The Letter He Left Behind

Rough breathing, urgent shouts, and hurried footsteps rang chaotically in his ears. The shouts coming from afar grew distant. The roaring that shook everything around him, the ash powder that tickled his nose, and the thick smell of blood all mixed together in a mess.

‘I have to go save my father.’

‘You can’t do that, Major. It’s too dangerous. You need to wait until reinforcements arrive.’

Kazen’s father, the former Duke of Clifford, had suffered a devastating defeat and been taken prisoner. The Emperor did not actively engage in negotiations with Felosia, and Kazen was deployed into battle to rescue his father.

‘His Majesty has refused to negotiate. And they’re using my father’s life as leverage.’

‘I know. But right now, we must prioritize your safety, Major.’

Eren, who was at Kazen’s side, desperately tried to stop him. The imperial army’s situation had already turned unfavorable. They needed to regroup in a safe place until reinforcements arrived.

‘But if I can’t save my father, how can I face my country when I return?’

‘Surely they won’t dispose of a nation’s noble that easily. So, for now, your escape is the priority.’

Eren’s resolute eyes blurred like smoke and then disappeared.

“…Hah!”

Gasping for air, Kazen opened his eyes, breaking out in a cold sweat, and looked around the room. Seeing the familiar interior shrouded in darkness, he finally let out a sigh of relief.

In the end, the battle Kazen commanded was won, but the former Duke of Clifford was brutally murdered by the enemy. Kazen barely managed to retrieve his father’s body and return to his homeland.

It had been over three years, yet every night it came to him as a nightmare.

‘…How utterly tiresome.’

Feeling a splitting headache, Kazen slowly sat up. He had gone to bed early but had lain awake all night. He had only managed to fall asleep after drinking three or four more bottles of wine, yet he hadn’t slept long or deeply.

Holding his throbbing head, he sat on the edge of the bed and let out a deep sigh. It was well past the time Eren should have appeared, but strangely, it was quiet.

“Oversleeping again?”

Eren, who was very diligent, rarely overslept. The only times he had overslept recently were almost entirely the days after spending the night with Kazen.

Thinking of that day made him feel nauseous. Kazen covered his mouth and breathed low. Perhaps he’d had too much wine before sleeping. His breath smelled of alcohol.

“What time is it? Why is no one coming? Not a single one of them does their job properly.”

Muttering irritably, he pressed his throbbing temple and pulled the bell cord. Soon, the door opened and a maid rushed in, out of breath.

He couldn’t even remember the maid’s name. In fact, he didn’t care who was in this mansion. Anyone other than Eren was so unimportant that Kazen didn’t even register their existence.

“Bring me a glass of ice water. And if Eren isn’t up yet, go wake him.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

Watching the maid hurry out just as she had hurried in, Kazen finally managed to get out of bed. Before asking Eren to draw his bath, he washed his face briefly.

On days when he woke from nightmares, he suffered from a headache that felt like a knife stabbing his frontal lobe all day. But strangely, when he slept next to Eren, he didn’t have nightmares. So he liked sleeping next to Eren, but since that day, he couldn’t do so with an easy heart.

“Tsk.”

Looking in the mirror, Kazen roughly swept back his hair and clicked his tongue briefly.

‘Will you be coming home late again today? The other day, you suddenly met with a lawyer; is something the matter?’

Eren had tried to act as usual, as if wanting to pretend that day never happened, but he couldn’t fool Kazen. The subtly evasive gaze, the fearfully trembling voice. It felt as if Eren was treating him like a terrible monster.

Kazen still didn’t understand that impulse. Had he wanted to confirm that Eren was his possession? If so, he could have done it another way. Remembering the look on Eren’s face as he silently cried while looking at him made his stomach churn unbearably.

Seeing others cry usually made him feel rage rather than pity, so why did Eren’s tears make him feel so filthy? Whenever he saw those clear, grass-green eyes waver, that feeling kept coming back, and he couldn’t stand it.

For that reason, Kazen avoided Eren for a week. It was true that he was busy being hounded by the Emperor and summoned here and there, but he also deliberately kept Eren away. Fortunately, Eren, perhaps because he had a lot of paperwork due to the harvest season, didn’t question it much.

“Y-Your Grace!”

Just then, an urgent knock came, followed by the maid’s shrill voice. Kazen, whose head was already pounding, suppressed his rising irritation and told her to come in.

“What’s all the fuss about?”

The maid, pale as if she’d seen a ghost, shuffled in and stood at the door with her hands clasped. Just as Kazen was about to press her further, the maid finally spoke.

“…I think Mr. Eren is gone.”

“Gone? What do you mean?”

His head was already splitting, and now he had to listen to nonsense; Kazen’s irritation flared. The maid flinched, her shoulders trembling as she looked at Kazen’s scowling face.

“He wasn’t in the next room, so I went to the study, and this was left on his desk.”

Trembling with fear, she approached and handed Kazen a neatly folded piece of paper.

“A letter?”

Kazen snatched the letter from her hand and unfolded it. Compared to the large sheet of paper, the number of characters was very modest.

[Thank you for saving me.
Ever since that day, I have long harbored feelings for you, Your Grace.
I wish you well, Your Grace.]

The calm, neat handwriting, which mirrored the writer’s personality, was unmistakably Eren’s. But why had he suddenly left a letter like this? It was filled with incomprehensible words.

“What on earth is this supposed to mean?”

Kazen read the short letter, barely three lines long, over and over.

Did wishing him well mean he was leaving? So did this mean Eren had left him? Why, and to where?

Kazen lifted his gaze from the letter and glared at the maid once more. The maid flinched, as if she had already read the letter’s contents.

“Did you check the entire mansion thoroughly? Did you look everywhere?”

“Ah, no. I haven’t looked everywhere yet….”

Kazen crumpled the letter, his brow furrowing in irritation. He couldn’t possibly believe that Eren had left the mansion. Because Eren had nowhere else to go.

“Then what are you standing there for? Go look for him!”

Kazen shouted, glaring at the maid. At his fierce command, the maid jumped and bowed her head.

“Yes, yes! I’ll do that right away!”

“If he’s not in the mansion, search the entire city. Go to every cafe, tavern, office, anywhere he usually goes. Don’t even think of reporting back until you’ve found something.”

“Yes, Your Grace!”

The maid, pale as a ghost, rushed out of the bedroom. Still holding his pounding head, Kazen hastily poured himself a glass of brandy and drank it.

His throat suddenly felt parched, and his insides seemed to boil; he needed to drink something. Feeling the alcohol rush to his head, Kazen slumped onto a nearby sofa.

Wondering if his headache had caused him to misread, he caught his breath and calmly read the letter again. Not that it would change the content.

‘Ever since that day, I have long harbored feelings for you, Your Grace.’

More than any other sentence, that part kept bothering him.

“What does he mean, harbored feelings for me?”

‘Feelings’ surely didn’t mean resentment. So did that mean he liked Kazen? That was equally nonsensical.

Kazen had been certain that Eren liked Harold. He couldn’t help it, because whenever Eren looked at Harold, he made a face Kazen had never seen before.

‘Is he playing a trick on me to get back at me? Is he trying to get revenge for that day?’

He even began to wonder if, perhaps after that night when Kazen had forced himself on him, Eren had lost his mind and concocted this bizarre act. Because unless it was something he did hoping Kazen would feel guilty, the situation was impossible to understand.

‘…I’m sorry.’

Remembering Eren’s frail hand gripping his own only strengthened his conviction. Eren was pretending to leave on purpose, to make him feel sorry.

‘What, is he protesting, demanding an apology?’

Kazen tossed the crumpled letter onto the table and sprang to his feet. As his bewilderment faded, a hollow laugh escaped him.

“You’re cooking up more and more interesting trouble, Eren.”

The splitting headache suddenly vanished as if washed away, and his head cooled. In contrast, the nausea that had churned for a week began to blaze like fire.