“What are you thinking?” Leon murmured amidst the crackling symphony of the campfire. Even while holding her from behind, he had somehow sensed she was awake.
Veronica, who had been lying entranced by the dancing flames, hesitated momentarily before answering softly, “Just thinking about the nature of our hearts.”
“Our hearts?”
“I believe a heart begins perfectly round,” she explained thoughtfully. “Complete and whole on its own. But when someone burrows into it… It creates a hole, like this.”
Veronica formed a circle with her hands, then separated her index fingers to reveal a gap between them.
“The hole takes the precise shape of that person,” she continued, “so when they depart, you’re left with an emptiness that echoes their exact form.”
“Like a worm-eaten apple?” Leon suggested.
“Yes, exactly. But since the impression has already been permanently carved, only that specific person can truly fill the void they created.”
“So, to protect oneself from emptiness, should one avoid forming attachments altogether?”
“No,” she replied firmly. “That will only lead the heart to grow stale and lonely in isolation.”
After her words, silence descended between them. Just as she began to worry that her philosophical musings sounded absurd even to her own ears, Veronica turned his question back to him.
“What are you thinking?”
“Carnal thoughts,” he replied bluntly.
There’s only one part of my metaphor that could possibly inspire such thoughts. When she narrowed her eyes and turned toward him, expecting to find his customary roguish expression, she instead encountered Leon’s unusually solemn face.
“I’m wondering why the woman I just made love to appears melancholy,” he confessed. “If she didn’t like what we did, or if I somehow caused her pain.”
Propped up on one arm, he studied her face with unsettling intensity. The moment she glimpsed the sharp anxiety lurking beneath his dark gaze, her heart plummeted. He was peering into the depths of her soul.
She had believed that her concerns had been washed away during her bath, and that she had maintained a convincing facade of contentment—but apparently her performance hadn’t been enough to deceive the man who had spent the entire day studying her every expression.
“…I didn’t dislike it,” she whispered. “Why do you say that when it’s not true?”
“I’m not entirely sure,” he admitted.
Leon’s brow furrowed as he released a hollow laugh that didn’t reach his eyes.
“I don’t know how you feel if you don’t tell me,” he said. “The heart is invisible, so it’s easy to succumb to doubt. I question whether you find greater joy with our new companions than with me alone—whether you’ve started yearning for a different path, or whether you secretly regret choosing to leave with me.”
His directness was characteristic—Leon didn’t like to be oblique in any way, as if he didn’t want any misunderstanding between them. This transparency made his suppressed anxiety painfully clear to her. Veronica, caught off-guard by his honesty, fumbled for words before shaking her head in denial.
“You have your own uncertainties, don’t you?” she asked. “Could you truly share every one of them with me?”
“No,” he admitted. “Ordinarily, I would have buried these thoughts and carried on. If my companion were anyone else, that is. Or if I weren’t so terrified that these festering doubts might eventually poison what we’ve built together.”
Veronica’s eyes wavered as understanding dawned. For the first time, she fully comprehended the profound seriousness with which he regarded their relationship.
“I live in fear that someday you’ll leave me,” he confessed. “I dread the inevitable day when my lowly origins and my cursed status—which prevents me from even pledging vows for you in my true name—will finally become too burdensome for you to bear.”
Veronica’s mouth went dry, her heart pounding against her ribs. The moment she realized Leon was speaking of marriage, an ache bloomed in her chest. Never had she imagined him to be harboring such worries. Just as he’d pointed out moments ago, unspoken fears remain unknown.
“That’s my darkness,” Leon continued. “That miserable struggle of constantly fighting against the fear that someone more worthy might appear—someone who could fulfill you in ways I can’t.”
Leon laid bare his deepest vulnerabilities without hesitation. He displayed his weakest self, the part he’d least want revealed, as though shame were a foreign concept to him. It wasn’t from any lack of pride, but because he yearned for her equal honesty in return.
Veronica was silent for a moment before finally mustering up a response.
“You don’t have to worry,” she murmured softly. “I’ve never dreamed of lifetime vows exchanged before witnesses or anything like that. I only need someone to be with me.”
Leon remained silent, his expression unreadable in the dim light.
Veronica, sensing his doubt hanging in the air between them, hastened to add, “And I’ve never once regretted leaving with you. What we did today didn’t hurt either. It was wonderful. If I seemed melancholy earlier… it wasn’t anything serious. Just that, when Charlotte mentioned losing her family, it made me think of us.”
“Us?” Leon’s brow furrowed slightly.
“What would you have done if I hadn’t returned to life after the swords shattered?”
The question that had been festering inside her had finally escaped. Leon appeared lost in contemplation as he slowly ran his fingers through his still-damp hair. She recognized this now as his habit when restraining words that threatened to spill forth.
“Don’t evade the question,” she pressed. “Be honest with me.”
“I would have followed you into death,” Leon finally answered. “I was already half-dead, but even had I been in perfect health, the outcome would have been the same. Without you, I had no reason to continue my life.”
A chill swept through Veronica’s body. Though she’d anticipated his answer, hearing it spoken aloud still struck her like a physical blow.
“Are you disappointed?” he asked, studying her face. “Was that not what you wanted to hear?”
Disappointed? Could anyone truly feel disappointment when their beloved declares they cannot exist without them?
No, far from it—she felt a dark, consuming joy. The knowledge that she was his sole flame, his only light, filled her with such happiness it bordered on terror.
“No,” she admitted. “I just despise how darkly pleased it makes me feel.”
Do you know what it’s like to love someone so completely that you become afraid of your own heart?
Veronica clenched her trembling hands into tight fists. Avoiding his penetrating gaze like a cornered creature seeking escape, she continued, “I want your happiness above all else, but a part of me—a selfish, terrible part—wants you to think only of me, even when you’re suffocating to death. But what kind of love is that? That’s monstrously selfish, isn’t it?”
As the love in her heart grew, her anxiety grew alongside it. Humans were truly exhausting creatures.
“I’m afraid that this twisted heart of mine will someday break you,” she whispered.
“Veronica.”
“I—”
“I don’t shatter so easily,” Leon interrupted her spiraling thoughts with unwavering certainty.
Veronica halted mid-breath and raised her gaze to meet his. His eyes, steady and clear as starlight, pierced through her doubts like a beacon guiding lost souls through impenetrable darkness.
“Let’s say two pillars support a roof,” he said. “The thickness of those pillars doesn’t really matter. What truly matters is that there are two of them, supporting the same roof on both sides.”
The metaphor hovered between clarity and mystery. Then he spoke again, each word deliberate: “Our relationship won’t crumble as long as we stand together.”
Slowly, Veronica’s unfocused eyes sharpened with dawning comprehension. A revelation, sharp and sweet as the first breath after drowning, coursed down her spine.
He was saying that just being together was enough—that their relationship, which had seemed so complex in her mind, might actually be that beautifully simple.
“If emptiness is the problem,” Leon continued, “then we just have to keep filling that space over and over again. If we remain as one and never part, loneliness and emptiness can’t touch us.”
His large hand cradled the back of her head, drawing her into his embrace. As his warmth enveloped her, her tangled thoughts melted away like morning frost beneath the sun.
Ah, that’s right. Perhaps that’s enough. Whether our love is vast or small, selfish or pure, simply being together is all we need.
“I won’t leave you,” she promised.
“All right.”
“And I regret nothing.”
“Good.”
“I really don’t need vows or marriage or any such bindings.”
As she sniffled softly against him, Leon wordlessly tightened his protective embrace. The lingering sorrow that had clung to her even after leaving Karta dissolved completely, like a drop of blood dispersing in deep water. I should have opened my heart sooner, she thought. He had always been someone who would bear any burden alongside her.
“Is there anything else weighing on your mind?” Leon asked, his fingers gently combing through her shoulder-length hair.
Veronica hiccupped softly in his arms before blurting out a question that had long lingered in her thoughts. “There is something I’ve always… wondered about. Why do you never call me by any endearments?”
Leon’s lips curved into a smile. “Why would I shorten something so precious? I wish your name were even longer.”
“Why?”
“So I could keep it on my lips longer,” he replied.
Veronica felt heat rise to her cheeks. “Where do you learn those honeyed words? Do you study them in private or something?”
“Yes, exactly,” he admitted with a hint of playfulness. “I think about it all day, and when I think of something good, I write it down somewhere to use when you least expect it.”
His absurd words finally broke through her remaining melancholy, drawing forth genuine laughter. He joined her, their shared mirth a balm to wounded souls. Their bodies relaxed in the languid aftermath of emotional catharsis. On this cool summer night with the gentle breeze caressing their skin, Veronica realized there was nothing to fear when they were together.
From now on, we just have to remain connected like this. That alone will transform us into a greater flame, burning together forever.
Veronica closed her eyes, nestled in his protective embrace, drifting into slumber without even realizing sleep had claimed her.