***
A current of silence flowed between us. It was a moment, but it felt like we were trapped in an endless eternity.
My face slowly reddened, unable to maintain a very nonchalant appearance. What was that reaction? I was the only one in an embarrassing situation. I crouched down and put my face in my knees, as if I were about to collapse.
“Are you crying?”
Noah crouched down beside me and patted me carefully on the back. I shrugged and looked up.
“I’m not crying.”
“Yes, you’re not crying.”
“Did you want me to cry?”
Noah’s eyes seemed to sharpen in response to my resentment, but they quickly relaxed. Still, it was cold, as if his gaze was cutting my skin.
“Your expression looks like you’re about to cry. Are you afraid?
“No.”
Soon, a low voice gently and menacingly cloaked my ears.
“I was just looking at it, but I didn’t know you cried already. I haven’t done anything yet.”
The words whispered so close to me seemed to drain my soul. I didn’t know how that low voice could feel so sensual. My heart was beating like crazy.
It was a strange provocation, a wild and dangerous temptation. The smart man laughed to reassure me. It was a sensuality that came out meshed with the predator’s look at food that he will eat later anyway. It was impossible to endure the sexuality that was in the air.
How was it possible to create such an intense atmosphere with such a few words? It was still daytime though, even with the curtains closed. I shook my head and patted my dry face, trying to regain consciousness.
“I don’t cry over these things. I’m not even a crier by nature.”
Noah’s face grew more and more expressionless as I spoke. I don’t know why he looked so disappointed. He soon regained his smiling face.
“I am the same way. I haven’t cried since I was little. Are you the same way?”
“No. I used to cry a lot as a child. It was mainly when I was angry.”
When I was a child, after my parents’ funeral, I would go into a deserted house and cry. I was more frustrated than sad because I felt like, ‘Why should I be the only one who has to go through this?’
He watched me reminisce and seemed to sink into different thoughts.
“It was when I was little. That was before you were born.”
He said, showing me the size with his fingers.
“When I was seven years old, I promised my mother that I would give her a piggyback ride when I was older.”
“Yes.”
“My mother was from a concentration camp, so she was smaller than you are now. I thought I could give you a piggyback ride when I was 10 years old. But she died before that.”
It was a sad and lonely story, but Noah seemed to be indifferent. He didn’t seem to miss it. I looked straight at him.
“I’ve been trying to keep my word ever since. When I can keep it. I don’t want it to be meaningless.”
He was a man of crazy execution. I even found myself facilitating an engagement ceremony when I suddenly realized it. He didn’t talk much about himself, but he continued his words smoothly.
“When my parents died in an accident, I didn’t cry. So many promises had become meaningless, and it was that much more heartbreaking. My parents never told me how to grieve, and I didn’t really know what expression I was supposed to make.”
“They were kind parents.”
“They told me I should smile at people. I was a weird kid. I could often smile socially with a gentlemanly demeanor and language, and made a kind face. And yet what do you think people said when they saw me?”
“What did they say?”
Noah chuckled at my question.
“They called me the devil. Because a nine year old smiled and did not cry on the day of his parents’ funeral. I was not like most people. Of course, no one calls me that now. I have been respected and praised for my efficiency in war.”
I thought his smile was the same as the one made by a nine-year-old child at a funeral. He always had a consistent smile.
It was also as beautiful as an elaborately crafted silk artificial flower. Noah slowly turned his head and stared at me, as if he were looking at my feelings.
I flinched as his sharp fingertips grazed my neck, and his lips turned up in satisfaction.
There was a bit of pleasure in that smile.
“I’ve seen enough people cry already to know better. Pain, suffering, sadness…these are negative things.”
“So …… you’re glad I don’t cry?”
“No. At first I wanted to make you cry. Do you know that?”
“Yes, well, it’s in the past, and I don’t care.”
I rather not cry for such sadness and pain.
It was not that I had no feelings. For a long time, I had lived my life like a pebble that had been shaped by the waves and changed into a rounded pebble, scraping myself with expectations, hopes, and even pride.
It has just dulled me so that I was not only okay with most things, but I tried not to think about them, letting them drift far away. Noah’s fingers, which had been trailing down my neck, slowly descended along my shoulder line of my flannel gown and stopped there.
His low voice continued.
“But I don’t think that was what I wanted to see.”
It was still an unkind explanation.
I don’t know if it’s the sadistic impulse I feel when I see something I like, or the school-minded desire to explore diverse expressions. My mind was confused as to how to respond to that unusual thought.
“I hope you will cry for me. Only in front of me.”
Seeing his cold colored eyes turn dark, I became a little scared, thinking that he had turned into an abnormal affection.
I thought that I was a person whose first priority was myself, I should exclude men who hurt and regret no matter how much I liked them.
To live with him for the rest of my life was like living with a high risk because human nature never changes. Being nice and forgiving for regretting things? It was ‘low return’ because I had to live in fear of being hurt again.
I warned indirectly that it would be a parting moment, namely.
“Do you want me to be hurt and weep for you? I can show you. But I’m sure it’s only once.”
Noah’s lips twitched oddly at my decisive reply. He exhaled a slow breath as if relieved, and covered his mouth and laughed softly.
The figure was graceful yet cold. The redness of his eyes seemed to be full of excitement at first glance.
“You’re not a child, and you tease the people you love? That is vulgar and ungentlemanly.”
I felt dizzy for a moment as I felt a firm arm wrapped around my waist.
The trajectory of my spinning vision was fixed on the ceiling. The moment I realized that Noah had picked me up by the waist and walked to the bed, the bed sheets touched my back with a rustling sound.
The side of the bed felt dented and shook shallowly, like an aftershock. In an instant, he was on top of me and smiled eerily and bizarrely.
And yet he was calm and relaxed. Under his faded gray hair, his thin, glowing eyes looked down at me.
The sun leaking through the curtains illuminated his profile. My breath caught in my throat as that face, shadowed by this situation, seemed beautiful.
He was looking down at me with me in his arms, locking me in, and his gaze followed me persistently.
I closed my gown tighter and avoided his gaze like a weakling. He stared at me with eyes that were a perfect blend of insistent and tender, whispering quietly.
“You’ll cry because I want you to like me enough to cry.”
I don’t know what it is to like it to the point of tears. First of all, I had never cried because of a man. I had never felt special about another person in the past.
I had met them at random, without any expectations. Now, while I recalled it through my utterly useless and boring and trivial memories, Noah added to it.
“But if you leave or part from me again, then I will really torment you. It won’t matter then because we won’t have anything to do with each other.”
I lifted my mouth and laughed because what he said was somewhat cute.
“How are you going to torment me?”
“I will not let you eat the pudding you like until you ask to see me again.”
“That’s scary.”
“Keep you locked up in your room.”
“No, that’s really scary.”
I shrugged my shoulders, feeling that the cute little words were gruesome.
It would be okay to be locked up because of my homebody’s tendency, but I think it was cruel to not give pudding. ?
He said it as if he was joking, but smiled sadly, as if he had some real feelings mixed in. Was it such a shock that I left before?
He retreated to the side and lay down next to me. He turned his body toward me and held me tightly. We were facing each other a breath away.
“Every day I’ll give you Bensho, without sugar and full of lemon. You didn’t like it, did you?”
“Oh, it pains me to even think about it.”
When I briefly kissed Noah, who drank the alcohol, it seemed savory and sweet, and I took a sip, the sourness wasn’t to my liking.
Anyway, I don’t want to leave him either. Nope! We should never, ever break up. It’ll be my loss. It’s only natural, falling into a world I don’t know, alone, with nowhere to turn and no one I know.
I hate trouble. I am going to be a parasite, selfishly sticking to him, no matter what anyone says. That’s why.
“On the other hand, Noah, what should I do if you ask me to leave you?”
“I will give you a .32 caliber pistol and you can kill me. I deserve to be killed if I do that.”
He was a very extreme man. It was not comparable to locking me up and not giving me the pudding.
“That’s how much I like you.”
He sounded serious. It was laced with a little pity. Sometimes, under the sharp eyes that glistened fiercely, they turned pitifully red.
“Diana, I like some things too. Perhaps I know it is similar to greed, but I also know it is important.”
Noah must have felt a kind of sameness from me. He was not a man without feelings either. I think that process was necessary so that we can find the unknown emotion and give it a suitable name.
Maybe the reason this man craved affection as if it was lacking was because he had few expressions and no change in facial expression. Because he observed people and read their thoughts.
I tried to comfort him and said softly.
“Well, I like you that much, too. If I say goodbye, you can lock me in a cell until I come to my senses. I don’t want Bensho drink, though.”
“We’ll, I’m going to be locked up with you too, and we’re going to eat pudding. We’ll always be together, and I’ll have a hard time with you.”
Noah bent his eyes. The words sounded like a crude ramble, but his expression was serious. I chuckled at the idea of struggling with him.
“You tease me about it. Let’s suffer together.”
“You said we need time to get to know each other before we can get married. If you suffer, we will suffer together, and if we like something, we will try to like it together. That way, I think I can understand you a little better.”
A strange man with a strange conversation. But we talked and he wanted to try to match my taste. That was why he tried the pudding even though he didn’t like sweets.
Lacking empathy, he has tried to understand me in his own way.
I was suddenly curious about Noah’s intentions and thoughts. I had always thought he was odd, but I had never asked him about it because I didn’t want to care.
Earlier, he had identified a mark on my back and didn’t tell me what it was. Nor did he elaborate on the fact that we had met before.
Noah was hiding many things from me. I felt like all of this was making it hard for me to trust him.
“Noah, you still don’t trust me, do you?”
He looked like an innocent little boy smiling.
“Because I don’t know. I can’t see your thoughts.”
“I don’t see yours, but I believe you. The behavior you have shown so far has made it that way. So if there is something you are hiding from me, I know there must be a reason.”
This was a way of speaking that I had learned to master in my life. Normally, I would be thrilled to say this much and confide in him emphatically, but Noah was different.
“Well, keep thinking that way.”
I certainly had never done anything to give him faith. I looked at him with embarrassed eyes. Noah stared at me with a relaxed face. It was a little cute that his cheek was pushed up by his hand.
“Should we go for a walk? You wanted to see around here.
I tilted my head at Noah’s suggestion and he chuckled.
“If we stay longer, it’s going to be a big problem.”
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I quickly read what he was talking about, and tightened my grip on my gown with a troubled expression. What I must do with this man from now on was to build mutual trust. Excessive trust may be poisonous in a lovers’ relationship, but it would be right to build basic trust.
However, despite our commitments, our relationship of trust was set back many steps when we met Princess Erica in the garden.