Chapter 9. To Get Along Harmoniously
Eizen pulled Loa’s trembling shoulders firmly into his arms. His large palm clumsily patted her back. Perhaps his intention was to comfort her, to tell her everything would be all right, but to her, it only seemed to make the tears flow harder. It was only after she had cried her heart out in his embrace that she finally came to her senses.
Today, she had wanted to look beautiful for him, so she had started preparing since the early dawn. Yet with that thoughtless outburst of tears, all her efforts seemed wasted.
“Have you calmed down?”
When Loa’s sobbing quieted, Eizen asked gently.
“Mm.”
Loa nodded faintly, speaking in a small voice. She didn’t want to lift her head—she didn’t want him to see her face.
“Show me your face.”
Eizen tried to pull her back from his chest. But Loa only tightened her arms around his waist, refusing to let go.
“I cried… I must look awful.”
She shook her head firmly. Eizen’s fingers tenderly stroked her lovely golden hair.
“I’ve wanted to see your face so badly all this time. Even now, after we’ve finally met, you won’t show it to me?”
He lowered his head and whispered sweetly into her ear, still nestled against his chest.
“You’re beautiful even when you cry.”
Loa drew in a sharp breath. His warm breath and gentle voice against her sensitive ear were unbearable in their tenderness—it almost made her cry again.
Not wanting to reveal her flushed face, she pulled away from his arms at once and turned her back to him.
“Come this way. I’ll show you the garden.”
Eizen let out a soft laugh at the sight of her hurrying ahead. With calm, measured steps, he followed behind her.
At the rear garden, Loa stopped in front of a flowerbed blooming with colorful blossoms.
“I watered this flowerbed myself a few days before you came.”
“Yourself?”
Eizen already knew she loved nature. But to think she had watered the flowers with her own hands—just imagining it was unbearably endearing. He longed to witness that sight with his own eyes.
“Want to try it?”
Loa asked her servants to bring a watering can. Since she had done it once before, she now stood before him with a proud, almost smug expression.
“It’s not easy to control the strength in your wrist. It’s pretty heavy, isn’t it?”
For a man who had lifted steel weapons dozens, even hundreds of times, the watering can was hardly heavy. But he simply watched her, holding the can in her slender arms, focusing so intently, and found himself captivated by her face.
“The flowers look so much fresher once they’ve drunk the water.”
Droplets clung to the vivid petals, soaking them with a delicate sheen. In the sunlight, they sparkled like tiny jewels. Loa was a pure soul—someone who could smile at such simple things.
“They do.”
But it wasn’t the flowers Eizen was smiling at—it was Loa herself. How starkly this moment contrasted with the battlefield, where he had faced brutal sights countless times each day, drenched in the stench of blood.
“Ah, the osmanthus has bloomed too.”
Setting down the watering can, Loa stood and took Eizen by the wrist, leading him toward where the osmanthus trees were planted. Eizen glanced at her pale, slender fingers clasped around his wrist.
Loa stopped in front of the small, white blossoms and pointed.
“Every time the osmanthus bloomed each year, I thought of you.”
He was so happy, he almost felt afraid—afraid it might be too much happiness. For the first time, he felt proud to have survived, no matter how desperately, in that wretched place of cruelty, killing, and bloodshed—if only so he could breathe and be here with her now.
It was no exaggeration to say he had devoted everything just to share these simple moments with her.
“I always wanted to see this together with you. My wish has finally come true.”
Loa’s smile was still as radiant as sunlight, unchanged even with time. Eizen stared straight at her—not at the flowers—as he spoke.
“I wanted to see it too.”
Her eyes remained fixed on the dainty blossoms. She didn’t notice him drawing closer until his shadow fell across her face.
“The osmanthus?”
She only turned her head when she felt darkness fall over her cheek—and there he was, right before her, leaning in to kiss her cheek. But because she turned so suddenly, his lips brushed not against her cheek, but against her lips.
“…Ah.”
Eizen, who had meant to kiss her soft cheek but instead touched her lips, was momentarily taken aback. The smooth flow of the moment turned awkward in an instant. Yet soon, a gentle smile spread across his face.
“You—”
Loa’s eyes went wide like a startled rabbit, blinking rapidly. Not knowing what to do, she darted her gaze around, searching for a different subject.
“Haha, but… isn’t it so peaceful and quiet here?”
Before he came, she had actually taken a short nap in this very garden. It felt so tranquil, almost like being deep in a forest. It seemed the perfect place for him to sit in peace, meditate, and heal after the battlefield.
“Judy, could you bring something to sit on…?”
As she called for her maid, Loa suddenly remembered.
“Oh right, Judy—why didn’t you come earlier?”
“I went upstairs to fetch a mat, but then my lady urgently asked for my help. I’m sorry, my lady.”
Because Judy had disappeared, Loa had nearly missed the time to meet Eizen properly. Though she had felt resentful, she let it go, hearing her explanation.
“All right then. Just quickly bring something we can sit on.”
This time Judy hurried back with the mat. When the maids laid it out on the grassy hill, Loa unceremoniously flopped onto it. Her casual, almost tomboyish manner was surprising for the young lady of a noble house, leaving the servants momentarily flustered. They glanced at Eizen for his reaction, but he only gazed at her with loving eyes, finding every side of her adorable.
“The grass makes it feel so soft.”
To ease her embarrassment, Eizen lay down beside her. Loa turned onto her side to face him.
“Isn’t your uniform uncomfortable?”
“It’s fine.”
With their bodies sinking into the soft mat, and the sound of leaves rustling gently in the breeze filling their ears, their eyelids grew heavy.
“Even though I just napped earlier, I feel like I could fall asleep again.”
“Close your eyes. You said you hardly slept.”
Eizen too turned toward her side. Loa forced her half-shut eyelids to stay open, wanting to capture him in her eyes for just a little longer.
“No. I want to enjoy more time with you.”
He gave a crooked smile and covered his mouth with one hand, pausing his breath as if to stifle a yawn.
“I think I’m getting sleepy too.”
“You didn’t sleep much either?”
“It took a long time to travel here.”
“Then you must be more tired than me.”
Eizen closed his eyes first. Loa stared at his face, free to gaze at him as much as she wanted now that he couldn’t see her looking.
“Shall we nap together?”
His voice, already drowsy, came with his eyes still shut. Loa too felt herself swept into the same drowsy current. As soon as she stopped resisting, her eyelids slid closed on their own.
“Maybe we should.”
The moment her eyes shut, Loa fell into a peaceful sleep. Listening to her soft, steady breathing, Eizen opened his eyes again.
He slowly sat up, gazing down at her sleeping face. He even stilled his own breath, afraid his movements might wake her.
He wanted to embrace her pure soul—so different from his own, stained by countless sins on the battlefield. Having lived only with her as his sole light, his desire for her had grown boundless.
She was so precious that he could not even touch a single strand of her hair carelessly. She had become something he could never trade for anything in the world.
Before the dinner banquet, Loa returned to her room. As she changed clothes, she imagined the day Eizen would finally return. Surely, this evening would be the time he formally asked for marriage.
Naturally, her father had no reason to refuse him. The outcome was as good as decided already.
“Why am I so nervous, then?”
Once her father gave his approval, they truly would be wed. She would leave the estate where she had grown up, and follow only Eizen Trone wherever he went.
But where would that be?
He had left the Trone ducal house to become a knight. With his father and brother killed in battle, the title had naturally passed to him.
Would that mean returning to the Trone Ducal household? But wasn’t the duchess, Marlena, still there?
“I am not Lady Marlena’s child.”
“She could never acknowledge me…”
As a boy, he had suffered under Lady Marlena’s cruelty, even locked away in the cellar. Wouldn’t conflict arise again if he returned to the ducal house? The thought worried Loa deeply.
“I hope we can live in harmony.”
She would have to steel her heart. For her, marriage was exactly half filled with excitement and half with fear.
Looking down at the garden outside her window, Loa felt her anxious thoughts slowly ease.
“At least that garden will be there too.”
A natural, picturesque garden much like this one—so alike she wouldn’t even need to pine for her homeland. That alone was a great comfort to her.
