diah pov
The warmth of Victor's hand cupping my face felt entirely foreign, yet painfully heavy. His thumb brushed against my cheekbone, catching a tear that had escaped before I could stop it.
"Your nastiest, most cruel true feelings," Victor murmured, his voice cutting through the suffocating silence between us, laced with an agonizing mix of exhaustion and bitter finality. "Do they finally show in your eyes now too? Or do you still not know?"
I couldn't find my voice. My lips parted, but no words came—only a steady, humiliating stream of tears blurring my vision as I looked up at him. Every defense I had built up, every wall I had erected to keep him at a distance, felt like it was crumbling away under the crushing weight of his gaze.
He stared down at me, a dark, self-deprecating smile touching the corners of his lips. The sight of my tears didn't bring him comfort; it only seemed to deepen the sharp, jagged edges of his pain.
"Fine then," he whispered, letting his hand drop slowly from my face, the sudden absence of warmth leaving my skin cold.
He stepped back, putting physical distance between us as his eyes darkened with a resolute, terrifying emptiness.
"If you're still going to deny me until the end, this time I'll truly disappear for you," he said, his words falling like lead into the quiet room. "Just as you've long wished, I will never appear before you again. If my disappearance is what completes your fantasy…"
My heart hammered frantically against my ribs, a sudden panic seizing my throat. No. That wasn't what I wanted—not like this. But before I could force the words past my lips, before I could reach out and pull him back, he turned away.
"I will gladly do so, Diah," he said softly, the finality in his voice snapping whatever fragile tether remained between us.
He turned on his heel and walked toward the door. I stood frozen in the center of the room, wrapped in my robe, watching his broad shoulders retreat into the shadows. Every heavy, echoing step he took felt like a piece of my chest being carved out, leaving me standing alone in the suffocating quiet, drowning in the silence I had foolishly thought I wanted.
…Leaving?
The word echoed silently in my mind, sharp and suffocating. Me?
I watched his back as he turned away, every steady step he took putting an insurmountable ocean of distance between us. A helpless impulse surged through me, and before I could stop myself, I reached out into the empty air, my hand trembling as if I could somehow catch the trailing edge of his shadow.
My feet moved forward on their own, bare against the cold floor, stepping hesitantly toward him. But my toes faltered, stopping just short of bridging the gap.
At the very least, you… had never lied to me, I thought, the realization cutting deeper than any harsh truth ever could.
…What was I supposed to do?
The despair swelled in my chest until it was difficult to breathe. You're not supposed to love a broken heart. Because I couldn't let myself break along with you.
That's why I wasn't supposed to love you. So I erased you.
I turned toward the dark window, my reflection ghosting over the glass. Tears spilled hot over my cheeks as I clutched the fabric of my robe tight over my chest, as if trying to hold together the shattering pieces inside me.
Wanting to love someone who wasn't you, wanting to be ordinarily happy myself…
My shoulders shook, and I let my head fall forward, drowning in the quiet room.
I wanted to live too.
And I had hoped you wouldn't live like that anymore either. Deceiving myself like that, I thought I had forgotten you. It should have been enough if it ended with that.
As his fingers gripped the frame of the door, ready to walk out of my life forever, my voice tore through the heavy air.
"...Victor!"
He froze, his head turning slightly back toward me, those dark eyes fixing on mine with a quiet, weary intensity.
In the end, perhaps there was never a right answer for me. If I couldn't be whole whether I was with you or left you, would it have been better not to lose you instead?
Driven by a sudden, violent wave of realization, I closed the distance between us before I could talk myself out of it. Reaching up, I threw my arms around his neck, pulling him down to press my lips against his.
He stood startled for a fraction of a second, his blue eyes widening in surprise as tears continued to spill hot down my cheeks. But as I clung to him, desperate and undoing every boundary I had tried so hard to keep, the realization sank in—I couldn't let him walk away.
The shock in Victor's bright blue eyes mirrored my own trembling desperation as our lips finally met. His hand, which had been resting limply by his side, suddenly twitched, fingers curling into the fabric of my robe before wrapping firmly around my back, pulling me against him as if he were terrified I would vanish into thin air.
The kiss was heavy with unspoken anguish, born of all the distance we had forced between us.
"...Victor," I breathed against his lips, my fingers tangling into the dark hair at the nape of his neck.
That day's choice...
My mind flashed back to the bitter memory of a courtroom, the echoes of a cold decree lingering in the air: "I permit the marriage. However, the engagement comes first. Wait until I decide the time is right."
How harsh it must have been for you, I thought, a fresh wave of grief tightening my throat as I looked up into his face. When I knew better than anyone... the things you tried so desperately to protect.
...
My hands moved on their own, fist taking hold of the lapel of his suit jacket as if to anchor myself before I crumbled completely. Tears continued to streak down my face in a hot, steady stream, my breath catching in ragged hitches.
Victor lowered his gaze to meet mine, his dark blue eyes searching my face with a profound, aching quiet. He didn't push me away. Instead, he leaned in again, capturing my lips in a tender, lingering kiss that pulled the last remnants of my defense apart.
His large hand moved to hold mine tightly against his chest, locking our fingers together in a desperate grip. Outside, the soft pitter-patter of rain tapped against the high glass window panels, completely oblivious to the storm raging between us.
He parted from my lips just enough to speak, his breath warm against my skin as he murmured softly.
"...Why do you keep crying?" he whispered, his voice trembling ever so slightly. "As if I'm doing something unforgivable to you."
A bitter, tearful laugh choked in my throat as I looked up at him through blurred vision.
"As if you ever didn't, you awful bastard," I retorted, my voice cracking under the weight of years of silent anguish.
Victor fell silent, his expression faltering under my gaze.
"Do you know how much I hurt every time you did that? How much I hated you...!" The words spilled out of me, a dam bursting open after being held shut for far too long. "And yet like this..."
And yet like this... you know how to be gentle too... you awful bastard.
You wouldn't even be able to imagine how long I wanted this side of you. It's the exact image we both longed for so much—an honest me, and a gentle you.
Ah.
As his hand cupped my cheek, his touch tender in a way that unraveled every remaining defense, I buried my face against him. But now that I'm actually facing it, I'm afraid of even this joy. Fearing that perhaps this moment is all that will ever be granted to us, I just pray it's merely because this joy is so unfamiliar.
He pulled me back into a deep, consuming kiss, one that felt less like a comfort and more like a devastating punishment.
Though I deceived myself completely, it seems I failed to deceive you in the end.
See? What changed by being honest? We still have no answers whatsoever.
Even while habitually resenting each other, for us who still stubbornly desire each other, even forgiveness and reconciliation are merely a luxury at this point.
I should have just pretended not to know. I should have passed it by, pretending not to know until the very end.
That something I lost so long ago... the single thing I could never fill, even after filling everything else.
That it was you.
Victor and I gaze intensely into each other's eyes, our faces lingering just inches apart in a quiet, emotionally charged embrace.His large hands tenderly cup my face, framing it softly while our eyes meet, heavy with the weight of everything left unsaid.
We are holding onto each other desperately in the quiet room, having surrendered to the magnetic pull between us despite the resentment, tears, and lack of answerM
y hands rest against him, clutching onto him as the heavy truth finally settles over us—that after all this time, the missing piece I could never fill was him all along.
Tip's
DIAH'S PLATINUM-BLONDE HAIR AND TALL HEIGHT ARE INHERITED FROM HER MOTHER. HER MOTHER WAS ACTIVE IN THE ART SCENE IN HER YOUTH BEFORE MARRYING IGOR DE LAURENT AND GIVING BIRTH TO DIAH. HOWEVER, A FEW YEARS LATER, SHE SUDDENLY VANISHED WITHOUT A TRACE FOR UNKNOWN REASONS.
팁
디아의 백금발 머리와 큰 키는 어머니에게서 물려받은 것입니다. 그녀의 어머니는 이고르 드 로랑과 결혼하여 디아를 낳기 전 젊은 시절 예술계에서 활발하게 활동했습니다. 그러나 몇 년 후, 그녀는 알 수 없는 이유로 흔적도 없이 갑자기 사라졌습니다.