Chapter 192:
The Final Farewell
VIOLETTE DIDN’T NEED MUCH resolve to throw everything out. She’d been thrown out first, so it was only a matter of will. You bastards cast me out. Now I’m casting you out.
“Today is my last time visiting this house… I’ll never set foot in here ever again,” she muttered. “I swear, I’ll never return.”
She no longer dreamed of a potential someday. She and her family would never come to an understanding. She could never forgive them, nor ever love them. She wouldn’t let such a day come. Violette had cast aside the name “Vahan.”
She’d rejected her family to take the hand of the one she loved.
“I owe you everything, Yulan. I never even dreamed this day would ever come.”
Breathing was easier now. Before she left her family’s manor, she’d never known that such a simple sensation could feel so precious. Those long years when her only means of safety had been locking herself in this room, where all she could do was curl into a ball on her bed—those now felt so distant.
Violette used to think of this room as her one refuge in the house, yet as she looked it over now, she felt not a single regret about leaving it behind. In the end, the room had meant very little to her. She’d spent her entire life in the chamber, yet even now, she struggled to identify what made it any different from a prison cell without bars.
“So I’m fine,” she concluded. “I don’t need anything else from here.”
With a refreshed smile, she hugged the old wreath to her chest. The jewelry case Marin shut in the trunk would be sold without even being opened.
“Do you need anything else, Marin?” Yulan asked.
“Thank you, but Chesuit already helped me get everything,” she replied.
She carried the pen Violette had given her everywhere she went, and she’d already reclaimed all her other sentimental items. There were still some things she’d purchased with her earnings in her room, but they weren’t worth going back for.
“If you’re both all right with it, I’ll just dispose of everything else in the room here and now,” Yulan said. “I wager only the furniture will remain. You’re both sure you have everything?”
“Yes. I’m done.”
“Yes, that’s fine, my lord.”
Receiving Violette’s consent, Yulan snapped his fingers. At that, the servants previously waiting like statues in the corners of the room moved as one. They handled the items with care, since they’d belonged to Violette. Still, the process was surreal to watch, knowing that everything was destined for the trash.
This room contained only necessities required for daily life, and nothing in it truly belonged to Violette. In a mere three minutes, all traces of any human being ever having lived there would vanish, as if Violette had never even existed.
“Well, we should head out,” Yulan said. “Let’s buy lots of refreshments and celebrate having finished.”
“Excellent idea, my lord,” Marin agreed. “I already acquired the tea you wanted.”
“Oh, right, the tea. Did you get enough for me, though?”
“We can also order coffee through room service.”
“Right. We can. But I guess I’ll buy coffee beans anyway. Can you look after them for me there?”
“As you wish, my lord.”
Though the pair’s eyes didn’t meet, they made arrangements briskly, not missing a beat. Too comfortable around each other for a master and servant, they acted more like old friends.
It was only natural that their surprisingly friendly banter stupefied Violette, but she was overjoyed to see the two people she loved most getting along. In reality, though, what struck her as a tender scene was only a businesslike conversation.
Oh…
Following the lead of the pair getting ready to leave, Violette took a final look at the room that was once hers. As her personal effects were quickly shut away in boxes, the room should have felt less and less like it belonged to her, yet she couldn’t discern the slightest difference.
Atop the highest-stacked box lay a single burgundy notebook. That was the diary she’d carelessly shut away and forgotten after the last time she had it out, neither hiding it nor writing in it. Her secrets, stowed in the second drawer of her desk.
“Vio, are you ready?”
That notebook was a record of Violette’s life at this house—memories that would no longer serve her.
“Yes… I’m coming.”
Releasing her former self, she took the hand reaching toward her.