By Zephyria 
thirteen
The firefighters exchanged bewildered glances at the rough shout, turning to look at each other. They should have stopped Dane immediately, but the sudden situation left them equally bewildered, unable to move easily. In the meantime, Dane charged at the man, spewing a string of curses.
“I’ll kill you, you bastard! That little kid, you fucking piece of shit!”
“Da, Dane!”
“What are you all doing? Stop him, quick!”
“Dane, stop it!”
Belatedly snapping out of their daze, the firefighters rushed to him. But Dane violently shook them off and continued to beat the man. Soon, the man was bloody and lying on the floor. But Dane didn’t stop, continuing to hit him again and again.
“Sa, save me, please save me…”
The man begged, spitting blood, but that only fueled Dane’s anger further.
“You want to live? You killed your kid and you want to live? You piece of trash! You should die!”
“Dane!”
His colleagues, pale with fright, tried to restrain him again as he grabbed the man’s collar with one hand and repeatedly punched his face with the other fist.
With five of them swarming him at once, Dane couldn’t shake them off this time. They wrapped their arms under his armpits from behind and forcibly pulled him away. Dane thrashed, kicking the man with his legs. The colleagues barely managed to separate him from the man, getting hit by Dane’s fists and feet in the process. Dane continued to shout at the paramedics who were urgently checking on the unconscious man.
“Leave him, I’ll kill him! I’m going to kill him!”
“Dane, I said stop it!”
“Calm down, just stop now.”
“You’ve hit him enough, he’s really going to die. Stop it!”
Despite the repeated pleas from his colleagues, Dane didn’t calm down easily. He continued to breathe roughly, his eyes bloodshot as he glared at the man. His colleagues were at a loss, just looking at each other in dismay.
Desire Me if you can
Dane sat on the roadside with an empty water bottle in his hand, his head bowed. The forensics team had arrived and were searching for evidence inside the burnt house. The bloodied man had been taken to the hospital, and he heard that the police would be Deployment to secure the man’s statement. Dane would also have to go to the police soon to give his statement. After all, he had beaten someone up based on mere speculation.
“It’s not even certain…”
Someone muttered, and another guy chimed in.
“There was no evidence that the man did anything.”
“He came out of that house, so it must have been that boy.”
“Even so…”
At the back-and-forth, Grayson glanced back. For a moment, the colleagues who had been gossiping flinched at the man’s cool face, which seemed as expressionless as a mask, and then scattered one by one as if nothing had happened. After everyone had disappeared, Ezra, who was still standing there with a troubled look, sighed and patted Grayson on the back.
“Everyone’s worried. If he sues, Dane will be in trouble, and he could even get disciplined from above…”
At those words, Grayson smiled faintly. It was a forced smile, but Ezra thought he had understood what he was saying. Until he heard the next words.
“Thanks for letting me know, Ezra. I almost wrapped a hose around those bastards’ necks and hung them from a tree.”
The tone was light, but the content was brutal. Ezra blinked in surprise and looked up at him. Realizing that he wasn’t joking at all, Ezra was flustered and couldn’t speak. Grayson turned his gaze back to Dane and asked.
“Does he do this often?”
The subject was omitted, but Ezra immediately understood and answered no.
“This is the first time he’s been this agitated. He gets sensitive when animals or kids get hurt, but he’s never gone this far, trying to kill someone…”
Grayson glanced at him as he shook his head.
“Do you know what happened to Dane?”
He was asking why he was reacting like that. But Ezra just wore a troubled expression.
“Dane hardly ever talks about himself. I didn’t even know he had a cat until a few months after we started working together.”
Tsk, Grayson clicked his tongue in his mouth. Just useless things everywhere. No longer finding it worthwhile to talk, he left Ezra behind and moved on. Grayson headed to where Dane was sitting alone on the ground.
Ah.
Suddenly, Grayson remembered. It’s the opposite of that day, he thought.
The day he rescued Dane’s ugly cat, it was he who was sitting on the ground, exhausted, and Dane who was standing and looking down. This time, the positions were reversed.
A shadow fell over Dane, who was staring blankly at the ground. Dane slowly raised his head, and Grayson’s eyes met his. For a moment, they just stared at each other in silence. The first to speak was Grayson.
“Pretty, why is your face like this?”
Dane stared at his face without saying a word. To have the words he had said returned to him like this, how should he describe this feeling?
“Ha…”
Dane sighed and swept back his hair, muttering in a listless voice.
“You’re not supposed to say it like that, you idiot…”
He wouldn’t know what to say since he hadn’t experienced a situation like this before. This man had to calculate and piece together the words that would come naturally to a normal person. So, if there was no data, he had no choice but to copy the words he had heard or the actions that others had taken. Dane was dumbfounded by the blank stare and said with a smirk.
“You’re supposed to ask if I’m okay in this situation.”
“Are you okay?”
Grayson asked immediately. Dane stared at him for a moment and nodded.
“Yeah, I’m okay.”
That was it. He became silent again. Grayson was still standing there watching him, but he didn’t feel good. He was waiting for the next words to be said, but Dane didn’t seem to be opening his mouth at all. In the end, Grayson himself spoke first.
“What happened? Why did you suddenly do that?”
At the innocent question, Dane looked into the distance and answered in an emotionless voice.
“Just because.”
The answer that came back was too short. Grayson frowned. He suddenly realized that he knew so little about him. Every single one of the people he had dated until now had told Grayson every little thing. Work, family, and everything else about themselves. Even the most trivial things.
But Dane had never said any of that. Grayson didn’t know the city he was born in, his family, whether he had allergies, or even what color he liked. Dane had never said it, not before they started dating, and not after, not at all.
Grayson moved his Adam’s apple and swallowed hard. It was as good as proof that Dane wasn’t opening his heart to him at all, even though they were dating. In this case, what was the difference between Grayson and the other firefighters? Of course, that was something that should never happen. Grayson wanted to be a special person to Dane. To be treated the same as them, don’t be ridiculous.
“What happened?”
Dane didn’t react to Grayson’s question. Grayson asked him again in a rough voice, looking at Dane, who was still sitting there looking into the distance.
“What happened that made you so angry? Something bad happened, didn’t it? Right?”
After being pressed repeatedly, Dane, who had been sitting still for a while, slowly raised his head. His face was already clearly showing rejection towards Grayson.
“You don’t need to know.”
At that moment, Grayson felt something welling up inside him. He hastily poured it out without having time to control or analyze it.
“Why? I’m dating you. Shouldn’t I know? About you, what kind of person you are! Tell me, I need to know. I have the right!”
His voice gradually rose, eventually becoming a shout. Dane’s face gradually hardened as he looked at him like that. A cold tension fell between them in an instant.