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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 55
Chapter Title: Azaleas
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Lumina stared intently at Karayan, wondering if something was seriously wrong with him.
Conscious of her gaze, Karayan raised a hand and casually covered the lower half of his face with its back.
Then, averting his eyes from Lumina to a random point in the air, he muttered.
“I wasn’t worried.”
“…”
“You have a history of collapsing in front of me, so I just came to check.”
Most people would call that worrying.
But it seemed the word “worry” didn’t exist in Karayan’s dictionary.
He denied being concerned about Lumina to the very end.
“And why were you dangling from the window again? I told you you’d fall if you did that.”
*I never leaned out far enough to fall.*
“If you fall from here, someone as weak as you will die.”
It was the third floor, so it wouldn’t be an instant death.
Still, it was a height that would cause a fatal injury to any ordinary person, not just Lumina.
He said he wasn’t worried.
But with every word he uttered, all she could feel was his concern, and a small smile bloomed on her face.
“Even if I fall, you can just catch me, Lord Karayan. So why should I worry?”
“…Are you going to keep saying things like that so casually?”
“Like what?”
Lumina’s eyes widened as if she had no idea what he meant. Her pink irises sparkled with innocence.
“Hm? Hm? What kind of things?”
Lumina closed in on Karayan, pestering him so quickly it was enough to make his head spin.
As Lumina advanced, Karayan shuffled backward. He seemed to have no intention of telling her what “things” he meant.
It looked like he might vanish like the wind through the gaping hole where the door used to be.
“Tell me what you mean… Oh, right. The door.”
The missing door was a serious problem.
How inconvenient would it be if the cold night air kept blowing in while she slept?
Coming to her senses, Lumina stopped chasing Karayan and pulled the bell cord.
A maid entered shortly after.
“You called?”
Normally, she would have knocked and then opened the door, but there was no door to open.
She flinched for a moment upon realizing the problem.
But true to a maid of the ducal household, she quickly regained her composure.
“The door broke. I called because I think it needs to be fixed as soon as possible.”
“Yes. I will see to it at once.”
The maid responded calmly, as if this sort of incident was hardly an incident at all.
“While the new door is being installed, how about a walk? The weather is lovely today.”
“Yes, I’ll do that.”
Following the maid to the dressing room, Lumina changed into a simple outfit.
Just then, the maid helping her change spoke cautiously.
“Young Mistress, you seem to be full of energy. I think that kind of spirit suits the ducal household.”
It seemed to be her way of telling Lumina not to feel discouraged.
As if to say breaking a door was nothing to worry about in the ducal estate.
Her intentions were good, but she was a little too open-minded.
*How could she possibly think I did it?*
Lumina was slightly taken aback by the tremendous misunderstanding but didn’t bother to correct her.
Instead, dressed in a flowy white one-piece, she exited the doorless room.
Karayan naturally followed behind her.
*If I acknowledge him now, he’ll probably run away again, so I’ll pretend I don’t notice.*
Karayan was like a stray cat. If you approached him first, he’d back away, but if you pretended not to see him, he’d come closer.
Even now, he was trying to act as if he were just passing by, as if they were strangers.
But to anyone watching, they clearly looked like they were going for a walk together.
Swallowing a laugh, Lumina scampered down the long staircase. Then, a question popped into her head.
*How can he cross this distance in a matter of seconds?*
At this point, she wondered if it wasn't a crime to call people like her Legions.
The definition of the word was clearly wrong.
Pushing aside the trivial thoughts that bubbled up, Lumina went out into the garden.
The sweet fragrance of flowers drifted on the warm, sunny breeze.
The ducal garden was in full bloom with flowers of every color. The variety was so vast that one could walk around it several times without getting bored.
*He probably won’t run away if I acknowledge him now.*
After stealing a few glances at Karayan, Lumina tiptoed over to his side.
“So, what were you doing in the garden?”
Karayan flinched.
She worried he might step back, but just as she’d expected, he didn’t flee.
Instead, as if insisting he hadn’t followed her on purpose, his gaze landed slightly away from her.
“There are a lot of flowers in the garden.”
Karayan was not only kinder than he appeared but also quite sentimental.
Lumina marveled quietly.
“Were you admiring the flowers by yourself? You should have woken me up so we could have come out together. I didn’t really need that nap.”
“What are you talking about?”
Karayan frowned slightly.
“I was just checking to see if the flower you ate was out here.”
“…”
Karayan was definitely a Legion.
A Legion with absolutely no sentimentality.
“I told you, I didn’t eat it.”
Lumina replied, her voice full of indignation. But it didn't seem to have any effect on Karayan.
Just then, something caught her eye, and Lumina reached out her arm.
“Ah. But I can eat this.”
Lumina picked an azalea. It was a lovely pink flower, the same color as her eyes.
As she gently placed the base of the flower in her mouth, the suspicion in Karayan’s golden eyes deepened.
“You said you didn’t, but you really did eat it. Now that I look at it, the color is different, but the shape seems subtly similar.”
“No, no. You don’t eat the whole flower, you just suck out the nectar. Like this…”
Muttering with the flower in her mouth, Lumina scrunched up her nose and eyes and squeezed her lips together.
At the same time, she made a little *slurp* sound.
“The nectar comes out when you do this. It’s surprisingly tasty. You should try it, Lord Karayan.”
Karayan seemed to think she was joking. Even after she placed a flower in his hand, he continued to hesitate.
“Go on. Go on.”
Unable to resist Lumina’s urging, he finally put the base of the azalea to his lips.
All he had to do was suck on the end, but he followed Lumina’s example and scrunched up his nose and eyes as well.
For a brief moment, his expression made him seem like he and Lumina were of a similar age.
“How is it? It’s nectar, right?”
Karayan gave a small nod.
The flower was small, so there wasn’t much nectar. Karayan quickly took the flower from his mouth.
Perhaps because the sweetness of the nectar still lingered on his tongue, his reaction suggested it hadn't been an unpleasant experience.
Karayan fiddled with the nectarless flower in his hand, a peculiar expression on his face.
Then he said abruptly.
“Is your family poor?”
“Pardon?”
“Nobles don’t usually put flowers in their mouths like this.”
They wouldn’t even think of picking a flower and putting it to their lips in the first place.
They would surely be repulsed, calling it something only the poorest of commoners would do.
Lumina smiled gently.
“Whether my family has wealth or not is a separate issue. I just know because I ate them a few times when I was little.”
“You’re still little now.”
“When I was a little younger than I am now.”
A little younger.
It was when her stepmother was still alive.
She would find fault with the most trivial things, so going hungry for a whole day wasn’t particularly unusual.
At night, in the especially cold and dark attic, she would curl up into a ball, groaning from the intense hunger.
Then one night, a young Lumina caught a sweet scent.
As if drawn by instinct, she rose weakly to her feet, stood on her tiptoes, and peered out the tiny window.
Being so short, only her eyes barely cleared the windowsill, but she saw flowers glistening in the moonlight.
*Ah, that’s where the smell is coming from.*
After that, rational thought became impossible.
Driven by the sole thought of survival, she secretly crept down to the garden and picked a flower.
When you’re starving, you’ll want to put anything in your mouth. Lumina, too, brought the flower to her lips.
Back then, the minuscule drop of nectar felt so sweet it brought tears to her eyes.
She thinks she might have sobbed quietly, hiding herself from view.
*But trying it now, it wasn't all that sweet.*
Lumina clasped her hands behind her back and deliberately started humming a tune.
It was so terrible she could have been suspected of being tone-deaf, but Karayan didn’t comment.
He had noticed that Lumina’s eyes, which always shone with such vigor, had somehow dimmed.
And when her humming ended, Lumina brought up a different topic.
“You’ll be leaving this place soon, won’t you, Lord Karayan?”
Just because Karayan hadn’t left right away didn’t mean he would stay forever.
Karayan couldn’t answer readily.
“I also have someone I hate so much that when I was on the brink of death, I couldn’t close my eyes because I was so resentful that they would live a good life.”
“…”
“Whether it’s a misunderstanding or not, what you hate, you hate. So I understand.”
Just as Lumina despised her maternal uncle, Joseph, Karayan loathed his father, Lucius.
Even if Lumina believed Lucius was a trustworthy person, she had no intention of trying to persuade Karayan.
That would be crossing a line, something not included in their contract.
“Just… don’t go around getting beaten up.”
Telling someone who would be lucky not to bury a few people somewhere not to get beaten up.
It was a concern that even the Legions who went out to hunt vicious monsters capable of killing a human with a single breath would never hear in their lifetime.
It was something he could have just brushed off, but the image of Lumina’s face, tearfully saying the same thing, flickered in his mind.
And her words that his wounds had become her wounds.
That was why Karayan couldn’t bring himself to ignore her.
