“Yes… I think I understand now.”

“What could you possibly understand to be spouting such nonsense?”

My father didn’t even blink.

Shuddering with disgust, he continued his tirade.

“The very act of remembering you is revolting.”

“…Love may fade, and that’s the end of it.”

I met his gaze directly and spoke in a calm murmur.

“But hatred turns into resentment. And it never ends.”

My father blinked once.

The violet eyes I had inherited from him disappeared briefly beneath his lids.

“And knowing that, why have you come here?”

“It seems that feeling is what drives me.”

I let out a quiet murmur.

“The fact that it brought me back to a place I never wanted to set foot in again… says enough.”

At my words, my father fell silent.

His face, unchanged from the past, looked back at me.

“So, why did you do that to me?”

“What exactly are you referring to?”

“I swore I would cherish you no matter what. I said I could even make a vow.”

At my whisper, his face slowly fell apart.

As I stared at his twisting expression, I spat the words out like poison.

“Roland Silcania… I hate you.”

When I thought about it properly, I realized that everything that had ever happened to me ultimately led back to him.

He showed me what true despair felt like.

He made me chase after love.

He left wounds that would never heal.

It was him.

He brought me into this world and never looked back.

As a child, I didn’t have the strength to fight back against the way he treated me.

But now it was different.

Now, I could make him fall at my feet.

I could make him suffer more than I ever did.

For a brief moment, that long-buried emotion twisted into pure rage.

Just as I reached out towards him—

“Don’t.”

A familiar voice — one that I loathed above all others — cut through the air.

Just as suddenly as when we first met, D’hiver appeared and grabbed my wrist.

His crimson eyes remained infuriatingly calm.

“Don’t do something you’ll regret.”

“Let go.”

I struggled to throw off his grip, but he didn’t budge.

Those sunken red eyes slowly settled on me. Watching my seething state, he spoke evenly.

“Don’t take your anger out on the wrong person.”

“Let go! Take your hand off me right now!”

I shouted sharply and finally tore my wrist free.

Unlike me, who was breathing hard with rage, he remained perfectly composed.

“Let’s go back.”

It was an absurd request.

I couldn’t help but laugh bitterly.

“Go back? Where?”

“To my side.”

“Why should I?”

At my sharp question, D’hiver blinked once, then whispered in the same unchanging tone,

“You still don’t understand? The only place you belong… is by my side.”

It was true.

Ridiculously so.

The only place I could stay was by his side.

Having been abandoned by the world I once belonged to, I had nowhere else to go.

I simply didn’t want to go back.

More than ever, I knew that I didn’t want to see his face, his expression or feel his breath near me again.

At least, not now.

“So—”

My voice trembled with fury.

“You want me to k*ll you? For whose sake would I even do that?”

“Violet, when did I ever say that?”

“Don’t be ridiculous! You said it yourself!”

At my renewed outburst, he let out a deep sigh.

“I told you before. Don’t trap yourself in your own world—thinking alone, judging alone, deciding everything on your own. Is that what Suki taught you?”

“What?”

How could he—after admitting he killed her.

My voice came out pale and shaking.

“How… how dare you even speak her name?”

Unlike my disbelief, D’hiver continued as if it were nothing.

“I was going to wait until you calmed down. Vivi, I’m not finished speaking.”

It was the same gentle tone he had always used to calm me down.

After everything we had been through, he knew that I would soften whenever I heard that voice.

But there was something he didn’t understand.

Not once in all that time had I ever felt so despondent.

“You didn’t even give me a chance to explain. You pushed me to the edge, and I gave you the answer you wanted. You didn’t even try to hear me out.”

“What I wanted… was the truth.”

“The truth?”

D’hiver echoed the words and then suddenly let out a hollow laugh.

“Truth. Yes… how nice. There is nothing more beautiful than the truth.”

Holding me captive once more in those striking red eyes, he spoke slowly.

“The truth you’re searching for lies in the past… and yet, in your eyes, was I really nothing more than that?”

He had made all of our past together meaningless.

The trust we had built, the memories we had shared and even my love — none of it held any value anymore.

No, because that time had existed.

Every moment we spent together proved that D’hiver would do anything to achieve his own goals.

His voice, his gaze, his actions — even the air around me when he was near — all told the same truth.

Not a single part of it had ever been pure.

“It’s true that you’re the only one who can k*ll me. But that’s all. There’s nothing more beyond that.”

“There’s nothing more?”

I echoed quietly.

D’hiver didn’t understand the most essential thing.

Why I was angry.

Why I had fallen into despair.

Why I was hurt.

“D’hiver.”

I lifted my head fully.

My eyes, glaring at him, must have been burning.

“Are you really saying that because you don’t know?”

“What exactly?”

“If I—standing by your side—hadn’t suited your taste… what would you have done?”

He said it himself.

From the moment he first saw me, he knew my worth.

That was why he saved me — the girl who wanted to die.

I was only twelve back then.

From that moment on, he became part of my world — my entire world, my world itself.

“If I had disobeyed you even a little, strayed even slightly, done anything that displeased you—what would you have done then?”

D’hiver didn’t answer.

It was as if he were thinking.

But I already knew the answer he couldn’t give.

I knew what had happened to the people before me.

You killed almost ten people just to create the version of me that you needed.

If my sister had taken my place, you would have slaughtered countless more until it was my turn again.

Not because you loved me, but because of your long-cherished desire.

“Now that a doll you like has appeared! Now that you’re intoxicated by the amusement of playing with me for a fleeting moment! Of course this short life of yours doesn’t feel lonely or dull!”

I shouted at the top of my lungs.

The betrayal was unbearable, but what I couldn’t bear most was this: That I was nothing more than a tool or a doll to the person I loved.

“But what happens when that moment ends? And what if I had never known the truth?”

“Vivi, please calm down. This isn’t something you decide on your own like that.”

“You would have gladly made that child—who wanted to die—k*ll you with their own hands. Because that’s your wish. And then—”

Tears welled in my eyes.

My past self, my present self, my future self—they were all too pitiful to bear.

“Even if I give you the benefit of the doubt and say your feelings right now are genuine. Even if I say you loved me just as much as I loved you—what happens when that feeling fades?”

Once again, I arrived at the same conclusion.

“You’ll throw me away into the very thing you find so disgusting!”

I screamed in desperation.

He didn’t answer.

He neither affirmed nor denied it.

But to me, there was only one thing it meant.

A hollow laugh escaped me.

“Everything… everything was fake.”

The past flashed before my eyes.

The moment we first met.

The time we spent together.

That gentle voice, still echoing in my ears from the very beginning.

“I’ll become your love.”

I had struggled so desperately to be loved.

That was the only thing I had ever wanted.

And this—this was all it amounted to.

“All those sweet words you told me… that affection you pretended to give me! All of it! It was all fake!”

The tears that had gathered finally overflowed.

They slid down my cheeks, falling like rain.

“Or was it meant for someone else? Was it meant for the one who betrayed you as a child and cast you into hell?”

For a long moment, D’hiver only looked at me.

Then, at last, he spoke with difficulty.

“…Yes, I can understand why you’d think that. I might have thought the same. But don’t dismiss my love for you as something fake.”

“And that—! The very reason I met you, the reason I trusted you and followed you—it all comes back to him!”

Ignoring what he had said, I pointed at my father. My voice was shaking with fury.

Just as I shouted, the door burst open.

Her golden hair fluttered softly; she was radiant, like the sun — so different from me, with my pale, miserable moon-like hair.

She stepped forward and her face was identical to our mother’s.

“F-Father? Why is it so loud? What’s going on? Oh my… well, look who it is.”

Her face had grown far more mature than the last time I saw her.

But that same mocking expression remained unchanged.

“What brings you all the way here? I was hoping I’d never have to see you again.”

My sister looked straight at me, the corner of her lips curling crookedly.

“There was no word about selecting a new Psyche, so I wondered… but you’re really like a weed, aren’t you?”

“Is that so?”

I answered casually.

But I had no intention of tolerating her pathetic words any longer.

“Sister.”

“Why are you calling me?”

“I’m done holding back.”

“Done holding back? And what exactly are you going to do about it?”

She didn’t need to answer.

I would let her learn through experience.

The next moment, a violent gust of wind swept in and engulfed her.

She screamed.

“Ahh!”

“Eri!”

“Violette!”

Bang!

There was a deafening crash that echoed through the room.

Her body was flung helplessly against the wall.

She dropped to the floor, trembling uncontrollably.

D’hiver stared at me in shock.

“Don’t do this. Please.”

“Stay out of it.”

As I replied coldly, my father rushed to her side.

Absurdly, his hands trembled with concern as he checked her over.

“What… what is the meaning of this?! Eri is already in a fragile state—!”

Supporting her shaking body, he lifted his head.

Unlike his gentle touch, his eyes burned with fury at the situation.

“If you resent me, then you should take it out on me!”

“Is that really something you should be saying? Or are you asking because you truly don’t know?”

I answered without a hint of hesitation.

Looking straight at him, I formed the most beautiful smile I could manage.

“She’s not dead, is she? Then that’s enough.”

“W-What did you say?”

“I can’t bring myself to take something precious from you again.”

At that, my father looked up at me as though he were staring at a demon.