The Villain's Play Is Over
The villain's play is over. Funnily enough, I truly believed I could protect you. That I could keep the promise to shield you from everything that caused you pain... the vow to make you happy. I never doubted it for a second. Looking back now, it was always me who failed to keep those promises.
“You came.”
A voice so captivating it sent a chill racing down my spine. The Permafrost blizzard answered in kind, swirling with biting cold. The splattered crimson cruelty was swallowed by the pale storm, its vivid hue bleeding away until it spread in pristine white. The frozen earth, the coniferous trees clawing for life in the barren soil, the northern foxes that poured everything into the hunt just to survive—everything, without exception, was painted white.
“...I’ve been waiting, Rain.”
Yet the woman before me was different. Her ash-gray hair retained its quiet elegance even in its pallor, and her amethyst eyes gleamed with unshakable poise. Bright red blood stained the black uniform she wore and the sword she gripped, freezing in place, but the brutality could not diminish her flawless beauty or perfect figure.
This wasn’t the time or place for such thoughts, but... you’ve grown so breathtakingly beautiful while I was gone.
“Sien.”
I speak the name of the girl I haven’t seen in so long. A name I must have said a thousand times, one that once came as naturally as breathing. Now my voice feels painfully awkward just forming it. The simple act of calling her name lays our broken relationship completely bare.
“I’m sorry. I have to stop you here.”
I smiled to hide the tremor in my voice. You returned a faint, almost enchanted smile, and I held my breath, steeling myself with a silent vow.
It had taken five years to reach this moment—or rather, twenty-one. The absurd stretch of time in which I, the villain, had played the hero in order to stop you, who had always been my eternal hero.
“The villain’s play is over.”
We had both grown far too old for childish games like this.