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LEON should have had an easy career path as a gardener now that his and Hana’s relationship was no longer a concern. But he threw it all away and disappeared.
It was likely that he left in order to make a clean break with her.
Lost without him, Hana told everyone what had happened.
It would be impossible for a sixteen-year-old girl to search the city for him by herself. It made her painfully aware of how naïve and powerless she truly was.
Her parents were more disappointed than angry when she told them. They only agreed to help her find him once she promised to give up on being with him.
As long as she didn’t drink his blood, he would not officially become her partner.
Her parents didn’t take their naïve, ignorant daughter’s feelings seriously. To them, her feelings for Leon were nothing more than a passing fancy.
But this feeling is so powerful… Will it ever go away?
Hana had only ever known one love, so she couldn’t be certain. But even without Leon on the grounds, she couldn’t forget him, and that intense feeling of thirst began to torment her once more.
Not a thing had changed. Not her feelings toward him or her bloodlust.
They still couldn’t find him after two weeks, so they called off the search.
Walt worried over the increasingly listless Hana and invited her out for shopping and to the theater to cheer her up. She never refused him, hoping to satisfy her parents. But every time they went out, she kept her eyes peeled out the window of the carriage in hopes of seeing the young man with cinnamon hair.
She knew what she was doing was cruel to Walt. But she could not stop herself from looking for Leon each time they went out.
And then, finally—
“Stop!”
The carriage was heading down a road she had never been to before. They were neither in the wealthy residential district nor the merchant’s quarter.
Just after that strange feeling swept over her, Hana finally found him. The young man she had been searching for.
Her pulse throbbed.
She couldn’t mistake the way he looked from behind.
“Miss Hana, you mustn’t! Remember your promise to Lord Saizoh? He will be heartbroken.” Walt sighed, seeing just who Hana’s eyes had landed on.
Hana threw open the carriage door, keeping an eye on Leon the whole time. “I’m so sorry, Walt. But if you won’t stop the carriage, then I’m going to jump! I am serious!”
Hana was leveraging her position for everything it was worth. If she missed her chance now, it may never come again. She didn’t care whether or not Leon actually wanted to see her. She had to see him, no matter what.
“You’ve always been obstinate about the strangest of things,” Walt said, a sad smile coiling on his lips.
Who was it that had sent the coachman on this path that they normally never would have taken? And in a city as large as this, how could it be by chance that they had finally found the one person she had sought for so long?
“Walt…I’m so sorry, but thank you. From the bottom of my heart.”
“You’d better go now or you’ll lose sight of him.”
Hana gave the man, who had been like a brother to her, a deep bow and leapt from the carriage. She ran with every ounce of strength she had, desperate to catch Leon, who was slipping into the crowd.
“Leon! Leon!”
He stopped for a second, then started to dart away. Hana, who had never run a mile in her life, knew she had little chance of catching him. She was the one who had refused him. She couldn’t blame him for never wanting to see her again. And yet, she ran.
“Kya!”
Her high heels weren’t made to run in. She toppled over and skinned her knees. She could stand the pain, but the thought of losing Leon brought tears to her eyes.
“Dummy…”
You’re the dummy, Hana thought with a smile. He had tried to run away, yet all it took was her tripping to get him to rush back to her. He was such a kindhearted fool.
“But I didn’t want to lose you. You should have known I wasn’t just going to forget about you after you left.”
“So, what do you want?” he asked, an icy gleam in his eye.
But Hana hadn’t jumped from a carriage and run all this way just to end things here. She hadn’t chased him through the streets just to say goodbye.
She took several deep breaths and finally told him how she felt. “I want to be with you, Leon. That’s all. I just wanted you to know that no matter what happens, I want to be by your side.”
She had chosen her former life over him once before, so she wasn’t sure he would forgive her. But she didn’t care how selfish it seemed; she just wanted to be with him.
“You really are a dummy.”
He reached out to Hana, who was still on her knees, and pulled her up into his arms. This was his answer.