Chapter 2487: [Bonus] Own Person

[Bonus chappy thanks to Mr. Ham <3 (2/6)

Leonel sat on a stone in silence, looking out into the ocean. Every part of Anastasia's world-well, almost all of it-was absolutely beautiful. But he wasn't able to enjoy the beauty of it at all in this moment.

It wasn't like he wanted to have conflict with Aina's father, it was just that he couldn't see eye to eye with the man. It only made it worse that it was almost impossible to win an argument against Leonel. By the time you thought of one rebuttal, he had had a thousand.

It was hard to see how that could be a problem with Leonel, but when an argument was so one-sided, and yet the other party still felt like they were in the right, it made it impossible to come to a true common ground.

The only way would be if Leonel purposely held back and allowed Aina's father some concessions, but he didn't want to do that. Maybe that was a hint of his selfishness coming up, maybe it was his unwillingness to lose, but he truly meant those words he said to Aina.

He was willing to lay down and take a loss to her, but not for anyone else.

Leonel knew there wasn't really anyone wrong in this situation.

He felt that he was still rightfully mad at Aina back then. She didn't like his reckless actions, but he always had 100% confidence in himself. The idea that his woman wouldn't have the same unfettered belief in him not only hurt his own ego, but something deeper than that.

It had taken him a long time to understand what really bothered him about that moment back then, but as he came to understand more about himself, the more clarity he had about that day.

He had always imagined his relationship with Aina to be some perfect fairy tale. Or maybe it was that he always had an ideal of her in his mind, an ideal that shattered that day he watched her kill someone for the first time.

His feelings for Aina came from a power beyond him, probably much like his self-confidence. In the beginning, he didn't even really know why he liked her, so he filled in the gaps with fantasies instead.

He thought he liked her docile and soft personality, but how she could also get serious when she needed to, how smart she was at the same time. He felt that she was the kind of quiet, housewife sort of woman, one that would always be by his side to silently support him.

That was why he felt so bad when she never came to his game. That was why he felt so lost when she didn't even look back at him when they almost lost their lives to those Invalids when the Metamorphosis just began.

The Aina he had constructed in his mind wasn't acting the way he fantasized about, and the cognitive dissonance ripped him apart.

But then he began to learn more about Aina, the true Aina.

She was battle-hungry and a true warrior, but she could also be reserved and exceedingly shy. She was a fierce competitor, and yet she loved to be dominated by him.

She was a complex person much like everyone else was, but that fantasy was stuck in his mind.

She was his ideal, the perfect woman, the only woman that could possibly gain his interest out of all the myriad of women out there. So...

How dare she not trust him? How dare she not lean on him? How dare she try to be her own person?

Leonel could feel that sudden turn of rage in him. It wasn't coming from his current self, but rather from a memory.

She had done it again, gone off and not trusted him. But this time, rather than it ending in separation and cruel words on his part, it ended in her death.

She should have trusted him back then as well. When the Shadow Tail appeared, the first thought in her mind should have been to come to his side.

They were two completely separate situations, and yet their root cause was the same...

She hadn't trusted him.

And that was why it was all so complex.

He could feel Aina changing. He could feel that her trust in him was becoming just as unconditional as her love, it may even have very well reached that point already.

But the context behind his unhappiness, the fact that he hadn't even known who she truly was, the fact he tried to fill in so much of her personality on his own as though she wasn't her own person... that made him wrong as well.

And then there was her father, who had no obligation to him at all. He was a father, of course his allegiances would be to his daughter and her happiness. What could he even say about that?

And all of that led to this moment, a situation where two men refused to back down and the lives of tens of thousands were in the balance as a result.

Leonel continued to stare out into the ocean, not moving.

Being smart enough to figure something out was one matter. There were plenty of people who knew that they had flaws, but that didn't mean that dealing with them came with any sort of ease. Leonel just happened to be in a very far-off percentile in the case.

A hand suddenly pressed down on Leonel's head and ruffled his hair wildly.

"You're not very good at sneaking around," Leonel muttered. He didn't need to look to know it was James.

"Sneaking around? I would never. How could I bear to hide this handsome mug of mine?"

"Handsome my ass."

"Hey, hey, we can't all be shameless enough to dye our hair purple. Even the contacts, man? Have some shame."

"This hair and these eyes are just as real as the money you spent on your last whore."

James laughed into the skies. "If you pay for them, you won't have father-in-law drama to deal with."

He put up an energy barrier the moment he finished speaking. Good thing too, because Leonel's elbow stopped right above his crotch.