Only Realized After Losing You

9. I Wonder What a Kiss With You Would Be Like.

I knew right away what he was asking.

“You saw me kiss my stepmother, didn’t you?

Lennon didn’t wait for my answer.

He took another step closer, closing the distance between us.

Then he was too close.

With my back to the door and Lennon blocking my path, there was nowhere for me to go.

Lennon tilted his face at an angle so that we were within breathing distance of each other.

There was a dark heat in his red eyes.

Threatening, I thought to myself.

It was the first time I felt violent energy from him.

“Do you… know what the best way to make someone feel defeated is?”

I shook my head.

I had never wanted someone to feel defeated, much less destroyed.

“Then make sure you know this time.”

“… … .”

“Taking away something a person cares about most… is the best way to make that person feel defeated.”

“… … .”

“That’s why I kissed my stepmother.”

Did Lennon kiss his stepmother to make someone who cared about her feel defeated?

Lennon said that and laughed weakly. The sound of his laughter filled the room.

Although Lennon spoke cheerfully, his face looked sad.

Before I realized it, I was already reaching out.

The destination of my hand was his cheek, which looked somehow tender.

“… … !”

Lennon looked surprised when my hand suddenly touched his cheek.

His red eyes rippled as they met mine.

Suddenly, the heat in his eyes dissipated.

“… Ellie.”

He called my name in a trembling voice.

“… … .”

I responded with silence.

But my gaze towards him carried a clear message.

‘Please, do not be sad.’

Then I thought to myself.

I don’t know what your story is.

But I hope my silent message reaches you.

“… … .”

I had never known what it felt like to communicate with someone.

I was always the listener, never showing my feelings.

I had to listen to the person more attentively than anyone else, and I had to give them my full attention.

I had to convey the fact that I was listening to them, even though I couldn’t speak.

It was a very one-way communication.

But Lennon seemed to read my mind now.

He seemed to recognize the message in my eyes.

His fierce gaze softened completely.

Lennon’s gaze, which had been looking straight at me, dropped.

Soon, he buried his face in my shoulder.

Lennon’s forehead rested on my shoulder, and I could feel his hot body heat.

I could feel Lennon’s hot breath.

Now that we were irrevocably close, I could smell an unfamiliar scent on him.

A terrible perfume smell. It wasn’t Lennon’s scent.

Perhaps it was his stepmother’s scent.

Just as I smelled Lennon’s scent on his stepmother, Lennon had a heavy coating of her scent on him.

The smell of their perfume on each other was very different.

Lennon spat out bitterly.

“I am… I want to make my father feel defeated.”

It was as I expected.

He kissed his stepmother to make his father feel defeated.

Lennon continued.

“I’m going to take my stepmother away from my father for killing my mother in cold blood.”

Be it the body. The mind. Anything.

“Until he feels the pain he deserves.”

Because he was resting his face on my shoulder, I couldn’t see Lennon’s face.

But I felt like I could predict what kind of expression he would have.

He would have a pained look on his face.

He’d look like his world had fallen apart.

I awkwardly patted his back.

At my touch, Lennon’s body flinched slightly.

“… It’s a story I’ve never told anyone. So, this is the first time I’m telling anybody.”

“… … .”

“Ha… why am I telling you this when we’ve only met twice?”

Instead of answering, I patted him on the back a couple of times.

Yes, Lennon.

There’s one thing you’ve been forgetting all along.

Listening to your inside story that I can’t reveal to anyone is what I was supposed to do in the first place.

“Your father was right. You have a talent for listening. When I’m with you, I get this strange feeling that I want to tell you everything.”

“… … .”

“An irresistible force. I think I felt something like that.”

Finally, Lennon lifted his face from my shoulder.

He looked into my eyes for a while with an expressionless face.

What is he thinking?

“While I’m at it, I’ll confess a little more.”

Lennon said that and grabbed my hand, which had been rubbing his back just a moment ago.

He raised our joined hands and placed my fingertips on his lower lips.

“… The kiss with my stepmother. Actually, it was a kiss I didn’t really want to have.”

Lennon blinked slowly.

His black eyelashes, long like sunshades, were trembling slightly.

His words continued in an indecipherable way, as if it were a confession.

“That woman smells unpleasant.”

The smell of her perfume on you.

The extremely sweet smell of her perfume still lingered on the tip of my nose.

He made me stroke his lips with the fingertips he was holding.

I engraved the feel of his lips on my fingertips, guided by his grip.

“And you smell nice.”

Smirking, Lennon suggested a game of questions we’d played a few times.

“Let me pose a question here. What do you think I want from you?”

Lennon looked at my lips with a somewhat savage look.

There was a hungry gleam in his red eyes.

I swallowed dryly.

The tingle I’d felt when I’d spied their kiss was back.

I felt like I could somehow understand what his eyes meant.

… Skinship. To be more specific, a kiss.

Could he be wanting that?

I pursed my lips.

In the meantime, minutes ticked by.

“I think I gave you enough time to think about it, and I think you roughly figured it out.”

“… … .”

“If you don’t let go of my hand now… I’m going to kiss you on the lips.”

Lennon loosened his grip on my hand, so that I could easily remove my hand.

He was giving me a choice.

But I didn’t pull my hand out of his grasp.

Curiosity was probably the biggest reason.

Hayden was the first to show me what a kiss was. He gave me the most tender kiss ever.

So I wondered what Lennon’s kiss would be like.

Would it be the same as Hayden’s, or different?

Maybe it was the heat in my body from the glimpse of his kiss that made me wonder, because it hadn’t gone away yet.

There was silence, and then Lennon smiled softly at my unmoving form.

‘I wonder what a kiss with you would be like.’

It seemed like my silent message had once again been properly conveyed to him.

Unexpectedly, his lips touched mine.

His lips, which had coveted his stepmother’s, began to seek mine without reservation.

He sucked on my lips like a beast that had been starved for days, his tongue darting across mine.

It was a completely different kiss from the gentle kiss Hayden had given.

It was intense and passionate.

I was breathless, my occasional breaths hot.

Our bodies, pressed together for what seemed like forever, were hot.

It was the kind of heat that didn’t seem out of place if we were exploring each other’s intimate places.

But Lennon’s hand never touched my body.

He only held my hand tightly and focused on the act of kissing.

When I felt my legs giving up, Lennon’s lips slowly parted.

He placed a light, nibbling kiss, then took a step back.

As if he was trying to control himself from wanting to do more than kiss.

“… Can you please leave now?”

Lennon turned away, not meeting my gaze.

“The question you need to agonize over when you get home today is… is why I gave you the dress.”

“… … .”

“Today’s meeting ends here. Go out the front door and my servant will take you home.”

I nodded, even though I knew he wouldn’t see it. It was an unconscious action.

Before I left the room, I took one last look at Lennon, and when I turned around, I saw that the tips of his ears were slightly red.

I walked completely out of the room, unable to say anything to say goodbye.

* * *

As I walked down the long hallway of the Duke of Hills House, I thought about Lennon.

Lennon acted as if he had no secrets to share, and it seemed like he did.

However, in the end, he also had a secret that he could not reveal to anyone.

A deep-rooted hatred towards his father.

The root of that hatred that I could not understand.

Lennon said he came to see me because he felt compassion and empathy for my situation.

But what if he wanted to vent his unspoken hatred on me?

Could it be that he wanted to confess his secret to the mute Ellie who would not let his secret get out?

Only today did I finally feel like I did something worthwhile: listening to Lennon’s secret.

Lennon’s secret, I learned, was this:

Lennon Hills hates his father.

That’s why he wants to take away his stepmother, who his father loves the most.

The stepmother looks just like Hayden.

She is… she might be Hayden’s mother.