Midnight Pretenders (BL)

Chapter 32

I do not want to pretend that I was okay with all of this.

Not anymore.

I may have already made Nari to go out with me to a diner today, but I don’t really feel quite fulfilled yet. Although I could actually call this somewhat a date between us, I still don’t want to pretend that I was completely happy about it. Of course I still feel a little bit enthusiastic about this, but it was no longer just like that now. Something else had been bothering me since last night. And the email that Hudson had sent me still remained unopened in my inbox, leaving a dent to my ever-growing anxiety. And because of that, I was completely distracted by it to even feel elated by the fact that I have already gotten a chance to spend some time with Nari. I guess, I don’t really have any will to leave this town anymore. Not when I have finally found something really unnerving about this town. For some reason, my curiosity just got even much worse that I could no longer neglect it. It might just sound like I was still insisting on things to go my way but I feel really worried…

“To tell the truth, I’m actually overwhelmed by your persistence to ask me out. And I’m not really used to things like this one but I really want you to give up.”

We had already finished eating at the diner a few moments ago, resolving nothing but silence after that aimless conversation. I was now driving us back to the town, but I was actually thinking of changing routes just for fun. I was just really desperate to make this chance with Nari to last much longer despite the actual discomfort that she kept putting out into the atmosphere between us. I still have so many things that I wanted to tell her but I was not really sure where to actually start. Yet her unrelenting refusal to meet things halfway with me had me hesitating. What can I really do? She already had this firm conviction to reject every attempt that I try just to woo her and that was quite making things hard for me to go on. But honestly, I don’t really feel like giving up yet.

“Are you listening?”

Her voice snapped me out of my thoughts as I tried to give her a quick glance, feeling a little bit guilty of ignoring her.

“You’re really a bothersome, you know.”

She let out the words with a heavy sigh, not sounding really bothered at all and turned her head towards the window. I merely smiled to myself as I decreased the speed of the car. We were nearing the sharp turn towards town’s borders and a few more meters, I will have to drive down the road back to her place and watch her leave again.

“Nari?”

I called out to her before I could even stop myself. I knew I was about to worsen things again but this time, I feel like going bold all of a sudden. Well, damn it. To hell with the rest.

“Will it be okay if I ask to take more of your time today?”

I felt her tensing up from the passenger seat as she mulled over my question. She would most likely reject it again, I guess. But her silence had me wondering if she would really say yes. Then after a moment, her response confirmed my thoughts.

“What do you want to do?”

Even though her question instantly ignite a hopeful glimmer to my chest, the dejected sound of her voice made me feel like she was sheltering some kind of emotion inside of her. Was she actually worried about this? Is she scared? Why did she sound so forlorn and miserable?

“I just want to show you something.”

She let out another sigh but then she just said, “Fine.”

Her reply was too halfhearted but it did not really stop me from backing down. Before I knew it, we sped fast and skipped the turn that goes straight back to the village. The main road has been opened again and the route ahead just intensified my excitement. Maybe she would finally remember everything again once I showed her that place of our first meeting. I just have to trust my hunch on this. I just have to be confident.

And after a long while of uninterrupted drive, I finally pulled the car up to the front of the old mansion. The place looked so much more different now but this was still the place where everything had started. And I was almost too certain now that this will be where everything will finally start again.

“Why did you take me here?”

I pulled the handbrake and turned the engine off as I opened the car door on my side. I turned to Nari who voiced out the question to me with a wry smile.

“Consider this as my last attempt.”

She just warily stared at me after that and she silently opened the door on her side to get out. I did the same and walked around the front of the car to guide her towards the big gates of the mansion but she hesitated for a second, stopping abruptly as she gave me a skeptical look.

“Wait, is anybody inside?”

“No one.”

To be honest, I don’t really have a key and the caretaker was most likely out of town as well—considering that nobody in the family had really travelled back here and visited the mansion for so many years now. I have already assumed that the place was pretty much rundown and filled with dust and will take a little while to be prepared for any visit, but then deciding to come here was never a planned thing anyway. I was just trying to search for some answers in the first place. Going here was actually an impulsive move and I was not really intending to stay after all. Not until I actually met Nari that night again. That was what actually changed everything.

“Then what are you planning to do here now?”

 “Ever heard of trespassing?”

My teasing smirk eased out as I walked and started to climb up the grills of the black steel gate of the front. The mansion never really needed any security of sort since it was actually remoted from anything else so I could just easily go over the entire thing with a little amount of energy. Looking over my shoulder to turn back at Nari, I motioned at her to do the same thing.

“What the hell? I’m not going to climb up on that!” she told me angrily.

Her unwavering stubborn attitude is kind of annoying to be honest but it also was another thing that I find really cute about her. I chuckled to myself, merely ignoring her whining behind me and just went on with what I was doing.

“Come on, this is not that hard. And remember, this is my last attempt okay? Can you just cut me some slack here? Just for today, please?”

I grunted when I started to lift myself up a few more inches above the ground and somehow, my words worked as I heard Nari muttering a curse to herself behind me. Not long after, she was starting to climb up the gate beside me.

“Be careful, okay?” I reminded her.

“I can handle myself, thank you very much,” she just said in a sarcastic tone and I chuckled again. Once we had finally managed to reach the peak of the gate, I started to feel slightly worried of climbing down all of a sudden. I was not actually expecting to find the height intimidating.

“Are you scared?”

Nari’s voice interrupted my hesitance and I looked towards her, masking my worried thoughts with a shaky smile but failed when she just smirked at me.

“No.” I told her, halfheartedly lying.

“Chicken.” She said with a chuckle and easily climbed down the gate before landing in a nonchalant thud on the ground below her. I wobbly made my way down after her and almost stumbled as I clumsily settled myself on the ground as well. Sighing in relief, I turned around and caught her watching me with an amused grin on her face.

“What?” I asked her with a frown and she just chuckled again as she looked away, clearing her throat and turning her back on me.

“So what do you want us to do here? Are we going to fool around?” the teasing sound of her words quickly flustered me and I coughed awkwardly as a response. It never really occurred to me but after hearing it from her, I was actually starting to consider the idea. But what the hell? Was that even rational of me? I managed to mentally slap myself right away for even trying to imagine it. When I had asked her to come here, it was only for the intention to show her around. But she was unexpectedly upfront with her question now and it somehow made me extremely nervous around her.

“Don’t say that,” I lightly reproached her and started walking towards the direction of the garden beside the mansion. “I just want to show you around the place. This is where I actually first met you.”

Her silence after I said those words had me wondering if she really remembered anything and I took the initiative to walk past her as I quietly led us to the area where the garden was located. It was where I had first heard her sang that song. And as I was met by the scene from the past, the breeze of the wind slowly reminded me of that memory.

“Ten years really changed this place, after all.” I later on remarked as I noticed the weeds overgrowing the bushes and the withering flowers that were once had been blooming and flamboyantly decorated all over the place. The trees had grown much taller and it looked like it had been very long since the last time this place was maintained. Maybe the caretaker had already forgotten to check this place every once in a while. We just sort of left and abandoned everything here after I got my sight back and I didn’t really think of coming back here until I did this year. I was not really expecting anything but then, here I was.

“You’re really rich, huh?” I hear Nari commenting behind me. But I was suddenly driven by my persistence as I abruptly turned around and caught her off guard as her eyes darted back at me.

“I really want you to accept my feelings,” I strongly confessed, forgetting everything that she had said to me about leaving. I’m really a fool, I guess.

“I already told you—“

“I’m not leaving.”

“What?”

“I already know the secret of this town.” I bravely told her as I challengingly met her intense stare. She was frowning at me and her face hardened as I spoke my words.

“Your town is a property of our family,” I went on and I noticed her hesitating as I continued. “I don’t really want to say this but then I don’t think I could ever really leave now. To even think that a town has been mysteriously built inside a private property, it really makes me think there’s something more to it. So I’m planning to figure what’s really happening her—“

“I agree.”

Her soft uttered interjection had me choking as I paused and stared back at her with widened eyes. I didn’t want to believe it for a second, and I might have heard her wrong. But did she just say she agreed?

“What?”

“I’ll date you,” she said, but somehow the words sounded too forced from her mouth as she looked at me with apparent contempt. “In exchange for forgetting about what you just told me, I’ll date you.”

“Wait a second, this i—“

“You can have me now, okay? Just leave the town alone for me after it’s all done. Can you do that? If that’s what you really want, then I want you to do this favor in exchange. Deal?”

I don’t know why it was suddenly a big deal but the way she stared at me with those pure green eyes with that assertive glare, I was immediately succumbing to her wishes. But how can she just say yes like that? Why did she sound like she was trying to avoid something else?

“Fine,” I responded weakly, sighing with a resigned smile. For some reason, I could feel something heavy growing inside my chest that it was almost suffocating. “Deal.”

Her moment of silence gave a glooming mood between us and I bowed my head to look down to my feet as I tried not to say anything for a while. I was too afraid that I might change her mind if I uttered a word back. Then after a while, she turned around.

“Let’s go back,” She soon mumbled these words back at me and I lifted my head up to look at the view of her back. I wanted to ask her so many things but I was still feeling numb to even speak. Maybe this was better since she finally agreed to date me. I must be happy now. But am I really happy? I don’t really know. I was no longer sure… Was this really what I have wanted to happen?

After that, we walked back and climbed up the gate again but this time, it was in silence. I almost lost my balance when I had tried to jump my way down from the top of the gate when I crossed over it. It could have been a funny sight but I had already lost all energy to even laugh at my expense. The entire change of mood was killing me and I don’t really get where all of this demented misery were coming from but one look at the cold demeanor Nari was giving me, I was already feeling too dumb.

I may have done the worst thing.

And I don’t think I could ever really fix this in any way possible. She was getting much farther and farther away from me. And I might really lose her now for good.

34

It was never going to be easy from here on.

I tried to think over what just happened when I got back to the motel after I dropped Nari off by her house this afternoon. The entire reality was still not sinking in. Did she just agreed to date me? She just did, right? Then why am I feeling so disappointed all of a sudden? Shouldn’t I be rejoicing now and celebrating myself for being able to achieve what I really went here for?

Ten years of searching for that girl… Ten years of feeling so out of myself that I almost withdrew from the world. I was in love with that woman for years and had nursed a sorrowful emptiness for too long I had even forgotten how to feel anything else… And now, my wish has been already granted. So why am I acting like this? I don’t get it.

Did I just lose all the sense of infatuation towards Nari? No, I don’t really think so. I still want her to love me. I could still feel my heart beating so loud when I saw her turning around and looked at me for one last time before she had walked away and went inside her house, leaving me watching her from the driver seat of my car a while ago. The feeling was still strong… So I don’t think it would be about that. Yet something else was still making me uneasy. And for some reason, I just have to do something about it. Maybe now is really the best time to check that document I had requested from Hudson earlier. It might be all because of that and the fact that there was still a mysterious connection between this town and my family’s business.

Musing and feeling troubled by these things, I stretched an arm across my bed from where I had been sitting in the middle and reached out for my phone on the bedside table. Opening the email content of my account, I was almost ready to read what Hudson had sent me when the phone suddenly vibrated in my hand and the screen flashed my father’s name.

How funny, though. He seemed to have sensed what I was about to do. It is kind of weird and I chuckled bitterly as I contemplated for a few seconds, letting it rung for a while before I finally took a deep breath and answered it on the fifth ring.

“Did you go to the old mansion?”

Unbelievable. I instantly felt cold and my body reflexively froze upon hearing his opening question like a bullet shot at me. I totally lost all my ability to speak all of a sudden and it had me wondering with complete suspicion. How in the hell did he know something about that? What the hell?

“Why are you asking?” I tried to break my silence and gripped the phone against my ear so hard I could almost break it.

“I just want to make sure you’re holding on to your promise,” father told me back and I was puzzled with his answer. What was me going to the old mansion had anything to do with the promise I just made? And who told him? It could not be possibly Nari, she does not know him at all. Nobody had seen us today. Was it Henry then? But how can he know my father?

“What if I did go there?”

My father didn’t say anything back after that but I could almost feel him looming from the other end of the line. I was just glad I wasn’t really in front of him while we were having this conversation.

“I would have to ask you why.”

“Did you have me under surveillance again?”

That must be it, if anything else was impossible. But I don’t think that could have happened as well. I would have figured it out all the way from the diner and I would have notice someone watching us back. But I still don’t know my father that well to be so sure. I guess, there are quite a few things that I need to check about him too… In reference to his connection with this town as well. Something is really fishy about it.

“Will there be a reason that I have to?”

His vague reply had me more troubled and conscious of the possibilities. But I tried not to be swayed by his psychological attempt to make me confirm his doubts anyway. I was already prepared of everything he might throw my way now.

“I was actually thinking of staying there next week,” I replied back easily and the moment I had spoken out the idea, the more it had become entirely plausible for me to do. I could actually really use that as an excuse to stay much longer near the town. “Would that be a problem?”

“Did you talk to Hudson?”

“What do you mean?” I almost choke out my words after hearing him ask that but I luckily avoided it.

“How long are you going to stay there, Taiyo? Our business isn’t going to keep profiting with you acting like this.”

The insinuating tone of his voice really got me riling up as I pondered over his questions. Why did he suddenly ask about Hudson? Did he actually find us out? How in the hell? But it’s unlikely to happen. There is no way he would have found us out this fast. But why does it feel like I’m being interrogated for some reason? I do get why he had to worry about the company, but it was not really as if not being in the office and taking care things here instead would totally make any difference. I was already under the impression that people are putting pressures on me but then, I was still doing my part in any I can. I was not slacking off, business-wise. So, why was he calling me so suddenly just to remind me of these things? He wasn’t like this before, he has never pried on what I was doing all this time until I set foot on this town. It’s really getting more suspicious.

“I won’t be coming back anytime soon, father,” I firmly responded to him, not even wavering as I went on, “I still have something to do here.”

“You’re still not forgetting our deal, right?”

Why does he keep reminding me that? But then, I already broke the deal. Though it wasn’t like I was going to tell him anyway. I know it would just take a matter of time before he eventually finds it all out and chase me down to hell. But while I was still not being caught in the act, I just have to keep on hiding from his eyes and digging down the dirt while I still can.

“I’m not,” I lied without even feeling any guilt, and it actually surprised me that I was brave enough to do this to my own father. “Don’t worry.”