Arthur could no longer keep his calm and snapped.
"I understand that you and Father were bound by an arranged marriage, something you could barely tolerate. And when I was born, it only made things worse between you. I understand that. I understand it all. But... after the divorce, you didn't just leave him..."
Arthur stepped closer, the distance between them shrinking like a closing wound. His eyes did not waver from hers.
"...You left me too, Mother."
At the end of the day, it was never truly about Arthur. He was merely a casualty of their war.
She parted her lips, perhaps to deny it, perhaps to explain, but Arthur didn't give her the chance.
"You handed me over like I was nothing more than an obligation you wanted to be rid of. And when I begged you to take me with you, when I cried and pleaded, you turned away. You didn't even spare me a glance. Not even once."
The silence that followed was long and heavy, thick with all the years that had passed between them.
"I couldn't—"
"Couldn't?! No… you wouldn't. You couldn't stand the sight of anything that bore the Ashbourne name. Not him. And certainly not me."
She looked away, her hands clasped together, fingers pressing against each other in a rare sign of tension. Her gaze showed regret as she said:
"I did what I thought was right at that time."
"Yes, I know. But it was only right for you, not for me."
"Arthur... at least allow me to atone, huh?"
Arthur turned his eyes away, unwilling to meet hers.
"Come to Granville. We can leave the past behind and start anew."
'Ha! With this same starting anew talk.'
For a moment, Arthur didn't speak. He simply looked at her, the woman who had once been his mother.
"The child who once clung to you, pleading for a way out... he's gone now, Mother. And it would do you well to accept that fact, for he died the day you abandoned him. What's left, what I became, was born from the ashes of that silence."
He stepped back slowly as he said:
"And things like me… we don't beg for salvation."
Arthur turned away, each step he took a farewell to the innocent boy he once pretended to be.
And this time, it was he who didn't look back.
There had never been a law, not really. Only a worded contract.
That in every generation, two people would be married together, the princess of the royal family with the heir of the Ashbourne family.
It was done so in order to keep each other in check.
Because of it, his mother, Princess Adelaide Crowndale, had been married to his father, Earl Frederick Ashbourne.
It had never been about love.
It was a necessity to ensure that the Ashbourne heir would carry royal blood in his veins.
And the moment that necessity was fulfilled, the marriage was discarded like an emptied glass, its purpose served. Their divorce proceedings had begun almost immediately after Arthur's birth, the conclusion foregone.
The novel never disclosed the reason, but Arthur could probably make a guess.
Adelaide must have asked for it, desperate to flee from those suffocating walls. And Frederick must have had no reason to object, he had no desire to remain tethered to a royal pawn.
A child's cries echoed through the vast, dimly lit corridors of Ashbourne manor.
A small, fragile boy clung to his mother's gown, his tiny fingers grasping the smooth silk as though his very life depended on it.
"M-mother..."
The young Arthur sobbed, his breath hitching between broken words.
"I-I promise, hic… to be good. I won't ask for anything else, so… so please, sob… sob… just take me with you, hic... don't leave me here."
The indifferent turquoise eyes, cold as the winter sea, gazed down at him.
Her fingers, slender and elegant, pried his hands away with practiced ease. The fabric slipped from his grasp like sand through his fingers, and he crumpled to the marble floor.
"No...! Mother! Mother, pl-please!"
'I can't... I can't let that happen to me... not again.'
However, his mother, who he thought would at least glance back, never looked behind. Not once.
Arthur thought he would have gotten used to the pain by now, but contrary to his expectations, he realized that he's still living in the past.
The servants stood at the edges of the grand hall, silently, their gazes carefully averted, their faces indifferent as Arthur collapsed upon the cold marble floor.
But then, after a moment of laying there, arms enfolded him and he was lifted with practiced ease.
The warmth came not with words, nor with pity, but with presence. The presence that knew neither hesitation nor fragility.
He smelled a clean and crisp scent, like the breath of winter upon the wind.
'Wait... this scent...'
A heartbeat pulsed gently beneath Arthur's ear, like the rhythm of something eternal.
'Is it...'
Arthur tilted his tear-streaked face upward, eyes blurred with sorrow and surprise. He met his father's gaze, but the man offered no comfort.
"Fa-father...?"
The only answer that came his way was the absolute silence. Shortly after, his trembling slowly quieted and his breathing softened, the weight of the moment slipped from his small body as sleep took him.
***
The young Jaehwan stood by the door, watching as his mother stepped outside with her belongings.
"Sister... does mother not like me anymore? Is that why she's leaving us?"
He clutched his teddy tightly. It was the very first gift he had received from his mother.
"No... that's not it, Jaehwan. Anyway, let's go inside now or you'll catch a cold."
On that snowy day, his sister held his cold, trembling hand tightly and turned to head inside. Before he followed, he turned back one last time to see if his mother stood there, but the spot where she had been was empty. That was when he realized she hadn't even looked at them before leaving the house.
Years later, his eyes landed on a familiar person among the crowd, standing under a cherry blossom tree.
'It seems she has finally achieved what she dreamed of.'
People surrounded her, asking for autographs, and while she signed those papers or whatever items they handed her, she didn't even bother to check her surroundings.
'Haa... how can she be so careless?'
Just then, Jaehwan's gaze fell upon a man who launched forward with a knife.
"Ahhhh!"
Tip. Tap.
Blood dripped from Jaehwan's arm onto the ground as he shielded his mother from the attack.
"Tsk."
The man swung his weapon again and again randomly, but Jaehwan grabbed the man's arm and twisted it slightly, causing the knife to fall to the ground.
Thud!
Just in time, the police officers arrived. One of them grabbed the man while the second came to thank Jaehwan.
"Thank you for your hard work, Detective Kwon!"
"It's alright, keep up the good work."
"Yes, sir!"
The police officer took the man away while his colleague arrived.
"What are you doing, and what happened to your arm? We're going to be late if you keep this up."
"Ah, nothing. Let's go."
Jaehwan turned around to leave, but then someone called him from behind.
"Excuse me, are you alright?!"
It was his mother's manager. Even he wasn't aware that Jaehwan was her son.
"Yes, don't worry. The wound isn't that deep."
"I see. Thank you for saving the actress!"
Jaehwan looked at his mother, wondering why she didn't meet him, even as a mere formality to her savior.
"No worries."
Jaehwan was no longer allowed to approach her nor tell anyone that she was his mother. Because she had done an interview and told the whole country that she only had a single son, who had a different father. And thus, Jaehwan could no longer be included in her family.
She did become a famous actress. But at the cost of burying her own living son and referring to him as if he were some stranger.
"What brings you here, Detective Kwon?"
"Th-that..."
"I invited him for dinner to show him my gratitude for saving you."
It was her husband who spoke, a man who seemed to deeply care for her.
However, Jaehwan now had to be thanked for saving his own mother.
Jaehwan had his first dinner in a long while with his mother as a stranger, and thus, he couldn't help but build walls around himself to keep him safe from the pain. Solitude became a refuge, a fortress where no one could hurt him.
But even then, no matter how much he tried to convince himself otherwise, deep down, he still held onto that foolish, desperate hope. That maybe, just maybe, the one who had forsaken him would one day return. That they would reach out, call his name, and tell him he was wanted.
But hope is a fragile thing, and it shatters too easily. In the end, it was the very hands that were meant to protect him that crushed it beyond repair.
The love he never received, the warmth he so desperately longed for, was given to his step-brother instead. And though he didn't resent him for it, he couldn't help but envy them.
As for Arthur, that love was given to Theodore Granville, the only one who ever truly mattered to his mother. And so, Arthur grew up in the cold and dark shadows of his father, while Theodore's life was filled with warmth and sunshine.