Once, warmth had a name.
But ten years ago, that name was buried alongside rotting lily petals beneath a white marble headstone.
To the boy, his mother's death was the moment the world ceased to have color. He could still recall the scent of vanilla and old paper that lingered on her dress. But her face... ah, that face was slowly fading, veiled by the cruel mists of time. It left behind only a faceless silhouette standing on the threshold of his dreams.
Since that rainy funeral day, he ceased to be a child. He became a weapon.
"Your mother is no longer here to pamper you," his father said, his voice as cold as frost. "Now, there is only this blade. There is only control. There is only victory. It is the only way you will not shatter as she did."
The boy stared at the slender Rapier his father gave him. Its metal felt biting, the kind of cold that no hearth could ever warm.
He was never praised. No one ever touched his head gently and whispered, "You've worked hard." Every time he won a dueling practice, his father would merely give a small nod and speak of the next strategy.
Whenever he felt terrified and alone in his vast, dark room, he would grip the hilt of his sword until his knuckles turned white. He grew to love the darkness, for there, he could pretend his mother's shadow still stood in the corner of the room, watching over him.
He grew into a Controller.
On the battlefield, he stood amidst a storm of rain and blood. He utilized no emotion. His mind was a void, containing only calculations of distance, speed, and the fatal points of an opponent's body. He moved thousands of soldiers like a conductor leading an orchestra.
Every thrust of his sword was a poem about emptiness.
Zlap!
Swift, slender, and merciless.
He did not know what he was winning for. He did not know why he had to remain standing when his legs were weary of treading the wet earth. He only knew that as long as he maintained control, he would never feel "abandoned" again. Because in this world, only death never leaves anyone behind.
Yet, behind all his greatness, at the bottom of his loneliest soul, a question remained snagged like a thorn. A question he had kept since the day his mother left. A question that no war victory could answer.
He gazed at the crimson-purple sunset sky, the same color as the scarf his mother used to wear. He craved warmth, yet he was accustomed to the cold. He longed for a hug, yet his hands were only trained to grasp a weapon.
"Mother..." he whispered amidst the deafening clangor of iron. "Have I become the child you wanted?"
Silence. There was no answer. Only the sound of the rain beginning to fall, signaling that his final dance was about to begin. A dance where he would win everything, only to realize he possessed nothing. Including himself.
And so, the dance commenced.
Under the roaring sky, he stood at the front line. Not as a passionate hero, but as a precision machine. In his eyes, the advancing enemies were no longer humans with lives and families; they were merely variables in an equation he had to solve.
"Advance," he commanded flatly. His voice wasn't loud, yet its chill could pierce through the roar of the storm.
He moved his thousands of soldiers with a graceful wave of his hand. The cavalry thundered, the archers released a black rain of arrows, and everything moved to the beat of the rhythm in his head. He was the eye of this storm. He controlled the chaos as if the war were a mechanical clock he wound himself.
However, as the distance between himself and the enemy vanished, he no longer just commanded.
Clang!
A greatsword attempted to cleave his head, but with a light step—a dance move upon the puddles of mud—he evaded. His silver Rapier hissed, slicing through the air with a sound that was delicate yet lethal.
Zlap!
The tip of the blade pierced the opponent's throat before the poor man could even blink.
There was no anger.
No grudge.
His empty eyes only stared forward, searching for the next target in the silence he created himself.
Blood began to splatter, staining his luxurious robes, soaking his white hands. He hated the stickiness, yet he loved the cold rain that immediately rinsed it away. To him, every life he took was one step closer to the end. Every victory he achieved was one more piece of evidence for his never-satisfied father.
"Look at me, Father," he thought cynically amidst the swarm of enemies. "I am not broken. I am destruction itself."
Yet, the more he killed, the quieter his heart became. The clashing of swords, the screams of agony, and the thunder in the sky gradually faded, replaced by a painful high-frequency ringing in his ears.
Suddenly, the world around him seemed to slow down.
He stood atop a hill of corpses. His enemies were gone, his troops had withered away. Only he remained, the victor standing upon an altar of death. The silence he feared—the silence that always reminded him of his dark, lonely room—now returned to ambush him with even greater ferocity.
He held control over this entire battlefield, yet he was unable to control the hollowness that began to tear at his chest.
The rain fell harder, as if wanting to drown a world already shattered.
Under the light of the dying sunset, he lowered his trembling Rapier. He no longer saw soldiers or enemies. He only saw the darkness he loved, the darkness that now felt very cold... and very alone.
Then, in the pinnacle of that silence, his pale lips moved...
"What... is happiness?"
He looked at the Rapier in his hand. The silver blade was filthy, smeared with blood and sticky mud. With his remaining strength, he tore a strip of cloth from his luxurious robe, then wiped the blade with slow, rhythmic motions—cleaning it until the metal shone coldly once more under the dying light.
He wanted the weapon to be clean, as clean as it was when his father first gave it to him.
Just as that silver flash returned to its purity, a faint shadow passed through the curtains of rain. That faceless figure whispered softly, carrying the scent of vanilla he so desperately missed:
"Happiness? Happiness is when we become ourselves."
He stunned for a moment, then a thin smile played on his lips. Without wasting a second, he reversed the polished sword and plunged it directly into his own abdomen.
Zlap!
The thrust was swift and deep. He fell to his knees upon the earth, letting the warmth of his own blood wash away the cold that had imprisoned his soul for so long.