About Your Pride and My Prejudice

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Last night, for the first time in my life, I had the experience of being embraced as a woman by someone other than family or friends.

I don’t know how much I cried. It wasn’t too painful or unbearable. It was hard, but was bearable compared to what I had imagined.

If the question is, why did I cry so much that all the moisture in my body escaped, it was because of Alan Leopold. I didn’t know that this moment would happen in my life. Even in my dreams, there was never a moment like this.

We were people who lived completely different lives and were still so different, but last night Alan showed me all of him. Without hiding the deep scars and secrets.

How can I explain it? It was brief, but there was a moment when our souls perfectly overlapped. That was the first time, and I don’t think I’ll ever have that experience again.

Like young animals who had not opened their eyes yet, we kissed frantically as if we were trying to confirm at that moment, we were holding each other. During that time, there were many conversations exchanged. With our eyes, breath and words, without a break.

In fact, Alan was a man who lived with an unrepairable deficiency and an incurable wound. This was a story that I had never imagined in the short time of loving him.

Nevertheless, he grew up to a man with a firm and warm heart, he comforted me until the morning came. Although I cried again for that kindness…….

Knowing Alan’s dark side didn’t change my mind. On the contrary, would anyone believe that he was affectionate, lovely and unbearable?

How fortunate was I to have a heart to hug him, with a fragile and anxious sensibility to understand the pain.

He made me appreciate myself in an unexpected way. It was an overwhelming feeling that I had never felt before.

There have been many painful moments while I was in-love with Alan. The sin of longing for the impossible often drowned me in bitter sorrow and misery. Even when I learned that the unidentified being that frightened me was my old love, I felt an unparalleled sense of despair.

Maybe that’s why I’ve always thought of Alan Leopold as my shadow. An inseparable, black shadow that makes me unhappy. Even as I embraced the darkness willingly, I was deeply saddened with every breath I took, reflecting on how pitiful and unhappy I was when I loved him.

Then Alan whispered, that I’ve been his light all along.

I had to burst into tears again. He was my darkness, and yet I was his light.

Why didn’t I know? The reason I trembled even in a handful of shadows was because I was living in a world full of light.

Alan, on the other hand, had been in the dark all along. I have longed for and envied his world, which seemed only brilliant because of my own misfortunes and shortcomings, but it was all futile and a one-sided deception.

Even though I sometimes thought I loved him more than myself, I was always intoxicated with ecstatic self-pity. What selfish love it was.

However, the idea that it was only myself who was lacking remains unchanged. Because the feeling of loving him passionately wasn’t short of anything

Ever since I got to know him, there hasn’t been an incontinence hole in my chest. It was so tight that I had to keep my nerves on edge every moment so as not to suffocate from being crushed by that love.

But last night, that love overflowed.

In fact, it is normal. If the bathtub is filled with water without a little extra space, it will overflow even if you just dip your toes in it.

When the heated breathing and the two hearts that were beating as we touched had subsided. We lay side by side in the ecstatic, sweet afterglow. He carefully covered me with a soft blanket, not missing the slight trembling of my body from the sudden chill.

Actually, I wanted him to hug me, but…… If he did that, I thought my legs would lose strength, so I managed to bite my lips and hold it in. It was questionable whether I would be able to walk back to the annex. I shouldn’t get carried away any more.

As I passed through a dreamlike night where I became one with a person whose words of love were not enough, I suddenly realized that I needed to redefine the words I had known about happiness and fullness. I thought they were quite common words, but in fact, I felt like I didn’t understand even half of them.

At the same time, I became anxious.  I wasn’t sad to give my first time to Alan Leopold, but his first time has never even been mine. It was a strange contradiction that I couldn’t understand myself.

“Alan.”

“Yes.”

When I called with a cracked and messed up voice, he answered in a very low voice.  We weren’t facing each other, but we were still holding hands.

“You love me, don’t you?”

“…….”

“Say, how could you hug me so preciously when you don’t even love me?”

“Hmm…….”

Alan sighed dazedly, avoiding to give an answer. There was a gentle laugh in his breath. It wasn’t surprising that he couldn’t even say plausible empty words, but I couldn’t help but feel the rushing ferocity.

I murmured, giving strength to the hand I was holding, as if complaining.

“No, I wish I hadn’t boarded that ship.”

Then Alan smiled.

“If you hadn’t ridden it, would you have swam to get here?”

“Swim?”

“If it wasn’t for that, you wouldn’t have been on it. There would also have been no place that would sell tickets to Melissa Collins.”

“……Ha.”

I burst out laughing. There’s no one other than him who can say something like this and make it not sound like a joke.

“It’s so weird. I don’t understand you.”

“It’s simple. I want you to love me again.”

“…….”

“That’s why I did it.”

To the question of whether he loves me, he didn’t answer me with empty words, but….….

I again put my nails on the back of his hand and whispered viciously.

“There’s a bina on the table. You know, right?

“Pfft….”

Alan laughed like the gentle breeze. A low, ticklish laugh like sprinkled sugar. I wish I could hear this laugh more often. For a moment, I had a fleeting thought, how I wish I had been a person who was a little more interesting.

“Don’t be angry, Melissa.”

“…….”

He raised his upper body and kissed me at an angle. My eyelashes got wet with a feathery kiss. Maybe I was alive for this moment.

“Love me again.”

Gently pressing down on me, Alan whispered languidly. The reason why these arrogant words sound sweet like a love confession is purely because my ears have melted.

I hated this beautiful villain, but it was so obvious that I had no choice but to love him dearly.

I didn’t hate him. Then, pretending to accept it reluctantly, I hugged Alan’s neck and swallowed his petal-like lips.

Of course, I could not hide the corners of my lips that were gently curved up. Before long, dawn came 

* * *

“…Is he a lizard?”

I was struck by one question.

“What? What did you say, miss?”

“Oh, nothing, Sandra.”

……After that morning, Alan completely disappeared. Like a lizard that cut its tail and ran away.

“Where did he go, leaving this behind…….”

I touched the smooth glossy bina and murmured. It was sudden that I remembered the touch of a cool finger combing my hair.

When his fingertips gently touched the very tense back of my neck…….

—You are pretty, Melissa.

My face was heated up again. It was because I remembered the reason why I had to let my hair down  again soon after he put it up.

It was now automatic that everything that happened immediately after that was repeated in my head. How many times am I rewinding……

Even more so because Alan didn’t come back, but it was indeed a night that could be mistaken for a dream. Nevertheless, the reason why I blush after realizing that it real  is that the memories of the night remained vivid. I wouldn’t  call this a dream.

What I vividly remember is, for example, how nicely his eyebrows were frowned while looking down at me, how beautiful his ribs had a wave pattern, and the bottom…….

“……I must be crazy.”

After engraving all the parts I didn’t know on my eyes, hands, skin and lips, I couldn’t go back before that. I even thought that the longing until now was not longing.

It was so painful that I wanted to reach him right away, but I couldn’t. I never thought I’d know how terrible my patience was.

It was bearable so far, though. Thanks to this transparent and beautiful perfume bottle.

Alan’s perfume on my wrist makes me feel a little better. In the deep night, it feels like walking through a fog into a rose garden in a dream. Even if I close my eyes, I think I can find him only with the scent.

Actually, all I got from Alan that day was a bouquet of flowers and a Bina. I asked Sandra to bring this perfume from his room. Of course, he gave it to me as a gift, but he pretended that he had left it behind.

It’s been quite some time already, but it was none other than Alan who told me to tell him anything I needed. So I guess it’s okay.

Oh, the reason why Sandra didn’t doubt me at all…… Early that morning, after Alan and I fell asleep together in the dark air, I opened my eyes when the bright morning sun stretched out like cheese through the window.

And he took me to my room in the annex. In his own arms…….

As we passed through the corridor, we encountered countless servants. Instead of letting me down, Alan walked more leisurely, even though I struggled with my legs as I blushed, avoiding their gazes. He even joked that it was his first time leaving the office this late.

Sandra, who must have been nervous when she heard that I hadn’t come back, hardened as soon as she saw me in Alan’s arms. I must have been messy, but Alan, who put me down, kissed me on the cheek saying he would go, so the opportunity for a slight excuse disappeared.

When I went into the bathroom with a red face and took off my clothes in front of the mirror…… I was so surprised that I almost fell down. Was it what Sandra, who had brought bath water, felt when she found out about it?

I was very embarrassed at the time because I was not immune to shame, but I still didn’t hate this. I would occasionally stroke the red mark and return to the moment his lips touched.  A little wait became bearable.

But Alan didn’t come back even when  they all faded away.