Beast, Blue Blood - Chapter 16

Chapter 16

“Sergei already has a wife. Everyone knows it’s no secret.”

Leah said.

“Of course, she’s not his official wife. That position is reserved for Eugene. But he has two children. He is exactly the kind of man Eugene hates the most. A man like our father.”

Leah truly seemed to despise her father and didn’t try to hide it.

“But no matter what, Eugene will become Mrs. Karamazov. Eugene’s strength is that she doesn’t get swayed by unnecessary emotions. For example…”

She pointed to Pierlu.

“Eugene’s mother once came back to take Eugene with her after she had run away with this man, but Eugene refused to go. She told her to just go back.”

Pierlu seemed completely turned to stone, but Leah didn’t care and shrugged her shoulders.

“That’s how it is. Anyway, she doesn’t love Sergei but needs the power and money of the Aleushin family.”

Leah spoke in short, simple sentences, sometimes sounding like an uneducated laborer, but the directness of her words had a significant impact.

“Ironically, that’s the trait she shares most with our father.”

“I don’t understand why you’re telling me this…”

As Hisha spoke slowly, Leah smiled brightly.

“I don’t know either. Strangely, I just want to tell everything to Young-soo. Maybe it’s because you’re completely unrelated?”

After saying that, Leah got up from her seat.

“Then I’ll be going.”

She left the greenhouse with a cheerful step as if she had done something good.

For a while, an uncomfortable silence filled the greenhouse. Pierlu looked at Hisha with eyes devoid of any particular emotion.

“You knew.”

It was then that Hisha realized he should pretend not to know that Pierlu’s son was sick. He had forgotten and had shouted at Leah.

“I… I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry. How did you know?”

“I overheard some people talking…”

Pierlu nodded as if understanding.

“Well, that makes sense.”

He seemed to be aware that the employees were gossiping. It would be strange if they didn’t know.

As Hisha remained silent, Pierlu looked at him with slightly curious eyes.

“Aren’t you curious? About what happened.”

“I don’t think I have the right to be curious.”

“You’re right. But no one thinks like that.”

For the first time, Pierlu sighed slightly and looked at Hisha. His blue eyes were not particularly warm or cold, but they were sincere.

“I knew you were a good young man from the first day. That’s why I’m giving you genuine advice. Run away while you still can.”

* * *

Hisha finished his shower and came out of the bathroom. Passing by the window, he saw that the greenhouse lights were on.

He found it strange. Pierlu should have gone home by now…

It was unlikely that a thief had entered this well-secured mansion without making any noise, but he stood by the window for a moment before leaving the room. He crossed the garden and entered the greenhouse.

As soon as he entered, he smelled cigarette smoke. Following the smell further inside, he saw Eugene sitting in the garden pavilion, smoking a cigarette.

Eugene was in comfortable attire, looking at something on a tablet. Hearing someone approaching, Eugene looked up and asked.

“Haven’t you gone home yet?”

Hisha gestured behind him and awkwardly replied.

“I was about to, but I saw the lights on…”

Seeing the cigarette in Eugene’s hand, Eugene raised and lowered her hand holding the cigarette.

“Mr. Cox nags if he sees me smoking.”

“Oh…”

Hisha responded reflexively but didn’t know what else to say. Eugene then asked.

“Do you want to sit down for a while?”

She offered a water bottle that seemed to be for herself.

“There’s only water.”

Feeling a bit more at ease, Hisha took the water bottle and sat next to Eugene.

“If it’s something you brought to drink, it’s fine.”

“Drink it.”

Eugene smiled and said, taking a deep drag from her cigarette and exhaling the smoke. She looked quite accustomed to it.

Hisha wasn’t particularly thirsty but poured some water and drank it. Eugene watched his Adam’s apple move as he drank and spoke as Hisha put the bottle down.

“My father has cancer.”

Eugene then laughed briefly.

“A man who took care of his body all his life, but illness seems to be a matter of luck. Though that’s not why I smoke.”

She started smoking when she was in college. There wasn’t a particular reason; one day she just walked into a convenience store, bought a pack of cigarettes, and lit one as if she had been smoking all her life. Since then, she had smoked occasionally whenever she felt like it.

She had never smoked in front of her father, but he seemed to know. One day, he said just one thing at the dinner table.

“If you can, quit.”

She replied that she understood, but she didn’t quit. Hisha noticed a mole on the edge of Eugene’s cheek near the ear as he watched her.

‘I want to lick it.’

He was thinking this unconsciously when Eugene turned around and spoke.

“Don’t mind what Leah said.”

“Oh… you heard?”

It seemed she had heard what Lea said in the greenhouse earlier.

“She tends to speak before thinking.”

Eugene said and put the cigarette back in her mouth. A past event that she had not recalled for a long time came to her mind.

Although her mother left with Pierlu, she later came back to take Eugene with her. Of course, her father Heinrich was furious.

“I don’t care how you live with that guy, but that child is my daughter! You can never take her!”

“You don’t love Eugene!”

When her mother shouted back, veins bulged on her father’s forehead.

“Eugene’s place is here!”

That day, for the first and last time, Eugene saw her father so angry. Her father always stepped back from worldly affairs with a cynical smile, like a medieval Aristotelian who believed emotions were for primitive humans. He looked like he might explode into flames. She worried he might accidentally kill her mother.

“Try meeting Eugene. I won’t forgive you.”

Eugene, who was listening outside, opened the door at that moment. Her mother, upon seeing her, wept with joy.

“Eugene!”

To her mother, Eugene said expressionlessly.

“Go, Mother. My home is here.”

Her mother looked shocked, and her father looked triumphant.

“Go. With that damn gypsy.”

Her father might have stopped his wife from taking Eugene purely out of revenge. But Eugene could have let her mother go to live happily, knowing that her mother hadn’t abandoned her and came back to take her. Knowing what kind of person her father was, Eugene had no desire to stop her mother from leaving. She knew better than anyone how unhappy her mother had been here.

Anyway, Eugene was born and raised in this house, so the world that had been inevitable from birth wasn’t particularly terrible. Maybe she was a lot like her father in some ways.

She didn’t expect love from her father. Her father trusted her, especially after she didn’t go with her mother. Her father was a man who didn’t know love, and the most positive emotion he could give was trust. Eugene had earned that.

The house, now left with only the two of them, became even quieter than before, but the absence of her always crying and hysterical mother made it undeniably more pleasant. Not long after, Eugene entered a boarding high school and left home. Since then, she had never stayed in that house for more than a week. Until her father collapsed.

“Are you going to marry your fiancé?”

Hisha, fidgeting with the water bottle, asked. Eugene replied coldly.

“That’s not something you should worry about, Young-soo.”

“Right.”

Hisha replied awkwardly. A brief silence followed, and then Eugene sighed lightly and spoke.

“Sorry. I tend to speak bluntly. As for Sergei… my father wanted us to be engaged, but he’s not my type.”

“Then what is your type?”

Eugene stared at Hisha, a cigarette in her mouth.

“Well… I wonder.”

Finding it hard to answer, Hisha said no more. During that pause, Eugene stubbed out her cigarette and took out a new one.

“It’s bad for your health.”

Seeing how much she smoked, Hisha commented. Eugene laughed. The low laugh that rolled from her throat was stimulating to his ears.

“It’s not like there’s much good in living a long life anyway.”

With that, Eugene brought the lighter to her cigarette. At that moment, a hand reached out and took the cigarette away.

Surprised, she turned around and Hisha kissed her. Naturally, her lips tasted of tobacco. However, it wasn’t the harsh taste of store-bought cigarettes. It had a slightly bitter, grassy taste, like hand-rolled tobacco leaves.

After a short kiss, Hisha pulled away from Eugene. Meeting her gaze, Hisha’s face flushed with the realization of what he had just done.

‘What did I just…’

“I…”

He tried to explain, but no words came to mind.

“Sorry.”

As he attempted to get up, Eugene grabbed him by the collar—or rather, by the scruff of his shirt—and pulled him back. Their lips met again.

Forget leaving, Hisha couldn’t hold back any longer. He began to kiss Eugene passionately, cupping her face. Eugene responded fervently, pulling him closer by the scruff of his shirt, almost choking him in the process.

As their lips collided multiple times and their tongues intertwined, Eugene’s back pressed against a pillar of the gazebo. Initially, there was space for another person between the pillars, but somehow, Eugene had been pushed up onto Hisha’s lap, with her legs straddling him. Even in this position, they clung to each other as if their lives depended on it.

Eugene continued to kiss Hisha, wrapping her arms around his neck. The solid muscles of his thighs felt like rocks beneath her own.