Chapter 31

Left alone in the small sitting room, Dante stood motionless, staring at the closed door.

He had been so certain—right up until they stepped out of the hotel elevator and entered the suite—that he could seize upon the feelings Rhys had revealed and somehow close the distance between them. For the first time in a long while, he had felt as if things might finally go well. He and Rhys had spoken far more than he had ever anticipated.

And yet, the conclusion had been a permanent goodbye.

He could not bring himself to believe it. Dante dragged his dry hands over his face again and again, the motion growing rougher with every pass until it borders on painful. Beyond the bedroom door, the sudden sound of running water began. Dante remained frozen, still unable to accept how abruptly their conversation had ended, and yet Rhys was already washing up as though he had finished sorting out his heart.

Dante alone remained stranded exactly where he was.

For now… yes, I should sit down and think. He lurched toward the sitting-room sofa, nearly tripping over the low tea table before barely catching his balance. He collapsed onto the cushions as if his legs had completely given out. Blankly, he listened to the rush of the shower. One by one, the plans he had carefully devised if they ended up sharing a room began to crumble.

Lazzaro’s advice—that even after a breakup, Dante could somehow fix things by seducing Rhys with his body—had never suited the two of them in the first place. Rhys had spent years carrying the weight of this relationship forward, deeply hurt by something Dante had not even realized was wounding him.

“It’s because I have a pretty face, isn’t it?” Rhys had said. “Because I smile when you want me to and do what I’m told. That’s why you could put up with me, because I didn’t feel like a man to you. You said it yourself, so don’t even try to deny it.”

What Dante had actually said back then had not meant exactly that, but he could finally understand how it might have sounded to Rhys.

Just as Rhys had accused, it was true that Dante had initially liked him because he was beautiful. Of course he had. How could anyone remain entirely indifferent to looks? But Rhys’s appearance was not something that could be dismissed with a word as simple as pretty.

His beauty was overwhelming, untethered to the mere presence or absence of gender. There was no other way to describe the way Rhys looked. Yet that beauty was created in perfect harmony with every physical trait Rhys possessed as a man. Dante had always adored the prominent Adam’s apple that stood out along his long, deerlike throat, and he had always thought the low, resonant baritone of Rhys’s voice was gorgeous—so beautifully at odds with the softness of his features.

Even the pale color of his body hair was lovely to him. Dante liked that Rhys was taller than him, yet their feet were close enough in size that they could share shoes. He found it endearing that Rhys’s delicate-looking hands were just a little larger than his own, and even the absurd physical strength he had felt from him this time had, for reasons Dante could not explain, made his heart quicken.

He had been happy simply watching the small smile that graced Rhys’s lips whenever he looked at a beautiful work of art or a breathtaking view. He even loved the way Rhys only smiled in silence when something about Dante displeased him. Even being scolded by him with that terrifying expression today had not, truth be told, been unpleasant.

I just… liked Rhys Elliott.

The fact that Rhys was not crude and filthy like so many of the men Dante had encountered throughout his life, and that he held no interest in petty hierarchies between men, had only made him shine more brightly.

In the beginning, appearance had certainly played a large part, but the Dante of the present loved Rhys himself. That was probably why even the unfamiliar, sharper sides of Rhys he had seen for the first time today had not repelled him. If anything, they had only drawn him in deeper.

But Rhys seemed to have taken Dante’s past words at absolute face value. He had slept with Dante for years while quietly bleeding from a wound like that. If having sex with Dante had become a trigger that forced him to remember those words, what exactly had Rhys felt every time he continued to share his body anyway?

I really was the worst boyfriend.

Once that realization struck him, Dante no longer had the nerve to cling. He had come this far believing that as long as Rhys still held lingering feelings, he should push forward. But now that he truly understood the depth of the hurt Rhys had suffered, there was nothing left for him to say.

An ache spread through his chest. Dante curled his hand into a fist and rubbed at his sternum with his knuckles. In the quiet stillness of the suite, only the sound of the shower rang out. Even with that clear proof in his ears that he was not alone in the space, Dante felt entirely abandoned.

He was right beside Rhys, yet now that he knew Rhys no longer wanted him, this place no longer felt as though it belonged to him. A cold, heavy soreness spread beneath his ribs until it reached his heart. Rhys had not touched him, and yet it felt as though he had gripped Dante’s heart hard enough to burst it before finally letting go.

Dante lifted his palm, stared at it for a moment, and then slowly rubbed his own arm. His chilled hand could not provide the warmth he so desperately wanted. His brows twisted, his teeth sank deep into his lower lip, and he bent forward, folding in on himself.

“You’re going to love someone… who isn’t me?”

“I’ll have to.”

Their final exchange circled endlessly through his head. Even when he fought not to remember it, those words kept returning. When he went home, he would truly have to get used to a life without Rhys. He would have to accept that Rhys would never come back, and he would have to erase everything he had ever wanted to do with him.

But I don’t know how to do that. What am I supposed to do?

A sudden edge of panic surged through him, and Dante gripped his own arms tight. It brought him no sense of stability. The same daily routine that would repeat once he returned home flashed vivid through his mind: waking alone without Rhys, spending a day without contacting him, returning to an empty house, and falling asleep again in a bed where there was no one to share warmth. The mere absence of Rhys made that ordinary life feel so unbearably tedious that it seemed enough to drive him mad.

Ordinarily, he would have shaken off thoughts like these before they deepened, forgetting them soon after, but now each negative thought hooked maliciously into the next. By the time his loneliness began to swell beyond control—growing vast like a snake devouring its own tail—the closed bedroom door clicked open.

Click.

Dante heard it, but he did not react. He could not. He was terrified to face Rhys. If the expression on Rhys’s face was one of discomfort or disappointment, Dante did not think he could endure it. Contempt, pity, irritation, or even a face wiped completely clean of expression—right now, he simply lacked the courage to see any of it.

In the quiet, he felt Rhys’s gaze land on him. After watching him for a heavy moment, Rhys went back into the bedroom, perhaps to finish getting ready to leave. Dante heard the sound of a suitcase unzipping and the rustle of fabric. Brief silences broke the movement here and there, but before long, Rhys seemed to have completed his preparations. His footsteps drew closer across the carpeted floor.

“…I’m leaving now,” Rhys said, his calm voice reaching him. “Shower, follow your schedule, do whatever you want.”

For a moment, Dante thought he sounded somewhat softer than before, then immediately scolded himself for manufacturing hope out of nothing again.

“All right. Have a good day,” Dante answered quietly, keeping his eyes averted. His voice, unlike its usual tone, had sunk low and held no strength. Rhys, whom Dante had expected to leave at once without caring what state he was in, still did not move.

I feel like I can’t breathe…

Not once in all the time he had spent with Rhys had Dante ever felt awkward around him, but now the very air seemed to be closing around his throat. Without thinking, he rubbed his neck, then flinched when he sensed Rhys’s gaze narrowing on him.

Get it together. If you stay like this, Rhys will be uncomfortable.

Dante was the one who had begged Rhys into this situation when Rhys had never intended to share the room with him in the first place. For Rhys’s sake—for the sake of the man who had forced himself to do something he did not want to do—Dante had to pull himself together. If the person sharing your space sank heavily into gloom, that weight inevitably affected everyone nearby. He had already ruined Rhys’s trip enough. He refused to make it any worse.

Still staring fixedly at the floor, Dante blinked several times, then slowly forced a smile onto his mouth. Somehow, the stubborn muscles of his face complied.

It’s fine if I’m hurt. I’ve been hurt plenty of times. I brought all of this on myself.

A hurting heart would not kill him, and Dante had always been someone whose wounds healed quickly. This pain, too, would eventually disappear. Taking a deep breath, he raised his head, fully prepared for Rhys to look down at him as if he were pathetic.

Rhys had changed into clothes that suited him beautifully, yet looked unfamiliar on him: an ivory linen dress shirt, beige cotton trousers, a camel-colored belt, and light gray low-top sneakers. It was a stark departure from the style Dante usually saw on him. Dressed that way, Rhys looked even younger. When he had been with Dante, he had mostly worn clothes in heavier tones and restrained, mature designs, but somehow, this current look seemed closer to how Rhys actually preferred to dress. A person’s inherent taste could not have changed completely in just two months.

Then… did Rhys never once act the way he wanted to in front of me?

Forced to chew over the reality that Rhys had endured so much restriction while they were together, Dante’s eyes wavered. His gaze brushed briefly across Rhys’s face before slipping downward. From the glimpse he had caught, Rhys’s expression was entirely blank. It was, at the very least, better than the worst-case scenario.

“…When you go out, put your passport and valuables in the safe,” Rhys noted quietly. “Even if this is a decent hotel, you never know.”

“I will. Thanks for the advice.” Even after trying to arrange his expression, Dante’s answer came out in a flat, mechanical voice. Rhys still lingered.

“And don’t lose the key.”

That one added sentence stabbed painfully into Dante’s heart. At the sudden, violent pang in his chest, his eyes tightened. Rhys’s lingering concern hurt him so badly that he almost wished Rhys would simply get angry instead.

Because in this entire world, the only person who truly worried about and loved Dante was Rhys.

The thought that he would never again see Rhys worry about him like that was unbearably sad. He had lost a man who could speak gently even to someone he was sick to death of, and the fact that Dante himself had brought that situation about filled him with a regret so sharp it reached the bone.

He forced his collapsing expression back into place. Struggling to maintain some semblance of a smile, Dante barely managed to part his lips. “Rhys.”

He was probably smiling, but he had no idea whether it looked genuine. Realizing he was trying to replicate the exact smile Rhys had called pretty earlier, Dante spoke.

“Thank you for worrying about me. I’ll be careful so you don’t have to worry about me anymore. You don’t have to force yourself to talk to me. I know I’ve kept bothering you, but…” His throat closed up for a moment. Forcing himself to swallow the lump, Dante kept the corners of his mouth raised and continued. “I only did that because I wanted to believe you still had feelings for me. I understand now that you don’t, so I won’t get in your way anymore.”

His eyes stung, feeling parched and hot. Still, he was deeply grateful that he wasn’t crying in some ugly, humiliating way like he had at the airport. He did not want to make Rhys feel even the smallest trace of guilt. Even if being considerate now would not change anything or make anything better…

He had to stop showing his lingering attachment like a madman, the way he had for the last two months. He could at least avoid making his already terrible impression any worse.

“Still… thank you for coming to the hotel with me,” Dante added, and for that one brief moment, his smile was entirely sincere. “I wanted to bring you here. Thanks to you, I got to do one of the things I wanted to do in Rome.”

Rhys had mentioned the place was not bad and that it was close to the city center, meaning Dante should be able to stay comfortably while taking care of whatever business he had.

Throughout Dante’s slow, deliberate words, Rhys showed no expression at all. Only after Dante finished thanking him did he finally speak.

“…Are you going to stay in the room?”

“No, I’m going out.” He didn’t feel like it at all, but he had to do whatever it took to stop Rhys from worrying. He had already tormented the younger man enough. Desperate to keep even a hint of apology or guilt from stirring in Rhys’s heart, Dante forced a casual tone. “I’ll look around the city, meet people, that kind of thing. You know me. I make friends fast. Oh, right—what time will you be back? You’re a light sleeper, and I don’t want to come in at the wrong hour and wake you up for no reason.”

“You sound like you plan to stay out late,” Rhys said, his voice entirely dry.

That’s a relief, at least. It sounds like he won’t care what I do anymore.

“Well, I came all the way to Rome. I might as well enjoy it,” Dante replied, raising the corners of his mouth again. “I’ve heard Europe is full of beautiful people.”

The words were entirely empty, but he maintained the facade. After pretending to smile for so long, it felt as though his face had frozen that way permanently. Rhys stared at Dante’s sharply lifted lips, and then let out a cold, breathy laugh.

“I don’t know how you held yourself back all those years you were with me.”

At last, genuine emotion entered the voice that had been so carefully expressionless. A note of bone-deep disgust slowly soaked into his words. Rhys twisted only the corner of his mouth while his eyes remained unsmiling, a dark sneer settling over his features.

“If you’re going to come back smelling like someone else, don’t come back at all,” Rhys murmured softly, before adding a warning in a voice almost too low to catch: “If I see that after coming all the way here, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

Pulling his gaze away from Dante, Rhys turned around. Without a single trace of hesitation, he walked out. A few seconds later, the heavy suite door closed with a resounding click.