The moon hung heavy above the castle ruins, a silver eye watching the tragedy unfold below. Cold wind swept across the courtyard, rustling the dead leaves and sending your hair fluttering like a dark banner of defiance. The gleam of steel pressed against your throat—a cruel reminder that even in fiction, pain feels far too real.

Rin stood before you, blade trembling in his grip. His breath came shallow, sharp. His eyes, usually filled with fire, now flickered with something more fragile—hurt, disbelief, betrayal. He stared at you as though trying to recognize the person who once shared quiet glances and stolen time with him, only to find a stranger wearing your face.

"You… why did you do that?"

The words cracked in the stillness like a whip. Behind them, a thousand unspoken memories lingered: the moments before this world turned upside down, when everything had still felt like a dream.

But dreams end.

You didn’t ask to fall into this novel. You didn’t choose to bear the name that sent shivers through every courtier’s spine. Villain. A role scripted with cruelty, set in ink before you ever arrived. The weight of fate pressed down on your shoulders heavier than any crown. To survive, you had to play your part. To exist, you had to wound the heroine—even if your heart screamed in protest with every step.

Rin didn’t see that. Or maybe he did, and that was the cruelest part of all.

The crown prince—regal, righteous, raised on the pedestal of destiny—looked at you not as a monster, nor as a puppet of prophecy, but as someone he once dared to love. And now, that person stood soaked in narrative sins, bathed in moonlight and stained with fiction’s cruelty.

His jaw tightened, teeth grinding as he tried to hold the pieces of his world together. But they were shattering, slipping through his fingers like dust. Of all the people fate could have chosen to stand in that cursed role, why did it have to be you?