Episode 3

The sudden outburst of anger made him throw an owl he had on his desk against the bookcase, sending pieces scattering across the floor. He let out a cry of frustration and slammed his hand against the desk. If it weren't for the fact that his grandfather had sent him to that place, he definitely wouldn't have let that fox get within a centimeter of Carlo.

"Oops, I think I came at a bad time." Adrien turned his gaze towards the entrance, his face relaxing slightly when he met Cedric's worried face. The man slowly pushed the door open and entered with two coffees in hand. "Here, maybe this will help you relax a bit."

Adrien walked towards him and carefully took the coffee. "Thank you, I'll need it."

"How is it?" Cedric asked after watching him take a sip, smiling contentedly when Adrien nodded, approving of the taste.

"By the way, you said you'd be busy today, what are you doing here?" he asked as he invited him to sit in the small living room in the office.

"Can't I just come by because I miss my friend?" he asked playfully, and Adrien smiled. "Actually, I came because I wanted to talk to you about some very profitable business in Italy, but," Cedric paused and looked at the mess on the other side, "I see I came at a bad time."

"A problem with a trivial matter in Italy, that's all." He tried to downplay it, but the tension in his jaw and the force he used to grip the coffee cup said otherwise.

"I won't ask, but remember you can always tell me anything." Cedric leaned in slightly, and setting his coffee cup aside, he took both of Adrien's hands and rubbed his thumbs over them.

"Yes, I know. Thank you very much, Cedric."

Cedric settled back into his seat and continued chatting with him about trivial matters. Before, Adrien would tell him everything, no matter how insignificant it seemed, however, he didn't expect them to go back to the way they were after all these years either. He knew that for both of them to have the same trust as in the past, they had to make up for lost time.

...----------------...

In the blink of an eye, another month had passed. Adrien was getting more and more agitated each day, and his bad mood was starting to affect his work. Even his grandfather had reprimanded him and demanded that he keep his personal affairs out of business.

He had tried, God knows he tried to, he tried so hard to ignore the fact that Carlo Mancini seemed to want nothing to do with him. Sure, he was the first to ignore him and do a bunch of stupid things to make him jealous, but Carlo didn't even want him as a friend, and now he was paying the price for ignoring him first.

For over a month, Carlo hadn't even contacted him by mistake. The desperation to hear from him was killing him, yet Carlo had even blocked him. He tried calling him from a different number, but whenever he heard his voice, he would immediately hang up.

He really wanted to get rid of his presence.

Adrien slumped back in the red leather armchair he was sitting in. The waiter set down a cut crystal glass, put a few ice cubes in it, and poured in some top-shelf rum.

"Leave the bottle and go," Adrien ordered listlessly. The waiter nodded, placed the bottle of rum on the glass table, and left the private room.

Adrien got up lazily and drank the rum from the glass in one gulp, pouring himself more and repeating the same process until the bottle was halfway empty.

He hated feeling so damn insecure. The pictures of that nurse and Carlo kept coming, the two of them seemed to have a special connection, and in the short time he'd been gone, that girl had completely replaced him.

Tears welled up in his eyes as the bottle of rum continued to dwindle at an alarming rate. His pride had gotten the better of him or Carlo was simply taking the opportunity to make it clear to him what he already knew: that he didn't love him.

It was more than obvious, but he was clinging to that one-sided relationship so tightly that the chains had embedded themselves in his hands and it was impossible to let go.

"Hey, what's wrong?" his friend's familiar voice made him turn his head. Cedric took the bottle from his hand and set it on the glass table. He tenderly cupped Adrien's face in both hands and gently wiped the tears from his cheeks with his thumbs.

Adrien blinked a couple of times and his blurry vision cleared. He looked at Cedric and couldn't help but cry harder. His sobs became audible and Cedric, with a pained look in his eyes, hugged him, burying Adrien's face in his shoulder and rubbing his back tenderly.

"Hey, baby, what's wrong?" he asked softly. Adrien hated it when he called him baby, but at that moment he had neither the heart nor the strength to start one of their typical meaningless fights.

He weakly clung to Cedric's arm and let the tears flow as long as they could. His eyes ached and his sockets were dry, but the pain lingered in his chest. Who knows how much time passed, even the position had changed. Now he was lying back in the armchair, resting his head on Cedric's lap.

"Thank you," Adrien said suddenly, "I'm grateful that you're here."

Although the drunkenness was slowly wearing off, his head was beginning to pound. Adrien's eyes were swollen and it was painful to keep them open; he chose to close them, sinking into a silence that allowed him to savor his friend's gentle caresses, which momentarily transported him back to his childhood.

"We're friends, Adrien. Besides, remember that I love you… I always have." Adrien nodded silently, though Cedric was aware that his "I love you" was interpreted differently by Adrien. "Will you tell me what's going on with you?"

Adrien tensed in his seat. Since they'd been reunited, he'd never shared anything with Cedric about Carlo. He knew he'd probably be upset, but he needed to vent. Apart from his grandfather, he had no one close to him; the loneliness was sometimes overwhelming and terrifying. Adrien slowly sat up and sat dejectedly.

"I… I fell in love with a person who will never see me as anything more than an annoyance in his life," he confessed, his voice cracking. Cedric's hands clenched, his veins prominent. "We fought, and my pride led me to ignore him… I thought he'd insist, because even though he doesn't love me, we've been together for years… but, it was too stupid to think that… he doesn't even answer my calls or messages."

"What kind of idiot would make you cry like that?" he expressed angrily.

If Adrien were in his hands, he would cherish him like the most valuable treasure in the world. Despite his bad temper and explosive temperament, Adrien was nothing more than someone vulnerable, encapsulated in an arrogant shell since the death of his parents. It was his way of protecting himself from everyone.

"He despises me for what I did to him… but, it hadn't been important to me until today, it never mattered to me that he hated me as long as he was by my side," he confessed, hating being so damn dependent on Carlo.

Cedric could hear the desperation in his words and he remembered what Adrien had once told him: "I just want someone to love me the way Dad loved Mom." He knew that it was always his dream, to have a family like the one those bastards had destroyed.

Cedric knelt in front of him, cupping his face in both hands.

"Adrien, he's not the only person who can love you," he whispered close to his face. His breath mingled with the scent of alcohol emanating from Adrien's mouth; his eyes scanned his face lovingly, and his heart skipped a beat when his gaze lingered on his rosy lips. "Look beyond, you'll realize that there is someone willing to love you the way you deserve."

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