LM Chapter 8.3

“Lyndon! Lyndon!”

Cedric ran down the hallway calling Lyndon’s name. His once jet-black pupils were dilated wide, and his lips were pulled back as if torn to his ears. To an observer, he might have seemed slightly intoxicated, but not at all. Cedric was, surprisingly, a respectable man who didn’t do that sort of thing.

Cedric noisily flung open the door to the room where Lyndon lay. He grinned widely, his face awash with happiness.

“Lyndon! I’m here, Lyndon! How are your nipples? Healed up nicely? I’m gonna suck on those cute little nipples until they fucking burst… Lyndon?”

But the room was empty. The bed was bare, and only the terrace window stood unnaturally wide open, curtains fluttering.

Cedric walked slowly toward the rope tied to the pillar.

Why was a rope meant to bind a human body hanging from this pillar?

“…”

He followed the rope’s end, walking slowly. Then, the rope leading outside the terrace appeared, and he saw it reached all the way to the ground.

Cedric’s mouth twitched and trembled. He pulled up the corners of his mouth, frowning, and showed a sneering smile.

“Fuck, you little rat!”

“You… you don’t… love me?”
“Yes, Lyndon.”

Lyndon’s sapphire eyes filled with sorrow once more. Moisture quickly welled up in them. He wasn’t usually one to cry easily… But it was strange. Lately, it was as if his tear ducts were malfunctioning, producing tears with unusual ease.

How often had he cried whenever he was with Hayley or Cedric? Even if the tears then and the tears now were different in nature… Anyway, Lyndon had become prone to tears lately.

“Don’t, don’t say that. It hasn’t even been a few days. You, you clearly said you loved me…“
“… Think carefully, Lyndon. I never said I loved you. I might have said I wanted to be with you, but…”

The blue eyes, soaked in sorrow, began to change. A wounded expression mingled with a face flustered by shame.

“Ah, ah… So, so then, was it all my, my mistake? Oh, no, right? Your Grace, you do love me, right?“
“…”

”S-say something… Really… really, was it just… just to have sex with me? What? Watching me defecate, shaving my hair, even putting on a chastity belt… was it all just… just to fuck me?”

Hayley’s hair, which had been awkwardly swept up, fell down disheveled. His pale blonde hair, even whiter than his bright yellow eyes, covered his face.

Perhaps because of that, Hayley looked as if he were drenched in sorrow. It could have been Lyndon’s imagination, but….

With that face full of history, he gave a slow reply, as if it carried some hidden meaning.

“… Yeah.”
“… Ha!”

His vision was slightly darkened. Perhaps because he was still standing alone in the hallway, while Hayley stood in the room beyond the door, backlit by the light pouring out. His face looked blurry.

Because of the distant view, he couldn’t tell if Hayley was spouting lies or telling the truth. So, without a second thought, Lyndon blurted out what he wanted to hear. It was actually a cry born of desperate longing.

“Don’t lie to me! How could I not know if you love me or not?”

He didn’t know. It was just a sound spat out in anger. A desperate plea, hoping against hope.

“Lyndon… I have no idea why you’d think I love you… We were just a physical relationship. Acting like this… is… a bit… difficult…”

Though he spoke as if unconcerned, Haley’s heart was also shattering into pieces. It was broken into tiny, minuscule fragments, so small they couldn’t be measured.

Truthfully, both of them were utterly immersed in the roles of protagonists in a tragic love story.

Sometimes, place and circumstance shape a person’s character. Just like these two now.

“I really don’t understand why I ever… thought I loved you…”

If only they could look back just a little. If they could step back a pace and see each other clearly, it would be nothing special. They had no grand memories between them.

Only the filthy recollection of shoving a cock into someone’s asshole every single day without fail, shaking it violently.

But love, that blind devotion toward each other, often had a way of numbing the brain. And so, sometimes, it made them foolish.

Like Hayley and Lyndon.

And sometimes, that became the truth.

Lyndon, tears streaming down his face, clenched his fists. His whole body trembled violently. Then he screamed, as if in a fit of rage.

“You… you scraped my fucking asshole!”
“… What?”
“Every… every night after we… Hayley was the one who scraped the semen out of my anus! I was asleep and didn’t know anything… You did it so I wouldn’t hurt, right?

Unlike Lyndon, whose heart was unusually sorrowful, Hayley was a bit flustered.

So… he must have done other, better things for Lyndon too. Like feeding him food into his mouth multiple times every morning, or taking him to the casino and handing him enough money to buy a townhouse. He even got scolded by his father because of that.

But to cite merely scraping semen out of his rear as an example of love? Hayley was flustered.

“… Wha, what?”
“You love me, right? You do, don’t you?”

Yet, in a way, she felt relieved. Perhaps because he’d brought up such a strange, bizarre thing as proof of love, Hayley began to feel as if he’d just woken from a dream. It was as if he’d snapped out of it.

Hayley wiped the sad expression from his face and replied coldly, “Lyndon, listen carefully. I’m getting married soon.”

“… Huh? Wha… marriage…?”
“So I have no reason, no time, nothing to do this with you. Stop clinging like this and leave. If it’s money you need, I’ll tell Edmund to give you whatever you want…”
“Le – leave? Wha… where should I go…?”
”Well, anywhere… wherever you want to go.”

“…”

Lyndon looked at Hayley. But he was still the same. His face was shrouded in backlight, blurred. His eyes, which had once shone brightly like morning sunlight, had turned dark and gloomy.

Now that he thought about it, it was the same kind of gaze Cedric had.

Lyndon shook his head and slowly backed away. Then, turning his back on Hayley, he began walking back the way he came. The sound of Lyndon’s bare feet slapping against the black, dark hallway echoed as he ran.

Slap, slap.

For some reason, it felt like the sound of running across shallow water. Perhaps it really was…

Perhaps the tears Lyndon was now shedding bitterly, those damp droplets, overflowed so abundantly that they soaked Lyndon’s heart and then soaked the floor.

“Huh, huh!”

Wiping his tears as he ran off, Lyndon’s shoulder was suddenly pulled. Startled, he turned around to find Hayley standing there.

“H-Hayley…?”
“Wait, haa… Just a moment. Wait, Lyndon…”

Whether it was from running, or not, ragged breaths poured from Hayley’s mouth. A flicker of hope arose – maybe Hayley had changed his mind? The heart that had seemed to collapse and lose all function began to race wildly once more.

“Haah…”

Hayley, catching his breath, reached out and took Lyndon’s hand. He wiped the blood from Lyndon’s palm, which had been scraped by the hem of the silk gown he wore. Then, kneeling down, he carefully wiped the blood from Lyndon’s foot.

“…”

The wound stung a little, but it was bearable. No, actually, any pain… if it came from Hayley, he was sure he could endure it.

Once all the red bloodstains from Lyndon’s soles were wiped away, Hayley took off the suede loafers he was wearing.

Then, he slipped those soft, high-quality shoes onto Lyndon’s feet.

“Why…”

A bit too big, a bit awkward…. Those shoes, as enigmatic as Hayley’s own heart, were surprisingly warm.

They gently enveloped the wounded feet that had walked this far barefoot, without shoes.

His chest tingled. A sense of fullness spread through his chest. Lyndon felt a puffy, rising satisfaction and looked at Hayley.

‘Maybe… Maybe!’

He held onto the hope that perhaps Hayley might accept his feelings.

“Wear these and go.”
“Go…?”
“… Thanks for everything, Lyndon.”
“…”
“Thanks to you, I have many happy memories. Though I can’t accept your feelings…”

Tears threatened to spill again. The sorrow he’d barely held back began to surge once more. Simultaneously, anger flared up too.

‘If you were going to be this kind… if you were going to treat me this tenderly, then just accept my feelings!’

Despite wanting to pour out his honest feelings, the words wouldn’t come. He just stared down at his own feet, at the ill-fitting suede loafers whose heels were loose.

The shoes he could barely walk in properly, yet strangely, they felt warm.

Maybe he just wanted to cling to that last shred of pride. He tensed his body, trembling. He bit down hard on his lower lip and clenched his fists tightly to endure it.

Then, finally, he lifted his head and looked at Hayley. He took in that beautiful face, angelic in appearance yet spitting out dagger-like words, as much as he could.

For some reason, Hayley stood there wearing an expression just as sorrowful as Lyndon’s, perhaps even more so.

“Lyndon. I hope God’s blessings be upon you.”
“…”

Even to Hayley’s final farewell, Lyndon gave no reply. Damn it, God or whatever, what the hell does any of that matter! Unable to even hurl a final harsh retort at Hayley, he turned and sprinted away.

He didn’t even think to return to the steward to collect his money. All he wanted was to get out of there, fast.

He’d been abandoned by many women before, but never had his heart ached like this. With his chest so full of sorrow it couldn’t hold any more, he ran out of the duke’s estate. He kept picking up his ill-fitting shoes as they slipped off, panting and wiping tears from his eyes on the deserted road.

“Huh, ugh! Ugh…”

As Lyndon collapsed, burying his face between his knees, dawn began to break behind him. The once deep, pitch-black night sky held an ominous indigo hue. The remnants of night slowly dispersed.

That faintly fading light seemed to foretell Lyndon’s fate, about to be overturned.

Beyond the shifting sky, the clatter of hooves echoed loudly.

Soon, the hoofbeats slowed, and with a thud, the horse stopped right before Lyndon.

Lyndon slowly raised his head. Tears gathered at the corners of his eyes, tracing his cheeks before falling.

The air felt heavy for some reason. Was it because the crimson spreading across the dawn sky looked unreal, as if it had absorbed blood?

And from that backdrop, a man even more unreal than the sky leapt down from the black horse, his jet-black hair fluttering.

“Hah, fuck. This cheap bastard… Left him alone for a moment and he comes all the way here asking Hayley to fuck him?”
“… Wh-where… How… ”

The tears streaming down his face instantly stopped and evaporated. It looked as if they had been sucked back into his blue eyes.

That’s how fierce and ferocious the giant man before him appeared. He didn’t even try to hide his cruel nature, though he usually at least wore a fake smile. Now, even that false expression was completely wiped away.

He stared down at Lyndon, showing not the slightest hint of hiding his intense anger.

“You fucking piece of trash…“

Cedric grabbed Lyndon’s arms and roughly pulled him up, then savagely hoisted him onto the horse while he was still prone. He was being treated like nothing more than cargo.

”Ah, ugh! Ah, it hurts and it’s… uncomfortable!”

For Lyndon, it was an extremely uncomfortable position with his stomach being pressed down, but Cedric didn’t care and simply tied Lyndon to the horse like that. It felt like the blood couldn’t circulate through his entire body. That’s how uncomfortable the position was.

“Let me down!”

Cedric glared at Lyndon with a fierce, icy stare and spat out words in a sinister tone, “Shut up. I’m barely holding back from wringing your neck.”

“…”

Soon, Cedric mounted the horse, spurred it on, and began to pick up speed.

Lyndon had to be dragged all the way to the palace, hanging like cargo, face down behind the horse.

Left behind where Lyndon had departed was a pair of shoes that didn’t fit, now flapping uselessly. 

The shoes he had stubbornly clung to, even after falling countless times, had finally been shed.