<I remember the warm body heat that embraced me the moment I first opened my eyes. Mother, you were always like that. You loved me with clasped hands, with a warm embrace, and sometimes with silence. I’m ashamed to say I only realized this recently.

The reason I couldn’t feel such enormous affection was because I was an immature person. Perhaps I wanted to turn away from it—that’s what I think now. I didn’t know how to accept such great love or how to return it.

Mother, now I know how certain and tremendous the love you gave me was. And I know I must change to repay it.

I no longer want to mistakenly believe I’m unhappy, dwell on what I lack, or do foolish things that hurt others. So I’m going to learn how to love myself first.

This is a short journey for that purpose.

I’m always sorry for being a daughter who only brings you worry. But even if it takes some time, I will definitely return to the side of you both who have cherished me consistently, to my family’s embrace. Please wait just a little longer for your daughter who’s always late.>

How could she not let go of a daughter who had made such a resolution?

The fact that a child who had never lived independently showed such will was moving in its own way. Moreover, she had a good idea who had helped her disappear so perfectly that even Rosenia couldn’t track her.

‘With that child, Chartia won’t be in any danger…’

And above all…

[Whatever you want, do as you wish.]

Those words she’d given her daughter were sincere. Even if that choice was close to failure, even if the result would actually harm the child, if it was the child’s will, she wanted to respect it. 

She would support it.

Of course, she would miss the child terribly. Sometimes she might stay up all night worrying. But she could wait forever. For the day the child would return after finding happiness. For the moment she would call to her and smile by her side again.

However, two people seemed utterly unable to accept Chartia’s choice. Rosenia, who had been the first to notice the child’s absence, and the Chester Young Grand Duke, who had been her fiance.

Just then, a servant approached hesitantly regarding him.

“My lady, the Chester Young Grand Duke is still waiting… what should we do?”

“…I suppose he inherited his stubbornness from his mother. I’ll meet with him.”

Olivia, who sighed deeply, stood up.

She’d heard he came to the estate right after Chartia left. He must have learned of Chartia’s absence through Rose then, yet he continued visiting the estate afterward. And to meet the head of the Blanche family at that.

Olivia had ignored his one-sided requests.

In truth, she knew that Chartia’s insistence on learning magic, her reckless behavior that ruined her body—all of it was because of the Chester child.

He had surely been a grateful existence at first, helping cure her child’s illness. But watching the child grow increasingly exhausted and hurt, she regretted her decision to bind the two together.

She knew it was Chartia’s will, but she couldn’t help resenting him, so Olivia refused his belated visits. This request was the same.

The matter at hand was probably about how to smooth over this engagement that was nothing but theater now that Chartia had left, wasn’t it?

[Tell him he must have received the annulment documents, so do as he wishes.]

She conveyed those words through the servant. But the servant who returned shook his head with a troubled face.

[He says he cannot return until he hears of Lady Chartia’s whereabouts, and that he’ll keep waiting.]

True to his words, the Young Grand Duke repeatedly stayed silently in the drawing room from early morning until well past evening, then withdrew. The next day too, and the day after that, and even today.

The Young Grand Duke couldn’t have been sincere about her child. What could his intention be in so persistently searching for Chartia—she moved with the thought of interrogating him.

But Olivia, arriving at the drawing room, lost her words. In the space where an eerie silence had settled, a thoroughly haggard man stood precariously.

“…Marquis.”

The man, who couldn’t even manage a proper greeting, approached her urgently.

Hunching his large body, clenching his bloodshot hands, trembling his lips, the man spoke.

“Please tell me where Chartia went.”

“…”

“…Please, I beg you. You know where Chartia is, where that child is, don’t you? It doesn’t have to be a specific location. Even just a general area, a position—if you tell me, I’ll search for her myself.”

“…Young Grand Duke.”

He looked desperate, like someone abandoned by the world. So she realized at once. He hadn’t come to her with some calculating intention. It was simply because her child was a very significant existence to this man, because he absolutely couldn’t bear to lose her.

Even when changing the engagement partner to Chartia, she hadn’t believed that ‘Chester’ child, Gloria’s son, would sincerely regard her daughter. But apparently she was wrong. Perhaps he had given a heart more important and greater than the heart Chartia had lost.

“…Please, I beg you. I must, I must meet Chartia. I must meet her and apologize.”

His pallid face was frighteningly white. Olivia looked at the man who had withered away, forgetting her resentment and grudge.

He looked ready to kneel if only he could meet Chartia. But cruelly, she didn’t have the answer he wanted.

“I’ve conveyed this many times, but I truly don’t know where that child went. She left me with only a single letter too.”

“…I see.”

The fist that had been clenched so tightly it seemed it would never loosen relaxed helplessly. He staggered back a couple steps like a prisoner receiving a death sentence, then slowly began to collect his agitation.

He straightened his hunched shoulders, rubbed his pale skin with the back of his hand, and put on a well-pressed outer garment over his wrinkled shirt. 

With just that, the earlier desperation disappeared without a trace. But Olivia had already discovered the terrible despair that had lingered for that brief moment.

Hah—Olivia, who sighed shortly, reluctantly opened her mouth.

“…What I know is that she’s at least not in the capital. Rose brought all her colleagues and turned the capital upside down but couldn’t find her.”

“…Yes.”

“If by any chance that child returns, I’ll let you know, so you’d better go back and rest.”

It was closer to appeasement than goodwill. An appeasement mixed with pity, telling him not to wander searching for Chartia anymore.

“…Thank you.”

But the stride of the man who gave his thanks and turned away was still anxious. Just like when Rose had reddened her eyes, shaken her head forcefully, and finally turned away a few days ago.

So Olivia could tell. Like Rosenia, that man too would continue wandering in search of Chartia.

Wounds are the portion of those who leave, and regret is the portion of those left behind.

Before that absolute truth, Rosenia, who was left behind, shouldered regret. At first, she certainly tried to deny it. She raged that this wasn’t regret, that it wasn’t her portion, that it couldn’t be.

But as the sun rose and set repeatedly in the empty room, as she waited for the room’s owner who still didn’t return, as she read and reread the heart she’d left behind in it, she finally gave up denying.

Chartia said she was sorry for always taking without giving anything. She also said she hoped Rosenia could receive at least some compensation during her absence. 

And she said she would definitely return once she could exist wholly as ‘herself,’ that she would become a sister who, if not proud, would at least no longer be a burden.

What did you take?

What compensation?

What is this whole ‘self,’ what is being a sister?

Beneath her palm, the neat paper crumpled miserably. Her head felt both burning hot and ice-cold.

She became angry enough to grit her teeth at the woman who left without giving her a chance to explain, apologize, talk, or forgive, then became disgusted with herself for postponing facing her with the excuse of lacking courage. 

Alternating anger at the other person and herself like that, she suddenly stopped thinking. She cut off her emotions like turning off water.

“Sister leaving is my fault.”

That was the first thing she said after barging into her mother’s office without knocking.

“I said I wished she would disappear, that it would have been better if she’d just died.”

At the sudden confession, Olivia stiffened then immediately frowned. Glaring at the shallow wrinkles, the firmly closed lips, Rosenia continued exposing her depths.

“You asked what I wanted, right? The engagement with Chester? I never once wanted that crap. I just wanted to take what my sister wanted. I only hoped my sister would suffer.”

Like someone who had to earn the other’s disappointment, she spoke only of the ugliest heart she’d held. Perhaps she hoped that calm gaze would waver with resentment, that blame would leak through those chapped lips.

But Olivia brought up an unexpected story with a subtle expression that was neither crying nor smiling.

“Chartia left me with one last request.”

“…A request?”

“She asked me to look after you. She said you must have had a very long, very hard and painful time because of her. That you couldn’t fully enjoy the love you should have received because of her. So this time, no matter what situation arises, to be on your side and stay by your side.”

Rosenia desperately tried to understand Olivia’s words. No, tried not to understand them. She couldn’t lose the wall she’d worked so hard to build like this. 

But the sentences, the words, the meaning within them were so small they easily passed through and permeated the crudely made wall.

It meant she would never allow her to turn away from reality. It meant to constantly think of her wrongdoing and ultimately die in regret.

Hah. The air filling her lungs was roughly expelled. 

The face she believed was calm crumpled, and her eyelids heated up. The regret and sadness she’d finally locked away flowed down her cheeks.

“Rose.”

Olivia, who quietly stood up, approached hesitantly. She bit her lips before her crying daughter, squeezed her eyes shut, then finally carefully wrapped her shoulders with pitiful hands.

“Did I, did we make you lonely? …No, we made you this hard.”

“…”

“…You were still a young child too. You were always such an excellent and smart daughter, I believed your words that you were okay really meant you were okay. …Actually, maybe I just wanted to believe that. With the excuse that I was struggling.”

“…”

“So don’t blame yourself. If you were in pain, if you struggled, and if you still are, it’s not your fault. It’s entirely my fault.”

Rosenia remembered a childhood not filled with sadness and pain. But she likewise remembered moments that were certainly lonely and difficult.

It was just that heavy emotions tended to sink more easily, so they remained longer—she didn’t think the love and understanding she received from her mother and father were lacking. She hadn’t wanted an apology either.

But when warm hands grasped her dry hands, when she was embraced like being trapped in arms that had somehow become smaller than hers, when she listened to the moist voice within them while holding her breath, Rosenia became vulnerable like a young child for the first time. 

She collapsed.

“If it’s too hard to endure, you can leave too. You don’t need to shoulder my burden anymore, don’t need to endure. You can live as you want.”

The hand stroking her back brushed away the self-blame and sense of responsibility that had been weighing her down one by one. So when she was no longer sad or devastatingly painful, Rosenia roughly rubbed and wiped her wet eyes.

“No. I won’t run away like a coward like someone else.”

Rosenia, who carefully escaped from Olivia’s embrace, lifted her head. She widened her reddened eyes, clenched her fists again, and steadied her breath.

Comfort and vulnerability were enough now. With the strength that had endured that long time, with the stubbornness that had sustained her until now, she stood upright.

“You said to do as I please now. Even if this was that person’s choice, I’m going to drag her back. I’ll tell her to repay me directly if she’s sorry. That’s what I want.”

She decided to stop being considerate. She stopped pretending to be good. Rosenia Blanche, neither the pride of Blanche nor a reliable daughter, wanted that.

She would make her face her directly and apologize. And she would apologize.

Rosenia, who had made her resolution, turned around. Her advancing steps were resolute without pause.