Chapter 181

He strode into the house with a cheerful shout, quickly scanning his surroundings. Where was he? He was definitely here somewhere.

“Grayson!”

Koi called out his name again, passing through the living room and heading straight for the bar. Next, he checked the drawing room, the tea room, and even the music room, but the face he sought was nowhere to be found. Puzzled, he went up the stairs to the second floor. What was going on? Could something bad have happened…?

Just as his heart began to sink, Koi found him. Grayson was lying on a sofa on the balcony connected to the living room. Seeing his legs stretched out long, dangling from the armrest of the sofa, Koi sighed in relief and hurried over to him.

“Grayson, you were here.”

Grayson, who had been basking in the sun with his eyes closed until then, reluctantly opened his eyelids. Koi, looking down at him, greeted him with a kiss on his forehead.

“How have you been? I missed you.”

Unlike Koi, who spoke kindly with a smiling face, Grayson frowned.

“Where’s Papa?”

He asked, blinking.

“Where’s Papa? Surely Daddy didn’t come alone.”

“I came alone.”

At the immediate answer, Grayson slowly sat up and looked at his face. Seeing his gaze as if asking what he meant, Koi continued.

“Ash had a schedule today and couldn’t come right away, so he told me to come first. He said it was okay for me to be alone with you.”

“Heeuung……”

Grayson made a strange noise and tilted his head. Ignoring his son’s reaction, Koi pulled a chair from the tea table and sat next to him, asking, “What happened? Why did you suddenly come to the East Coast?”

“Ah……”

Grayson swept back his hair and answered casually.

“I have some business to take care of.”

Is he unwilling to talk to me? Koi thought, when he added, “I have some people to meet.”

“People?”

“Yes.”

That was it. Sensing that he wouldn’t say any more, Koi decided not to ask. He was more worried about something else.

“You look like you’ve lost a lot of weight, Grayson.”

Koi wore a worried expression, looking at his son’s sunken cheeks. Grayson simply lifted the corners of his mouth to smile.

Koi silently stared at his profile. His son was like a flower that had lost all its vitality. How powerless he felt, seeing the leaves withering yellow, unable to do anything.

He knew that Grayson had broken up with Dane. He had met and broken up with countless lovers until now, but this time was definitely different. Even Koi, who was usually told he was slow to notice things, could tell that something had changed in his son.

Are you having a hard time, Grayson?

Koi couldn’t bring himself to say those words and simply stroked his son’s shoulder. But Grayson remained sitting there, staring into the distance with empty eyes.

Desire Me if you can

Ashley’s visit came not long after that. Koi, who had been enduring the heavy silence and simply sitting next to Grayson, jumped up from his seat as soon as he saw him.

“Ash, welcome.”

“Koi.”

Ashley, who kissed him as a matter of course, soon turned his attention to his son. He scanned Grayson, who slowly got up and looked at him, paused, and then opened his mouth.

“You’ve lost a lot of weight. Are you eating well?”

Koi was startled by the quiet voice. Ashley, who was always strict with the children, was speaking as if he were speaking to Koi. Grayson, too, seemed surprised and paused for a moment.

“……Yes, roughly.”

To the short answer, he still spoke calmly.

“You need to eat well. ……Shall we have dinner together later?”

This was another surprising change. Ashley didn’t say, ‘We’re having dinner, so prepare it,’ but asked, ‘Shall we?’ He was now asking his son’s opinion. Again, Grayson looked somewhat bewildered and shook his head.

“No, I’ll eat separately.”

“……Okay.”

An awkward silence fell. A different atmosphere than the tension that was always taut between them permeated the air, and Koi looked back and forth between them with wide eyes. Perhaps this was…….

“Ah, well.”

He cleared his throat and opened his mouth.

“I’m going to get some water. You two talk.”

If his old friend Ariel had seen this, she would have cheered in amazement. ‘Koi, you’ve developed such a sense!’ she would have said. Feeling proud of himself, Koi quickly left the room. And Ashley and Grayson were left alone.

The first to move was Ashley. He sat in the chair at the tea table where Koi had been sitting, and pointed to the sofa as if telling him to sit down too. When Grayson obediently sat there, Ashley finally opened his mouth.

“Are you suppressing your Pheromone?”

This much hadn’t changed. Whenever he saw the children, Ashley always asked this question first. Grayson nodded listlessly.

“I went to Steward and suppressed it. I checked the levels, and I was told they were lower than average.”

“Your Pheromone is lower than average?”

“Yes.”

At the unexpected words, Ashley frowned and asked, and Grayson nodded obediently.

“I suppressed it a lot.”

Only then did Ashley understand the meaning of his words. But that didn’t mean he could rest assured.

“Suppressing too much at once isn’t good.”

It could easily lead to shock. Grayson replied nonchalantly to Ashley’s warning.

“Steward checked everything, so it’s okay.”

Ashley said nothing. Grayson, without any discomfort, looked only at irrelevant things even with his gaze fixed on his face. Ha, Ashley, who let out a short sigh, opened his mouth.

“If there’s anything I can do for you, tell me.”

Grayson nodded and said, “Yes, I’ll call Bernice.”

“No, tell me.”

Ashley firmly corrected the obediently returned answer. Grayson looked bewildered again. Ashley softened his tone again and added, “Contact me directly, I’ll answer right away anytime.”

“……Okay.”

“Okay.”

Ashley, who nodded back, patted his son’s shoulder once.

Silence returned in an instant. No one spoke first. As if trapped in their own thoughts, they closed their mouths tightly, and after some time had passed, Grayson suddenly opened his mouth.

“How did you know?”

At the sudden question, Ashley frowned and looked at him. Grayson stared straight at him and asked again.

“How did you know I was going to kill Dane?”

A cold air swirled between them. Ashley remained silent for a while, only looking at his son’s face. Leaving a space between them, he slowly, very slowly, moved his lips.

“Back then, you smiled, didn’t you?”

Grayson paused at the quiet voice. Looking at his frozen son, Ashley added, “When I heard that Dane Striker might go blind.”

Grayson couldn’t answer immediately at the words that followed without a chance to escape. He moved his eyes from side to side as if trying to think of another excuse for a moment, but soon gave up and shrugged.

“How did you know? I even covered my mouth because I was smiling.”

Looking at his son, who was smiling his familiar smile, Ashley gave his answer.

“Your ears.”

With a quiet voice, his gaze turned to Grayson’s ears.

“They moved.”

Grayson didn’t react for a while. He just silently looked at Ashley before asking again.

“Why did you think I was smiling?”

It could have been any other reaction. It could have just been a meaningless movement. But Ashley stared at him with a cold gaze.

“Of course, there couldn’t be any other reason, could there?”

“Haha……”

Grayson let out an empty laugh at the lackluster answer.

“Was the warning you gave me back then because of Grandpa?”

At the question that came back again, Ashley frowned and looked at him. Grayson was still looking into the distance as he spoke.

“I heard it from Bernice. How Grandpa died.”

Ashley silently stared at his son’s profile.

“……No.”

He muttered in a voice lower than usual.

“It was because I would have.”

A cold air swirled between them. Ashley remained silent for a while, staring at his son’s surprised face. Leaving a space between them, he slowly, very slowly, moved his lips.

“If it were me, I would have done it, without hesitation.”

Grayson stared intently at his face. Papa would kill Daddy? Did that make any sense? It was something he couldn’t even imagine, but Ashley Miller never joked. Especially not in this situation.

“I used to think you looked a lot like my father.”

He murmured self-deprecatingly.

“Recently, I thought you looked like me. ……But it wasn’t.”

Ashley stopped talking there. Grayson, who was staring silently at the deep wrinkles at the corners of his mouth, asked, “What will happen to me now?”

Ashley answered simply to the ambiguous question, whether he sincerely wanted an answer or just threw it out there.

“I don’t know, not as me.”

He added bitterly.

“Neither I nor my father had the courage to go down that path.”

Ha, Ashley, who let out a short sigh and swept his face with one hand, looked at his son. Grayson felt strange at his father’s unfamiliar expression. Ashley continued to speak to him.

“You made a choice that neither I nor my father could have made. You’re you, different from me or my father.”

A sad smile flickered across his lips.

“Excellent.”

Ah. Grayson suddenly remembered. He had seen that expression somewhere before. The very face that Dane had shown Grayson. The one that Ashley was wearing now.

So this is compassion.

He suddenly realized.

An emotion I could never understand, an expression I couldn’t learn.

That was compassion.

With that, his eyes welled up. He knew. Dane Striker didn’t love me. He just pitied me. He would probably be willing to give his life for me too. Fairly to everyone in the world.

“……I hate firefighters so much.”

Grayson said with a listless smile.

Why do emotions have to coexist with memories?

He had learned something he didn’t need to know. Now he would never be able to go to Disneyland, which he loved so much. He wouldn’t be able to see the fireworks either. Because the pain at that time would remain in his memory forever and torment him forever.

Even though he would never see the person who left him with this emotion and memory again.

But if, if there really was a god. Grayson vaguely recalled.

I hope that man’s last moments won’t be alone.