Her eyes pulled him back to three years ago in an instant, and Leon bit his lip and turned his head away.

“So… please stay still.”

How much time passed with her held in his arms like that?

He had kept his body close to hers, watching the sounds outside the whole time, and only when everything outside went completely quiet did he finally lower his head.

“Why did you come all the way out here… no, it’s late.”

“…….”

At his cold, reproachful words, Lisette pressed the tip of her index finger hard against her thumbnail. If she didn’t do at least that much, she felt she might burst into tears at any moment, but…

“…….”

A single tear gathered at the corner of her eye without her realizing it and slid down her cheek.

“Ha.”

Leon’s gaze flickered at the sight, and he pressed everything down inside himself and drew a long breath. And in that moment, a pain tore through him like a knife through his heart, and his vision blurred with tears. Even so, he bit his lip at the hazy shape of him in front of her.

‘Did I really come all this way just to confirm this?’

When she squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again, all she could see was his profile. Lisette had been holding her gaze on his eyes, which kept turning away from hers, and she wiped her tears with the back of her hand.

He no longer hurt at the sight of her tears. Watching him simply sigh told her she no longer needed to cry in front of him.

She bit her lip hard and forced her eyes upward.

As she rolled her eyes upward and swallowed against a dry throat, it felt as though blood was pouring from a wound in her heart. All the more so, watching him show no reaction even with her crying right in front of him.

“I’ll go.”

“…….”

She pressed her hand to his shoulder to push herself up, then turned her body the other way. She was too close to him. His bare body and his scent shook something loose inside her.

‘Stop it.’

Her heart beat faster at the worst possible moment, and Lisette squeezed her eyes shut. She lifted her hand from his body and pressed it to the floor instead, and Leon, covering himself with the towel beside him, wrapped an arm around her waist and lifted her lightly.

“!”

The grip of the arm that curled around her, and the familiar scent of Leon that came with it. His scent shook her to her core, and Lisette bit her lip, and then his body grazed her thigh and pulled away. The unfamiliar sensation left her breathless. The shape she had seen earlier came back to her, vivid and clear.

She squeezed her eyes shut.

‘Really, what am I thinking about right now!’

Lisette shook her head, stepped back to put distance between them, and leaned her back against the door.

“…….”

At that, Leon curled his outstretched fingers into his palm and quietly lifted his hand from her waist.

“I’ll walk you back.”

The warmth vanished in an instant, and Lisette swallowed and turned her head. Leon had already turned away and was heading toward the bedroom, tying the towel around his waist as he went.

“I can go alone.”

“I’ll be right out.”

But Leon paid no attention to her words and went straight into the bedroom. A brief rustling came from inside, and not long after, he came back out wearing a white shirt and trousers thrown on loosely, stepping into his leather shoes.

‘This.’

His body had grown so much larger than three years ago that the shirt, which used to hang loose on him, looked ready to split. The lines of his exposed arms and chest were hardly any different from when he had nothing on at all…

‘They are different! What are you thinking! Of course they’re different!’

Lisette shook her head.

No, she turned her whole body away.

“Miss….”

“Oh, are you not ready yet? I want to go back quickly.”

At the slight crack in Lisette’s voice, Leon stopped where he stood and slipped his hand into his trouser pocket without a word. He touched the object he had tucked inside and looked at her back, but…

“…….”

In the end he could not take it out, and with an empty hand he stepped up behind her and took hold of the door handle, pulling it open.

“Let’s go.”

* * *

He said nothing the entire walk back, and stopped at the boundary between the forest and the manor. The path in had felt like a thousand miles, but walking it with him, it seemed to end in just a few steps.

Such a short distance. Lisette turned and looked back, and the sound of grass crushing underfoot reached her, followed by his voice.

“Go inside.”

His tone was courteous. She turned her head at his carefully proper words. He had stepped back, standing not at the boundary between the forest and the manor but leaning toward the forest side, and she looked up at him.

He was pushing her away.

Not in any physical sense.

But his tone, his gaze, the way he stepped back to put distance between them. Every one of his actions refused her. And that hurt more and felt more wretched than any physical push could have.

“Thank….”

She steadied her breathing and tried to say something, but she bit her tongue at the sight of his profile turning away from her. She couldn’t even find the courage to ask him why.

Because she couldn’t predict his answer.

Would it hurt even more than the wound she had already taken? Lisette clenched her fist without a sound.

‘Go back.’

No…

‘Don’t… run into him anymore.’

If it was going to be like this.

Lisette stared at Leon.

‘You might as well not have come back.’

Grief surged up and she felt her tears about to spill. But she didn’t want to cry any more than this, so she chewed and chewed at the soft flesh inside her mouth and forced the tears back down. Then she stepped past him and crossed over into the manor grounds, and just then…

“Miss.”

His voice reached her, brief as a sigh.

Perhaps it was that his call carried a warmth different from the formality of a moment ago. The sound of his voice alone made the tip of her nose sting, and Lisette bit her lip. She knew that if she turned to face him now she would cry, so she kept her back to him and tilted her chin just slightly.

“What.”

“From now on… don’t come looking for me alone.”

But his words came out cold, not at all what she had expected, and a single tear slid down her frozen cheek.

She had spent a brief moment wondering what she would say if he apologized, if he said he was sorry. She had told herself she would never say it was fine, that she would tell him his reaction had hurt her. But his words made all of that meaningless, and she lost every word she had. She turned her body and faced him.

‘Don’t come?’

The tear that had fallen gathered at the tip of her chin.

“…….”

But even at her tears, he did not move. He raised his head.

“The forest at night is dangerous. Especially since the number of wild animals has grown over the past three years, it’s even more so, so from now on….”

“I understand.”

And nothing else reached her ears.

Only that he had refused her. Whatever else he said sounded like nothing more than a flimsy excuse for that refusal.

Right, however he put it, he was telling her not to come.

Lisette met his eyes.

“I won’t go anymore.”

She wiped the tear from her cheek with the back of her hand. She almost felt like laughing.

In the end, she had been the only one counting down to today.

‘Right, like a fool.’

She had thought about how she should greet him when he came back. She would smile, wouldn’t she?

She had told herself she wouldn’t ask why he never wrote back, why he never sent word. She had made up her mind not to ask any of it.

Right, she had sent all those letters only because she wanted to know he was safe. So as long as he came back safely, she would ask nothing. She had thought that since she was simply glad he had returned safely, she would smile for him the way he would want her to, bright and pretty.

And if she smiled like that, he would smile back at her the way he used to. She had let herself believe, carelessly, that things could go back to the way they were three years ago, that they could return to what they had been.

‘Please wait for me.’

‘I will come back.’

He had made that promise when he left.

But now she had to accept it. He had forgotten every promise from three years ago.

‘Right, the Leon who was my only friend, who swore to protect me with his life, is gone.’

The moment she faced that reality, it felt as though a piece of her heart tore away.

‘It’s really over.’

“…….”

No, perhaps it had already ended three years ago. She had simply been too foolish to see it, and had only now come to recognize the ending she had been putting off for three years.

Blood seeped from the ragged flesh inside her mouth, but she had no one to blame.

‘It’s all my fault. Who is there to blame?’

With a bitter smile on her lips, Lisette wiped the last of her tear tracks away with the back of her hand and lifted her head to meet his eyes.

“…….”

“…….”

His dark eyes, watching her steadily. His cold gaze, half-hidden behind strands of hair the wind had loosened. Even the faint smell of blood that drifted on the breeze.

She took in the sight of him, a stranger now, and lifted her head as though none of it touched her.

‘Now it’s truly over.’

And so she would not cry anymore. She made that promise to herself and lifted the corners of her mouth.

“Right, I’ll be careful from now on. No, I will be careful from now on.”

“…….”

The stiff, formal tone she might use with any household knight made Leon’s jaw tighten and lock.

But that was all.

He said nothing more.

He simply stood there watching her, indifferent and silent, and at that gaze, Lisette let go of the last remaining feeling she had held onto in one corner of her heart. She turned and walked toward the manor.

With him at her back, with every step that carried her further away, tears spilled over and gathered at the tip of her chin, falling one by one onto her chest.

And so, that night, my long-held first love, the one I had kept putting off, came to an end.