The Substitute Healer (BL)-Chapter 90: ’Just why do they hate me?’

It was one of those slow northern noons where the snow seemed to fall without urgency while drifting down in lazy spirals that softened the entire encampment. The usual noise had dulled and only the muted crunch of boots in snow and the distant crackle of firewood burning.

It was during moments like this that Lyric usually slipped away and unnoticed to the place he had long claimed as his own.

The oak stood just beyond the outer line of tents, massive and ancient with its bark dark beneath layers of snow.

Its branches stretched wide and low, heavy with frost while forming a natural canopy that shielded whatever lay beneath it. Then, there’s a split ran down one side of the trunk, deep enough to hide a person if they knew how to press themselves into it and Lyric did.

But as he approached, something felt wrong. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

He slowed with his boots sinking quietly into the snow, and then he saw him.

Soren stood beneath the oak.

For a moment, Lyric simply stared with disbelief tightening in his chest.

Of all places and of all moments, Soren had chosen this, his hiding spot.

The one place he went when the encampment felt too suffocating and when faces and whispers became too much to bear.

Soren’s head there was bowed slightly with his tense posture.

HIs one hand was pressed against his chest with his fingers curled as if he were gripping something beneath his skin. Then there’s a faint glow leaked through the gaps between his fingers.

It was his healing magic and anyone with sense would have recognized it.

The sight of Soren there twisted something sharp and ugly inside him.

Whatever Soren was doing, whatever pain he might have been in, Lyric did not allow himself to linger on it. He did not want to understand and he thought that understanding required sympathy, and sympathy was something he had long since locked away where Soren was concerned.

All Lyric could see was the intrusion and his anger that’s being awoken again right at that time.

If Soren was hurt, it meant nothing to him. Pain had a way of feeling deserved when it belonged to someone you resented.

Then the glow at Soren’s chest flickered once more before dimming, but Lyric looked away while convincing himself it was nothing worth noticing and remembering. He told himself that whatever Soren carried within him could never compare to the bitterness coiled inside his own chest.

"The hell... what am I even doing here?" Lyric muttered to himself as he stood near the oak. He then looked around with irritation rising in his chest. "Why am I hiding when this is my spot? This won’t do."

He stepped forward, no longer caring if he was seen.

The sound of boots crunching through snow broke the quiet making Soren to react at once. The soft light at his chest faded as he pulled his hand away, startled. He turned around with his pale face and gaunt look.

"M...My Lord?" Soren said hesitantly.

Lyric then stopped a few steps away from him as his eyes moved from Soren to the oak and back again. His expression hardened and cold.

"What are you doing here?" Lyric asked coldly. "You think you can just come here and dirty my place?"

The words hit their mark.

Hearing such words, Soren just lowered his head right away. His hands came together in front of his body with his fingers tightly clasped. He also stood straight while trying to look calm and respectful, but his shoulders were tense.

"I’m sorry," he said quietly.

He didn’t explain himself and he didn’t talk back because he knew better. He had already been insulted once, and he didn’t think he could handle another harsh remark.

Silence felt safer and this was normal for him.

Or so he thought.

Almost every day, someone had something cruel to say. If it wasn’t the Davenmore brothers, it was the prince. Sharp words followed him wherever he went, cutting him down little by little.

Over time, Soren had learned to keep his head down and endure.

He felt small standing there under the oak with the same oak that had given him shelter only moments ago.

Lyric’s gaze burned into him, cold and sharp, but it didn’t feel like enough.

Soren didn’t move and didn’t look up. He just stood there, small and quiet beneath the weight of the oak with his hands clasped tight and his shoulders stiff as if bracing against some invisible blow.

And it tore at him more than he wanted to admit.

The silence wasn’t peaceful, it was suffocating.

"My lord... why do you... hate me?"

The words tumbled out of Soren’s mouth before he could stop them. They were quiet, hesitant, but heavy with everything he had been holding in for weeks. Actually, he didn’t expect an answer.

He never did as Soren wasn’t the kind of person to demand explanations or question why someone despised him. He had lived long enough to understand that hate didn’t always need a reason.

But still... he had thought there was something different with Lyric lately.

Even if they hadn’t spoken much, Soren had felt a subtle shift between them.

The way Lyric had argued with his brother, fiercely, just to defend him, the moments when Lyric’s eyes lingered longer than usual and when his voice had softened even in irritation. Soren had allowed himself the faint hope that maybe, just maybe, they were... closer than before.

And yet, now, standing beneath the snowy oak, he felt that hope collapse like thin ice underfoot. Lyric’s anger returned with a sudden, sharp force while drowning every trace of whatever warmth had been there.

"Hah. What? What did you just say?" Lyric’s voice cut through the air, sharp and mocking.

He even scoffed while looking at Soren with that same cold, mocking expression he had worn the very first time they had met.

It wasn’t just disbelief in his tone but also amusement, disdain, and a flicker of something cruel, all mixed together. His lips curled in that familiar, almost predatory way, and Soren felt the words he had spoken shrink into nothing, as if they had never existed.

Soren’s chest tightened.

He wanted to explain, to say that he hadn’t meant anything wrong, that he hadn’t expected anything and that he wasn’t asking for pity.

But the words wouldn’t come.

Every instinct he had told him to stay quiet, to endure.

He had been insulted before and so he could endure again yet the sting of rejection, of being hated so completely by someone who had once seemed almost... protective, cut deeper than any open insult ever could.

Lyric’s eyes narrowed as he stepped closer with the snow crunching under his boots. There was a weight in his gaze, a dangerous edge that made Soren flinch despite himself. He had no illusions about what Lyric was capable of, and yet, there was something unbearable in the way he looked at him now, like Soren was a puzzle that had failed to satisfy, a creature too small, too weak and too easily dismissed.

And still, beneath the fear and shame, Soren could not turn away.

His heart pounded with a mix of dread and desperate curiosity because no matter how cruel Lyric could be, no matter how much he hated him, he needed to know and needed to understand, if only a little...

Just why but Lyric didn’t answer.

’Just why do they hate me?’