Heavy Rain Chapter 59

“….”

“It looks like you would have to pass the stairs to go to that side, which might be difficult. If you give me a little time, I can prepare a new library nearby….”

“No.”

Because Lyle was acting strangely again, Haejin decided to just look around inside the library.

The library boasted a vast size to the point that calling it unsightly would be an insult. Since he had never once come to this particular hallway, he hadn’t even known there was a library here.

In fact, Haejin was confident that if someone were to just drop him in the middle of the main building, he would get lost. While he couldn’t help but become familiar with the exterior after living here for five years, the inside of the main building had been practically forbidden.

The moment the door opened, the scent of books rushed in. It was a scent he hadn’t smelled in such a long time that Haejin couldn’t help but admit his heart fluttered a little.

Originally, Haejin was a child who truly loved studying. Although he did have a desire to repay his parents, he simply enjoyed learning and mastering something. In his childhood, which was made up of deprivation, he struggled to feel a sense of fullness by filling himself with knowledge.

That was why he studied hard to go to university on a scholarship. Studying in a library with this many books had been one of Haejin’s bucket list items.

Even though it was all in the past.

His heart, which had been briefly excited, sank to the floor. Since this was a familiar occurrence, Haejin did not pay much mind to his fallen heart and slowly took in the inside of the library. The bookshelves that reached the ceiling were packed tightly with books.

“You may read any book inside to your heart’s content.”

“Yes. …Thank you.”

“….”

At the unexpected greeting, Lyle was momentarily at a loss for words. Instead, he slowly pushed the wheelchair and went further inside. In the middle of the bookshelves surrounding them on all sides, there was a large, cozy-looking sofa. It was a structure well-suited for reading books right there.

“The book list is all in here, so it will be easy to search.”

“Ah….”

“Be sure to ask Mark to take out the books for you. It’s dangerous if you try to climb up.”

Haejin, who had been worrying about how to look for books when his leg hurt, opened his eyes wide at the sight of the unexpected object. A tablet looked surprisingly out of place in the library of a classical mansion.

When he first arrived at this mansion, he had noticed Lyle’s secretary carrying that tablet. It was because it was the same model his father had promised to buy him if he got into university.

With cautious hands, Haejin picked up the tablet resting on the table. A short while after the manifestation fever he experienced just before becoming an adult ended, his father kept that promise. Haejin had been so happy that he couldn’t let go of it until they went out for dinner. That tablet, which had just been unboxed, was smashed along with his ankle when the accident occurred.

The exterior of this one seemed slightly different from back then. Well, since that much time had passed, it must be time for new models to come out. Although his heart kept rolling around his feet, Haejin slowly and carefully observed the tablet.

“….”

Lyle, sitting next to him, could not take his eyes off Haejin.

Those sparkling black eyes truly brought to mind the night sky. The sight of him pressing this and that while holding the tablet tightly in both hands as if it were a marvel was so unfamiliar it was almost impossible. For the first time, Haejin looked his actual age.

Lyle, who had been staring at the boy’s pinkish fingertips and his slightly flushed cheeks as if licking them with his gaze, fell blankly into thought.

Now Haejin was eating his meals quite well. Although he still spent most of the day in his bedroom, it was said that he sometimes showed motivation when a walk was suggested. Even today, had he not shown interest at the mention of going to the library?

Therefore, Lyle was able to catch his breath just a little bit. At least enough to be able to question his own strange state.

Why does his heart tighten so much at a single dark expression from Haejin? Why does he care so much about the boy’s thin wrists when he dismisses the table after only a few bites? Why does he want to do so many things for him under the name of responsibility?

Lyle finally felt that he was missing something very important.

“Is this how you do it?”

Haejin, who was carefully fiddling with the tablet this way and that, ended up talking to himself without realizing it. Fortunately, as always, he was alone in the bedroom. The sound of his voice drifting into the air gave him a slightly embarrassed feeling. After looking toward the door for a moment, he focused back on the tablet screen.

A few days after being shown the library, his boring daily life passed again. Lyle, who used to visit him every single day, started visiting less often, perhaps because he was busy with work. Only then did Haejin realize that eating breakfast with someone had unknowingly become part of his routine.

The realization had a bitter taste. Still, he could get over it soon enough. Since it hadn’t exactly been a comfortable time anyway, Haejin decided not to care.

Instead, Lyle had suddenly barged in one night and left this tablet with him.

It seemed that fiddling with it for so long in the library was the cause. It was true that it was because he found it fascinating, but it was burdensome because he hadn’t wanted Lyle to pay him any mind.

Haejin had left this machine, which he received in a daze, alone in the drawing room for over a day. However, as the boring days began again, his eyes inevitably went toward it.

Curiosity truly reared its head from within for the first time in a very long while. Since he had received it anyway, couldn’t he just use it cleanly and leave it here when he departs?

As he impulsively unwrapped it and touched various things, time passed quickly. The internet, which was hard to use on his old phone, was fast. Before he knew it, Haejin was engrossed in the tablet as if bewitched. Just like the day he first received it as a gift from his father.

Suddenly, when he snapped out of it, the surroundings had grown dark. It seemed Mark had stopped by briefly in the middle of it, and he felt embarrassed only now, wondering if he had been too absorbed.

“Whew….”

He didn’t want to keep adjusting to this mansion like this. Haejin simply wanted to kill his presence and bow down as if he didn’t exist until it was time to leave this place.

However, the curiosity that had barely come back to life kept poking at his will. Saying that because he had suffered all this time, it was okay to be a little comfortable.

It was a thought that brought a strange sense of resistance. Haejin, who had picked up his phone to check the time, inadvertently checked the date. Just as he had checked not long ago, the contract ends in a month and a half.

At that moment, a strange anxiety slithered up from deep within.

“….”

He couldn’t tell the reason. Therefore, Haejin calmly turned off the tablet screen and began preparing for sleep.

Thinking that his mind felt uncomfortable because he was seeking useless leisure.

After a few days, Lyle appeared in his room in the morning.

Even before the bell rang, Haejin looked at the door with a certain premonition. The moment he heard the bell and answered felt quite slow.

The moment the door opened, he strangely felt the hair on his skin stand up one by one. As if the anxiety that had beset him before he fell asleep yesterday was approaching while taking a physical form.

As he stared at him while frozen stiffly, Lyle, who was entering the drawing room, also froze his body in turn.

Between the two of them, the sound of their hearts passed by like a train. In this sudden situation, Haejin was also in a state of being completely flustered. Why did he feel this way?

Just then, the hesitating Lyle covered his mouth and averted his gaze. He had the illusion that the handsome eyes cast slightly downward looked even more haggard than a few days ago.

“…I will be in rut soon.”

At that moment, Haejin’s heart, which had been shaking anxiously, thudded down.

Come to think of it, those words were right. Because he had lived here for five years, Haejin knew Lyle’s rut cycle by heart.

So it was because of this. When he inadvertently looked at the date yesterday, his body had realized it first.

Haejin now looked at Lyle, who appeared suddenly after not being seen for a few days, with wary eyes. He couldn’t believe the fact that he had spent his time so engrossed in something yesterday.

So, did he come here to use me again?

The sound of knocking, which had ceased to be heard in this mansion, echoed again like an auditory hallucination. His nauseous stomach acted as if it would turn over at any moment. The last rut spent with him slowly reached out a black hand toward Haejin like a nightmare.

“Rest assured.”

At that moment, Lyle spoke a single sentence like a sigh.