Chapter 114: He’s my boyfriend
Alaric
My brain stalled. My eyes went wide, and before I could even attempt to formulate a coherent thought, my heart began to hammer violently against my ribs.
"I..." I opened my mouth, but the words died in my throat, resulting in another pathetic stutter.
"My family is incredibly conservative," Nico’s warning from the night at my place echoed fiercely in my mind.
The last thing I wanted was to accidentally out him to his family, especially to an uncle who radiated this much power. Coming out was a massive, life-altering deal, and even within the few hours I had spent under this roof, I could tell this family was a viper’s nest.
There was a sickening undertone of hostility here; ever since we arrived, I had noticed how seamlessly the relatives antagonized, judged, and undermined one another under the guise of polite tradition.
Anderson must have caught the panic in my prolonged silence. He raised his hands in a reassuring, defensive gesture, letting out a soft laugh.
"Relax, Alaric. I’m not going to interrogate you any further, especially since you look like you’re about to pass out from blood loss," he said smoothly. He raised his left hand, turning it slightly so the hallway light caught the brilliant flash of a thick, diamond-encrusted wedding band. "You should know that I have absolutely nothing against it. After all, I am happily married to a man myself."
My jaw dropped. I stared at his hand, then back up to his face, completely stunned. Why was he telling me this? Did he think I was judging him, or did he just see through my terrified attempt at a cover-up?
Regardless of his motives, shock tore through me. I never would have expected a man like him to exist, let alone thrive, in a family that prided itself on strict, archaic conservatism.
"I know what you’re thinking," Anderson said, reading my expression flawlessly as he let out a subtle sigh. "How am I accepted while being married to a man? The truth is, they might have begrudgingly accepted me because of my position, but they still treat my husband like an outsider. But frankly, who cares? The world should have evolved past the point of judging people for who they love. Besides, my husband has a habit of making himself impossible to ignore, so he manages to get along with the rest of the family just fine."
I opened my mouth, genuinely wanting to ask how they had managed to survive the family scrutiny, but before the question could form, we reached the massive, double-carved doors of the formal dining hall.
A pair of perfectly uniform servants pushed the doors open from the inside, and the sheer scale of the room hit me like a physical wall.
The dining table was staggering. It was an expanse of polished dark wood that easily accommodated nearly twenty seats.
Almost every single chair was occupied by a dense arrangement of husbands, wives, and children of varying ages, all dressed in immaculate formal attire. Near the center of the table, Sophia was seated rigidly next to Annie, who was talking a mile a minute, gesturing wildly as she doted on her.
But as my eyes scanned the crowd, there was absolutely no sign of Nico.
Anderson walked over to his designated place near the head of the table and casually pointed to the empty chair directly beside his. I moved stiffly, sliding into the seat. Directly across from me sat the formidable grandfather, perched at the absolute edge of his head chair like an ancient king on a throne. And right next to me sat one noticeably empty chair.
That must be Nico’s, I realized, my chest tightening slightly at the vacant space.
The rest of the table didn’t even grant me a passing glance. They carried on their loud, overlapping conversations in a sharp mix of Korean and Japanese. Even though I could pick up a few fragmented words and phrases here and there, the clannish nature of their talk made it clear I wasn’t welcome to join. I kept my head down, focusing entirely on the plate in front of me.
The servants began laying down the main course—a thick, perfectly seared artisanal steak, drizzled with a rich, glistening reduction that caught the light, serving up an aroma that should have made me starving.
But as I picked up my fork, a sudden, suffocating sensation gripped my chest.
I felt two distinct, incredibly intense glares burning holes straight through me. The first came from the piercing, unblinking brown eyes of Nico’s grandfather at the head of the table. The second, far more hostile gaze belonged to a middle-aged Korean man sitting directly opposite me. He looked to be in his early forties, with a sharp, rigid jawline and the exact same prominent, severe brown eyes as the grandfather. A splitting image.
"So," the man opposite me suddenly demanded, his English cutting sharply through the ambient chatter of the room. His tone was laced with a cold, condescending harshness that made it clear he viewed my presence as an insult. "What exactly are you to Seo-jun? His little friend?"
I froze, my fingers tightening around the silver handle of my fork. I raised my head to look at him, a sudden wave of dark realization washing over me as his features clicked into place.
It was him. This was the exact man whose voice had echoed into the living room right before Nico had suffered his panic attack.
"I have seen your face on the television during his races," the man continued, his eyes narrowing to cruel slits as he leaned forward. "You are his rival. So I am deeply surprised to find you sitting at our private estate. I will ask you again—what are you to him?"
The interrogation felt like a physical weight squeezing the breath right out of my lungs.
Why was he targeting me like this? Why was my heart suddenly racing at a dangerous speed? I forced a deep, steadying breath through my nose, desperately trying to look away and pretend his suffocating glare wasn’t affecting me, but before I could think of a safe response, the woman sitting next to him chimed in.
"Why is he just staring at you like that without answering?" she asked her husband in sharp Korean, before turning her gaze to me, switching to a biting, fluent English. "Hey, boy. You were asked a direct question. Isn’t it only normal that you show proper respect and reply to your elders?"
Her sharp, ringing words instantly killed the surrounding conversations. The entire dining hall went dead silent, and nearly twenty pairs of eyes snapped directly toward my position at the table.
My heart pounded violently against my ribs, the pressure of their collective judgment making the air in the room feel dangerously thin. I shot a desperate glance toward Sophia, who looked entirely clueless and completely out of her depth, offering me nothing but a helpless, pitying look.
I flicked my eyes toward Annie, and the moment she saw me struggling, she immediately lunged across the conversational line to defend me.
"Oh, he is just a very dear friend of Seo-jun’s!" Annie intervened, her voice carrying a sweet, forced cheerfulness as she smiled brightly at the table. "Seo-jun used to watch all of his races years ago, before he even became a professional driver himself. Alaric is his idol!"
His idol? I almost grimaced. I wish. There was absolutely no universe in which that annoying, arrogant pest ever viewed me as an idol.
"Then why on earth is he present tonight?" the man opposite me persisted, completely ignoring Annie’s attempt to smooth things over. His voice grew louder, cutting off any chance of escape. "This is a strictly private family event. It doesn’t matter if he is a simple friend. Only blood family and official partners are permitted to sit at this table."
A heavy silence descended on the room. I felt entirely cornered, my throat completely dry as I opened my mouth to force out an excuse, any at all.
But before a single word could leave my lips, the heavy wooden doors of the dining hall violently burst open, slamming against the walls with a resounding echo.
A familiar, fiercely arrogant voice sliced through the suffocating tension of the room, dripping with absolute defiance.
"That’s because Alaric isn’t just my friend," Nico stated, stepping into the light of the dining hall with an unbothered smirk. "He’s my boyfriend."
