Midnight Pretenders (BL)

Chapter 47

Nari Hiden quietly closed the front door behind her in a soft click.

What a nuisance, she thought to herself.

She could still hear her heart beating erratically inside her chest and it made her extremely annoyed for even feeling it. She leaned back on the door and sighed heavily, closing her eyes. He was too aggressive and persistent that it was annoyingly hard for her to ignore him the whole time. Why did he show up? And what was that conversation all of a sudden? It was weird and it made Nari feel like she was slowly softening.

Did he just blatantly asked her out on a date? Why is he doing this?

Nari slowly opened her eyes, swallowing down a squeal of frustration. That guy really found her again. And she felt deeply troubled over the thought. She does remember him. And it shocked her too see him all grown and even more manly now. The memory of that day ten years ago when she had sung that song was still clear and vivid in the back of her mind. He was just that innocent blind boy who had appeared in that secret place she thought no one would ever find and now he got his sight back.

He was really handsome. The first ever guy that got her blushing so bad. And Nari felt even more conflicted by the reminder.

She can’t feel this way… He is a Takagi. And that fact was more than enough for her to push him away. She must do something to make him leave this town. But despite that strong caution flashing insider her head, the reminder of that soft piercing brown eyes and that smooth sound of his low baritone voice had instantly weakening all of Nari’s defenses as the walls she had carefully built around her had easily gotten torn down in one swept of his smile.

Just like that, Nari weakly admitted to herself. Why did I let him drive me home?

Her mental troubles immediately brought her into a state of bundled distress as she remained frowning alone under the darkness of their living room for a long moment. When she had finally came back to her senses, she quietly walked across the dim-lit space of the house and blindly maneuvered her way towards a narrow hall, leading her down to her bedroom. She slowly opened the door to her chamber and quickly turned on the lights before she dropped her body bag on the floor in a loud thud.

The stillness of the almost morning night gave her a mood for a solemn reflection. This has always been her daily pattern. And the nights would be her days while the days would be her nights. It was an ironic way of living but it was her choice to do it—because she had to.

She slowly dragged her tired feet towards her bed and threw her body down on the mattress with a bounce. How did he find her? She continued to wonder. He should have never returned. It would only took a matter of days before the entire town finally discovers his real identity.

‘Stay away from the Takagi’s’.

The long-given warning echoed inside her head again and it had been an adamant threat given by that dangerous man from her past. The possible harm it had heavily implied by those words only made Nari struggle more with the possible consequences it could bring to her life and her family if Taiyo won’t be stopped at all. What would she do now? How will she make him leave?

As she got drowned in the deep sea of her perturbed thoughts, Nari didn’t even notice the fragile figure appearing on her doorway.

“Nari?”

Nari quickly roused from her bed upon the sound of that voice calling softly towards her and she looked across her bedroom. Her stepmother, Maria, was staring at her from the door that she had left opened and stood with a puzzled look on her face.

“Mom.”

“Are you hungry?”

Nari shook her head in response to her, pasting a weak smile.

“Why are you still awake?” Nari asked her stepmom, “I told you not to wait for me.”

Maria had been relentless since the day she had been discharged from the medical center. Even when the doctor had reassured them that Maria was already fine, Nari still could not help but worry about her not resting enough.

“I was worried.”

Her mom’s usual response hit Nari with an instant wave of guilt. She can’t really stop her no matter how many times she tried to tell Maria not to do it.

“I saw a guy outside. He’s not a local, isn’t he?”

The sudden reminder of Taiyo immediately made Nari winced in discomfort as she looked away. That total fool. She felt her stomach going weird as she imagined his pretty face in her mind again. She needed to get a grip. And he really need to leave her alone. He’s a crazy stalker and totally stupid for even showing up here. And what was that staying here all about? Why can’t he just stop his craziness and forget about her? She will never go on a date with him.

‘Let’s go on a date.’

That line… Nari could not believe that she almost got swayed but that and she tried to shake off that memory of his smiling face when he had said those words to her.

“He’s no one,” she told her mom bitterly, “He’s just a random weird guy who got lost and found himself wandering into this town.”

“I don’t think so,” Cleverness dripped from her mom’s words as she walked towards Nari and sat beside her on the bed. Then she grinned in slight amusement. “He doesn’t look like the other guys to me. He got a nice warm feeling around him.”

“You just saw him from the window, mom.” Nari strongly rebuked, scowling, “And he’s a stalker. He even told me he loved me the very first time he saw me. I mean, how crazy was that?”

But Nari could feel her heart pounding loudly again when she remembered the moment he had kept telling her that straightforward confession for more than once.

“Sounds romantic to me.”

“Not to me.” Nari scoffed, trying to mask her blush with a deeper scowl.

“He even brought you home safe,” Maria bluntly pointed out with a slight crinkle in her eyes, a teasing smirk drawing slowly across her face. “Not all guys do that. And I like that about him.”

“Well, I don’t,” Nari looked away. Her constant animosity against the poor guy only made her feel exhausted. After a moment, she sighed in resignation with a sad glimmer in her eyes and added, “Men are all the same.”

Feeling tired after that, Nari dejectedly laid back to her bed again, ending the conversation to an abrupt silence. She closed her eyes and tried to brush away the troubles that still kept her feeling nervous and antsy. Then after a while, she felt her stepmom moving off from the mattress and she sensed her leaning down beside her to plant a soft kiss on her forehead. As Nari silently tried to perceive her mom’s movements across the room, the lights soon went out and she heard the door slowly closing in. Turning her body over, Nari opened her eyes and looked up to the ceiling. Her sight slowly adjusted to the darkness as it gradually got illuminated by the moon gleaming past her windows.

She just wanted to forget everything now. She just wanted to escape.

Men are all the same.

She started chanting those words inside her head, just to remind herself of the pain she had endured for the past decade because of those selfish beings trying to take control over her life. Furiously, Nari directed all of her burning anger towards Taiyo. It was because of him that she had too feel deeply bothered with her feelings.

He had to leave no matter what, she decidedly concluded.

No matter how many times he’d tell her he loves her, she won’t believe them anymore. After all, men have always been just after her for one thing. And that thing they had kept asking from her had already lost all of its value to her heart anyway. She could no longer feel anything in her soul but only that dark, poisonous hatred.

‘I love you.’

How easily to lie like that, and with those piercing brown eyes. Men would just hurt her and leave her once they had finally taken everything away from her. All the same, and only different with their fickle way of words. She really hated them. Driven by that strong antagonistic resolution, Nari quickly closed her eyes back to sleep. She would never believe in those foolish things people called love and happiness again. She had already learned the lesson the ugliest way.

And she could never fall in love anymore.

I had stayed awake for a whole day after that late-night drive.

It was only so I could take my mind off from Nari and this whole town’s strangeness. I just felt like things were kind of happening pretty fast and too sudden so I had decided to finish all of the pending reports and project proposals dumped on me at once for the mean time. But what I didn’t really expect about the whole thing was for it to be such a great deal of stress to do too. I holed up inside my motel room like a prisoner, and I almost forgot the time that had passed on. I was just too occupied and persistently immersed to finish everything right away so that I could finally spend the remaining time of my vacation to enjoy my temporary independence before I was doomed to return back to my reality next month.

Soon after, throughout the whole chore of reading and referencing, I found myself getting buried under the antagonizing page by page of documents to documents that had me feeling dizzy for hours. I could not even barely get out of my room the whole time. It was really the busiest day I’ve had in the past week. And as soon as I had sent everything to my lawyer for the final review, I was already dead asleep on top of my desk. I just woke up the noon after with a strained neck and a painful headache.

“So you’ve finally came back from the dead?”

This was the very first greeting that had welcomed me the moment I stepped out of my room and went downstairs. I had thought that it would be a very good idea to exercise my legs for a brief stroll since they had been cramped and numbed out from a whole day’s worth of sitting in front of my laptop. I was also feeling like talking to somebody. But Henry’s stoic face looked at me from across the counter with nothing but an unbothered expression, and I could already read his thoughts as he took noticed of the thick beard I was sporting at the moment. I didn’t really have the time to groom myself when I woke up that noon, but I have been already planning to shave them all clean later on.

“Hello to you, too.” I greeted in distress, sighing heavily.

“I heard you’ve managed to gain a little progress with Miss Hiden the other night,” Henry remarked wittingly, and a sly smirk stretched across his face. I snorted, looking back at him with a smug smile.

“Hearing gossips lately, are we? I didn’t expect you to be the nosey type, kid.”

But then this town was too small to even hide anything from anyone.

“Well the news have its mouth, and ears, and wings… you know the saying?”

“No, I don’t.” I bluntly denied, staring blankly to his face. I had figured that I was actually still not in the complete mood to be receiving jokes at the moment because I was still nursing a headache after being sleep deprived the whole day before.

“Well, your loss.” Henry pitied back, his mouth curved up into a mocking smirk. And feeling like I was being looked down, I tried to redeem myself back by looking tough and unbothered. It was such a childish act but I was still not fully awake to even think about what I was really doing.

“I’ve finally asked her out on a date.”

I adamantly leaned on the counter and gave Henry the same smug smirk that I could muster with my tired state. Henry did not even bat an eye to that as he just looked over to me with impassive regard.

“Congratulations,” he said back in a dull note, sounding like he never really mean it, “But did she even agree to one?”

That somehow backfired and I felt my body froze with startling rage.

 “I’m working on it,’ I grumblingly refuted but it sounded more like I was just forcing myself to think that way, “She’ll come around anytime soon, you just wait and see.”

My voice slightly wavered with uncertainty as Henry just stared back at me with dead eyes.

“Hmn.”

“You could even ask tips from me, kid,” I told him in a defensive note, “It’s hard to deal with women because they change their mood quicker than a day. It’s exhausting when that happens… But you’ve just got to work hard with your patience. They might deny you on the first few attempts but give them time and they would soon change their minds. That’s how it usually happened to me. And I can give you a lot of advises if you want.”

I tried to act dumbly and wriggled my brows at him, giving Henry a silly grin. But the inherent worry about my failed attempt for a date was still very apparent on my face.

“No, thanks,” Henry quickly rejected with a placid demeanor and I was kind of offended at how he didn’t even miss a beat saying that back, “I’m too busy with manning the motel and reading. I don’t have time for flirting around.”

I snorted.

“You serious?” I squinted my eyes at him in suspicion, “But you don’t even really get any guests in town, right?”

“Hmn.”

Henry just shrugged with a bored expression and I still mulled over that hummed response. What was he even trying to say when he does that?

“So, when do you supposed she’d finally come around to you?” Henry asked after a moment. And I frowned at his words.

“Why are you asking?”

“Just curious.” He replied.

 “Well, I’m working on it,” I said in a grumpy voice and looked away, puffing out an air of annoyance through my nose. I really don’t know what I was going to do next, to be honest. Nari and I had sort of separated that night in a vague note and she had been angry with me too. So, at this point, I was in a dead end.

“Hmn.” I heard Henry responding that nondescript sound back to me again and I quickly turned to face him with a scowl.

“You don’t have to believe me, anyway.” I defiantly told him, feeling irritated all of a sudden. “You’ll just hear about it soon.”

“Hmn.”

“Fine,” I raised my hand, sighing in surrender, “Forget about it. I’d go back to my room.”

And with that, I angrily walked up the stairs and went back to my room. Feeling like I had nothing left to do anymore, I marched straight towards the bathroom to shave the itchy beard on my face. And maybe a long shower too. It might actually give me some sense of relief for a change.