limp. The objects in the laboratory that had been floating in the air due to his magic power also fell back into place with soft thuds.

Yuan lay back down on the sofa, drained of strength. His mood sank, and he felt a hard knot forming in the pit of his stomach. He wanted to scream and rage, and he wanted to sob and cry. What was this emotion?

He turned his body and buried his face into the back of the sofa. Then, a memory suddenly came to him. He had had sex with Gillen on this sofa before.

“Fuck…”

Yuan staggered up from the sofa and headed to the bedroom. It’s because I’ve been focusing too much on research. I’ll be fine after some sleep. Thinking this, he lay down on the bed. His eyelids were heavy. Perhaps that was why the tears that had welled in his eyes flowed quickly down his temples.

Two days later, Ricardo returned. He brought a bundle filled with magic stones. This was because Yuan had ordered him to bring more magic stones through the communication device.

Yuan filled half of the magic stones with his own pheromones, divided them with the empty ones, and gave Ricardo two bundles.

“Take these to the Blake estate. Give the white pouch to Duke Blake, and have him fill the magic stones in the black pouch with his pheromones and bring them back.”

“Yes, my Lord Marquis. But you don’t call His Grace the Duke by his name anymore.”

Ricardo said innocently. When Yuan glared at him sharply, he shut his mouth. Ricardo, it seemed, could take a hint.

“I’ll be on my way…”

Ricardo scurried out of the bedroom.

Yuan had been cooped up in his bedroom for two days straight. It wasn’t that his health was bad. Gillen’s pheromones still remained in Yuan’s body, and it was unlikely that he, who had endured for almost a month, would weaken in just two days.

Nevertheless, he felt a burning pain in his chest. He heard Gillen’s voice as an auditory hallucination at all hours, and he dreamed of Gillen whenever he fell asleep. So he couldn’t even sleep properly.

If they had been happy dreams, he would have remained lost in sleep, but in his dreams, Gillen constantly abandoned Yuan. Sometimes, the face of Marius, who had tormented him when he was confined in the holy prison as a child, would change into Gillen’s face. Each time, Yuan would wake up screaming, drenched in sweat.

‘I’m going crazy.’

No matter how angry he was at being deceived by Gillen, what kind of person had he been to Yuan… The person who had made that prison a place of no consequence. The person who had helped him truly escape from that place was Gillen… How could emotions be so treacherous as to manipulate Yuan’s memories even through dreams. No matter how much he hated Gillen, that was one thing he could not tolerate.

So Yuan gave up on sleeping. He just lay in bed and tried to read, and performed various magic experiments on his own body. He designed new magic formulas and developed magic tools. The aides were busy for the past two days, just taking dictation and delivering it to the magic tower and the patent office.

But even after spending his time like that, Yuan’s emotional state did not improve at all. His mood swings had become more severe after seeing Gillen once than when he hadn’t seen him at all. And Yuan still couldn’t understand why.