You Said You Wanted Us to Break Up - Chapter 95

 

Tracking is always late, no matter when it’s done.

That is because it’s the act of chasing after something already lost.

Knowing that, Sioden repeatedly reviewed the hints the departed woman had left.

As he repeated that action, which had become a compulsion, he came to better understand the implications of the scenes imprinted on his memory.

‘It’s too late.’

What filled the woman’s eyes at that moment was an undeniable disillusionment.

‘You should have negotiated with the person you were in the past.’

That statement was a tactful way of telling him to stop, as nothing could be changed in the present.

Why hadn’t he understood back then?

No, he knew what the woman was talking about at the time. Yet, he tried to hold onto her, to fix things. This was because he didn’t realize that he himself was the root of the problem.

How frustrated and repulsed Iella must have been by him.

It was only natural that she didn’t want to take anything. Leaving behind everything she had used in the North, Iella gave only one command.

“Burn everything.”

Today was the day that command was being executed.

Sioden watched the flames raging brightly in front of him.

A servant said,

“We will begin the burning.”

As he nodded to signify his consent, the servants began to move according to the plan.

Watching the objects touched by the woman turn into ash one by one, Sioden reviewed the situation in his mind.

Iella left the castle.

But she was never a person who belonged to the castle.

Iella would not return.

But this was never her home from the start.

Home.

A word he had heard once from someone who was now deceased crossed his mind.

‘Sioden, Raslet Castle is your home.’

The Sioden of the past did not want to agree with that fact.

A home, conceptually, is a place of rest, isn’t it?

But he felt he would not rest in Raslet until he entered his coffin.

But no matter how much he wanted to deny it, Raslet was his family, his home, his tomb.

It was a fact decided from the beginning of his life.

Nothing had changed.

Everything was exactly the same as before.

As his thoughts reached that point, a sudden question arose.

What did I want to do before?

As always happened when he felt the same question, his gaze swept around, looking for something to focus on.

The flickering flames came into view.

Red and yellow, they moved as if flowing down from the air.

He was sure he had only thought that far, but when he came to, Luke had already gripped his wrist.

“Your Grace!”

Realizing only then that he had moved too close to the fire, Sioden made an excuse.

“It was a mistake.”

“…”

“It was nothing. I just haven’t been sleeping…”

He hadn’t been able to sleep.

Whenever he looked up at something, the eyes of the other person would shimmer against that background.

Luke parted his lips.

Before the unwanted concern could pour out of him, Sioden spoke.

“I’ll be fine soon.”

Naturally, a rebuttal followed the words, which sounded hollow even to himself.

“Really? Do you truly believe the situation will improve from here?”

One rebuttal led to another.

“But even if it doesn’t get better, is that a problem?”

Everyone dies in a state of not being fine.

All the living become the dead.

Sioden had seen the living turn into the dead many times.

A change in essence was accompanied by significant transformation.

It was enough to consider it a gradual process of that change.

He, too, as one of the living, would one day become one of the dead.

However, it was simpler to command silence than to explain all this logic.

“Don’t say anything more.”

Luke accepted the brief order and glanced sideways at the man watching the fire.

The fiercely flickering fire reflected on the man’s pale face.

The red color moved as if it would swallow the white.

Even though the fire was lit only to burn objects, it felt ominous.

But his superior’s steps did not lean forward again.

Luke eventually turned his gaze in the same direction as his superior.

The flames, emitting black smoke, came into his sight.

The reason for burning the lady’s possessions was that she had instructed it to be so.

“The mistress ordered that everything be discarded.”

In the North, there was only one way to discard objects that could not be left for anyone else: to burn everything.

What is burned cannot be restored by anything.

Therefore, the conclusion of a funeral was taking out and burning the corpse of the deceased, and when they wished to annihilate the soul of the living, they burned them alive.

Did the departed woman give this instruction knowing this?

Luke didn’t think she was that cruel, yet he couldn’t be certain.

‘I’m sick and tired of you and my family!’

The woman who had screamed that with genuine feeling seemed fully capable of sentencing his superior’s emotions to the stake.

His superior was meticulously following the woman’s instructions. Yet, it was said that he had left her room to be managed as it was before.

It couldn’t be because he believed the departed woman would return.

Luke knew his superior.

Even though he considered justice and fairness to be idealistic nonsense, he tried to maintain propriety when dealing with others. Therefore, if he had let a woman who proclaimed she was leaving forever go, it was correct to say he was prepared never to see her again.

What was the meaning of leaving the room of a woman he would never meet again?

If the mistress hadn’t ordered the disposal, Luke had a premonition that the other belongings might have undergone the same procedure as the room.

Luke looked back at his superior.

The man’s eyes were still fixed on the flames.

A strange light seemed to dwell in his deep blue irises.

He knew this was a sensitive topic in the current situation, but he didn’t know what the outcome would be if he just left him alone.

Luke cautiously began to speak.

“Your Grace.”

It was then that the servant, who was carrying out the disposal of the objects nearby, approached.

“Your Grace, what would you like to do with the precious metals?”

During their three years of marriage, his superior had given his wife many jewels.

This was true in the early stages of the marriage, and even later, if something expensive came in, he wished to place it on his wife’s hand or neck.

Luke did not know the name of the emotion that made the man feel such an impulse.

Nor did he want to know.

This was because he had already seen how much his superior had changed due to that emotion that could not be named.

His superior was silent for a moment before answering.

“Leave them where they were.”

—

After the burning ceremony for the inanimate objects was over, his superior returned to the castle.

Luke followed him and made a request.

“Your Grace, please listen to me for a moment.”

The man walking ahead stopped.

His deep blue eyes turned back to him.

Luke realized that he did not resemble his father.

If he had been facing the former Duke Raslet, those eyes would not have looked so empty.

That man had desired the woman in the most repulsive way, but he never did anything more than that.

Luke briefly entertained the impossible thought of wishing his superior had inherited his father’s despicable selfishness.

If that were the case, at least his superior’s blue eyes would have been filled with cruelty. But his superior grew up to be a man completely different from his father.

It meant he became a man who would put a rope around his own neck rather than restrain the woman’s ankle.

Luke could not bear to just watch this.

He said,

“You should go and bring her back.”

His superior’s brow furrowed.

The man was reluctant to bring up such topics. This was because he didn’t like doing things that weighed on his conscience.

But what good was a conscience?

Luke would discard his conscience again and again rather than live with the anxiety of possibly facing a familiar dead body one morning.

It was a determination born not of some high-minded moral code, but of fear.

Every physician fears the moment they have to declare the death of a loved one, and he was no exception.

Luke took a deep breath.

“If begging is required, I will go and beg. The marriage hasn’t been annulled yet…”

Before he could finish his sentence, his superior commanded,

“Silence.”

Luke swallowed hard.

His superior treated him with respect commensurate with their long acquaintance.

His personality, which avoided conflict, and the fatigue always underlying his life also contributed to that courtesy.

He knew that his current action was so presumptuous that it could instantly destroy that goodwill.

But there were things that had to be done despite knowing this.

Luke opened his mouth again.

“I mean nothing else, Your Grace. Don’t you know? I only…”

His superior did not let him finish.

“Are you blind and deaf? Didn’t you see her say she didn’t want it?”

The man, frowning harshly and asking sharply, showed nothing but antipathy.

Thinking that this might be counterproductive, Luke nevertheless answered,

“I saw it.”

“You saw it, and yet you say that.”

His superior laughed hollowly, as if in disbelief, and turned his back.

Realizing he couldn’t bring up the same topic again, Luke shouted after him.

“If you feel like you’ll die without her, then go on living, even if you have to force her to stay!”

It was then that the man’s steps came to an abrupt halt.

After standing still for a moment, his superior slowly turned around.

“So, in your eyes, my life seems to be that valuable.”

“Isn’t that obvious?”

Luke’s eyes, staring at him, were already saying that.

Sioden suppressed the churning in his stomach.

His subordinate’s reprimand was reasonable in a way.

He was the head of the family, and Luke was a vassal belonging to that family.

From a subordinate’s perspective, they would naturally want the one above them to remain steadfast and do their part, regardless of any personal circumstances.

In the past, he would have felt nothing but weariness for this reality.

But not now.

Sioden knew the kind of power he wielded.

He also knew that, intentionally or not, this power had given him an advantage in his relationship with Iella.

He couldn’t say he was unwilling to endure the sheer disgust that came with holding power that others might spend their entire lives suppressed for not having.

That would be a deceit to the life of Iella, who suffered through three years with him.

Therefore, he must act as a lord, taking the responsibility befitting the head of the family.

At least, until he went down to the capital to finalize the marriage annulment…

‘If this document is processed, I will no longer live as your wife.’

The woman’s voice seemed to brush past his ears.

Before he could dwell on that trace any further, Sioden stated firmly.

“You don’t have to worry about me making a foolish choice.”

Luke acted as though Sioden might jump off the castle walls.

But that was because he had forgotten the past.

Sioden had felt the same impulse many times in the past, but he had never once followed through with it.

“Haven’t you been watching until now?”

It won’t be any different in the future.

With those words, his superior turned his back again.

No.

This time is different.

Luke was certain of that as he watched his retreating back.

The vague belief from childhood that everything would be fine would not be effective now.

If they let go of the present, they would pay the price for it someday.

Knowing that fact, Luke hastily took a step to follow his superior.

It was then that a knight came running toward them from the opposite direction.

“Your Grace, an urgent report.”

The knight’s face, which had not even fully caught his breath, was pale.

Naturally, the gaze of everyone present turned toward him.

The knight parted his trembling lips.

“A body has disappeared from the Ethel Castle cemetery.”