Chapter 140: …All I See Is You

WHAT ORION SAW...

Normally, a question like that would make him flinch, flush with anger, or pull away from me entirely. But sitting here in the quiet garden, too exhausted to hold onto any artificial pride, he just answers me with a quiet honesty.

"Yes," Adrien says softly. "That is exactly what I thought. Why else would you search for me for seven years? All we ever did before I left was kiss once in the janitor’s closet."

I turn my head sideways on the stone, keeping my cheek rested against the bench, looking at the side of his face. "Why would I want that from you? What exactly do you think this is, once again?"

He turns his head to face me. Our eyes lock in the dim silver light. We are inches apart now, our breaths mingling in small white clouds between our lips.

"I am Adrien Dubois," he says, his voice steady, stripped of all defenses. "My family hated me. I am basically an orphan. I have nothing to my name. No money, no title, no power. At this point, Orion, you should know exactly what I had to do to survive when I ran away."

A shadow passes over his face, sharp and bitter. He lets out a quiet, humorless laugh that sounds more like a sigh.

"I have taken it so far up my ass that I am actually tired of people holding me down and fucking me," he says flatly, staring straight into my eyes without flinching. "I have sucked so many dicks that I am tired of people forcing my mouth open and shoving themselves inside me."

The words hit the quiet air like stones falling into a quiet pond.

Hearing him say it so plainly— hearing the sheer, soul-crushing exhaustion behind his words— makes a cold, ugly sensation spread through my chest. It isn’t anger at him.

It is a sharp, jagged irritation at the world that dared to break him, a bitter disgust at every filth-ridden hand that touched what belonged to me long before I could claim it.

But more than that, it makes something in my chest feel strangely hollow. He thinks I view him as a piece of meat to be used and discarded, just like the rest of them.

"I was just a boy who ran away for reasons I am probably never going to be able to tell you for my own safety," Adrien continues, his voice barely above a whisper. "And I have paid for that every day of my life for the seven years I have been away. So why exactly would you want whatever this is with a person like me?"

I do not look away from him. I do not flinch from the raw, open wound he is laying out in front of me.

"Why exactly do you think you can’t tell me the reason why you ran away?" I ask softly.

"To be honest," he says, his gaze drifting back up to the silver moon, "I think I do not remember that day clearly. Parts of my memories are missing."

The quiet admission settles between us. He says it so simply, yet I can hear the confusion lingering beneath his tone.

"Besides," he adds, turning his eyes back to mine, "even if I told you, I know that would be the moment I die. You said it yourself back then. Those who betray you will die."

Silence falls over the courtyard garden. We lie there on the stone bench, our heads rested side by side, our faces so close I can count the long lashes framing his dark eyes.

The fountain trickles quietly in the background, a steady, rhythmic splash of cold water against marble.

"Did you betray me, Adrien?" I ask him, my voice lower and softer than I usually allow it to be. "Did you choose to do that?"

He does not answer my question. He doesn’t say yes, and he doesn’t say no. Instead, he shifts his gaze slightly and fires a question right back at me.

"What exactly is so important about this that you would keep me here, Orion? What exactly is it that you want from me?"

We reach an impasse. We both know it. The air between us is thick with unsaid words, heavy with secrets, trauma, and seven years of blood and distance.

Neither of us is going to break first. Neither of us is going to lay down our weapons entirely.

Yet, as I look at his pale face illuminated by the moonlight, watching the way his chest rises and falls with his slow, tired breaths, I feel something yield inside me.

I am the one who gives.

I let the coldness on my face soften just a fraction, letting him see the quiet warmth that rests beneath all the violence.

"When my head itches, I think of you," I tell him.

Adrien blinks, his brows pulling up in sheer bewilderment. "Am I supposed to be some kind of scalp scratcher?"

A small, genuine laugh breaks from my lips. "It’s not like that. I did not mean it in that manner. When I was younger, the inside of my skull, at the base of my brain, used to itch a lot. Metaphorically, not physically. But it felt so physical that I wanted to jam my finger straight through my skull and scratch that place."

He watches me quietly, his eyes searching my face as he processes the absurdity of what I am telling him. I can see the thought forming in his mind— the quiet realization that my madness has a tangible, physical form inside my own head.

The look he gives me is so transparent, so full of sarcastic judgment, that it feels like he is speaking out loud. I give him a faint smirk and a tiny shrug of my shoulders, encouraging him to keep thinking it.

"During that time when my head itched the most," I continue, keeping my voice quiet so it stays between just the two of us, "there was a constant presence I felt, directing a very potent but still weak killing intent at me."

I turn my head fully toward him, locking my eyes onto his.

"It was you, Adrien. You would follow me everywhere, so much that you became a permanent fixture in my head. That killing intent, that presence... that little duckling."

His mouth opens in sheer horror as the realization hits him. "Don’t tell me..."

The sound of my own bright, clear laughter fills the garden again. I can’t help it. The look on his face is priceless.

"It is exactly as you think it is, duckling," I tell him, watching his reaction with pure delight. "You were the one who made yourself a permanent fixture in my mind. You were the one who made me notice you. You were the one who made me want you."

"I only followed you around because I hated you!" Adrien protests loudly, waving a hand at me in exasperation. "I wanted to see if I could ruin you! If I could ruin you, then I could ruin Louise! If I could ruin you, then I could ruin Alice, and my father! I was not trying to become something for you!"

I keep laughing, the warm sound echoing into the cold night air. "I know. That is what made it so fun. So I finally decided to pay you the same attention you were paying me, you little stalker."

Adrien lets out a loud groan, dropping both hands over his face to hide from me. I watch him struggle with the hilarious, humiliating truth that his own obsession with spouting hostility at me is the very thing that bound us together in the first place.

I let my laughter fade, settling back into a quiet, steady rhythm. The warmth in my chest deepens, solid and unshakeable.

"I do not care about what you are talking about," I say, my tone shifting into something heavy, grounded, and quiet. "This whole elite and nobody thing. What I know is that you are Adrien, and that is what I want. I want that killing intent without any actual act of betrayal."

Adrien drops his hands from his face, letting out a sardonic, breathless laugh as he looks at me. "Well, you are late. I doubt I’ll ever have that anymore. It’s gone, Orion."

"Well, then I will have to take it like that," I reply softly, without a single trace of hesitation. "We will just start over."

He stares at me in absolute shock, his jaw slightly slack. "Are you actually all right in the head?"

We lie there on the cold stone bench, staring at each other in the silver light of the moon. The question hangs between us, absurd and ridiculous, because we both know the answer.

We both know I am not all right in the head. We both know I am dangerous, unhinged, and bound to a reality that most people would run from.

And then, slowly, a sound breaks from Adrien’s chest.

He starts to laugh.

It is not his bitter laugh, nor is it his sarcastic, defensive scoff. It is a genuine, helpless laugh that bubbles up from deep inside him, shaking his shoulders.

I join him, my own low laughter blending with his in the quiet courtyard.

It is strange, illogical, and entirely absurd for us to sit out here in the freezing cold night, laughing together like two old friends after everything that has transpired between us.

But as the sound leaves his throat, I see the sharp tension melt out of his spine. I see his shoulders drop. I see the heavy, suffocating guard he carries everywhere finally loosen its grip on him.

He looks lighter. Under the soft glow of the moon, wrapped in the quiet stillness of the garden, he isn’t a runaway, a victim, or a broken ghost from the streets.

He is just Adrien. My duckling.