Chapter 50

The weather was spectacular.

No sooner had they stepped out of the hotel than bright sunlight poured down, prompting Dante to pull free the sunglasses tucked into the collar of his shirt. A soft breeze slipped lazily through his hair and vanished, leaving behind a warm, gentle air that made the temperature absolutely perfect for wandering. Apparently, the sky intended to help him. On a day like this, a person could fall in love simply by walking beneath the same horizon.

All that remained was to do his absolute best to seduce that prim little beauty.

Standing in the hotel lobby, Dante stole glances from behind his sunglasses at Rhys, who was still on the phone. The elegant man—clad in a white, short-sleeved dress shirt and brown linen trousers—altered the very atmosphere of the space merely by existing in it. It was as if the place itself had been meticulously designed just for him.

Dante prowled in place, needlessly tapping the bridge of his sunglasses up and down with one finger. He was more nervous today than he had been the first time he went to pick up a date for prom. Even though the person he was trying to win over was a man he had already dated for years, Dante had never been more desperate. Damn it, he thought. He usually ruined things when his nerves got the better of him.

Forcing his gaze away from Rhys, who continued his call calmly while sweeping back his hair, Dante checked the restaurant they were about to visit one more time. It was a relief that, out of the countless places he had researched, he could at least visit this one with Rhys. The tourist sites were clustered nearby; after eating, they could look around, stop by a famous gelato shop, see the Spanish Steps that Mateo had recommended, and then return. It was the perfect route.

Would there even be enough time? He needed to tell Rhys that the time spent on this phone call absolutely did not count. It had already been more than five minutes. How long was he going to keep talking? Wasn’t it nighttime in America right now? No, wait—time was ahead here.

“Let’s go.”

At the sound of the voice from behind him, Dante looked up from his phone. Rhys had finished his call at some point and now stood directly in front of him, blinking those pretty eyes as he peered at the screen.

Needlessly startled, Dante merely moved his mouth without forming words. Rhys lifted the corners of his lips. “Aren’t we going, Tay?”

…Ah.

The sun emerging from where the clouds had parted was far too dazzling, causing Dante’s eyes to narrow involuntarily. The light was strong enough to sting behind his eyelids; it would have been dangerous had he not been wearing his sunglasses. He almost—

“Yeah. Let’s go.” Dante adjusted his glasses and grinned.

At the sight of Rhys’s smile—which felt like something plucked from the impossibly distant past—he really did feel as if they had gone back to the way they used to be. He barely managed to calm his racing heart by reminding himself that Rhys was, in fact, merely imitating the past. Dante hadn’t been sure Rhys would grant his request, but apparently, the condition had suited him.

“It’s a little far to walk,” Dante noted. “Do you want to take a bus or a taxi?”

The restaurant was about twenty minutes from the hotel. Ridiculously, walking and driving would take the exact same amount of time, making him realize the taxi driver who had complained the other day had actually been telling the truth. Compared to the day he had lost his phone and gotten scolded by Rhys, something definitely felt different now—but Dante still didn’t know what direction they were moving in.

“The weather’s nice, so let’s walk,” Rhys spoke gently, his tone a perfect echo of the past. It lacked the dry, chilly edge he had been using the entire time they had been together here.

Watching him transform into a completely different person in an instant, Dante couldn’t help but ask, “Did you ever take acting classes or something?”

Rhys smiled, his blue eyes curving softly as he held out his hand to Dante. Seeing him do, without being asked, something he had absolutely refused to do no matter how much Dante begged in recent days, tangled Dante’s thoughts into a chaotic mess. He felt as if he missed this touch so much he might go mad, yet at the same time, he doubted its reality. Two contradictory emotions warred in the exact same space.

“No, I’ve never learned acting.”

“So your real major wasn’t sculpture. It was acting, wasn’t it?”

“Wasn’t Tay the one who asked me to act like before?” Rhys countered smoothly.

The moment Dante saw that pale hand swaying, gently urging him to take it, the bridge of his nose stung. He barely swallowed the hot emotion that surged up in his throat. Clearing his throat, he smiled brightly enough to carve deep dimples into his cheeks and finally took Rhys’s hand. Dozens of things he wanted to say rose to the surface at once, but for now, he just wanted to enjoy this. This was a moment he had missed unbearably.

He held tightly to the hand that fluttered like a flower petal in the wind. The soft skin caught in his palm carried the nicely cool temperature Dante had always liked. Afraid that Rhys might slip away, he pressed their palms firmly together and interlaced their fingers. As Dante tightened his grip, Rhys’s fingers curled back around the back of Dante’s hand in response.

Dante’s lips parted, but he ultimately began walking without saying a word. Rhys immediately matched his pace. Dante’s stride was wider than most, while Rhys was the type to deliberately walk slowly. Because of that, whenever Dante walked without thinking, he would inevitably end up ahead while Rhys lagged behind. Before, whenever Dante looked back and saw him there, it had simply made him feel reassured.

Perhaps Rhys had been watching him from behind like that all along. Trying to find meaning in things Dante had done without a single thought. Dante had always known Rhys was more delicate and sensitive than him, but he had failed to truly take those traits into account. He had never imagined Rhys might feel anxious over the casual smiles Dante habitually gave other people, or that he might live in fear that Dante would eventually grow tired of him.

Dante slowed his steps. Rhys’s gaze shifted, brushing against his cheek. Pushing his sunglasses up onto his head, Dante squinted slightly beneath the falling sunlight and smiled down at him.

“Let’s go a little slower. Like you said, the weather’s too nice.”

This time, Rhys was the one who fell silent. He looked at Dante with a faint smile, but his eyes grew slightly subdued before he turned his gaze forward. “That isn’t like you, Tay. You usually prefer getting to your destination as quickly as possible.”

“People change according to their environment. When in Rome, do as the Romans do,” Dante replied easily. “Once we go back, we might never see a view like this again, so shouldn’t we take it all in on a day like today? Besides, I have a beauty beside me.”

“…Do as you like,” Rhys murmured. Glancing down at his wristwatch, he added, “Though I should remind you, the walk there counts as part of the four hours.”

“That really kills the mood.”

“I thought I should remind you at least once.”

“Then the time you spent on the phone shouldn’t count either,” Dante countered. “I timed it earlier. You talked for ten whole minutes, so calculate it exactly.”

“You’re actually the kind of person who cares about things like that?” Rhys let out a low laugh, as if he found the pettiness absurd.

Since Rhys had started playing dirty first, Dante felt he had no choice but to respond in kind. In the past, he would have pretended not to care, offering a smooth, ‘Do whatever you want, pretty one.’ But over the past three days, Rhys had already seen almost every embarrassing side of him anyway. It was a pity Dante had failed to maintain the image of the cool, older man he had managed to project before, but thinking about it now, that had just been the person Dante wanted to be—not who he actually was.

“I’m actually pretty pathetic,” Dante admitted.

“After seeing how many messages you sent over the last two months, I did begin to suspect that might be the case.”

“…You didn’t block me?”

Since Rhys had never answered a single text, Dante had naturally assumed his number was blocked. Seeing Dante’s eyes widen in sheer shock, Rhys twisted only one corner of his mouth upward. There was the Rhys Dante had come to know recently—wearing an infuriating, admiringly beautiful sneer.

“I never said I blocked you.”

“So you read them and just ignored me this whole time?”

“I only answer things worth answering.”

Even though this was Rhys, the man he loved more than life, Dante felt a brief flash of genuine irritation. It felt entirely unfair for a brat four years his junior to toy with an adult over thirty like this. Lucy often joked that Dante seemed to possess a deeply rooted strain of East Asian Confucian thinking, and it was precisely because of situations like this. But really, wasn’t this worth getting angry over? There had been so many vital, vulnerable things in those texts! From telling Rhys how much he missed him, to asking if Lily was eating well, to literally begging him to meet just once.

“That’s incredibly rude, you know.”

“Sending messages after a breakup is ruder.”

“You could have at least answered when there were still things we hadn’t settled,” Dante argued. “Do you know I still have the credit card you gave me? You shouldn’t leave things like that around carelessly, baby.”

“I can simply cancel it.”

“What if I had charged tens of thousands of dollars to it before you did?”

The heavy dam broke, and the conversations they hadn’t been able to have for months began pouring between them like a blessed rain.

“I wouldn’t particularly care, and you didn’t do that anyway,” Rhys said, cutting through the hypothetical. “Would someone who constantly makes absurd claims about how the older partner should pay more really use my card?”

Rhys understood him with terrifying accuracy. Feeling slightly embarrassed at being read so transparently, Dante pushed a pointless defense. “I might secretly be a madman, you know. People have many different sides. Look at you—I never imagined you could be this prickly.”

“I’ve always been like this,” Rhys accepted the comment lightly, his voice remaining perfectly calm. “I don’t have a particularly good personality, and I’m certainly not the kind person you always make me out to be. Haven’t you already realized that?”

Hearing those words, Dante firmly corrected him. “Not ‘you.’ Tay.”

Rhys paused. “…Hasn’t Tay already felt that?”

“I admit your personality is a bit pricklier than I initially thought. But having an edge and being kind are two entirely separate things.”

“That’s simply what you want to think.”