Heavy Rain Chapter 65

The moment he recalled that, Lyle sprang up. It was a frantic movement, enough to make the bed undulate heavily. Startled as well, Haejin’s eyes went wide.

Lyle’s heart struck the floor with a thud once again. Merely because the fellow had furrowed his brow a little.

“Jin, why are you here?”

Had even that much sleeping medicine been useless? Had he sought the fellow out again and made him wear that sorrowful face?

Countless questions gathered to create a passion within him. Lyle’s pupils trembled faintly as he observed how even a single one of Haejin’s eyebrows moved.

The fellow slightly avoided his gaze and opened his mouth as if troubled. At that action, Lyle’s throat went dry and tightened.

“…Because you kept coming to find me.”

“I did…?”

In truth, Haejin had turned his head away because he was embarrassed to have been caught doing something clumsy in front of Lyle while not knowing he had awakened. Haejin had no way of knowing with what passion Lyle was breaking down his inner self over a single small action.

Pheromone control was something one usually learned naturally after manifesting during puberty. Of course, because there were instincts realized upon manifestation, Haejin was also able to do it clumsily. In fact, the pheromones that flowed out naturally according to the fluctuations of emotions were the result of such instincts at work.

However, emitting pheromones while containing a clear will like this time was a quite difficult task. Therefore, when he extended even his wrist—where the pheromone gland is located—toward Lyle, he had a realization that his posture was a bit ridiculous.

To think that Lyle, whom he naturally thought was wandering while still asleep, had been clearly watching such a foolish posture.

“What else did I do?”

“…”

His voice was low and gravelly, perhaps because he wasn’t fully awake. Haejin, becoming bashful, briefly checked his complexion and then avoided his gaze again. A violent earthquake began to occur in Lyle’s eyes once more.

Haejin had come to this room to find his wallet and had barely managed to escape. He had even made a vow never to come near for the time being.

However, surprisingly, after that, it was Lyle who wandered the hallways this time.

It was a natural sequence of events that the servants were thrown into an uproar. Haejin, who was unaware of that fact, saw Lyle wandering the hallway like a ghost while he was moving to have a meal, and he ended up at a loss for words.

It was as good as Lyle coming to find Haejin because he couldn’t overcome the instincts of the rut, but he could hardly feel any fear. The moment Haejin’s face stiffened, the hallway of the mansion was filled with “that” pheromone once again.

He tried to just ignore it, but Lyle merely hovered around after coming near Haejin without doing anything. Because the elderly body of Mark, who was following such a Lyle around while holding a blanket, was so pitiful, Haejin had no choice but to intervene in the situation.

As a desperate measure, he walked in front while spreading pheromones, just as he had when he pushed him back into the bedroom. Because it truly felt as if he had become bait, fearful emotions occasionally surged up. Then, as if having a seizure again, Lyle poured out pheromones steeped in affection.

Even if just out of embarrassment, Haejin had to tie Lyle down in this bedroom. He could also tell that if he came here occasionally to fill the room with his pheromones, Lyle would not come out of the room.

His fear was gradually fading. Lyle’s blindly loyal pheromones kept blurring his guard to a ridiculous degree. However, it was only natural that this entire situation was still burdensome and uncomfortable for Haejin.

He didn’t know who he was seeing in his dreams. In any case, that pheromone was naturally not directed at his actual self. Therefore, Haejin couldn’t stand the feeling that he was catching a glimpse of Lyle’s private life, which he didn’t want to know.

It was ironic that the only way to escape those pheromones was to not be afraid.

In the end, he reaches the conclusion that he cannot say that he ended up doing such things because the other person poured out pheromones composed of affection to the point of being heart-wrenching.

“I’m sorry.”

While Haejin, whose answer had become meager, was choosing his words, a heavy word dropped. For a moment, he couldn’t understand what Lyle was saying.

So he makes up his mind to leave the spot. He had already found his wallet when he came to this room for the second time. The wallet had been stuck, having fallen into a very awkward space between the nightstand he mentioned and the wall.

“Then, I will be going now.”

Haejin, who spoke flatly, slowly left the bedroom. That expression of his, which seemed to say he was hearing all sorts of strange things in response to the apology, remained as if engraved on Lyle’s retinas.

The apology that had popped out from within a bottomless pit without his knowledge fell futilely to the floor because there was no one to receive it.

“…”

While watching that retreating figure, Lyle could not shake off the aching sensation near his heart.

The pheromones of Haejin remaining in the bedroom only stimulated Lyle’s self-reproach.

Though clumsy, the sense of stability engraved in the pheromones lingered there as if tempting the newly awakened Lyle. The more he wanted to keep the fellow’s pheromones close, the more Lyle suffered from a sense of self-loathing. In the end, he had to return to his own room, where only his own traces remained, as if running away.

Under the shower with cold water running, Lyle sank into deep thought. Thanks to spending the rut through a shortcut, his physical condition was a mess. Still, he barely managed to find the strength to think rationally about this situation.

He had imprinted.

Only after realizing it could Lyle recall the moment of imprinting again. It was a terrifying sensation, as if someone were stirring his brain here and there, wondering why he hadn’t known sooner.

On the day he spent the rut in “that room,” Haejin had looked at Lyle with a face full of resentment after hearing the news of his parents’ passing. It was that very moment. Those pitch-black eyes had pierced into Lyle with a resentment like a heavy downpour of rain.

By the time he realized what had flowed in along that resentment, it was already too late.

Only now could he understand the reason why the fellow’s pheromones had felt so thick ever since he brought Haejin back to this mansion. He hadn’t thought it strange even though the pheromones of Haejin, who was a recessive type, had never left a trace on Lyle once in the past five years. Even though he had reacted extremely sensitively to the fellow’s pheromones even in the rain.

He even felt as if he were waking up from a giant dream. As if the thin reality that had composed him was actually opaque ice and had shattered into pieces.

He had even made excuses while bringing Haejin back here that his judgment had been clouded because he couldn’t resolve his pheromones in time. Even though the time he thought he had to catch the fellow again was a period when his head was wide awake after spending the rut like that. It was to the point of being absurd that he had been pretending not to know all these moments until now.

Could there be another case where the saying that pheromones are half a beat faster feels this vivid?

“Haa…”

At an unknown premonition, Lyle’s body trembled finely. The sensation of the cold stream of water soaking his entire body is chillingly familiar.

However, Lyle could understand one thing. The reason why his mother had been obsessed with imprinting.

Because this was the most certain and cruel evidence that could be expressed to the other person through pheromones.

“I have to hide it.”

So Lyle decided to hide the fact of his imprinting. Even as it was, he was in a situation where he was holding Haejin back by force. If the fact of his imprinting were to be known here, it would become another shackle toward the fellow.

There was no way he could do such a thing as forcing Haejin to stay down through the pressure of himself or someone else again. Because such pain was already more than enough for the fellow.

So he must hide it.

Because of that, Lyle was frustrated. Since every single one of his cells was now craving to catch Haejin while possessing a clear awareness.

He finally realizes that he had been wishing for something he should not dare to wish for.

As if the heavy stream of water were rain, Lyle slowly slumped down on the spot.

Haejin, who had returned to the temporarily used bedroom, frowned his brow in trouble as he felt Lyle’s pheromones faintly clinging to him.

Seeing Lyle actually awake, his mood is strange after all. Seeing how he desperately sought out Haejin, who was the exit for his pheromone resolution, what his body wanted was certainly clear.