Leave Me Alone, Big Brothers! [BL]-Chapter 83: Just Once...

Chapter 83: Just Once...
Alexander asked Huan to come into the room. He sat on the leather sofa.
For several minutes, he was busy with his cell phone. He didn’t look at Huan. He stared at the screen, his thumb unmoving. Huan’s resignation letter was very professional. He read it over and over but still didn’t understand the reason, no matter how many times his eyes traced the same lines.
Why?
"Sit down," Alexander commanded. His voice was steady, but there was a hollow resonance to it, like a sound echoing through an empty hall.
Huan didn’t sit. He remained standing beside the sofa table, his posture as perfect as it had been for years. He didn’t say anything, nor did he look at his master’s expression. His breathing was controlled, but only barely.
"Why?" Alexander asked finally. "Is it about money? Do you need a raise? Or has another firm approached you? Tell me the number, Huan. I’ll double it."
"No," Huan said softly. "I’m going back to my village. I’ve saved enough over the years to live comfortably. I don’t need a raise, Alex."
Alexander finally looked up. His eyes were bloodshot, the pride in them battling a sudden, sharp fear he hadn’t expected. "Your village? You haven’t been there in twelve years. You don’t have anyone left there. You’ll go crazy in a week. You’re like me, you don’t know how to exist without work."
"I don’t know how to exist as
this
," Huan countered, gesturing vaguely between them. "I’m a bodyguard who puts his own body in the line of fire, but I’m also the man you discard whenever you feel you no longer need me. I’m an aide who handles your needs, but I’m not allowed to share your burden."
Alexander took a breath, unconsciously gripping the edge of the sofa. "You’re doing this because of the room? Because I didn’t let you sleep here? Huan, don’t be a child. I was trying to—"
"I’m not a child," Huan interrupted, his voice devoid of anger, replaced by a devastating weariness. "I’m unqualified anymore. I haven’t been doing what I should have been doing since our work contract began. A professional shouldn’t do that. And..."
Huan continued, his voice quieter now, "I’ve let personal feelings rot my judgment. Every time you push me away to prove you’re ’strong,’ it makes me sick. I don’t know what I am in your life, Alex. Am I a partner? A servant? A convenience? It’s confusing me. I can’t work well under those circumstances."
The room went silent. Alexander felt the air leave his lungs. He wanted to scream that Huan was his everything, his anchor, the only one who could hold his heart steady. But his pride, his assumptions, and the walls he had built kept the words locked behind his teeth, suffocating him.
To admit he needed Huan was to admit he was vulnerable.
"You want to avoid me," Alexander said, his voice dropping to a low, pained rasp.
"I want to fix my heart. Truly, I deserve to be loved properly,
right
?" Huan replied. "And I can’t do that while I’m watching you from five paces behind."
Alexander stared at him for a long time. He saw the resolve in the set of Huan’s shoulders, the quiet finality that terrified him. He realized, with a sickening jolt, that this wasn’t a negotiation. It was an ending.
"Have you thought this through?"
Huan nodded, even though his chest was pounding. He still couldn’t believe he had said all this aloud. His heart wasn’t ready. He didn’t know how to face his days without Alexander, or how to relearn who he was without orbiting that man’s life.
"I’ve thought it through."
Huan desperately hoped, just once, that the man would fight for him, put his ego aside. Say that he loved him, that he didn’t want to lose him, that he thought of him as something,
anything
, more than a bodyguard or a tool.
Just once.
If Alexander said just one word asking him to stay, he would stay.
Huan looked down, feeling his hands tremble. His chest was pounding painfully hard. He was making a life-and-death bet for himself, gambling everything on silence breaking.
Please...
Alexander took another breath. The man’s face looked weary, older than it had moments before.
"Fine," Alexander said. The word tasted like ash.
Huan felt his shoulders slump. He laughed inwardly. What did he expect from Alexander? The man had no heart, at least, not one he was willing to give.
"Teach Jack how to handle your workload. I want the transition to be seamless. I won’t have my family’s security compromised because you’ve... lost your nerve."
Huan flinched at the word
nerve
, but he simply bowed. "I will ensure he is ready by the end of the month."
Alexander stood up. The distance between them was only a few feet, but it felt like a canyon. He stepped closer, the familiar scent of Huan’s cologne making his chest ache, memories crashing into him without mercy.
Huan kept his head down. He couldn’t think of anything at that moment. Alexander was his world, and he had lost his world right then.
He was startled when Alexander stepped toward him.
He was even more startled when the man tried to reach out, his arms beginning to rise for a hug, a rare, desperate gesture from a man trying to hold onto what little he had left.
Huan stood frozen, but his body’s reaction surprised him.
He stepped back.
The movement was small, his hands trembling. He lowered his gaze, refusing the contact.
Alexander’s hands froze in mid-air. A flicker of raw, naked hurt crossed his face before he masked it with coldness. "You won’t let me hold you?"
"Don’t you understand? It’s over, Alexander," Huan whispered, his eyes fixed on the floor. "You can’t keep the parts of me you like and throw away the rest."
Huan turned and walked out of the room, the door clicking shut with a finality that echoed through the empty suite.
Alexander stood alone in the center of the room, one of the most powerful men in the country, realizing he had finally achieved what he always feared:
He was completely, utterly alone
again