(Dis)order (A Never Let Me Go Fanfiction) (Bilingual Book)

Chapter 4 - Choice

While Palm was expecting Nueng to seize the opportunity he had offered him, in order to slip away and let him gather his breath at last, his host didn't seem to be inclined to give him any way out. Not only the latter did not budge from his position, but on top of that, from the way he stared at Palm, he seemed to have still a million things to say to him on his mind, which did not exactly ease the young fishing enthusiast's concerns.

He tended to enjoy hearing the sound of his voice a little too much when he talked to him. 

"You interrupted my listening to the Valkyrie at a critical point," Nueng said in a harsh tone that made Palm immediately stiffen. "It was supposed to help me relax. Now I'm feeling even more pissed off."

He had barely listened to a few minutes of his piece of classical music, while he thought he would enjoy several hours of tranquility, of calm, by throwing himself into this epic that would disconnect his mind from everything, starting with the unbearable sound of the rain that fell outside and came to hit the panes of his window, as if to remind him of the scene of that terrible night that was still haunting him, even months later. And it would probably continue to chase him for a long time to come.

Nueng had every reason to be angry. He was angry with everyone and he was angry with himself. He was mad at himself for having listened to himself. For wanting to visit Palm on such a night.

All this because of a mere injury that the young man should never have experienced. Because it was Nueng he was supposed to look after like the apple of his eye, and nobody else.

"...I'm sorry," Palm simply replied in a small voice, his head down, for fear of being reprimanded again.

Which was likely to happen any minute now, since the way he was acting was just the sort of thing that would give Nueng plenty of reasons. When Palm played his role of servant perfectly, as he was doing now, he found it very difficult to manage his anger.

In everyday life, Nueng himself was a perfectionist. But when it came to Chanon's son, strangely enough, things were different.

In this case, he was determined to scrape off all that well-polished surface to uncover what was really behind it. And who knows, maybe that something would help him to see more clearly how he himself felt about it all...

About Palm, too.

"Stop saying that all the time. That you're sorry."

Being icy cold to Palm, looking down on him, was the only way Nueng could keep him around.

By speaking to him with little regard, like a young master to his servant. Which they were supposed to be, even though, when they thought about it, they might never have fully fit into the role they had been assigned, without really being consulted, for that matter.

Otherwise, it wouldn't be so painful to stand in front of each other right now.

"What am I supposed to say to you, then?" Palm muttered, bowing his head briefly, avoiding the piercing gaze of the son of the lady who housed him in their luxurious home a world away from his modest life. "I'm not Ben. I'm not as good as him at knowing how to make you smile with fancy speeches."