Eternal Love (MewGulf AU)

🌞Chapter 24🌻

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Aisha returned, accompanied by the scent of coffee. Mew waited for her to set the cups on the table before addressing her.

"I'm sorry, but could you leave us alone?"

It was impossible to tell what she thought of his request, but she expressed not a word of it. She went silently back to the other room.

The uncomfortable atmosphere returned as soon as she left.

The tension was unbeatable. Gulf took a quick breath and then began, not hiding the effort it took to speak.

"I'd like to know why I'm here. It's been six years since I last heard from you. I thought you'd forgotten all about me. I had finally given up."

He was careful to avoid complaining, but a note of blame crept into his voice anyway. He mentally kicked himself.

Mew hadn't told him anything, but he had to admit that that was understandable. What reason could a man, going home to become king and receive a bride, have for staying in touch with his old lover?

Gulf tried to think the problem out calmly. If it had just been a sexual whim, Mew didn't have to search him out. If Mew wanted to reminisce about the good old days, he didn't have to go so far as to kidnap him.

Maybe Mew wanted to tell him face to face that it was over---but all he could say about that idea was that it was latently ridiculous.

"I couldn't..." Mew cut himself off, a pained expression on his face. Deep wrinkles creased his brow before the next words came out in a grave tone. "I couldn't contact you. The internal affairs of Madina weren't exactly stable these last six years. The absolute ruler fell ill, and I was called back. As the crown prince, I had to take on my father's responsibilities. It was my opportunity to eventually be crowned. But since my mother was English, my relatives started arguing that I wasn't fit to be the next king---AA, who's second in line for the throne, his brother JA, and many others. On the surface, Madina was just as prosperous country as ever, but behind closed doors, it was broken into tense factions. What do you think would have happened if I'd contacted you then?"

Gulf was silent.

If someone had questioned Mew's relationship with Gulf, Mew might have lost his claim to the position of crown prince. It would become a huge scandal, and Gulf's peaceful life probably would have been disrupted too.

"So the story that you were going to get married soon was just a tactic?" Gulf asked.

He had seen Mew's fiancee, Yaya Urassaya, on the news. The media had spoken of her as the next queen of Madina. That was six years ago, right after Mew had returned home. Yaya had been 13 at that time, but she had obviously been a bright, beautiful young girl. She must be an amazing woman now.

"I don't understand why you need to dredge up the past," he added.

Mew's history with him was nothing more than a stain on his reputation. It hadn't caused him any trouble before because he hadn't contacted Gulf then.

Mew forced a smile that got no further than his lips. Gulf's stomach turned at the sight of the twisted smile.

"I promised I would come back for you," Mew replied.

How often had Gulf heard this?

"Not that again." He ran a hand through his hair, trying to look especially ambivalent. "I'd forgotten all about that promise myself. It's too late."

Mew's smile changed into one of self-derision.

Gulf's heart caught at the sight of it. He wanted to put an end to this, to insist that he was finished with the past. But seeing Mew again had made him keenly aware that he was lying to himself. It was only through his resistance that he had managed to preserve his self-control.

"I would have accepted it if you had gotten married and made a life for yourself," Mew said suddenly. "I would have been happy for you if you'd had a family. But you were alone. You hadn't even had a lover in six years."

There was no use asking how Mew knew that. Gulf was upset enough just by knowing that the man knew so much about the last six years of his life.

"So you felt sorry for me?" he asked quickly, cutting Mew off. He was afraid to hear everything that the man was going to say, so he tossed out a quick conclusion before Mew could. "Or did you think that I was alone because of you? If so, you thought wrong."

How could he have had a lover? He had been unconsciously comparing everyone he met to Mew, and they had all seemed so tedious after this man.

Mew was confident and assertive, unsatisfied if he couldn't make every situation black and white. Even his eccentricities were charming. The memories Gulf had made with Mew were still precious to him. It was only one short year, but he had learned more from Mew than he ever had from anyone else.

"All right," Mew admitted. "It's my fault that you're acting this way."

Gulf's heart began to throb. His old wounds were weeping blood. He would do anything that Mew wanted of him. The words even crept into his throat.

"You mean because you dressed me in wonen's clothes and stuck me in the women's quarters of your father's palace?"

He knew it was pointless. He could let his emotions lead him as long as they were just talking. But what then? If he kept acting impulsively, he would be the one who regret it, not Mew.

"I still haven't decided what I should do, or what I'd like to do," Mew said. "So I can't let you go yet." He lowered his eyes.

The shadows obscuring Mew's eyes, which were usually held high with a heroic power, threw Gulf's heart into turmoil.

"You should marry your fiancee and let me go back home," he said, keeping careful watch over his emotions so that nothing would complicate things further and cause his voice to waver. He didn't let even a hint of his pain show on his face. That was the benefit of six years of suffering.

"Is that what you want?" Mew's sharp eyes fell on him.

"Of course it is." Gulf let a smile play across his lips, never faltering.

What else could he say, for his sake or Mew's? He repeated this over and over again in his mind to hold back the swirling cascade of emotions.

Mew stood up silently.

"I need time," he said brusquely, leaving Gulf with something very different than what he had hoped to hear.

"What does that mean?" Gulf asked.

Without looking at him, the other man walked toward the door. He refused to turn around even after Gulf called out to him.

"What it means..." Mew told him in an unwavering voice just before he opened the door, "is that I still love you."

An electric shock ran from Gulf's heart to the tips of his fingers. Not from joy, but from surprise.

This was the cruelest thing Mew could have possibly said. It was bad enough for Gulf when he had kept the flame of their romance burning secretly inside himself. But now that he knew Mew felt the same, he felt as if he could no longer hate the man or attack him. Who could he blame now? He had used the hatred he felt at being betrayed to rebuild his life.

Even if they do love each other, Gulf didn't want the other man to call it that. He didn't want to be with Mew.

Mew left the room and closed the door.

Gulf bit his lip and threw himself down on the table.

"Why...why would he say that?" he cried out. "What does that accomplish...telling me that?"

The string of his nerves, which had so far been stretched to its limits, had been snapped in half by Mew's confession. The emotions he had been fighting back flowed up and he thought he might scream from the intensity of them.

His body was being torn again, by two warring emotions---the feeling of longing to be at Mew's side and the feeling of self-control telling him to get away from the man.

The devastating emotions welling up inside him make it impossible for him to move for a long time.

TBC