The World Is Mine For The Taking

Chapter 1440: Intermission 7: Each Of Their Love Lives (5)

I walked out of the restaurant feeling like I had just experienced the most brutal rejection of my entire life.

Honestly, calling it a rejection almost didn’t even feel accurate enough. It felt more like my confidence got picked up, thrown into a blender, and then launched straight into traffic afterward. And the worst part was that I hadn’t even properly confessed yet.

That was the truly tragic part.

I didn’t even get the chance to fully say what I wanted to say before my heart got folded like cheap laundry.

If I had at least confessed directly and gotten rejected after that, maybe I could’ve accepted it more cleanly. Maybe I could’ve told myself something dramatic like, "At least I tried." But no. Instead, I got shut down before things could even properly begin, which somehow made the whole thing hurt even more.

And honestly, I really thought something good could’ve happened between us too.

It wasn’t like I was planning to jump straight into a relationship immediately or anything desperate like that. I wasn’t already planning wedding venues in my head or imagining our future kids or some weird shit like that. I just thought we connected well enough that maybe things could naturally go somewhere over time.

At the very least, I wanted a chance.

A little opening.

Something.

Instead, I walked away feeling like I had just been told my application to happiness had been rejected before the interview process even started.

As I continued walking outside the restaurant, still mentally replaying every painful second in my head like my brain wanted me to suffer extra for some reason, I noticed Duncan standing nearby.

And honestly, he looked exactly like how I expected Duncan to look.

Confused.

The guy always somehow looked like he had just woken up from a nap he never intended to take. He had that same musclehead expression plastered on his face, like his thoughts were moving through molasses. But underneath all that, he also looked weirdly depressed.

Actually, the more I looked at him, the more I realized he might’ve looked even more miserable than I did.

Which was honestly impressive considering my soul currently felt like expired bread.

Still, I could understand why he looked like that.

He and Estelle had broken up recently, and from what I knew, he still hadn’t fully recovered from it yet. Breakups hit differently when it was your first serious relationship too. People always acted tough until reality punched them in the throat emotionally.

At least, that was what I thought.

"What are you doing here, Duncan?" I asked while walking over. "You still look like you haven’t moved on from your breakup with Estelle."

Duncan scratched the side of his head awkwardly before answering.

"Well, I don’t think I’ve fully moved on from it yet," he admitted. "But for some reason... it doesn’t hurt as much anymore."

For a second, I genuinely froze.

Not because of what he said specifically.

But because Duncan somehow managed to say something emotionally self-aware.

I blinked at him a few times after hearing that, trying to process what had just happened.

Was this character development?

Did getting dumped unlock hidden intelligence stats or something?

Because that sentence sounded way too thoughtful coming from a guy who once struggled to understand sarcasm for an entire week.

"So... you’re not really bothered by the breakup anymore?" I asked carefully.

"Yeah..." he replied.

"Then why do you look like someone just told you the gym permanently closed?"

Duncan stayed quiet for a moment after that.

His expression shifted slightly, like he was trying to figure out how to explain something he barely understood himself.

Then he finally spoke.

"I think..." he muttered slowly. "I’ve fallen in love with someone else."

"Immediately?!"

I stared at him like he had just announced he could suddenly see ghosts.

That was way too fast.

Honestly, I didn’t even think it was possible for Duncan to fall in love in the first place. The guy looked like he treated romance the same way cavemen probably treated taxes. But somehow not only had he already gotten a girlfriend before, now he had fallen for someone else almost immediately after breaking up with Estelle.

Meanwhile, I was over here getting emotionally destroyed before I could even confess properly.

Life really knew how to pick favorites.

"Did this happen before or after your breakup?" I asked.

"After."

"I see..."

At least that made things slightly better.

If he had fallen for another girl before breaking up with Estelle, I honestly would’ve started viewing him as the same type of scumbag Leon could sometimes come across as.

And that definitely wouldn’t have been a compliment.

Duncan might’ve been dumb sometimes, but he wasn’t the type to cheat or sneak around behind someone’s back. Honestly, he was probably too straightforward to even successfully hide something like that in the first place.

He’d confess by accident within five minutes.

Still, hearing him say all this weirdly made me feel a little less miserable about my own situation.

"Looks like both of us are dealing with the same kind of thing," I muttered.

Duncan looked at me curiously.

"Raymond, you’re in love with someone too?"

"Yeah," I answered with a tired sigh. "And I just got my heart broken without even properly getting the chance to say anything."

"I see..." Duncan said quietly.

For a few seconds, neither of us said anything after that.

Then suddenly, Duncan muttered something unexpected.

"I kind of wish I could be Leon right now."

That actually caught me off guard.

Duncan usually didn’t care enough about other people to compare himself to them. Most of the time, he just lived however he wanted without really thinking too deeply about anything else.

Part of it was because he genuinely seemed comfortable with himself.

The other part was because he was such a massive meathead that introspection probably physically exhausted him.

But now he was openly saying he wanted to be Leon.

Honestly though, I understood what he meant immediately.

Leon was the kind of person who seemed like he would naturally succeed no matter what happened. Especially when it came to women.

Everything just worked out for him.

He could walk into a room, say two sentences, and somehow leave with someone already interested in him. Half the time, it didn’t even feel like he was trying that hard either, which honestly made it more irritating.

Some people trained their whole lives to develop charisma.

Leon woke up with it by accident.

Naturally, someone like Duncan would end up thinking about him in moments like this.

Hell, even I understood the feeling.

Leon was the kind of guy who could probably get whatever he wanted without putting in much effort. Women naturally gravitated toward him in a way that honestly felt unfair sometimes.

I genuinely believed he could accidentally seduce someone without meaning to.

Honestly, if Leon somehow stole somebody’s girlfriend while asking for directions, I wouldn’t even be shocked anymore.

That was just the kind of absurd existence he was.

While thinking about all of that, I looked over toward Duncan.

At almost the exact same moment, Duncan looked back at me too.

And somehow, without either of us needing to explain anything out loud, we both immediately realized we were thinking the exact same thing.

No words were needed after that.

The next moment, both of us started heading toward the same place together.