Icing on the Cake Chapter 28

Cheriot let out a thoughtful “hmm” and got out of the driver’s seat. Though he complained, he was starting to listen fairly well, and Yuri found him easier to handle than before. After they switched seats, Yuri tossed the paper bag at Cheriot, who was now in the passenger seat. Looking at the bag on his lap, Cheriot leaned forward.

“Oh? What’s all this?”

Cheriot’s voice brightened as he bent his head like a boy and peered inside the bag. Before Yuri could explain, Cheriot pulled out a chocolate bar and stared at Yuri.

“Were you that hungry?”

Yuri considered how to explain. He wanted to just start driving without answering, but he also needed to find the charging cable, and he had a feeling Cheriot wouldn’t shut up until he got an answer. Reluctantly, Yuri glanced briefly at the bag, then fixed his gaze forward and spoke quietly.

“It’s yours.”

“Mine?”

Cheriot seemed slightly taken aback as he rummaged through the snacks in the bag, then let out a small laugh.

“This much? I eat well, but not this much.”

Had he bought too much? Since he never ate snacks, Yuri had no way of knowing how filling those little chocolate bars were.

“Could it be… you bought all of this because you didn’t know what I like?”

Cheriot asked in a joking tone. Yuri gripped the steering wheel and thought for a few seconds. Saying yes felt somehow awkward, so Yuri offered the most factual thing he could.

“Sweet things are good for calming down.”

In other words, eat this and shut up for a while.

“…Mm.”

Cheriot fell silent, like someone surprised by an unexpected gift, and the car fell into an awkward quiet. In the still air, Yuri sat stiffly and glared at the innocent steering wheel. As the silence deepened, he wanted to check what Cheriot was doing, so hesitantly, he turned to look beside him.

And their eyes met.

Cheriot was staring intently at Yuri with his green eyes. Perhaps because those soft irises were framed by reddish-gold lashes like a velvet canopy, he looked unusually gentle. Those clear, shimmering eyes slowly shifted as Yuri met his gaze.

“Thank you.”

Staring at those rounded, curved eyes, the feeling he’d had while looking at the sky earlier washed over him again. Like a scene so beautiful he dared not steal a glance at it, the sight of this man saying thank you felt like a landscape from another world that Yuri was not permitted to see.

He’d never expected to hear gratitude from an ordinary person. And twice at that.

Being thanked for saving him—that, he could understand. It had been a life-or-death situation, so someone like Cheriot might feel a sense of obligation. But to be thanked over something as trivial as snacks, by someone who could casually leave a few hundred dollars on a table and forget about it—that was a different matter.

Especially when that person knew exactly what Yuri was.

Receiving a thanks that should never be given to a sinner made the inside of his ears unbearably itchy and prickly. As if forcibly breaking off their locked gaze, Yuri slowly turned his head away, then replied flatly, making sure Cheriot’s words carried no special meaning.

“Either way, I’m currently your employee.”

The word “thank you” kept ringing in his ears, and Yuri wanted to cover it up.

“I’d prefer it if you didn’t say thank you from now on.”

Knowing how large the void left behind by something warm and soft could be, Yuri didn’t want to let anything even remotely like that into his life again.

Yuri’s voice took the form of a suggestion, but it sounded half like coercive intimidation. If he’d been dealing with the kind of men he usually hurt, he’d have given one warning and then subdued them with action, but with Cheriot, this level of threat was his limit. He’d already been making allowances because Cheriot was a civilian, and after seeing those fearful eyes, Yuri found it a little harder to deal with him.

Yuri had difficulty with the weak. Most people found it hard to deal with those stronger than themselves, but for him, it was the opposite.

Like holding a butterfly’s wing that would crumble at the slightest touch, ordinary people were easily hurt and feared the environments that were familiar to Yuri. He had learned from his mother that the things that happened routinely in his life felt deeply unsettling to ordinary people. And Katya had repeated to him every day:

‘Even if not every weak person needs your help, you must always respect them. It’s not because you’re exceptional that you can become a strong person. It’s because of God’s grace that you can stand on your own two feet.’

Yuri no longer believed in God, so he no longer agreed with his mother’s words as blindly as before, but her long teachings were etched in his chest like an epitaph.

Yet Cheriot was an ambiguous existence. He was an alpha male, an athlete with excellent physical condition who had no need for Yuri’s help. So Cheriot was not physically weak at all, and he had enough nerve to subdue a criminal who’d raided his hotel room on his own.

But the way he’d looked, saying he was afraid of someone who had crossed the line like Yuri, kept lingering in his mind, making it hard to be as sharp with him as he had been at first.

“I don’t want to.”

And as if Cheriot had somehow seen through Yuri’s inner conflict, he immediately gave the opposite answer to what Yuri wanted. The quick rebuttal, as if not even worth reconsidering, made Yuri’s brow furrow slightly.

“Since I’m the employer, like you said, I should do what I want.”

Not content with that unsatisfactory answer, Cheriot pointed at the Tim Hortons food Yuri had bought as well and added:

“I’ll enjoy my breakfast too. Thanks.”

Honestly….

An irritating tickle rose from deep in his throat, like swallowing cotton fluff. Realizing that continuing this topic would only put him at a disadvantage, Yuri decided to steer the conversation back to reality.

“There was a phone charger in the glove box. Did you use it?”

After that, he resolved to exchange only necessary words and keep conversation to a minimum. Apart from handling Cheriot carefully, he didn’t need to cater to his every whim.

“Yeah, your buddy gave me a portable battery but no cable. You were asleep, and I didn’t want to wake you, so I found it and used it myself.”

He said he was scared of me, yet he’s rummaging through my car just fine. Yuri was a little exasperated but didn’t point it out.

“Give it to me.”

At his request, Cheriot nodded and suddenly leaned toward the driver’s side. Startled by Cheriot’s sudden proximity, Yuri grabbed his shoulder firmly.

“What are you doing?”

They were close enough that they were about to be in an embrace, and Yuri frowned. Cheriot blinked his long lashes and stared at Yuri, then gestured with his eyes over Yuri’s shoulder.

“I put my portable battery in the door trim. The cable’s plugged in there too. I was going to pull it out and hand it to you.”

As soon as Cheriot said that, Yuri whipped his head to the left. Sure enough, the battery and cable were in the storage compartment at the bottom of the door panel. Why hadn’t he noticed? Blaming his own lack of attention, Yuri tightened his grip on Cheriot’s shoulder. A warning, in his own way, to back off a little.

“I don’t see why you had to show me this way instead of just telling me.”

“I told you earlier. I want to feel at least a little comfortable with you.”

“That…”

In this way? Catching the unspoken question in Yuri’s blue eyes, Cheriot nodded.

“I naturally like touching other people. All my friends know this habit of mine. Feeling body heat makes me feel alive… and it makes me feel closer. Oh, of course, only with people who don’t find it unpleasant.”

“It’s unpleasant.”

Yuri made it clear without a moment’s hesitation that he found it unpleasant. But Cheriot didn’t pull back.

“You’re different. You want to reassure me, don’t you?”

“Since when did I—”

“Didn’t you buy those snacks for that reason?”

His words caught for a moment. He couldn’t deny that the reason his feet had stopped at the display was because of Cheriot.

“Snacks are nice, but I’d prefer being touched.”