End. Whenever, wherever, whatever
The hard days.
In retrospect, the last decades were the most brilliant ones of his life. The golden times which he didn’t realize then but were realized after reminiscing.
Unlike his young days, where he ran through the battlefields without hesitation, in a way, being confined to the Imperial Palace was boring. Strangely, he felt no dissatisfaction from it.
Weird?
There wasn’t a single day where he let his body rest, but he never thought of being stuck in a boring place.
Maybe that was what parenting meant?
When he saw his daughter, who seemed all grown up in a moment, he sometimes felt that his child grew too fast. Although his daughter spoke, she was still seventeen; he had a soft sentiment of not wanting to see her live the childhood he had experienced.
The saying ‘parenting is a war’ seemed right.
Was it true that people lived on memories when they got older?
He wasn’t sure if they could be called memories, but there were times when they looked back on those thoughts. It didn’t suit him much.
Maybe that was what raising children meant? The more one raised their kids, the more the memory gets replaced with their kids’ acts, almost as if they were groomed by a third person.
The growth of one’s daughter would just happen very naturally. Although their remaining memories were faint enough to be counted, the parents found no remorse in it.
Something which destroyed the hatred in them happened, leaving them alone and concerned about what the future would hold.
Right, because he never felt such affection in his childhood, Caitel saw it as a luxury.
Since everyone was flawed from the beginning, he had no regrets.
There seemed to be some of it left behind the emotion. Something warm like compassion. That was it.
“… Is Your Majesty really dead?”
The Empress, his mother, spoke with unfazed eyes and died shortly after hearing the news.
A young woman who only had eyes for Emperor Ivan looked at her husband and his multiple wives from other countries, but Emperor Ivan never looked back at her after their first night.
Instead, he gave her the Empress position, but Empress Erica wasn’t satisfied with her status.
What she wanted was her husband’s love.
What Caitel never found was what his mother wanted. She never got it until her death.
Even after that, she stayed with him and lived well. She held onto the hope that if she gave birth, he would look at her. However, seeing how her husband only looked at the child and left, the young Empress went crazy.
In the vast Imperial Palace where no one cared about her.
Like a fool.
In the beginning, he never shed tears for his mother, whose face he couldn’t even remember—a woman who couldn’t look after the child she gave birth to.
He just felt a few straightforward emotions.
Contempt and compassion.
Even his father was like that.
However, when such memories came to his mind, Caitel would get annoyed.
Nineteen, the day he became the Emperor.
The day Emperor Ivan stepped down.
Everyone talked about Ivan being killed, but that wasn’t true. Caitel hadn’t killed him with his own hands, but he was sure that Ivan died, so he never cared for the rumors.
Most of all, he knew what happened in Solay that day. Those who knew of it weren’t alive anymore.
The Emperor wasn’t the reason.
Caitel only wanted to kill the sixth prince.
When the country was overturned and Ferdel was in a mess, Solay palace was quiet as hell.
“In the end, you are the one to hold the sword at me.”
The voice stopped his footsteps as he entered the palace with a sword in his hand. A cold voice as if ice was being rubbed on the entirety of his body.
Amid the screams of those trying to escape the palace, the place where the man stood was quiet—a sense of fear deep embedded in his mind.
“I heard the news that you were back. I was curious about how you survived, won’t teach me?”
He didn’t mind staring at him and standing still; he remembered the alcohol pouring around in the hall.
To be honest, it was different. No, surprisingly, it was pathetic.
“What are you seeing? Is there anything you need?”
It was the first time since he was born that he had met his father. He would always just pass by. At once, Caitel convinced himself that his father didn’t even exist.
“Ah, it is shocking that you know me. Well, it isn’t too much.”
What else could he say? Emperor Ivan up close was different from what Caitel had thought. His fragile smile and pale face gave out this delicate glass-like vibe about him, but Caitel didn’t think he was stupid.
Yes, he couldn’t miss the tyrant who shook officials and state affairs.
“Okay. Would you like to sit or want to stand like that? My neck hurt just by looking at you. Ah, this? I recognized you because of it. Poison. You are mine, so I need to bear with you.”
He wanted to ask why.
It was a word he spoke while sitting in his chair; Emperor Ivan looked at Caitel as if he was looking at a guest.
He was shocked and wanted to inquire more, but the man, his father, just smiled.
“I knew that my end would be something like this. In the hands of a tyrant, right?”
Usurpation of the throne, treason.
He vividly remembered the gestures his father did.
“It was just a matter of being subjected by a child. I was always waiting for such a day to come.”
There really was a man like that?
That was all Caitel could think.
Shock preceded anger. Anyway, his object of hate was the man in front of him.
He stared at what the alternative was, but Emperor Ivan acted as if it wasn’t Caitel, then someone else would do it.
“Let me drink this. Don’t spoil it.”
Emperor Ivan searched around as if looking for something and took out a sword. Looking back on it, if Emperor Ivan had struck him with the sword, Caitel would have been dead on the spot, but he didn’t feel threatened. He looked at what Emperor Ivan was doing.
He looked at it.
“The sword I cut my brother’s neck with. The blood from that time still taints it. It’s no big deal, but he was a father who left his children without legacy.”
It was the ‘brother’s sword’ which was hanging in Solay Palace.
During his young days, Caitel worried about what that sword was; Emperor Ivan’s significance kept that sword during his youthful days. Mostly since Ivan was a man who didn’t acknowledge his children.
“Your mother and my maids are weird. I did everything they wanted, but still…”
Did he really not know? At Caitel’s silence, Emperor Ivan smiled.
“I don’t know.”
And again, he poured alcohol into the glass.
The sound echoed in the spacious hall.
“Well, I could guess.”
It wasn’t alcohol that Emperor Ivan poured with a smile into his mouth.
A bottle of poison.
Emperor Ivan casually poured poison into his drink. Caitel just watched.
“I wasn’t a good father, but I can’t let my own children do an impure act of murdering their father.”
His last words.
“Be a good father to your child.”
Seemed like his will.
Caitel never thought of his father as such a person. For him, it was a relationship with no emotion, but his end caused ripples of emotions.
Caitel erased that moment from his mind. Later, the succession problem rose, and when issues occurred, Caitel thought it was better not to have kids.
Damn his memories.
They were the past he never wanted to remember.
Right, he admitted it. It affected him without realizing it; he was stuck in the past. Those words eventually held Caitel and stopped him from loving his daughter.
After acknowledging everything, Caitel’s heart felt lighter. One by one, the shackles of the past loosened. Even when he tried to shake it off, they never left.
He opened his eyes; the ceiling was bright with sun.
‘Clearly, it wasn’t like this when I closed my eyes.’
Even when he opened his eyes, he felt weird about it. Not long ago, he was supposed to be dead, but somehow, he was back in Solay Palace.
Sweet.
The noise of the door opening broke the peace in the room.
It wasn’t bad. When he raised his body a little to see, he could see the door open.
A girl entered.
As eye-catching as she ever was, brightened cheeks and eyes moist with tears, hair tangled back and forth.
Obviously, she was not in the state to be called pretty, but the sunlight melted around the child, and Caitel couldn’t look straight ahead.
Dazzle.
“Hello?”
A small voice.
As if it was the signal he needed, a smile spread on Caitel’s lips.
“Hello.”
The silence came after the greetings.
Ria smiled when she heard it, although Caitel’s voice wavered a little. Ria’s smile made Caitel realize just how much he missed it.
And the enlightenment which followed.
Longing. Even if he died, his eagerness to see her face didn’t leave.
‘That was what love means.’
He never knew, experienced, or learned it.
Too many unfamiliar emotions were eating him. There, the past Caitel he knew disappeared, and the Caitel he didn’t recognize appeared.
Nevertheless, the issue was that it couldn’t be stopped.
Man.
The child approached him without making a sound and placed her hand on his.
She was so warm.
The warmth of life.
It made his heart melt.
“Come on, dad.”
What a soft, welcoming voice.
Anytime, anywhere, where he was.
