The Cruel Dawn of Farewell

The night of parting had stretched on so endlessly. So why did the dawn arrive with such merciless cruelty?

On the day of departure, in the pale hours before sunrise, a blade-like chill permeated the grand entrance hall of the ducal mansion. My father, Duke Ricardo, stared at the waiting carriage with eyes frozen colder than ice. Behind him, the knight commander and a handful of attendants stood like shadows, silently holding their positions.

I stood motionless, rigid as stone, feeling the cold bite of my armor against every inch of my skin. I had gathered every ounce of my will to remain steadfast, yet inside, I trembled like a leaf caught in a violent storm. This entire scene felt like the final act of a predetermined tragic play. The curtain would fall on either my death or Yua's liberation—two endings I could never choose between.

“Remember this, Leonardo.” Father’s voice shattered the predawn silence. “The blood of Heavenfield is proven on the battlefield. Your clumsy calculations and analyses are nothing but trivial tricks before the swords of war.”

I slowly lifted my head and gazed at his unyielding back. Though I couldn’t see his golden eyes, I knew they were fixed on me.

“Do not even dream of returning alive with your meager talent or that frail body of yours. It would be a disgrace to the family. The battlefield is no place for the weak. Prove your worth with the same sharp tongue you used to mock those foolish rulers from the shadows. Or else…”

His voice was low, but the meaning behind it cut crystal clear. His unseen gaze seemed to pierce straight through me. The safety of Yua rested on my shoulders. If I brought shame upon the family, she would pay the price in blood. That was the bloody warning.

My chest tightened. I clenched my teeth.

I bowed deeply to my father one last time.

“I will remember, Father. I will do as you say.”

My voice cracked and scattered weakly into the cold morning air.

I had to make this wretched play a success. No—I had to succeed, or I had to die. There were no other options for me.

It was time to board the carriage, away from the servants’ eyes. The last message I could leave Yua was my absence and the ugliness I would leave behind in her memories. I prayed she would live freely in this place without me, without being hurt. I hoped my death would not bring her sorrow, but true liberation from the ugliness I had left behind.

It had to be that way.

I had shut myself away in my room. The memories of the previous night had become ice that pierced to the bone, crushing my heart. Red and blue lights. Twisted laughter. And above all… Leo, surrounded by women, smiling so brightly, so radiantly. That image refused to leave my mind for even a second.

Perhaps Leo really had grown tired of me. Maybe I had become a burden. His harsh words, his icy gaze, the notice that I had been abandoned… maybe it had all been a cruel tactic just to push me away. The thought drained every ounce of strength from my body.

I curled up in the corner of the bed and buried my face in my knees. No more tears would come. My throat was parched dry. The world had lost all meaning, and everything around me seemed to fade into gray. Even the sunlight hesitated to enter the room.

Leo. I hate you.

Leo. I despise you.

Leo. I loathe you.

Leo. Just die.

Disappear from my sight forever!

Even as I couldn’t believe that Leo had cast me aside, the brutal reality sank into my bones with every breath. The warm blanket no longer embraced me. It lay cold, as if my touch would defile it. I felt neither hunger nor thirst. I simply wanted everything to stop. Forever. Because my world had already come to a halt.

That was when I heard it—faintly, from beyond the hallway, the hushed whispers of the maids. The voices slipping through the crack in the door were cautious, yet carried an unusual tension.

“It’s already time… The young master will be leaving soon.”

“He’s been preparing since dawn… The battlefield is such a dangerous place…”

“How did it come to this… Young Master Leo…”

Their voices were heavy with deep sighs.

War? Young Master Leo… is going to war…?

War. Leo. Departure. The scattered words struck my ears like sharp blades. Goosebumps erupted across my entire body. A freezing chill raced down my spine.

War? The battlefield? No. It couldn’t be. Him? With that body? On the battlefield?

A tiny spark ignited in my heart, like a dying ember flaring back to life. Along with the anxiety came a faint, utterly selfish, and repulsive hope—that perhaps there was another reason for his actions, one I didn’t know. If… if it was because of the war… if he had pushed me away so harshly because he feared I would become a burden…!

That desperate delusion that all his cruelty had been for my sake. My last love, my last shred of faith, trembled precariously on the edge.

I shot up from the bed. My body still felt like lead, but I forced strength into my legs with the last reserves I could summon from deep within my bones. I kicked open the door and stepped out.

The hallway was quieter than I expected. Only my ragged breathing and the violent pounding of my heart—thud, thud, thud, as if it had fallen to the soles of my feet—echoed around me.

If Leo was truly heading to the battlefield, abandoning me to go to the most dangerous place in the world… then I had to stop him. Or… I wanted to see his face one last time. No. I needed to confirm his true feelings.

I stumbled down the stairs in a panic. My feet wouldn’t obey me. Every step sent sharp pain screaming through my ankles, and the cold marble froze my bare feet. I ran frantically, barely registering the pain.

The front door was already wide open. The blade-like cold of the predawn air seeped into the mansion, biting into my flesh. Outside, the dull rumble of carriage wheels and the clatter of hooves rang out loudly.

Am I already too late? No. It can’t be! Please!

I staggered out onto the porch. Before me stood a magnificent carriage emblazoned with the Heavenfield crest, casting a massive shadow in the darkness. The carriage door was open, and a familiar black silhouette was about to climb inside.

It was Leo!

Behind him stood my father, Duke Ricardo, with a face frozen like ice. Beside him, the knight commander and several attendants watched in solemn silence.

Leo!!

My silent scream tore violently through my throat, but no sound escaped my lips. My ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠heart felt like it would burst. I was barefoot. I crushed the cold marble floor beneath me and leaped across the damp dirt path. The pain of my feet tearing open and bleeding was nothing.

“Aaaaaaaahhhhh!!!”

What came from my mouth was nothing but a meaningless shriek. In my mind, there was only Leo. I ran toward him with everything I had. If only I could speak—if only I could scream his name until my throat tore apart. If only I could speak, I wouldn’t feel this powerless, this pathetic.

[Leo! Please don’t go! Don’t leave! Leo! Please! Don’t leave me!]

Without even a wooden board in my hands, I cried out to him with my entire body. Tears poured down like a waterfall, blurring my vision, but his back remained painfully clear. I clung to him with desperate eyes. I wanted to run to him, fall to my knees, and beg. It would be fine if I were abandoned on the streets again. It would be fine if I spent my life as his exclusive maid, prostrating myself at his feet. Just please. Please don’t go to such a dangerous place.

Leo. I don’t want to lose you. My world. My only light.

The moment Leo placed one foot on the carriage step, his movement paused for the briefest instant. He turned his head. For a split second, his eyes seemed to waver.

When I finally reached him, gasping for breath just before I collapsed from exhaustion, I looked up at him. His face remained coldly frozen. Like stone.

Just as he was about to step fully into the carriage, urgent footsteps echoed from afar.

…It was Yua!

Damn it… Why? Why! Why is she here?! I had staked everything on this—why, why!!!

My heart plummeted. She was running toward me barefoot. Her pale face was streaked with tears and sweat. As she silently called my name, desperately pleading with her eyes for me not to go… I saw her entire small world crumbling miserably before me.

With every step she took, it looked as if blood was splattering beneath her feet. A cold agony spread all the way to my toes.

Please, please don’t come!

My eyes shook violently, but I desperately hid it. I refused to look away from her, determined to show not even a sliver of mercy. My pain was mine alone to bear.

Yua stood before me… and the words nearly burst from my lips. I wanted to tell her the truth one last time. But… no. This play had to end here. If I showed even the slightest weakness to her desperation, everything would be ruined.

Father’s words. Yua’s life. The weight of it all crushed my shoulders and my soul. All of my suffering had to be for the sake of saving her.

I looked down at her with icy detachment. I lowered the foot I had placed on the carriage and stared past her shoulder at the pale dawn sky, as if her existence meant nothing to me.

My lips moved coldly.

“There will be no reason for us to see each other again.”

My voice rang out dry and emotionless. I watched the last trace of color drain from Yua’s face. Once again, I felt in my bones just how horrific a wound this performance would leave on her. But I did not regret it. I could not regret it. Because regret would render everything meaningless.

Without hesitation, I climbed into the carriage. I closed the door with a cold gaze. The heavy thud echoed as resolutely as my determination. The carriage wheels began to roll roughly. I did not look back. I knew that if I did, all the sorrow and longing would overwhelm me and destroy my plan.

Even so, I prayed.

Please… live happily…

My carriage violently left the mansion behind and raced madly toward the Eastern Front, toward hell itself.

The heavy rumble of the carriage wheels felt like they were crushing me beneath them. The carriage carrying Leo vanished like smoke.

“There will be no reason for us to see each other again.”

His final cold words. They became a sharp dagger that pierced my heart.

I collapsed onto the cold dirt ground, still barefoot. I felt no physical pain. There was only… only agony. It felt as if a hole had been torn in my chest. As if the organs necessary for life had vanished. That kind of pain washed over me.

The dawn wind blew coldly, cutting through my bare feet and thin clothes. I accepted that chill with my entire body. It was cold. Everything was cold. My hands, my feet, my heart. The world. And Leo too. Because he was no longer the warm person who would hold my hand.

Tears flowed endlessly, as if soaking a barren wasteland. A silent scream erupted inside me, but no one could hear it. The only sound that reached me was the fading rumble of carriage wheels growing distant.

The maids rushed over and helped me up. They looked at me with startled, worried eyes, but it no longer mattered. I simply accepted their touch with an expressionless face. My world had already shattered into pieces. I couldn’t even begin to gather the broken fragments.

Time passed. After that day.

A single day felt like a thousand years, and a thousand years felt like a single day. I shut myself away in my room like a withered petal. Sunlight felt like a luxury, so I kept the curtains tightly drawn. Food wouldn’t go down my throat. Even the act of chewing felt disgusting, like I was chewing on the happy memories I had shared with Leo.

Every night, I secretly visited Leo’s study when the servants weren’t looking. The same study where he had pushed me away before he left. When I opened the door, his faint scent still lingered. I breathed it in deeply. I was terrified it would disappear.

I sat at his desk and touched the books he had been reading. The pen he had used. The teacup he often drank from. Everything carried traces of him. When I held the cold porcelain cup, for the briefest moment, I fell into the illusion that his warmth had returned. As if my touch could bring him back to my side… a futile delusion.

I spent a lot of time in his room. I organized the clothes he had worn and fiddled with the small objects in his drawers. One day, I found a small, worn coat buried deep in the closet—one he had worn as a child. The soft, aged fabric. When I held it to my chest, it felt like his warmth was there. I hugged that coat and sobbed through the night. My silent cries gnawed at my heart. My tears soaked into the fabric, deepening the gap between his childhood and his current coldness.

My heart had been torn in two. The sorrow of losing him. The betrayal of knowing the gentle Leo I once knew had abandoned me. Yet even within that betrayal, even when I recalled his frivolous smile, I could not hate him. The more I tried to hate him, the deeper I sank into confusion.

Perhaps he had done it for some reason… for my sake. That desperate self-justification, and yet the disappointment I could not erase. Loving him while hating him. Hating him while desperately longing for him. This ‘heart’ gradually transformed into a dark obsession.

In his room, I placed every object back in its exact position without a single mistake. As if he could return at any moment and say, “You’ve been well.” But if anyone dared touch his belongings or tried to clean his room, I stopped them with a sharp glare.

The words carved onto my wooden board were more resolute and colder than before. I could not allow anything to invade my space or the traces Leo had left behind.

As time passed, my heart grew darker and harder. I was no longer the innocent Yua I once had been. Every night before sleep, I repeated his name.

Come back. Leo. Please don’t forget me. Don’t be happy without me. Don’t be unhappy without me. Stay… by my side.

In my dreams, Leo was always smiling. That old, gentle, warm smile. Then I would kick that smiling face, slap his cheeks, and brutally destroy it. Because that smile no longer existed, it only looked repulsive. But at some point, even that became empty. Since this emotion wasn’t mere anger, it couldn’t be resolved that way.

So from then on, when Leo appeared in my dreams, I first cut off his ankles. A horrible sound rang out. His face twisted in pain. He spat words of resentment at me. But he could not escape me. He could go nowhere. Ah. Only then did I realize what I truly wanted.

But when I woke from the dream, he was gone, and only the cold winter wind waited for me.

The maids’ gossip pierced my ears like thorns.

“They say the young master is achieving great feats on the battlefield!”

“I hope he returns safely…”

Every time I heard their voices, I shrank back sharply. No. It didn’t matter if he achieved great feats. It didn’t matter if he became someone’s hero. Whether he returned safely or not was not my concern. He simply had to be mine. My Leo, belonging to no one else.

One day, Duke Ricardo caught me coming out of the study. His cold gaze pierced me, but I did not avoid it. He handed me a wooden board—the one I had once lent to Leo.

I said nothing and took the board. On it remained a note scribbled in Leo’s handwriting. A passage from the book he had been reading.

I snapped the board in front of him. Sharp fragments splintered in my hands. Then I lifted my head and stared directly into the Duke’s eyes. My gaze shimmered with an unreadable emotion, like a deep, still pond—free of sorrow, fear, or even despair.

The Duke narrowed his eyes, as if he could not understand.

At night, I stared out the window. In the darkness beyond the glass, Leo’s phantom flickered. He had left me, but in my heart, he appeared even more powerfully. I was certain he would return. And when he did, he would never be able to leave me again. No—I would make sure of it. No one would ever take ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Leo from me again. Not even his own will.

Two years passed.

The seasons changed, and news of victories and defeats crossed the empire’s front lines. Duke Ricardo, the master of the mansion, grew older, but the name of Heavenfield remained unshakable. And then a great change came to the ducal estate.

In the hour when the cold predawn air had yet to fade, the kitchen of the ducal mansion was filled only with orderly movement. The aroma of steaming warm bread, soup, and coffee filled the table, but the faces of the servants moving about were stiff. All their eyes were fixed on the center of the kitchen—on a woman dressed impeccably in a black maid uniform.

It was Yua.

She was no longer the little girl who had spent days and nights crying until she collapsed from exhaustion. Now seventeen years old, time had cruelly refined her. Her pale but graceful face was utterly expressionless, devoid of even a trace of emotion. The once-loose maid uniform now fit her slender frame perfectly, emphasizing her sharp lines. She always carried a thin black wooden board and a pen in her hands. Her ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠eyes were sharp, piercing through everything in the ducal mansion.

“Head Maid, may we begin cleaning the young master’s room today?” a young maid asked cautiously.

At the words “young master,” Yua’s eyebrow twitched ever so slightly, but no one noticed. She wrote briefly on the board she held.

The writing was cold and precise. The maid bowed her head and hurried away. Leo’s room had been sealed for years. It was a forbidden zone that no one but Head Maid Yua could enter. Everyone in the ducal household knew it.

Yua was a perfect head maid. Every aspect of the ducal mansion under her supervision ran as smoothly as flowing water. The servants feared her. She rarely showed emotion, and when she gave orders, there was never the slightest error. Once something was decided, it was carried out exactly as she wished. She commanded dozens of servants perfectly using only her writing and her gaze. Her instruction notes were meticulous and accurate; the slightest mistake was met with ruthless punishment. No one dared question her decisions.

Yua was young, but she was a flawless head maid. Even the old servants who had once looked down on her could no longer lift their heads in her presence. The mansion was perfect. Suffocatingly so.

After all the servants had finished their meals, Yua always sat alone at the table last and took a single spoonful of the soup that had gone cold. It was the same taste Leo had once thrown away, calling it disgusting. A faint, twisted smile brushed across her lips.

Is this what he wanted? For me to become this cold?

At dusk, when all her duties were finished, Yua headed to Leo’s room without anyone knowing. The room still carried his faint scent. Every object remained exactly as it had been on the day he left. She sat at his desk and picked up a pen.

For the past several years, news of Leo from the battlefield had only ever reached the Duke. Leo’s final words had become reality. Just as he had said, there would be no reason for them to see each other again. Not a single letter. Not even a short message.

Yua closed her eyes and fiddled with the pen in her hand. She had not forgotten the cold back she had seen as she lay collapsed on the ground that day, nor the carriage door closing. Nor the last words he had thrown at her. His actions had seeped into her like poison, slowly transforming her.

In her eyes, the shadow of despair Leo had left behind years ago still lingered deeply. But now, a terrifying light gleamed atop that shadow.

The voices of others no longer reached her. Or perhaps she simply refused to hear them.

No. Yua looked out the window. In the darkness beyond the glass, Leo’s phantom flickered. He had left her, but in her heart, he existed even more powerfully. She was certain he would return. No—she had to believe it. Only then could she endure.

Every night, as she organized his clothes and buried her face in the worn coat, she thought in a whisper that split the quiet of the night.

Her hand unconsciously curled, slowly tightening as if strangling something.