Chapter 23: Yandere Young Master? vs. Yandere Maid!

I’m excellent, aren’t you supposed to be happy about that, Young Master? So why did you tie me up?

Enya stared blankly, the confusion in her heart not yet voiced when she saw Kane release his grip and take a seat some distance away from her.

He sat like a majestic emperor—legs spread wide, fingers interlaced beneath his chin—as he spoke with deep emotion:

“Even though I’ve been demoted to a commoner… even though all those seductive harlots are gone… even though now there’s only Enya by my side… even though it was always Enya who stayed with me since childhood…”

“Then why—why, even after I’ve fallen so far, do you still stand by and watch me go after those vile women? They’re nothing but a bunch of ugly pigs clinging to power. Why should I go greet them? Why should I touch them? Why do they get to see my smile? Why did you let me go to them so freely?”

“Tell me, Enya—why? Why?! Everything I have should belong to you alone.”

Kane’s voice grew more and more frantic.

Suddenly, he dashed forward and pulled Enya into a tight embrace, his broad chest enveloping her completely.

Sitting on the bed with her legs pressed together, Enya listened to his outpouring of resentment, her heart filling with guilt.

It’s all my fault. I didn’t give the Young Master enough of a sense of security.

That’s why he betrayed me. It’s my fault—all of it. A thousand times over, it’s my fault.

But then, in the next moment, a jolt of clarity struck her.

Wait a second… why does that all sound so off?

So you went around flirting with other women, and now you’re blaming me for not stopping you?

Isn’t that a little too much? And why does that line of reasoning sound so familiar?

“If Young Master is unhappy with Enya, then just tell me. I’ll change. Why did you have to…”

Enya bit her lip and looked up at him, her gaze filled with a mixture of grievance and quiet anger.

Seeing that she seemed genuinely upset, Kane gently stroked her hair with indulgent affection and said,

“Enya, it’s all your fault. Everyone has turned their backs on me. There’s only you left now. From now on, you only need to look at me. So why can’t you let me belong to you alone?”

“Why can’t you just look only at me, spend more time with me…”

“…”

—Wait a minute. Young Master… why are you using my lines?!

Enya looked utterly stunned.

So long ago—so long that she herself no longer remembered exactly when—she had carefully plotted to cage Kane, to fuse him into the Ten Thousand Demons Banner, so he would forever remain by her side, his eyes filled with only her.

It was a plan full of risk and danger.

After all, Kane was a duke’s son, and his fiancée was a princess.

A single misstep could not only doom her plan but lose her Kane forever.

That’s why Enya prepared meticulously, refining the plan nearly a hundred times over.

After they were both exiled to the borderlands, the final version of her plan was finally put into motion.

But now, at this moment… the words Kane had just spoken—were the very same ones Enya had intended to say.

How does the Young Master know what I was going to say?

Has our bond already reached such an unspoken level?

Thinking about it made her cheeks flush in embarrassment.

But if the Young Master has already done everything I wanted to do… then doesn’t that mean, even the final step—

Enya’s heart began pounding violently. 

A strange, indescribable feeling started to take root deep inside her.

“So I’ve decided… I’ll refine Enya into the Ten Thousand Demons Banner. That way, she’ll always look only at me.”

Kane declared this with heartfelt emotion.

His obsessed and mad gaze overflowed with passionate love, so intense it could abandon all reason for the one he loved.

Enya didn’t speak.

She sat slanted on the bed, legs together, head lowered in silence.

Her shoulders trembled, the silver bangs covering most of her face and hiding her expression.

But surely, surely… she must be crying her heart out—tears flowing like rain, eyes swollen red.

Did I go too far…? Kane had never seen Enya cry before.

He began to feel that perhaps he’d been too harsh. 

After all, everything Enya had done—however twisted—was because she loved him too much.

Though Kane wasn’t quite ready to accept this level of obsessive love…

Even so, making a woman who loves you cry—especially not during kun—wasn’t something a real man should do.

“No… this is necessary.”

Kane quickly dismissed his own fleeting hesitation:

“If I don’t correct Enya’s twisted concept of love now, I’ll be the one suffering in the end.”

Liking a yandere is a belief; being liked by a yandere is a disaster.

For the sake of a better future—for both of them—some things had to be done.

Some infamy had to be shouldered.

“I just hope this experience will help her see things from my perspective… to start considering me for a change.”

No matter how deeply two people love each other, caging, imprisoning, and refining someone into the Ten Thousand Demons Banner was never something that should exist between them.

What they needed was more love… normal. Like that of ordinary men and women.

Kane looked down at the trembling girl, her shoulders quaking as choked sobs slipped intermittently from her throat.

He figured it was about time to move on to the next step—to let her truly reflect, to abandon her deranged fantasies once and for all, so they could walk forward hand in hand toward a brighter future.

He crouched down in front of her, gently placing a hand on her soft, smooth shoulder.

“Enya, I—”

“Hehe… hehe… hehehehe…”

“…?”

Laughter?

Not crying?

She was laughing?!

Only when Kane moved closer did he realize the tear-streaked, sobbing face he’d imagined… didn’t exist at all.

Enya’s cheeks were flushed a deep red, the color spreading all the way to her ears. 

Beneath the thin, white silk of her nightdress, her long, beautiful legs rubbed together slightly, her pale feet curled tightly at the toes.

Her chest rose and fell rapidly, and from beneath her eerie, broken smile, two faint tears still trickled down—but it was not grief he saw in her eyes.

Kane froze, instinctively pulling back his hand as he took a step away.

“Young Master~ Why are you backing away? Weren’t you going to refine Enya into the Ten Thousand Demons Banner? Come on, do it—I can’t wait any longer.”

“Young Master… Young Master… I want… I want… I really want it…”

“Hurry up and refine Enya already~ Then we can be together forever~”

“Young Master~”

Empathy and redemption? (×)

Escalating obsession and irreversible madness? (√)

Kane had calculated everything to perfection.

He had executed his plan all the way to its final stage.

But despite all that meticulous preparation, he had made one fatal miscalculation—

He hadn’t stopped to think like a yandere.

And that one, seemingly small oversight…

Rendered everything he’d done up to this point completely meaningless and ushered in a nightmare far worse than he ever imagined.