Only Realized After Losing You

4. The Second Man

Of course, I could always speak anytime.

I don’t want to emphasize this, but I wasn’t born mute.

I could speak.

There were no oral problems whatsoever.

Therefore, I thought that if I set my mind to it, I would be able to talk.

That seemed to be the reason why I feel overly relieved about not being allowed to speak.

But unfortunately, I have never felt a strong desire to talk.

Very occasionally I would feel uncomfortable, but that was only “very occasionally”.
.
“… … .”

But when I saw the tears in Hayden’s silver eyes, I felt the urge to speak.

It was the first time… no, it was the first urge in a long time.

However, even that wasn’t very strong.

It was just a curiosity born from what it would be like to say one word.

I wanted to tell him it was okay.

Because the emotion in Hayden’s beautiful watery eyes was regret.

He might be regretting kissing me.

Maybe he was regretting the fact that he’d left the man he loved to kiss another woman.

He might even have thought of the man he loved when he kissed me.

Maybe he thought of me as that man.

But I really was okay with it.

I was satisfied with my kiss with him.

He reminded me how sweet it felt to have our warm tongues locked together.

It was an unknown feeling I had never experienced before.

I was satisfied with the fact that he had shown me that kissing was like that.

There was no romance in our first kiss.

So it didn’t matter who Hayden was thinking of the whole time he was kissing me.

We kissed without any emotional connection.

There was no reason for me to be sad.

“Can we meet again in a few days?”

Hayden asked as if he had a premonition that we wouldn’t be able to see each other for a few days.

But there was no sign of farewell in his words.

He seemed to be looking forward to meeting me again.

No matter when that might be.  Even if it was not talking about the man he loved.

As if he hoped to see me even then.

I understood how he felt.

I thought it was quite amazing to have someone who actually listened to you attentively.

Even when he was being judgmental, I listened without judgment and with understanding.

I couldn’t tell you how much Hayden was comforted by me.

How much did he pay for that comfort to my father?

He gently stroked my cheek as he waited for my answer.

The kiss ended already, but his hand on my cheek stayed in place.

I nodded.

It was an affirmation that it would be okay to meet again.

Hayden looked at me with a faint smile.

I felt the same urge again right there.

… ah. I really want to tell you that it’s okay.

I parted my lips a little, just in case.

But no sound came out.

Words died out, and we looked into each other’s eyes for a long time.

“… … .”

A single tear slowly flowed from Hayden’s eyes, which were full of sadness.

He was slightly embarrassed, as if he realized too late that he had shed tears.

I lifted my hand and stroked his tear-stained cheek.

The fact that we had kissed each other so boldly was in vain.

Hayden flinched slightly every time I touched him.

Still, he didn’t push my hand away.

He was trembling like a small wounded animal, acting as if he wanted me to touch him.

All Hayden did was love someone, but it was pitiful that he even thought about death because of it.

If loving someone was this sad and difficult, I didn’t want to love anyone for the rest of my life.

* * *

That was the only kiss that day.

After he chatted a little more about trivial things, we parted ways.

The last thing I saw before I was blindfolded again was the red sunset seeping into the room.

When the red glow turned even the paler Hayden red, my vision was completely blocked.

I held Hayden’s hand and got into the carriage with some familiarity.

In the end, I didn’t know where I met him today either.

But that didn’t matter.

* * *

I entered the house, dragging my worn-out shoes behind me.

The house was as quiet as a mouse.

My father did not return from work yet, my older sister, who suffered from depression, locked herself in her room and did not come out, and my mother was out of town.

It was an intense silence that I felt every day.

I went into my room on the second floor, which was close to the attic, and closed the door.

As I kicked off my shoes and flopped onto my small bed, my mind wandered to the kiss I’d shared with Hayden.

The feel of his tongue delicately exploring the inside of my mouth was still vivid.

When I thought about it, I felt like I was suffering from a mild fever.

If you asked me if I wanted to kiss him again, I might say yes.

It’s not that I wanted to have an emotional connection with Hayden.

I just wanted to feel the sensual feeling of kissing again.

I hugged the white, ownerless pillow I’d put up as an assortment.

When I looked at the small window next to the bed, the sunset that had colored Hayden so vividly had completely disappeared.

Outside the window, a dusky darkness engulfed everything.

I stared at the darkening sky for a long time.

What is Hayden doing right now?

I wondered if he was shedding another tear for a love that would never be.

The vision of Hayden that appeared in my mind did not disappear easily.

* * *

My father was quite satisfied with the payment he received from Hayden.

“If I can make money like this,” he said, “I can soon quit cleaning up after the Baron.”

With that, he ordered me to listen to another man’s story.

I nodded, as usual.

I didn’t mind hearing other people’s inside stories.

If anything, I looked forward to it…

Is that an unreasonable desire?

There was one silver lining.

He didn’t ask what Hayden had confided in me.

My father seemed to have reached some kind of agreement with Hayden on that point as well.

Maybe he just didn’t care about Hayden’s secrets.

What was important to my father was money, and he didn’t want to get involved in something that could lead to trouble.

My father was a greedy man, but he was not one to take life-or-death risks.

Anyway, he decided for me to meet the second man who was going to tell his story at a bar.

It was the day after my last meeting with Hayden.

I thought the meeting place was somewhat unexpected.

This is because the bar was a very open place.

Hayden had insisted on meeting in secret…

I furrowed my brow as I entered the bar that the second man had picked.

The bar had a musty odor, and I could smell the faintest hint of cigarette smoke.

It was not a smell that someone had just smoked, but a smell that had accumulated over a long period of time.

I was a bit sensitive to smells.

There was not a single customer in sight.

There was only one young man who appeared to be the owner.

Maybe our meeting was the reason why there are no other customers in this bar.

The man who appeared to be the owner didn’t ask me anything. He didn’t even have a greeting to welcome me.

He just guided me to a corner seat.

He reacted like he knew about my visit from early on.

I sat down in the indicated seat.

Aside from the musty odor, the sofa I was sitting on looked pretty good.

I sat back in my seat and sipped my tea in a strange place.

It was the first time I’d been in a bar since I was born.

The bar wasn’t as special as I thought.

There were several bottles of wine with no names on the shelves along the walls, a few classy-looking chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, and about a dozen tables.

It seemed that the man who would tell me his story had not yet arrived.

I had been waiting for about ten minutes when I heard the sound of polished shoes behind me.

The echoing footsteps reached my back and stopped.

Before I could turn around, I heard a man’s voice.

“… Miss Ellie?”

The voice was probably the second man.

I turned around, and there he was.

My first impression of the man was one word: gorgeous.

Cool, long, eyes. A firm but sharp jawline.

Dark hair that complimented his fair skin.

And red eyes.

As I scanned him, our eyes met. Then the man smiled softly.

The corners of his mouth were pulled up, drawing a seductive curve.

If Hayden was more of a fragile-looking young man, this was a man who exuded strength.

Maybe that’s why.

The man looked older than Hayden.

But looking at his white skin without any blemishes, he somehow felt like a boy.

A peculiar man whose age I couldn’t guess.

The man was dressed in colorful attire.

I thought it was a fitting outfit for a man who chose an open bar as a place to reveal his secrets.

He was a man who was better at revealing himself than at hiding.

I instinctively judged him that way. Of course, I could be wrong.

Does a man like this… have secrets he can’t confide in others?

I wondered.