The Mask Cracks
The memory of how she returned was hazy.
Canna headed straight for the underground laboratory the moment she arrived at the mansion. Then she stopped short.
“……?”
A massive shadow leaned crookedly against the door to the lab.
“Kallen?”
Canna stared at him in surprise.
The man in the darkness was indeed Kallen. Still dressed in his formal party attire, he stood with a deeply displeased expression.
How long had he been waiting here?
“Where have you been?”
Canna looked up at him for a moment, then let out a sigh.
She was tired.
Exhausted.
Right now, she didn’t want to talk to anyone.
“Later.”
“…….”
“Let’s talk later, Kallen.”
She moved past him and reached for the laboratory door.
But the next instant, a long arm shot out from behind her. It brushed lightly against her cheek and slammed the opening door shut.
Thud.
“Later?”
Kallen murmured in a low voice.
“Exactly when is this ‘later’ supposed to arrive?”
“…….”
“Lately, you’ve been avoiding conversations with me like this constantly.”
His voice scattered over her hair.
Canna stared weakly at the door before slowly turning around. Then she pushed against the chest right in front of her.
“Go back, Kallen.”
He took one step back as she pushed.
But that was all.
“No, sister. Not today.”
He gently caught the hand she was using to push him away and lowered it.
“You disappeared in the middle of the party. Where did you go?”
“…….”
“There are rumors that you had a secret rendezvous with Prince Argon. Is it true?”
She didn’t know what to say.
Nothing was prepared in her mouth. Her head felt completely empty.
Men and women meeting at a party and slipping away together. Such things were commonplace.
Most disappeared into secluded corners of the garden, empty rooms, or dark corridors. What a man and woman did in an isolated place was obvious.
“Yes, it’s true.”
Too bothered to make up a lie, she simply answered that way.
He would clearly misunderstand.
It didn’t matter. Let him think whatever he wanted.
“It’s true, Kallen. I spent time alone with His Highness Prince Argon.”
She answered while staring somewhere around his shoulder.
Even so, she could feel his eyes sharpening with terrifying intensity.
A short silence fell.
“What did you say?”
The temperature around them dropped sharply.
“What did you just say?”
“I secretly met with Prince Argon and slipped away. And Father caught me on the way back.”
“Why on earth would you bother with a worthless man like that?”
Surprisingly, his voice remained calm. So eerily quiet that it felt ominous instead.
“Prince Argon is not a man worthy of you, sister.”
“…….”
“Are you that heartbroken over the divorce? Or were you simply lonely?”
Canna answered with a sigh.
“Yes.”
“…….”
“I’m heartbroken and lonely. And I’m in a terrible mood because Father interrupted my time. So I want to be alone.”
As she muttered those words, Canna realized something.
This wasn’t going to work.
She couldn’t live like this. She had to run away, even if it meant fleeing.
This place. Addis.
As long as she remained entangled in this relationship stained with far worse karma than she had imagined, she would never be happy.
‘The easiest way to create hell is to hate the people closest to you.’
A phrase she had heard somewhere suddenly came to mind.
A hollow laugh formed on her lips. Those words were right.
Her world was hell. She didn’t trust or love anyone around her.
Only hatred, hatred, and more hatred.
Even that had grown exhausting now.
She no longer wanted to live like this.
‘Let’s run away.’
She would leave this place.
And in the rest of her life, she would never meet anyone from Addis again.
“Sister, please raise your head. Look me in the eyes and speak.”
The moment she made her decision, every knot came undone. The tightly bound strings began to unravel one by one.
She no longer needed Kallen Addis.
The act of pretending to be a kind older sister was over.
“It’s annoying.”
A thick sneer flowed out. Canna lifted her head exactly as he wanted. And she showed him.
Her true face. And her true feelings.
“Stop bothering me and get lost, Kallen Addis.”
Kallen witnessed that moment clearly.
On Canna’s beautiful face, cracks spread across her picture-perfect mask. It shattered and scattered. Beneath the shell crumbling like ash, long-buried contempt gleamed with a cold, sharp light.
Kallen endured that moment with an expressionless face.
It hurt.
But it wasn’t surprising.
Looking at himself like this, he realized he had already known her true feelings for a long time.
So he simply asked in a calm tone.
“Only now?”
Canna stared at him intently.
She had expected him to be shocked, but he wasn’t. He looked like someone who had already guessed her hatred.
“Yes.”
“Have I become useless to you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I have Prince Argon now. I don’t need you anymore.”
“No, that’s not true.”
Kallen cut her off sharply, denying her words.
“Prince Argon’s position is nothing but an empty title. Far from building his own power, he deliberately destroys it. I would bet everything I have that Prince Argon has no interest in the throne and will one day leave the imperial family for good.”
“Really?”
“Yes. He is a rope that will disappear in the future. No different from a rotten vine. I am disappointed in your judgment for choosing something like that.”
“…….”
“Choose me instead. I am far more useful than Prince Argon.”
He listed his own value like a merchant selling goods.
“I am the one who will become the head of Addis.”
“…….”
“If you want power, I will place it in your hands. If you want wealth, I will lay it at your feet.”
Then he whispered as if coaxing her. It was an incredibly seductive voice.
“I can make anything you desire into reality.”
“……Anything?”
“Yes. Whatever it may be.”
Canna looked up at him with unwavering eyes.
Kallen’s face was full of confidence. He had no doubt that she would eventually choose him.
It made sense. What could he possibly lack?
Kallen Addis. The man who would inherit Alexandro Addis’s position in its entirety.
No matter where one went in this world, it would be hard to find anyone with as much power as Kallen.
That was why she had taken him. Used him however she pleased.
But now she no longer needed him.
She wouldn’t even recycle him.
Because even if she stood at the top of a spire built from money, honor, and power, she would never be happy as long as she remained with Addis.
“I don’t want to.”
Kallen’s face blurred.
Canna smiled. And for the first time in a long while, she spoke her true heart.
“Kallen, I hate you. I can’t possibly like you.”
His lips tightened as if he had been struck.
“No matter how many good things you give me, it’s useless. If I stay with you, I will never be happy.”
After a long silence, Kallen finally spoke.
“……Is it because of what happened when we were children?”
His voice sounded as if it had been scraped out.
“Yes.”
“That’s why I’ve been doing so well for you lately, isn’t it?”
Kallen looked desperate.
“I’ve apologized many times. And I’ve done everything you asked. Is that still not enough?”
“…….”
“How long are you going to stay trapped in the past!”
Canna couldn’t answer.
Because even she wondered about it.
Why couldn’t she act like the kind protagonists in fairy tales?
If she were the type of person who could forgive everyone no matter what wounds she received, it would have been so much easier.
But she simply couldn’t forget.
The time Kallen had locked her in this basement until she nearly starved to death.
The time he poured apple juice on her face and told her to get lost because she smelled like filth.
The endless repetition of making her pick up things he threw out the window until she collapsed from exhaustion.
The time he watched like it was entertainment as his mother dragged her by the hair and locked her in a wardrobe, like a pig being taken to slaughter.
Those countless contempts. Those countless humiliations.
The look in his eyes back then. His expression. His voice.
She couldn’t forget them. They refused to fade.
‘So what am I supposed to do about it?’
What was she supposed to do about the way she was born? Canna smiled crookedly.
“It’s probably because I’m a terrible bitch.”
“…….”
“You just got unlucky and ended up with a terrible bitch.”
After saying that, she turned away again. The conversation was over.
Canna opened the door and stepped into the laboratory. Fortunately, Kallen no longer tried to stop her.
‘It’s dark.’
Since it was underground, not even faint moonlight could reach it. As she looked around for a lantern—
Thud.
The sound of the door closing echoed.
At the same time, her vision was plunged into complete darkness.
“…….”
Canna turned around in surprise.
With the door closed, not a single speck of light entered the underground laboratory. It was pitch black.
And then came the voice.
“You really do whatever you want, don’t you, sister?”
In the pitch-black darkness, Kallen’s voice pressed down.
“It’s fine if you use me. If that’s what you want, you can treat me like a tool.”
Canna unconsciously stepped back and bumped into a desk, stopping in place.
“But I am a human being.”
Not even the sound of footsteps could be heard. Yet his voice was drawing closer, little by little.
“Did you think you could throw me away as easily as a tool?”
A chill ran down her spine.
When had he gotten so close? In the darkness, a pair of green eyes flashed right beside her.
Those ghost-fire eyes burned with a fierce glow.
“That won’t do, sister.”