Chapter 410: How to Fail at Romance Across Multiple Lifetimes
The man Zhou Ruyan had been silently dissing was not in a good state.
Clyde had been in conflict these past few days. On the outside, he seemed the same, composed and disciplined.
But when he was alone, his mask cracked. He would sit for hours in a daze. His hands often hung loosely between his knees, his head bowed, his blond hair falling forward to shadow his eyes. Sometimes, he would raise his hand and touch his lips, his chest rising and falling unevenly.
He had been sorting through all of his memories that had returned to him. Lifetimes upon lifetimes. Losses, regrets, fleeting moments of happiness that ended too quickly. He had thought he had already grown numb to them, but there was one thing that shook him the most.
It wasn’t the repeated late arrivals. Not the countless times he reached Micah too late, always losing him. No.. It was their damned first kiss!
He remembered that after the car accident, he had been half out of his senses, his head filled with nothing but a single thought: find Micah. His body at that time wasn’t his own, it was driven by and under the control of his past self. All of those longings and regrets made him move. When he saw Micah, when those hazel eyes came into view, all of that desperation had erupted. He had grabbed him and kissed him like a beast.
It was their first kiss through those lifetimes. And he ruined it by how forceful he was. He had kissed him roughly, not the kind of kiss one gave someone they treasured, but the kind that stole, that demanded. And then, as though that wasn’t enough, he had forgotten about it afterwards.
Clyde let out a humourless laugh and ran a hand over his face, his fingers dragging slowly across his lips.
No wonder Micah had been so furious with him that day.
He couldn’t just come out and say sorry to Micah. He felt ashamed by his own behaviour. So each night, when Micah called, he found himself staring at the screen, staring at those lips moving as the boy rambled about his day. He would imagine them again beneath his own, softer this time. His throat tightened, and he would lower his gaze, too ashamed to meet his gaze,
Micah would keep talking, unaware, and Clyde would sit in silence. And when the call ended, he had not said a single word of love, not even a small sweet thing. Totally hopeless.
It was bad enough that he realised the two of them had never once been together before this lifetime. Not once had Micah been his. They weren’t really destined, were they?
The thought pierced his heart.
Perhaps Master had known it from the start. He was never meant to have Micah.
From the start, he was just a side character, someone to never receive Micah’s love. A man born to stand against Darcy. A villain helplessly in love with the foolish fake heir, fated to fight against the real young master. His role was to fight, to oppose, and in the end, to fall.
And the result? Those four scum enjoy being with Micah.
In their first life, his role had ended with him protecting Micah. He had done all that silently, fighting enemies in the shadows, and in the end, standing against Darcy when the boy had turned blackened and cruel. And still Micah had looked at him with fear. The boy always feared him. Never looked at his way. What a pitiful role he had.
But what was strange was why Micah’s role changed after that first life? From being the darling of all to dying alone?
Was it his own influence? Or Darcy? Or Micah, himself, who changed the storyline?
Clyde didn’t know. But what was obvious was that neither Darcy nor Micah in this lifetime had any good feeling toward those four. That was a relief. Honestly.
Clyde’s feelings toward Darcy were complicated. In their first life, they had killed each other. But the lifetimes that followed, their paths had shifted. They never went against one another again.
So what was Darcy now? An enemy? A rival? Should he categorise Darcy as dangerous to Micah or not?
The question lingered.
In the meantime, his attention had been on the Ramsy family. He had been keeping a close eye on them these past few days. But they were too quiet. There was no news.
And Darcy seemed to be unaware too. He showed no signs of knowing anything yet. What were they doing? Didn’t Micah say his grandpa was supposed to inform his family?
Did something happen?
Should he go see Albert Ramsy? Step in and offer help?
Would he reject him, saying it was their own family problem?
Clyde didn’t know. He pinched the bridge of his nose. He wanted to steal Micah and ran away. To vanish with him to someplace far, far away where none of them could reach. Why would Micah deal with all of these schemes and secrets? What if the world took him away from him again?
His heart ached every time he remembered how miserable Micah lived after the truth came out.
But this time it seemed different. As though everything was meant to return to Darcy, the rightful heir. Without those four’s involvement, Micah could remain simply friends with Darcy. There were those four scum’s fault that those two went against each other. Their meddling. Their deceiving. Their selfishness.
Micah had been right. They should get rid of those four.
Clyde stood up and walked toward the window. He stood behind the curtain and gazed at the figure on the balcony. Even though he promised himself not to show himself to Micah, his heart couldn’t bear being separated from him. All those suppressed longings and yearnings for Micah... had erupted like a volcano.
The moment his state had been stabilised, he had flown to this town, rented a villa near them and looked at Micah from the shadows. Like some pitiful stalker.