To the One Who Hates Me

Dark clouds hung heavily in the sky.

A fierce wind tore through the once carefully tended garden, scattering petals like fragile confetti. The once-trimmed and nurtured flowers now lay crushed on the ground, defeated by the relentless wind.

He slowly swept his gaze across the garden.

No one was there.

He had long known that Bel avoided him, only venturing outside at night rather than during the day. Yet now, even beneath the cover of darkness, she was nowhere to be found.

Without realizing it, his hand tightened — the same hand that had seized her the night before.

Cold air slipped through his empty grasp.

It was true that he had felt irritation flare the moment he saw her. Displeasure followed close behind. But he had never intended to say so much.

From the outset, his intention had been simple: to isolate her and let her fade away quietly, rather than wounding her with petty, cutting words. That was never his way.

It had only been…

It was the scent that had drifted to him when he pulled her close.

The smallness of her body, fitting so perfectly in his arms. The faint, sweet fragrance that lingered on her skin.

For a brief, unguarded moment, heat crept up the back of his neck.

The realization that he had desired that woman filled him with deep, bitter revulsion.

‘Have I lost my mind?’

The days when he would have reacted like a starving beast at the sight of a woman were long gone.

It wasn’t as though he lacked female attention. The truth was that he had never been particularly interested in women.

It had been the same with Isabel.

There had been light touches — nothing more. Even when she made her intentions unmistakably clear, he never felt anything more than that. Every time, it ended with nothing more than their hands brushing together.

Desire did surface at times, but only during battle when the merciless sl*ughter on the barren battlefield sent his adrenaline levels soaring. Even then, he had not sought out a woman. He had found other ways to suppress it.

And now, suddenly — l*st?

A hollow laugh escaped him.

He had already considered himself mad when he chose to spare the woman who had deceived him. But perhaps he had truly lost his mind.

He dragged a hand down his face and muttered a curse under his breath.

It was because she resembled Isabel. There could be no other reason.

He repeated this to himself like an incantation, as though trying to force his thoughts to submit.

Yes, that was it.

He hadn’t killed her because, for a moment, he’d seen Isabel’s face superimposed on hers.

It was nothing more than Isabel’s lingering afterimage that had unsettled him.

Nothing more.

Just then, there was a knock at the door.

It was Eric.

“There is something you need to see.”

Damian’s thoughts cleared at once. The moment he saw Eric, Bel disappeared from his mind completely.

It was only when he noticed the rigid, humorless expression on Eric’s face that he remembered the order he had given.

Eric led him to a place heavy with the dry scent of freshly turned earth.

Damian’s gaze fell upon the coffin before him.

At Eric’s silent signal, the servants stepped forward and lifted the lid.

The moment it was opened, a foul stench surged outwards.

Someone gagged, but the sound was quickly silenced by Damian’s cold, unyielding stare.

Inside lay the corpse of a woman.

Her dress was torn beyond recognition, and her body had begun to decay; her flesh had given way to bone.

Even so, Damian recognized her instantly.

The ring on her fourth finger.

It was the engagement ring he had once placed there himself.

At last—

They had found the real Isabel.

***

With the moonlight behind her, Bel sat with her fingers gently moving across the raised dots of the Braille book.

They moved at a steady, practiced pace — not too quickly, not too slowly.

Since the night she went out for a walk and encountered him, she had not left her room once.

She did not dare return to the garden.

She was afraid of facing him again and hearing those cold, cutting words.

Three days had already passed since she last left her room.

The Braille books had been prepared even before her arrival at the Grand Duke’s estate.

Damian had arranged them in advance — for her.

What would she have done without these books?

Would she have just sat in silence, letting the hours pass as she waited for death to claim her?

Her hands, arms, and neck ached from reading all day.

She paused to massage them gently.

She wanted to continue reading, but exhaustion was weighing heavily on her body.

Reluctantly, she set the book aside, climbed into bed and tried to sleep.

Her eyelids drooped, threatening to close.

For a moment, she fought against it in vain.

Then the sound of the door opening shattered the stillness.

“W-Who… is it?”

The unexpected intrusion shattered her drowsiness at once.

If it had been a maid, there would have been a knock on the door.

At this hour, nobody should be coming at all.

The door closed.

Instinctively, Bel moved backwards.

Before her back had even reached the headboard, she felt fingers close around her throat.

“Ah—!”

The force pressing down on her held her helplessly pinned to the mattress.

Her airway constricted.

Bel trembled violently as she clawed at the hand crushing her throat. Her sightless eyes stared upwards, unfocused and wide.

Her nails scraped against taut veins and rough skin.

Is this a dream?

This was her first thought, even as her consciousness began to fade.

She had dreamed of being strangled before.

In that dream, it had been her sister Isabel wrapping her hands around her neck and hurling accusations thick with resentment.

This felt similar.

Except the hand choking her now was larger.

And far stronger.

Was this Damian’s hand?

Her slender fingers trembled as she traced the hand gripping her throat.

It was.

Damian.

Her breaths grew weaker and thinner.

The hand clutching his wrist slowly lost its strength and slipped away.

In that instant, the fingers crushing her throat faltered—

and withdrew.

“Ghk—!”

As the pressure eased, air rushed back into her lungs.

Her swollen throat burned, and each dry cough felt as though shards of glass were scraping against it.

Tears welled in her eyes.

When she blinked, they spilled silently down her cheeks.

She took desperate, uneven breaths.

Gradually, her breathing began to steady. Her clouded mind slowly regained clarity.

It wasn’t a dream.

Before she could fully process this, a familiar voice — low and rough, as though it were crawling across the floor — cut through the darkness.

“We found Isabel’s body.”

Her tear-blurred eyes shifted towards the sound.

His scent lingered close by.

“She was buried without even a headstone. As if someone meant for her to never be found.”

“……”

“They didn’t even bother with proper preservation. Just thrown into the earth. There wasn’t a single part of her left intact.”

“……”

“Yet the grave built for you—though you weren’t even dead—had a coffin.”

Eric had prepared the coffin containing Isabel’s remains.

Having been killed by the very people she had trusted, she had not even received the basic dignity afforded to the dead.

What had he been doing while she suffered such a fate?

He had held a counterfeit in his arms, spoken of love, and even felt desire.

The disgust that surged through him was inevitable.

His breathing became rough.

Emotions he had thought were long gone rose again, fierce and suffocating.

They needed an outlet.

He ground his teeth.

“She died like that.”

In the darkness, he stared directly at the woman before him.

His golden eyes flickered.

“Why are you still alive?”

Bel stopped breathing.

She could sense the n*ked resentment and fury directed at her.

Her breathing was uneven, as though she had forgotten how to breathe.

It was as if he was saying that Isabel should have lived and she should have died.

Bel felt a flicker of shock.

But it did not tear her heart apart.

She was used to that look.

It was the same look she had endured after her mother died.

“You took your mother’s life.”
“You should never have been born.”

Her lips trembled faintly.

“Do you… wish for me to die?”

The question was barely audible.

Damian caught it anyway.

A short, humorless laugh escaped him.

“If I kill you, will Isabel return?”

If killing this woman could have brought Isabel back, he would have done it a hundred or a thousand times over.

But even an omnipotent god cannot undo death.

So why would he pretend that he could?

“There is nothing for me to gain from your death. So why should I?”

“……”

“If I killed you, you would be grateful. Just as you were when you offered your throat so willingly a moment ago.’ Do you think I would do something you desire?”

His voice, close to her ear, was chilling.

“You commit such a crime and think you can escape comfortably on your own? Let me warn you: don’t even consider s*icide. Unless you want to find out what it’s like to live without dying, just barely clinging on to life.”

As though she could imagine such a fate — being alive yet unable to die — her pupils trembled faintly.

The tears that had already dried left a faint redness around her eyes.

Up close, her grey eyes — almost blue-grey — had a subtle, indefinable aura.

While Isabel’s jewel-like gaze could capture a person’s heart at once, Bel’s was different. At first glance, one might not even notice it. Yet, like an afterimage seared into the mind, it lingered quietly and persistently until it unsettled you.

Suddenly, a strange impulse seized Damian.

He wanted to see those eyes fill with tears again.

Just as they had that day when tears trembled on her lashes before falling one by one.

“…D*mn it.”

Bel flinched at the cold curse.

Damian stepped down from the bed.

Struggling to contain his emotional turmoil, he left the bedroom.

He desperately needed a cigarette.