My Stepbrother, My Enemy {BL}-Chapter 136: Perception

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3rd Person POV

Adrien didn’t move. Not even an inch, he stood there with one hand still gripping the doorknob, knuckles tight, shoulders drawn tense as if the wrong word might make the entire room collapse around him.

The fact that Vanessa...Vanessa of all people, was perceptive enough to piece together what he had buried so deeply made something cold settle beneath his ribs.

Behind him, he heard the faint rustle of the bedsheets as she slid off the mattress. A soft click of her tongue followed, irritation or disbelief, he couldn’t tell.

When he finally turned, she was already pulling the silk robe from the chair, her expression no longer seductive or furious, just tired. The purple lingerie looked strangely pathetic now, stripped of its power and purpose, and her movements had lost all of their calculated sensuality.

"You’re awfully quiet," she said after a deep breath that seemed to drain a lot from her, her voice low but steady as she shrugged into the robe and tied it loosely at her waist. Her copper hair spilled over the lapels, catching the dim light.

"Cat got your tongue?" She let out a small laugh that trembled a bit at the end. "So let me ask again..." Her eyes found his, sharp and searching for something he wasn’t willing to show her at all. "Are you in love with Noah?"

It was the directness that rattled him—not the words, but the simple, devastating way she spoke them. No teasing. No flirtation. No mocking grin. Just the truth hanging heavy in the air.

Shit, she means it.

Adrien swallowed hard, forcing his expression back into the practiced neutrality he wore like armor. He could not allow this. Not here, not with her. Not with anyone else.

He scoffed, trying for nonchalance but hearing the strain in his own voice. "Are you high or something? Why the hell would you even ask me that?"

Vanessa’s brows pulled together, her jaw tightening. The disbelief on her face sharpened into anger as she took a step closer, the silk of her robe whispering against her skin.

"Don’t play dumb with me," she snapped, pointing at him in accusation. "Just answer the damn question, Adrien!"

He felt the heat rise in his chest...defensiveness, fear, frustration, all blending into a burst that slipped through his control.

"I said no!" he shouted, the word tearing out harder than he meant, echoing off the walls. "I’m not in love with him! Why the hell would you think something that crazy?"

Vanessa’s features twitched, her mouth opening then closing as if she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. A bitter, humorless smile crept onto her lips.

"I don’t know," she said, voice sharp but wounded underneath. "Maybe because you’ve been obsessed with him for years, even when you were bullying him. Maybe because every time he walks into a room, you tense up like you’re waiting for someone to snatch him away." Her arms folded tightly across her chest. "Maybe because whenever he cries or gets hurt, you look like you’re about to murder whoever caused it these days."

Adrien froze again.

He hated how exposed he felt, like she had reached inside him and touched the one part he never let anyone see. He clenched his jaw, looking away sharply, but Vanessa didn’t stop.

"And maybe because," she continued, voice dropping to a shaky quiet, "every time he gets close to someone else... especially Ethan... you lose your goddamn mind."

The silence that followed wasn’t peaceful. It was charged, pulsing with everything unsaid. Adrien’s breath came unevenly, and Vanessa stood across from him, chest rising and falling, eyes locked on his face as if waiting for him to crack.

She wasn’t wrong. That was what scared him the most.

But he couldn’t admit any of it, because saying it out loud would mean crossing a line he couldn’t uncross, a line he had already blurred too many times in his heart.

His voice, when it finally came, was quieter. Rough.

"You don’t know what you’re talking about."

Vanessa gave a hollow little laugh, defeated but knowing. "But I do," she whispered. "God, I wish I didn’t... but I do."

And Adrien, unable to stand under her gaze any longer, clenched his fists and looked away.

Because denying it didn’t make it any less true.

And admitting to someone other than himself it would burn everything to the ground.

For a moment, Adrien thought Vanessa might be done. She stood there in her robe, arms crossed tightly over her stomach as if trying to hold herself together, her cheeks flushed with leftover adrenaline. But then something inside her cracked, quietly at first and once it did, the words spilled out of her in a rush she couldn’t seem to contain.

"You know what?" she began, voice trembling, not with seduction or anger anymore. "If I got just an ounce of the attention you give that little shit... I think I would’ve been satisfied. Just a fraction of it." She let out a soft, bitter laugh, shaking her head as if mocking herself. "But no. You never gave me anything except sex and your complete disinterest in me."

Adrien stiffened, but she didn’t give him the chance to speak.

"I told my friends about it, you know?" Vanessa continued, pacing slowly now, her robe swaying around her legs as she walked. "About how weird I thought it was that you were always targeting Noah. The guy never did anything to you, he was annoying sometimes, yeah... acting all smart and innocent, but he never really did something wrong."

Adrien swallowed, uncomfortable at how exposed the truth sounded from someone else’s mouth.

"But every time I mentioned it," Vanessa said, voice rising, "my friends acted like I was crazy. Like I was insane for even suggesting you might be a bit gay and you could like a sorry loser like him." She spat the word loser out reluctantly, like even now she knew it wasn’t entirely true. "So I ignored it. For years I ignored it. I told myself I was imagining things. I kept thinking... maybe if I waited long enough, you’d finally see me. You’d finally realize I’m perfect for you."

She paused in front of him again, eyes glistening under the dim yellow light. "But no," she whispered, and the simplicity of those two words hit harder than any scream. "You just kept going after Noah. Always Noah."

Her hands gestured helplessly, as if she didn’t know what to do with all of the frustration built up in her bones. "And all I ever got was the occasional fuck in whatever empty classroom or car you felt like using. That’s it, that’s all I was to you...a worthless fuck buddy."

Adrien exhaled a slow breath, chest tightening. He had known she felt used, but hearing it out loud made the guilt settle cold in his stomach.

"And then..." Vanessa’s voice cracked slightly, "you did something I never expected. You defended him."

Her stare sharpened with fresh hurt. "You actually defended him in public. When I was trying to remind Noah of his place, because that’s what we did, right? That’s how this entire goddamn school works. You defend your group, and you humiliate everyone beneath you so they won’t dare mess with you."

Adrien’s throat tightened. He remembered the moment vividly, the shock on Vanessa’s face, the way Noah looked small and overwhelmed, the rage he felt kept growing watching her shrink under someone’s words.

"But you didn’t defend me," Vanessa whispered, cutting through his thoughts. "Not once. Not when some people were trash talking me. You never said a word. You never stepped in, you let me handle it on my own because it didn’t matter to you."

She bowed her head slightly, her voice dipping into something painfully soft. "But you’re doing it for him now."

The sentence settled in the room with a weight that neither of them knew how to lift. Vanessa pressed her fingers to her forehead, as if trying to hold back the tears that threatened to break loose.

"That’s when I knew," she murmured. "That’s when it truly hit me. You never cared about me. Not even a little, but him?" Vanessa swallowed hard, voice barely above a whisper. "You’d tear the world apart if someone breathed wrong in his direction it seems."

Adrien stood there, his jaw clenched, heart pounding painfully in his chest, unable to look away from the hurt he had caused her.

Vanessa looked up at him again, eyes shimmering, voice hoarse. "And you kept pretending it was nothing... pretending he was nothing to you."

She laughed weakly, wiping the corner of her eye with her thumb. "But you don’t defend ’nothing,’ Adrien."

And as she let the words hang there, Adrien’s guilt pressed like a weight across his ribs, forcing the truth he refused to acknowledge deeper into the silence between them.