Even if the Dawn Abandons You - Chapter 46

In the photo, there were four people standing. Celine Châtelier with a much younger face than now, a girl with her dark hair tied up in a ponytail, a boy wearing glasses with an incredibly familiar face, and a man standing next to them with an endlessly friendly smile.

Although Celine knew that he was staring at her picture, she did not bother to turn or flip the frame, and she answered in a tone that sounded a little bitter.

“Well. If it was an important item, it would have been stored separately in a safe somewhere rather than in a place like this.”

“That’s my way, Major. From my perspective, you’re the kind of person who wants to keep important things within reach.”

“That’s a groundless and interesting interpretation.”

For a person who said there was no basis for this, wasn’t it a truly sad and wistful look from anyone’s perspective? 

Philippe Ardinand was a man who firmly believed in his own insight. And he was not a person who was particularly considerate of everyone or felt guilty about being rude. 

He muttered, still squinting at her picture, not caring at all what Celine Châtelier thought of his sudden attention.

“I don’t think it’s a family photo… …”

“Since when have you been so interested in my private life?”

“Starting today, I decided to be. There’s nothing straightforward to deal with, so I figured I might as well satisfy my curiosity.”

“Ahaha.”

Celine burst out laughing. It sounded exactly like the laughter of a curious child when asked a strange question, so Philippe frowned without realizing it. Then, deliberately ignoring the thought that she might not really want to talk, he asked a very direct question.

“Anyway, what is it? That photo.”

“It’s nothing special,”

Surprisingly, getting the answer wasn’t that difficult.

“It’s just like an old lingering feeling.”

An old lingering feeling. With her ambiguous answer, the now adult Celine Châtelier’s eyes fell on the young Celine in the photo. 

Philippe followed her gaze and stared at her photo again without realizing it. The sight of four people smiling softly in frozen time.

“I left it here because I thought it would get dull if I looked at it every day, but it didn’t seem to be very effective, so I was thinking about putting it away.”

“A lingering feeling that you want to cut off… … Is it true?”

“It’s more like a lingering regret that needs to be cut off.”

I feel like I’m the only one being held captive.

A calm, lonely voice echoed throughout the barracks, and Celine Chatelier’s gloved hands smoothed the upper part of the wooden picture frame from side to side.

? ? ?

Anais entered the room and sat down on the bed without another word. Leonard crossed his arms and walked closer to the bed, staring down at her face as she chewed her lip. 

It was an unspoken pressure to quickly start the ‘meaningful conversation’ she mentioned, and it was also an attempt to distinguish whether she was angry or had made a decision, as her expression did not clearly reveal her feelings.

Without making eye contact with Leonard, who was staring at her face, Anais opened her mouth.

“Your Highness, what you said is correct.”

“I’ve said quite a lot to you.”

“I mean, you’re right that I’m only thinking of dying.”

If she wanted him to acknowledge it, he couldn’t deny it either. Anais, who had lost even the will to live, now truly wanted to put an end to this tedious battle with Leonord. So she decided to acknowledge it. Your insight was correct. Are you satisfied now?

But, naturally, Leonard did not look satisfied with her. 

He twisted his face in anger and moved closer to her. In no time, they were so close that Anais had to twist her neck to look at Leonard. A low, rough voice that seemed to growl came out resentfully.

“Even if I tell you that there is no need to feel guilty about what happened to my family, does it make no difference?”

“Your Highness, I am not trying to pay the price for leaving them to die.”

She answered firmly. Yes, it was true that she had thought about it. There was no need to wait in Basbourg, wiping her throat clean just to die, especially when they had met again like this. 

In fact, she had met him again to do just that, and it would probably make her feel a little more at ease. It was also one of the deep-seated guilt she carried.

However, Anais’s guilt was not solely derived from the fact that they had allowed the royals and even innocent children to die without a trial. Similarly, she had not lost her will to live simply because a civil war had occurred.

“I just… … It just made me feel like there was no hope in this land from the beginning. That’s why I don’t have the confidence to watch over this place any longer.”

She was desperate for a world where human lives were not determined by efficiency, necessity, and justification, where innocent people did not die, and where the situation was not dismissed as just another chaos that would eventually resolve itself. The reality that they were calling the changes they had brought about throughout the continent, which had led to tragedy for everyone, was terrifying.

‘I thought I was running for something better, but I was afraid of the present, as everyone seemed to be telling me that wasn’t the case. As scared and terrified as I was today, I was equally afraid of tomorrow. ‘

What do those who say that the civil war was a turmoil that was going to happen anyway have to say about the war cloud that is looming over the entire continent? If we’re going to say that every tragedy deserved to happen, then what were we fighting for in the first place?

The ideals that had flowed through her had made her feel as if the fact that she had shouted for a new world had caused even greater harm to Léans. It made her feel as if her despair was scattered everywhere in her past tracks, even deep within her roots, and it felt impossible to shake off.

Anais fluttered her eyelids and closed her eyes for a moment. Meanwhile, Leonard chose his words again and again. It was nice to be able to continue the day’s conversation as he had hoped, but Anais’ condition was more serious than he had imagined. He didn’t know what to say. 

It was clear that neither a childish resentment asking if she was giving up so easily, nor a clichéd comfort that no matter what you’re despairing about now, it will all get better in the end, would be of any use. However, it was also a role he couldn’t fulfill to simply agree with her or support her in her current state.

Ironically, he had said that he was ready to die, so hearing Anais say that she was going to die was terribly unpleasant. Now that he wanted to make Anais live somehow, he thought, maybe this is how she felt when trying to persuade him.

Their wishes for each other were conflicting and twisted. She, with lips that didn’t care about her own life, only repeated the same words like a broken record that she wanted him to live. But Leonord did not stop his minimal self-defense. He had not given in to the revolutionary’s clutches, at least. He had only lost his way, but he had not given up walking.

So maybe, even at this moment, he didn’t have the right to stop her.

“I don’t understand you.”

“You don’t need to understand.”

“But I think I know what you think of death.”

In Leonard’s eyes, Anais seemed like someone who was trying to escape forever into death. Unlike him, who had come down to Basbourg, believing that there was something that would maintain his life in a form similar to before, to her, Basbourg was not even a true refuge. 

To Anais, Basbourg was only the execution ground where her final moments would unfold, and Leonard had no choice but to stop her. 

He did not dare to say that his escape was justified while her escape was not. He just wanted to say that it wasn’t necessary for both of them to run away, that unlike him, she doesn’t belong to the side that has lost, and that it was a meaningless thing to do. He knew it was an unreasonable statement, though.

Leonard gritted his teeth. Amidst the lack of a clear path, means, or justification, his sole purpose was evident – to somehow, by any means necessary, hold onto Anais. 

So he recalled the words Andrew Layton had mumbled when he was partially drunk earlier. He then resurrected the long-buried emotions he had covered, ignored, and let gather dust all along. He intended to use them in a very inappropriate way.

He took a moment to catch his breath, then slowly spoke again.

“I don’t see a future in my life right now, Anais.”

“So are you willing to die with me?”

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

In my life, there is no future, and in your life, there is no present. In that context, our lives are somewhat similar. 

His voice, which had suddenly become affectionate, gently invaded Anais’s ears. Anais was enveloped by a powerful premonition that she should block her ears immediately. Otherwise, something irreversible might happen, or she might even end up causing such an event herself.