LDR Ch 42

Harrison spoke so nonchalantly about something Leo had never once considered.

“Still, that’s not right now, and I can still win.”

Harrison continued to speak without taking his eyes off Leo.

“There were many days I left you alone like that.”

Leo gave no reply. He could nod his head. Or, he could say he hadn’t felt that way. But neither seemed like the truth.

Harrison, bathed in the particularly bright moonlight, was both unfamiliar and familiar. He seemed like the man in the commercials who had suddenly grown up, and also like the boy by his side with whom he had shared every moment.

“It’s not just that I want to have you. It’s not that I just want to keep you by my side and treasure you.”

With such a contradictory appearance, with a gaze that seemed to be drifting yet firm, Harrison simply said.

“I want you to be happy. But looking back on it now, in the end, I think I just kept you by my side and possessed you.”

Leo and Harrison were always together. They thought they knew everything. But in reality, nothing had ever been clear. Because they were the only ones so precious to each other. Because they had never experienced how to treat someone this precious.

“It might not have been always, but there must have been days like that.”

Leo gazed quietly at Harrison, then looked up at the sky for a moment. Sinking a little deeper into the warm water, Leo leaned his head slightly against the edge of the tub and looked up at Harrison.

It was an eye level that evoked nostalgia. At first, Leo was distinctly shorter and had to look up at Harrison for a while, but their gazes gradually met, and at some point, he was looking down. Back then, this kid had seemed truly amazing. Maybe it was because he was looking up. He had seemed so big.

And yet, in truth, that impression hadn’t changed even after he’d started looking down at him. This kid always seemed so much bigger than his own body.

Leo gazed quietly at Harrison, then asked in a voice that sounded peaceful even to his own ears.

“Harry, have you ever thought about what would happen if we broke up?”

He wasn’t sure if it should be serious, and perhaps it would be more fitting to say it while crying and wailing, but in reality, the atmosphere was as stable as before.

“Have you?”

At the equally natural tone, Leo simply shook his head. It might seem strange to ask first, and to have previously said he didn’t even know if he wanted to break up, and yet say he had never thought about it. But in a way, it was natural. Because it had been impossible to think such thoughts.

“Because I don’t want to think about it.”

After Leo’s words, no conversation passed between them for a moment. In the languidly relaxed air and warm heat, Leo spoke just as he was.

“I’m not sure about the duration, but we shouldn’t see each other for a while, at least.”

At those words, Harrison also leaned his back comfortably against the wall of the tub and thought for a moment, before finally answering.

“Isn’t that impossible? Just thinking about the kids’ birthdays, we can’t be apart for more than three months. If we add our parents’ birthdays, we’d have to see each other once a month.”

“That’s true, but we’ll have to separate our schedules in advance, or try to coordinate it once. You celebrate during the day and I’ll celebrate at night, something like that.”

“But we’d still be in contact, wouldn’t we?”

“That’s better than meeting.”

“Why?”

At the calmly delivered question, Leo stared at Harrison. Really, he had a handsome face no matter when you looked at it. In the past, he had a hint of naivete, but now he was so solid that anyone would call him a man.

“If we meet when nothing has been sorted out, you’ll try to seduce me, then I’ll fall for it, and then we’ll probably just become fuck buddies.”

“That does sound like something I would do.”

After the limp agreement, Harrison finally seemed to be thinking about a method a bit more seriously.

“If a birthday overlaps with a race, I can’t go anyway, so only you can celebrate, and I’ll celebrate before or after.”

At the compromise that followed, Leo naturally asked back.

“What if it doesn’t overlap with a race?”

“If it’s a weekday, I’d have to do the morning and you the afternoon, right? Since you have work.”

“The other way around if it’s a weekend?”

“That would be fine too.”

Leo nodded his head, but at the same time, something came to mind.

“But you still have to walk the kids.”

“We promised that when we brought them home.”

As Harrison said, although the dogs were growing up at Leo’s house, both Leo and Harrison had agreed to take care of the dogs.

Then this time, as if something had occurred to Harrison, he uncharacteristically dragged his words out a little.

“To the kids…”

“I can’t tell them.”

At Leo’s firm words, Harrison replied quickly, as if to say don’t pass it on to me.

“It’s hard for me too.”

A predicament beyond mere difficulty was present in his voice. At that attitude, Leo answered without difficulty.

“Dad will tell them.”

Caleb, Elizabeth, and Norah were of an age to understand what a breakup was. The problem was Adam and Finn, but their dad would tell them. Johann, having gone through two divorces, already had a history of explaining to his children why their parents couldn’t live together. He would probably soothe them well, being experienced.

“I’ll have to move, too.”

And at Leo’s following words, Harrison’s gaze landed squarely on him.

“To that extent?”

At that question, Leo gave a rough shrug of one shoulder.

“It’s not necessarily that, but for me, it’s a location that has no advantages except for being close to you.”

The house he lived in now was chosen with only its proximity to Harrison in mind. It was close to Leo’s family home and the ABW headquarters, but there was still some distance. And it was even more so now that he was also commuting to London, where his grandmother’s company was located.

“That’s true.”

After that agreement, Harrison continued to ask.

“Then do we have to get rid of things, or return them?”

“To that extent?”

This time, at the vague reply that came from Leo, Harrison also asked back.

“That’s a bit much, right?”

Leo, who had nodded at that question, suddenly blurted out.

“Ah, what should we do about Lorenzo.”

“Why him?”

“He’s always trying to get everyone together.”

Lorenzo, in particular, tended to perceive Leo and Harrison as a single unit rather than treating them as separate individuals. If they ever fought, he would cause all sorts of chaos, saying he would somehow make them reconcile.

“If you put it that way, besides him, aren’t there Diego, and other guys too?”

As Harrison said, they had spent their entire lives together, so their friendships overlapped considerably.

“You take them.”

And the voice that followed was quite clear. Leo replied to those words.

“Then you’ll have no friends.”

Leo had friends that didn’t overlap with Harrison, but all of Harrison’s friends overlapped with Leo. Nevertheless, Harrison’s nonchalant attitude did not change.

“To be honest, they became my friends because they were your friends. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have even contacted them.”

It was true that he only managed to keep in touch because Leo had pestered him to please go out and see his friends, but still, he needed to have some friends.

“Still, you take Lorenzo.”

Though the person in question hadn’t consented, if one were to name someone Harrison considered a close friend and treated comfortably, it would undoubtedly be Lorenzo. But at Leo’s concession, a natural smile briefly lingered on Harrison’s face.

“Let’s just coordinate between ourselves in advance if Lorenzo contacts us.”

At those words, Leo also replied with a laugh that resembled a scoff, yet had a comfortable end to it.

“Yeah. That would be better.”

Just like that, the conversation continued for a little longer. They would mostly communicate by text, avoid video calls, what to do at the company, how to act in the paddock—while talking about such things, they actually found themselves laughing from time to time. It was a strange thing, but it was because it was comfortable.

And Leo and Harrison, without a word for a while, tilted their heads back side by side and looked at the sky. Leo said.

“Harry, you and I are very entangled. Even if we fight a little, we make up quickly while talking about the kids, we reconcile because we’re supposed to have dinner with our parents, we forget we fought because we’re meeting all our friends together.”

When he closed his eyes, he could faintly hear the sound of a gentle breeze touching the surface of the water.

“Without all that, forgetting for just a moment that there’s so much we’ve built up since the past, and just thinking only about the relationship between you and me, just me as a person, I’m not really that compatible with you. So Harry, if we were to put aside everything we’ve known since we were young and think about it. If we were to really, deeply think about it.”

He could feel Harrison, at some distance from his own languidly relaxed self, submerged just as comfortably.

“Would you still not want to break up with me?”

He still had his eyes closed, but he could feel a sense of contemplation. Not answering right away was a great improvement. He must be abiding by it, since he’d been told to think deeply.

“Yes.”

And at the answer that fell just as expected, Leo finally opened his eyes.

“Why don’t you ask me?”

But when the question that should have rightfully come back didn’t, he asked instead. Harrison rubbed his eyebrow, the piercing above it, a little vaguely as if pressing on it.

“I’m not very curious about that.”

At that unconfident, perhaps confident in a bad way, appearance, Leo spoke without being able to hide his bewilderment.

“Hey, if there was nothing entangled between us, and we hadn’t known each other since we were that young, I wouldn’t have thought about breaking up with you.”

At those words, Harrison’s expression became vague.

“You know this too, but I always only talked about F1 with my girlfriends and got dumped not long after.”

As he mentioned his own past, that expression on Harrison’s face was now tinged with puzzlement, but Leo continued.

“The reason I broke up with Melanie too was because she likes tennis and I like F1, so at first we tried to adjust to each other’s hobbies and watched matches together, but in the end, we just couldn’t understand each other at all.”

Melanie was his last girlfriend before he started dating Harrison. At the time, when asked why they broke up, Leo had offered the vague excuse that they just didn’t match well, so this was the first time he was explaining it in detail.

“I tried to watch tennis too, but I just kept thinking, what’s the point of watching them hit a ball. When she watched F1, she would say she wondered what the point was of just watching cars go around.”

And as if anticipating the words that would follow, a mix of pity and bewilderment appeared in Harrison’s eyes.

“After we gave up on doing our hobbies together and decided to just do our own things, well, there was nothing to talk about after that.”

It might have been different if they were both the type to enjoy hobbies as hobbies, but unfortunately, it was all the more so because they both poured their all into their respective hobbies.

“You should have told me sooner. It would have been funny.”

Harrison’s voice was now as gentle as when he spoke to Adam or Finn.

“Back then, when you said you broke up because your lifestyles didn’t match, I thought you’d become an adult and felt disappointed.”

When he glared at Harrison at those words, Harrison tried to compose his expression.

“Anyway, but you, you like what I like. You’re even closer to it than anyone else.”

Leo continued to speak in a low voice, meeting Harrison’s gaze directly.

“So, if it wasn’t you, if you weren’t my family, if, just, you were precious but not this precious, if that were the case, then if you won, you won, if you raced, you raced, I would have just cheered you on.”

If that were the case, he wouldn’t have even thought that he wished he would quit. Because that would be that person’s business.

“But with you, I can’t do that.”

But with Harrison, all of it felt like Leo’s own business. It felt like he would regret everything he chose, and everything he didn’t.

“That’s why it’s complicated.”

Leo gazed at Harrison quietly for a moment, then finally asked.

“Why do you think you wouldn’t break up with me?”

At that question, Harrison tilted his head at an angle, as if to look at Leo a little more closely.

“First of all, you’re pretty.”

“I told you to think as if the past we’ve built up doesn’t exist and just consider the present.”

He used to always hear that he was pretty in the past, but after growing up a certain amount, it had been a long time since he’d heard that word.

“Right, so, first of all, you’re pretty.”

At the words that came out regardless, Leo gave up and replied roughly.

“Fine.”

“You smile at me nicely.”

For some reason, he felt a little strange. He hadn’t smiled properly when looking at Harrison lately, yet Harrison only remembered the times Leo had smiled. As if Harrison, at least, always remembered Leo that way.

“Your younger siblings are cute—no, not this.”

Harrison cut himself off, perhaps remembering that he was told to think only of their present selves without anything else, but Leo looked at Harrison with slightly cool eyes. Your younger siblings being cute is the third reason?

“You look cool when you work.”

But before he could voice his complaint, Harrison’s words continued.

“The way you always try to move forward is admirable.”

His eyes were now fully imbued with a warm energy.

“It’s cute how you see me as amazing even when I do something insignificant.”

Even that tone of voice was nothing but familiar. A voice filled only with affection, in a way no one could imitate.

“You can’t even operate a microwave properly.”

“What?”

When he reflexively asked back at the words that suddenly broke the mood, a faint smile appeared on Harrison’s face.

“You get cold easily, but you don’t carry a jacket.”

And yet that voice continued softly, without a single impurity, containing only an ever-increasing love.

“Your eyes are like the sea, you always look up at the sky at least once even on busy days, your hair is soft, your shoelaces come untied easily, you smell nice, you get lonely easily. You’re good at driving, you hate peeling oranges, it’s obvious from your tone when you’re in a bad mood.”

Harrison smiled so naturally, as if he cherished even the items that were hard to tell if they were insults or compliments, no differently from any other.

“All of that is pretty.”

After that sentence fell, Harrison, looking a little sheepish now, gently touched his eyebrow.

“That’s why.”

“Still, I’m not going to compliment you.”

At Leo’s words, which were an attempt to break the somewhat excited awkwardness, Harrison chuckled softly and avoided his gaze, but soon he looked at Leo again and finally broke into a slightly deeper smile. At that sight, Leo also shook his head with something like a scoff.

“Because then you wouldn’t miss the opportunity.”

And at Leo’s following words, Harrison just shrugged one shoulder as if he hadn’t expected it in the first place.

“Should we get out now?”

After they watched the scenery outside together for a moment, that voice came out, and when Leo nodded, Harrison got out of the tub first and picked up a towel that was draped over a nearby chair. Leo watched the back and waist muscles that moved under the moonlight for a moment, then lowered his gaze to the floor. There was a wet patch left on the floor.

Leo naturally looked for his indoor slippers. He had come in from the opposite side of the tub, so his shoes were over there. It was a matter of just getting out on that side now, but he felt inexplicably lazy.

“Is it cold?”

At Leo’s question, Harrison familiarly extended a hand. Leo also got out of the tub, naturally took that hand, and placed his feet on top of Harrison’s. Harrison’s hand firmly supported the small of Leo’s back.

The moment their skin touched more deeply like that, their bodies stiffened, regardless of who was first. It was natural, if anything, that they hadn’t touched each other’s bodies since their big fight. Because they didn’t want to gloss over it like that. The atmosphere had loosened up somewhat after coming to the villa, but with the younger siblings always around, it wasn’t a situation to do anything. Harrison and Leo were even uncharacteristically using separate bedrooms.

Their bodies, touching for the first time in a long while, were hot and hard. Leo lowered his gaze and looked at Harrison’s slightly parted lips. At the same time, just as he was about to move the hand that was supporting his body by gripping Harrison’s arm to his shoulder, Harrison suddenly wrapped Leo tightly in a towel, helped him down from his insteps, and stepped back.

“That spot should be fine. I was just standing there.”

As he said, the floor he stepped on was lukewarm with Harrison’s warmth. But perhaps because he had just been on his insteps, which were warmer, it felt strangely cold.

But Leo stood still in that spot as Harrison had told him to, clutching the towel wrapped around his body tightly, and watched Harrison return. In the hands of Harrison, who had come around the tub, were Leo’s slippers.

“Thanks.”

When he spoke while looking at the slippers placed in front of his feet, Harrison silently grabbed Leo’s ankle and guided it. It was just a touch, only enough to put the slipper on his foot, but for some reason, that hand lingered around his ankle. And yet, that hand did not come up higher, nor did it leave a deeper touch, but hesitated before letting go.

“We should go inside now.”

“Yeah.”

Leo watched Harrison’s back as he walked ahead. His body, exposed with nothing on because he had draped the towel over Leo, glistened faintly with moisture.

“Harry.”

When he spoke, breaking the silence that had continued on their way to the room, Harrison replied.

“Yeah.”

Leo hesitated slightly as he grasped the doorknob of the room behind his back. Harrison’s gaze landed on his hand. Then their eyes met again. As if he would approach at any moment, as if he would touch and entangle himself with him. He was probably no different himself.

And yet, contrary to that blatant gaze, Leo finally said.

“Good night.”