Chapter 45
You're Not Coming
The atmosphere in the Mansion was more somber and still than ever before.
Especially the bedroom, which felt like the calm before a storm, even emanated an eerie aura.
Klaud was silently by the window.
Leaning against it as always, his face was incomparably clearer and paler than it had been just a few months ago.
His eyes, sunken beneath long lashes, stared unblinking out the window.
Butler Gustav checked the pocket watch he kept in his waistcoat.
This was the time when Klaud would usually be at his most sensitive, his eyes flashing, and when the pain, like a sudden onslaught of the night sky, would take over, making it impossible to tell whether he was human or Monster.
That this time was so quiet was astonishing.
But quiet did not mean peaceful.
Gustav watched the servants who had eventually left the Mansion with torches to find the Pellieresse lady, and the guards who had followed them, all the while gauging Klaud's reaction.
Gustav had ultimately failed to stop them.
"Your Highness."
Gustav felt as though Klaud was standing on a precarious cliff edge.
How much time had passed like that?
The precarious, cold silence was finally broken when the rain began to pour.
"Your Highness!"
Klaud Euphris, who had been silently staring into the darkness, finally opened the bedroom door with his own hand and went outside.
The hired carriage could only go as far as a short distance from the White Forest.
Having run out of money and sent the carriage away, Yuan, repeating the priest's testimony that he had only heard she was heading north, walked and walked.
'Let's live together forever.'
'Wherever you go, I'll make sure to take you with me. So don't think you're alone.'
"Louise..."
Regret poured out with her white breath. Yuan's mind went blank, and she didn't know what to do.
Even if it meant falling out of Klaud's favor, she should have at least brought up Louise's story.
If she had known she would be separated from Louise so futilely.
What was she so afraid of that she hid Louise?
"Louise!!"
Calling out to a dead woman who would not answer.
Yuan wandered through the forest like a madwoman.
After the forest, there was another forest. A damn cold winter forest where the snow had not yet melted.
Yuan followed the tracks of an unfamiliar carriage, not even noticing the scratches on her hands and face.
It was when the brilliant sunset began to pour over her from beyond the unfamiliar forest that she momentarily regained her senses.
"...Your Highness."
Yuan suddenly thought of Klaud.
She didn't know where the new shoes he had bought her had come off; she was already barefoot.
Only then did Yuan look closely at her hands and feet. They were a sight to behold, swollen as if they were about to burst from the redness of the frostbite.
Looking back the way she had come, the top of the Black Manor was faintly visible in the very, very distance.
Yuan paused for a moment.
It was as if someone had poured boiling water over her frozen body from the top of her head.
It would soon be dark.
No matter how much she delayed the time when the pain would come, Klaud would be consumed by it when night fell.
She had firmly promised to go to his bedroom every day when the sun went down...
She quickly wiped away the falling tears.
'Let's come back tomorrow.'
Biting her lower lip until it bled, she took a ragged breath between her parted lips and calmed herself.
What on earth would she do after wandering around barefoot looking for Louise?
She had to bring more money to hire a carriage, and bring at least one guard with her to search.
What would she say if they asked what she was looking for? She had to come up with a rambling excuse all night long.
Carrying the mountain of anxiety that had grown so large on her back, Yuan forced strength into her trembling chin and walked towards the Black Manor.
The soles of her feet stung as they scraped against the rough ground.
She flinched and looked back every time a cool breeze cut through the forest.
Each regretful turn of her head showed how desperately she hoped that a baggage cart carrying Louise might pass nearby.
Swish-.
Yuan, who had been walking aimlessly on the still-piled snow, stood under a tree for a long time to avoid the downpour that came with the darkness.
The surroundings soon became as dark as they could be before being completely engulfed in darkness, and the cold, which she had not felt while she was acting as if she was half out of her mind, washed over her like a wave.
The cold air seeped through her rain-soaked clothes.
Yuan, hugging herself against the biting cold that made her teeth chatter, squatted down, wiped her wet face, and only shed tears.
The tears clinging to the tip of her nose soaked the ground with the raindrops beneath her lowered head.
She had ruined everything.
She thought she had protected Louise by not handing her over to the Pellieresse and not burning her, but she hadn't.
How long had it been since she had vowed not to let Klaud, who had become her new family, suffer?
Far from taking him outside, she was unable to keep her promise.
'Even if you run away, you're still in the palm of my hand. How dare you run away without knowing your place?'
'You came crawling back on your own two feet because you had nowhere else to go, but you act so high and mighty.'
'Why don't you try running away again? See if anyone comes looking for you.'
Before she developed her abilities.
When she couldn't stand the abuse from her cousins and briefly ran away from the Pellieresse Mansion.
That day when no one came looking for her.
That night when she spent the night out and was eventually led back by Louise, who had come to find her with a sick body, and gave up her runaway attempt.
She was reminded of her past family, who had not even thought of looking for her amidst the flying accusations.
It was a terrible and frightening memory.
She was being punished for hiding Louise.
She was paying the price for putting it off, day after day.
Yuan hugged her knees and buried her red, frozen nose between them.
Hot tears soaked her cheeks and knees.
'So this is how it ends.'
In her new home.
Only causing trouble for Klaud. Unable to keep her promise.
Unable to protect even Louise.
In this forest where no one would find her, like this...
When she first passed through this White Forest and arrived at the Black Manor.
When she was waiting for Klaud in the carriage, on the verge of death.
Was the dream she had then a premonition?
The image of herself dying with Louise in the White Forest flowed through her mind like water.
That was when.
"Yuan Pellieresse!"
A man's voice was heard in the distance, like a hallucination.
The raindrops began to beat more fiercely against the ground.
Yuan raised her trembling body and stepped out a little from under the tree where she had been sheltering from the rain.
A tall man was striding towards her through the dense rows of fir trees.
"Your Highness...?"
It was Klaud Euphris, as soaked as she was.
It wasn't just his clothes that were disheveled.
Yuan blinked her blurry eyes several times and stared at the approaching man.
It wasn't the always stiff cheeks or the twisted lips.
It was an unfamiliar face, disheveled and bloodshot.
Yuan felt both relief and fear at the same time.
She couldn't stop the sorrowful voice that flowed out as she got closer to Klaud.
She babbled with a half-dazed look on her face.
"Sister, my sister is gone. Your Highness."
All reason was paralyzed, and the anxiety she had been holding back burst out as soon as she saw him, beyond control.
The boundary between what she should and shouldn't say crumbled, and only the whining and anxiety of a child meeting her father poured out.
"I definitely buried her well... but she's gone."
Klaud came closer.
Yuan, like a sinner confessing, like a madwoman, reached out to Klaud through the pouring rain, babbling.
"Someone dug her up. Who on earth dug her up? They said she went that way, that way. Where is that way? Is it really north?"
Suddenly, fear filled Yuan's eyes, who had been pouring out words non-stop.
Yuan finally grabbed the hem of his clothes and begged for forgiveness. It was because she remembered again that she had not kept her promise to him.
"Your Highness... Your Highness. The sun has set... so-."
I came back.
I was so scared.
I was afraid that if I didn't chase after my sister now, I would never see her again.
It was getting dark, so I couldn't move any further.
I couldn't just leave you because I know how much you'll be in pain.
I might never see my sister again!
I was just thinking about that there...
Klaud stared at her for a long time as she poured out words without thinking, then grabbed her hand that was holding his sleeve.
And without a word, he pulled her in and hugged her tightly.
Yuan froze like a pillar of salt in his cold embrace.
The tears that had been welling up without falling soaked into his chest.
"I'm sorry."
...Did I hear wrong?
"I'm sorry."
Yuan was frozen for a long time before she raised her head when he apologized once more in a rough voice.
His jawbone was bulging out on his jaw, which was clenched tightly as he pulled her into his arms.
Klaud pulled Yuan in even closer, as if he didn't want to show her his face.
And he whispered to her, who was blankly in his arms.
"I buried your sister in a good place."
Everything went white before her eyes.
Her head burned white, and her tongue stiffened.
A choked voice poured out from her chest, which had become hot as if it contained fire.
"Why. Why didn't you tell me? Why!"
A sorrowful cry poured into Klaud's chest.
"How surprised I was. How much I-."
"I'm sorry. I was going to tell you."
"How much I. How much I-."
Yuan finally collapsed.
She pounded Klaud's broad chest with her powerless fists.
Klaud quietly took it all, hugging Yuan even tighter.
The resentment that poured out like hemoptysis was buried in the sound of the rain.
Klaud only repeated that he was sorry until she was exhausted and released her fists on her own.
Eventually, Yuan's sorrowful resentment wandered all over the place and headed towards Klaud himself.
"I begged, pleaded, and threatened you to come outside like that, but you wouldn't."
Her plump forehead bumped against Klaud's chest with her small, clenched fists.
"If you were going to come outside like this, like this..."
"You're not coming."
Klaud replied quietly to her childish complaint, which was close to being a way to relieve her tired and difficult heart.
"You."
Yuan held her breath and looked up at him.
His deeply sunken eyes revealed the inner light that had been hidden in the meantime, and he was staring at her tenaciously.
"You go out as you please and don't come back until the sun goes down. You said you'd come when the sun goes down."
