Chapter 50
Startled by the sudden noise, Leila tried to look outside, but Bjorn grabbed her and stopped her. He didn’t want her attention to leave him even for a moment. All he wanted was for Leila to take back the cruel joke she had just thrown at him.
“Miss Leila, please explain properly. What do you mean you intend to seriously meet that, that man? Weren’t you meeting me with the premise of a relationship?”
Clinging to the thin thread of reason that felt ready to snap, Bjorn asked. His voice trembled and he cleared his throat with difficulty.
If he had his way he would kick out the unwelcome intruder who stood blankly watching them and pour out his wronged and miserable feelings to Leila, but he had no such leisure.
Yet whether she knew his urgency or not, Leila’s expression only grew colder. With a face that looked both angry and sad, she answered.
“I do understand your feelings… but this is truly in poor taste.”
Then shocking words burst from her mouth one after another, as if striking Bjorn and slamming him into the ground.
“Until now, I refused because I wasn’t inclined, but I think it’s about time I considered marriage. However the image you have shown me… is far from an ideal husband, and my parents would never permit it. You know your own situation better than anyone. What parent would welcome a man lacking manners and burdened with debt?”
The lies and acts Bjorn had recited to drive her away tightened around his neck like a noose. The sight of Leila listing reasons she couldn’t meet him was exactly what he had originally intended.
At the one moment he least wanted it.
“I came today precisely to explain that. I can explain everything. The person you have seen until now…”
Leila didn’t listen to Bjorn’s hurried excuses.
“I’m sorry, sir. It would be rude to keep Mr. Piache waiting longer. In any case I have made my position clear. Let us consider our meetings as if they never happened. Please be happy, Sir Bjorn.”
With those last words, Leila personally opened the bookstore door as if asking him to leave.
Her colder than ever dismissal made Bjorn feel as if the ground beneath him collapsed. A pain far worse than the moment he was abandoned by his birth mother paralyzed his thoughts.
In shock that left him unable to speak, Bjorn walked out of the bookstore, then unconsciously turned back. The divine power he barely restrained simmered under his skin.
Through the small window in the door he saw Leila again. The vermin-like man who had suddenly appeared now occupied Bjorn’s place at her side, whispering into her ear. Then a third shocking sight of the day entered Bjorn’s eyes.
Leila linked arms with another man. The place she had allowed only him, she now allowed another. The warmth he alone had felt she shared with someone else.
Denying the reality before him, Bjorn staggered backward. The divine power that again betrayed his will caused something far away to shatter with a distant, ear-splitting crash.
His fingertips tingled with the urge to separate them at once. His whole body trembled as if facing the enemy who had killed a friend before his eyes. Yet Bjorn couldn’t move rashly. Leila, the precious person he had finally recognized, rejected him with her entire being.
The blind affection that had always reassured him, that he had wished would disappear yet believed never would, had vanished from her eyes.
The moment he realized it, Bjorn completely lost the will to fight. He had no strength to face this cruel reality.
Sensing the two about to come outside, Bjorn retreated in fear of seeing them and hurried away.
Hiding in a nearby alley, the last glimpse he stole of Leila was…
Her back as she walked arm in arm with the man called Piache.
The sight made him feel as if the living soul inside him turned black and died.
Until this morning, Bjorn had dreamed of a rosy future with her. He had never imagined he would see her leave with another man.
Why suddenly… why did the heart that had been so firm until now change in an instant…
The large bouquet he had never delivered withered and crumbled under the uncontrolled divine power he emitted.
All the hopes and images of the future he had imagined while leaving the temple shattered and scattered like a corpse with the dead petals.
What settled onto his shoulders as he watched the two figures grow distant was a familiar despair.
Discussion
2 CommentsReactions
Gnfjfjfj
TheBaneOfMyExistences