Chapter 76
Even those who had once acknowledged his hard work gradually turned away from him.
Even so, Felix greeted everyone with a smile, pretending nothing was wrong.
Though he knew exactly what they said about him behind his back, he continued to meet them with that practiced, insincere smile.
Still, it was better than living at the ducal house.
There were still those who looked at him with sticky, covetous eyes, but it happened far less often than it had outside the Temple.
The number of people who sexually harassed him had also dwindled considerably, and almost no one dared bring up his family to his face anymore.
Most importantly, his brother wasn’t here. Nor was his mother. And neither was that man… The Duke of Spencer.
He could endure it. He could survive. Just as he always had, all he had to do was keep living.
But on the very first day he came face to face with the noble Lord Abel, whom he had known only through rumor—
‘Greetings. My name is Felix. Beginning today, I have been assigned as Lord Abel’s personal guard.’
When Felix watched Lord Abel’s gaze pass over him as though he didn’t exist, followed by the sound of footsteps growing ever more distant, he found himself wanting to run away from the Temple for the very first time.
Because he hated Lord Abel. Because the very sight of him churned his stomach. Because in that indifferent figure walking away, he kept seeing someone else.
But Felix couldn’t run. There was nowhere for him to go.
As always, the only choice left to Felix was to endure.
As time passed, Lord Abel only became more unsettling. More difficult to bear. He came to dislike him more and more.
Even so, somehow, he managed to endure.
Because there was no one here to force Lord Abel to acknowledge Felix’s existence.
‘Master… Young Master Felix is here as well…’
He never had to meet those pitch-black eyes that seemed to say, Oh, so something like you was here after all.
The urge to wrap his hands around the throat of the very person he was assigned to protect grew stronger with each passing day.
Even so, Felix believed he was doing a good job.
Not until he heard those words.
‘I love you, Ryan.’
It was the worst confession imaginable.
To think Lord Abel hadn’t even bothered to learn his name.
Yet the place Felix had struggled so desperately to carve out for himself was thrown into turmoil by that single, careless sentence.
The people around him slammed him into the dirt one moment, only to lift him into the heavens the next. Again and again.
Unable to respond properly, Felix was tossed about by forces beyond his control.
No matter how wronged he felt, no matter how suffocating the frustration became, he did not dare say a single word.
Even less so after seeing the Herald of God with his own eyes, standing upon the dais, looking down upon the crowd with a nobility beyond compare.
Only then did he truly understand, down to his very bones, that for some people, Lord Abel was an object of admiration and reverence they could never hope to reach.
And once again, he was forced to acknowledge that he and Lord Abel were people who could never be compared.
Regardless of what kind of person Lord Abel truly was, the Herald of God was, by his very existence alone, complete and perfect—
The exact opposite of Felix.
One who desired nothing.
One who strove for nothing.
One blessed simply by existing.
One whose very existence brought others joy.
One who was perfect by mere existence.
Had it not been for that one question, Felix might have been able to simply overlook Abel’s confession.
In other words, instead of rejecting him outright or showing his discomfort, he could have waited until Abel sorted out his own feelings.
But that question lit the fuse.
‘Do you see me as your father?’
Who do you think you are?
How well do you think you know me to say something like that?
Is this what happens to someone who has spent their entire life being worshipped?
Do they lose the ability to tell the difference between things that should be said and things that never should?
Or am I simply not someone worthy of even that small measure of consideration?
But he said he loved him.
Felix saw the sparkle in Abel’s eyes—eyes that used to be as lifeless as a dead fish—when they looked at him.
He knew the way Abel’s gaze wandered in search of him.
He knew the look in Abel’s eyes as they followed him.
He saw Abel get angry because of him.
So how could you dare?
Dare?
Had Felix ever used the word dare toward anyone before?
Of course not.
No matter what people did to him, Felix had always bowed his head as low as he could.
He had learned to shrink himself instinctively, fearful that something even worse would come crashing down on him.
Then why?
Had being treated as someone special filled him with a sense of superiority?
Or rather…
How dare you? When you know what I am. When you’ve seen everything I’ve been through.
These feelings will disappear soon enough.
Discussion
1 CommentHypotheseis