Chapter Text
ㅡCold dewy air escaped the young man's lips when he firmly stepped across the sire's courtyard. Frozen snow crunched under his finely polished black congress shoes and his teeth clattered even though his body was swathed in several layers of warm clothing. When white started falling from heaven yet again, he scrunched his nose and let his gaze zoom in on the maleficent gate that held on to what was worth a gentleman's home. Burying his hands deeper into his pockets, the young man increased his crunchy footsteps rather than spend more than needed time out here in the gold, empty landscapes in the outcasts of London, England.
Drawing in on the huge gate, a disoriented guarding young male hurried out from the small shelter he had been priced, to tear the old barrier open. The servant bowed deeply for the young man, not once glancing up from the ground that his shaking frame was scurrying down towards in pure fright. Not with respect. The young man mumbled a small acknowledgment while passing. He ignored the twist of erroneous feelings in his stomach.
Continuing down the wide trail up to the mansion, snow was piling along the way, showing off poor men's hard work of removing the white mass in order to clear the path. The young man wasn't surprised at all. Quickly he stepped up the slippy stairs, now feeling a numbness settling in his feet before he reached a gloved hand out for the steel-cold door handle. The grand wood piece went open with only a faint screeching sound coming from its hinges, and the gentleman stepped indoors the warm walls of the victorian building. Maids circled him in the front hall as they helped the young man out of his outerwear and brought it with them. Warm settled into his red cheeks and made them sting in weird contrast to his numb lips.
"Young master, thee may meet lord Harvey in the dining room, per sir's order's," one of the maids spoke, her hands gathered in front of her body as she held her head low.
The young man was taking off his gloves with manners and gently blowing at his itching hands, handing the black leathers onto someone who happened to reach for the item. He nodded his head, thanking her for the piece of information before proceeding deeper into the heart of the building. The smell of dinner from the kitchen made its welcome when he passed the area before stepping through a couple of door frames until he was met with a flaunting feast of a table.
The only man sitting by the furniture stared up at the young man, a dour smile parting his face.
"Son, welcome home! I have awaited you," the man said against his gritted teeth, a voice there was latched with pure hatred and the tint of a thick British accent.
Seonghwa was used to it anyway - not a single astounding reaction came from him as he took a seat across from the older male, supposedly his father, who hadn't been waiting any bit on him, as it already seemed like he was past his second plate of goods. The young man scoffed quietly under his breath. For a minute or two, he spent observing how the man before him consumed yet another filled plate with food. Seonghwa's appetite dropped instantly. Then a servant stepped forward and filled the plate for him.
"How has their day been, sire?" Seonghwa asked while dragging his fork around in his food absently. He wished to be dismissed from the table already by now.
Plotting his irky eyes down at the young man, sir Harvey let out a hum in somehow satisfaction.
"Perfect, absolutely perfect! Everything is going smoothly and sales of goods from the rich lands are rising briskly. I tell you, when those bad weathers vanish we will leave the empire yet again!"
Looking down at his white rice, Seonghwa simply nodded in agreement with his father.
"Sure, sire."
The words rolled off his tongue with the intonation, that he so much despised.
Being a busy businessman on the eastern side of the world, his father Jonathan Scott Harvey was known to be traveling a lot overseas. Most of the time, he wasn't even home, lacking the fatherly figure he should have been to Seonghwa. But money before family. After all, that was how Seonghwa suddenly was a block around his father's leg - the result of getting a beautiful young Korean woman pregnant by accident on one of his business travels to the eastern waters. First, when Seonghwa was five, his father decided to take the little boy with him to England when it suddenly dawned on him how he still hadn't any heir to all his business. And unfortunately, was Seonghwa the only child he had of his own flesh and blood.
Seonghwa had learned to accept it - not everyone would be the number one choice, and not minding it seemed to work perfectly in order to keep sanity in place.
The young man felt eyes digging down into his fair skin, and he slowly pulled his courtesy up again.
"Eat. Your thin form creates talks places it shouldn't. I won't tolerate this," sir Harvey ordered with his arms laying crossed over his full chest.
Seonghwa was looking nothing like his father's sculpted mass-body, only the height. Reasons weren't that much the genes, instead, the young man was aware of his low rate of interest in taking care of his own health. When trailing through the town, his eyes never succeed in failing to see the huge gap between impoverished and wealthy. The look in their pitiful painfully pleading eyes; enough to make the rich scurry away before they were smitten with the disease that applies to the difference between life and death, all counting off hard work. No posh people wanted their honored hands dirty. Except for the young Harvey heir - he was feeling terrible mistaken in this world.
Roaming from nasty corners, a cold feeling enveloped him in a sinister war of discomfort, almost like the winter winds in the wild, and Seonghwa finally started tasting the first bite when he felt enough bothered with the hawk eyes digging into his existence. Regardless of the time it had laid still on his plate, he still burned the tip of his tongue; let it be the food was too hot, or the thereafter sentence that was said by the lonely table.
"You look the most handsome'st on a winter day, son."
Sir Harvey was a confident man. He never doubted his own capabilities, like a sun that never ended shining with its boldness. But Seonghwa had never extracted that ability, not that it ever was sufficient to make him frail or feeble - but at that moment he sat across from the said assertive male, he was astonished in a way that felt wrong. Carefully, the young Harvey heir let his hand that clutched around his fork sink to the table's surface while he looked up at sir Harvey. A bitter taste spread around in his mouth, he needed something to wash it clean with. Undoubtedly his father was not making a law of relocation out of the beforehand suggest, he could tell from the smug smile that coated sir Harvey's lips with a layer of toxins. His hands were folded neatly above his elbows that rested on the table and he cocked his head to the side when Seonghwa's wide eyes fell upon him. Sir Harvey chuckled breathily before he squinted his eyes like a sly serpin and downed his wine in one go with a sole subsequently cluttering.
Cold air wrapped itself around him, having higher might playing him like a silly rag doll that was tossed to the side when finished off. The hope in his eyes withered with the disappointment that replaced the warm blow of spring when his father left the table to Seonghwa all by himself. The son had yet to defeat the puppet master, but when God was laying a hand over you, nay was there to let tricks unfold. The young man tightened his jaw as his gaze was left to stare into the empty colored wall of a home that should have been warm.
Albeit every good deed he lived on, the attention would never be more than a merely whispered remark, nonheard. Seonghwa's thoughts were torn apart when he remembered how he was supposed to stay present in the company of people who awaited the finish of his meal.
"Sir, are thee-"
He felt persistent bad for standing up and erupting all hard work there had been done here, but his sentience felt as overflowing the levees that kept him trapped in what he was supposed to do.
"I am thanking for the dinner, ma'am, please have a good night," the young man saluted politely before taking his leave out of the room.
That vile taste still sheathed around his whole being, and he must pray for God to have mercy on his distasteful notion. He was not worth this life.
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