Owned by Him (rewrite)

43. Continuation of Forgotten Dream

"If Gilbert isn't that good, I might have had the chance to be your personal assistant!"

The voice burst in the air, slamming against my hearing as soon as I opened the door of the private sitting room, bringing the light refreshments on a tray for the guest.

The half hexagonal-shaped room had three windows on each line to let the sunlight in, three ancient couches with different shapes and colors of bone white, turquoise, and bronze were sitting in the middle. A gramophone on the table gave an artistic touch in the corner, the vinyl records formed a row in the storage just underneath it. Two bookshelves enough to store some favorite collections were placed against the wall, and the door where I was standing by was in between them.

I was still holding the doorknob, going on pause as I watched Marvel and his guest sitting on the same couch... To be exact, I could clearly see his guest was squeezing himself in Marvel's arm.

"Pardon my intrusion," I said, looking away immediately, pretending not to see anything.

Two pairs of eyes were sticking on me as I put the refreshments on the table, watching every move I made. I tried my best not to reciprocate, hiding my nervousness as I was afraid to learn the emotion of the steel blue ones.

Marvel rarely spent his time in this room, even though his guests loved it so much. I, too, thought that the room was nice. He was always busy with work during the day. Even on holiday, he didn't come here often, mostly because he hated morning routines and so he preferred sleeping.

Other than his bedroom, this room was the second perfect space to enjoy the birds' songs overlapping in the backdrop while welcoming the sunlight that filtered through the tree branches outside, and if you were lucky, you could feel the earth-smelling morning breeze.

But, the weather disapproved to enhance the beauty of the room today.

It was chilly overcast outside, and even though the room was warm, the grayish undertone that dyed the atmosphere was enough to indicate the somber nature.

"This must be your first time seeing each other," Marvel said, breaking the awkward silence. "Why don't I introduce you both?"

He brushed his guest's hands away from his arm, amiable in the movement yet absolute in the command, he then stood up, nonchalant to the fact that it might hurt the other's feeling.

"Ed, this is Asta, my secretary. Asta, this is Edward," Marvel told us.

"Nice to meet you," I said, smiling at the young man.

"My pleasure," Edward smiled back, getting up from the chair as well.

Wow. He looks so young, I thought to myself as we were shaking hands.

The man, or should I call him the boy in a blue suit, was Edward. His fluffy blonde hair covered his head, the curls on it were lovely even for a male. He was almost as tall as me, his skin was almost pale white. As he smiled, the braces on his teeth complemented his cute face.

"Edward is Mikhail's assistant. They came together today," Marvel continued.

I needed to pretend I didn't know anything about Mikhail, so I looked around to find the man who might have been him but found no one except the three of us in the room. I stayed quiet in feigned confusion, waiting until Marvel was willing to clarify the information.

"Mikhail is the man who barged into my office earlier. He's my older brother."

Surprised by the way he casually talked about it with me, I quickly dragged my gaze to him.

"Sir, you have an older brother?" I asked, faking my surprise.

"You can say it like that," he was too lazy to explain.