∴ ∵ ∴
RAIN pelted the lake. Torrential rain shook the flowers and bounced off the ground. The witch’s hermitage seemed to be floating on top of a giant puddle.
The crisp sound of flipping paper echoed loudly through the chilly air. Rose was reading a book she had propped up against her knees. Her nose was close enough to brush against the pages. She wouldn’t have been able to read the letters if she didn’t hold it that close because the room had darkened.
“…Rose?”
She thought she heard someone say her name. Drawn by that muffled sound, she lifted her face from the book.
Her gaze wandered the room until it locked with dazed eyes. The sole pop of light in the dim room, Harij, stared at her from the chair.
“It seems I fell asleep.”
“I’m sorry. I planned to wake you before it got this dark…”
“Nah. Sorry I fell asleep on you.”
Rose glanced out the window and was astonished to see the rain coming down hard enough to classify as a storm. She had been too engrossed in her book to notice.
“…It’s raining.”
“We can’t use the boat in this weather. Let’s wait until it lets up.”
It was very dark out with the rain clouds blotting out the sky. From the look of things, it was near nighttime. The hermitage didn’t have grand clocks like the Azm mansion, so Rose couldn’t tell the exact hour.
Luckily, there was no carriage to pick them up today, since Harij had refused it. Otherwise, the coachman would also be trapped in the rain waiting for them.
The rain pounded against the thin roof, which could have easily blown away in the storm. It sounded strangely more violent than she had ever heard it before.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if the lake turned into the sea…”
“Lakes cannot become the sea.”
“I know that.”
Rose lit a lamp and rummaged through the kitchen. Unfortunately, they were in the height of summer, and she had spared herself the trouble of buying things she wouldn’t normally need until winter. Unsurprisingly, there wasn’t a crumb of food anywhere in the house.
The rain wouldn’t be stopping anytime soon. If she had known this was going to happen, she would have left half the apple pie pockets in reserve for later. Rose wasn’t hungry, but she’d feel terrible if Harij was.
Come to think of it, she had received an unopened bottle of brandy from a client a while back. As she groped around the shelves for the brandy, the letter from L fell out. She picked up the letter she had randomly stuffed into the shelves and shoved it into another random spot. This was why her place was never clean.
She managed to find the brandy and dusted the cork off with her robe. She turned to Harij, holding the lamp up to the bottle’s label.
“Want some?”
“Sure.”
Rose poured the brandy into plain cups meant for everyday use and placed them on the table. It couldn’t be helped that she didn’t have fancy glasses or a comfy sofa. Not only was the hermitage small and cluttered, but the bed was the only other place to sit.
“It doesn’t look like it will let up anytime soon.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
Rose was starting to get anxious. Sure, she had to worry about leaks and the house being blown off the island with them in it, but her greatest concern lay with the rain physically preventing them from returning to the Azm mansion. If this downpour kept up, she and Harij would end up spending the night together in this confined space.
They had seen through the night in this hermitage together once before. Harij was a perfect gentleman then. Their relationship had been that of a suspicious witch and noble knight. But what about now? Harij no longer hesitated to touch Rose, and she also didn’t mind—
“Uuuuummmm!”
“What’s wrong?”
“I felt it necessary to do research because of my ignorance—marriage research, that is.”
I need a distraction! Rose slammed her cup of brandy on the table, walked over to the spot where she had piled up her recently purchased books, and returned with three of them.
“Marriage in this country is the legal union of two consenting people who swear an oath to each other in God’s name. A married couple consists of two people who are socially and economically united, and husband and wife each have their own obligations and rights… Does that sound right?”
“Yeah, that’s the gist of it.”
Rose thought back to what Harij once tried to tell her: “The only unchanging promise I can give you is marriage.”
At the time, she was too much of a nervous wreck to really think about what he meant, and she also didn’t have adequate knowledge about marriage to get what the big deal was, but now she did.
The page Rose had opened the book to addressed bereavement as well. When she saw it for the first time, she was so surprised, she had to reread the same paragraph several times.
According to the book, the married status still held even after a spouse was deceased.
Most animals do not remain faithful to their deceased mate. If one of the pair dies, the one left behind will find a new mate and have children. Nothing is dedicated to the corpse—the animals move on.
Yet humans continue to dedicate their futures and responsibilities even in death, maintaining the “marriage” bond.
An unchanging promise really would last forever. He offered her an everlasting oath that wouldn’t change over the years and decades to come—even in the event of his death.
Rose was overcome with joy—an even greater joy than she experienced when he first asked her to marry him.
“…I also learned about how there are different types of marriage: those that are simply bound only by law and those who desire the union. All the married people I have ever known have been morally compromised clients who come seeking the witch’s secret potions despite already having a spouse. So I decided to ask people who aren’t my clients—granted, they all work at your mansion.”
“You can trust them.”
“I believe so, too. Would you like a refill?” Rose asked, noticing Harij’s empty cup.
“Nah, I’m good,” he said with a shake of his head. He would typically drink another two cup’s worth.
“Are you sure?” Rose confirmed before continuing with her story. “So I asked Mona first.”
She still hadn’t become close to Mona yet, but the young maid no longer cringed when they passed each other in the halls. She hadn’t gotten over her innate fear of the witch, but she seemed to be growing more comfortable around her. As evidenced by the fact Mona took Rose’s puzzling question seriously and answered despite her initial hesitation.
“She described marriage as ‘future stability.’”
“I see.”
“I asked Mr. Safina next.”
Rose directed a sidelong glance at Harij because he had only just told her “I don’t want to hear you talk about other men today, tomorrow, or the day after.”
He showed no reaction, so she continued, “He said marriage is the ‘fertile ground for the seed of love.’”
She also asked the two footmen but couldn’t remember what they said, so she left that part out.
“I asked Ms. Tala last. She said marriage means ‘continuing to walk life together.’”
“What did you think after hearing everyone’s opinions?”
“The answers varied, but none were wrong. It led me to the conclusion every marriage is built differently by the two people involved. That is why…” Rose grabbed the brandy cup and downed the contents. This was something she couldn’t say without liquid courage. She stared at the bottom of the cup as she confessed the rest. “I believe that talking about marriage—about life—with you is our own form of being…married.”
At some point along the way, Rose and Harij started communicating without being nervous or hesitant about offending or being offended so that they could better understand each other. Rose became confident in her feelings for Harij and in his feelings for her.
“I see,” he whispered in a voice smoother than warm hot cocoa.
Harij probably helped Rose out in more ways than even she realized.
As someone who had only experienced life in the hermitage, Rose knew little to nothing about the outside world. She had no means to learn more about the kingdom at large, or about things like knights, nobles, and the rest.
It would be impossible to master all that knowledge and assimilate perfectly into his world. Much like how asking Harij to suddenly use magic would be impossible. Nevertheless—
“Please tell me if there is ever anything I should be aware of. I don’t know much about the world or the people in it, but I don’t want to stay ignorant when it comes to you.”
She would never stand in the same position as Harij or hold his exact outlook on life. What she could do, however, was share in his goals, support him, and come to understand why he believed the things he did.
“Even if we have to take different routes to get there, as long as we end up at the same destination, then we will succeed at being married… Or at least, that’s what I took away from it.”
This was the conclusion Rose, who had always gone with the flow and never set down roots, drew after seriously thinking about her future for the first time.
Forever seemed to pass without a response from Harij. The silence was suffocating.
The smell of brandy filled the room. Worried she had derived an entirely different conclusion from what Harij had imagined for their future, Rose looked up from her cup.
Tenderness met her gaze. Harij was looking at Rose as if she were the whole world, as if he didn’t even hear the rain pelting the thin roof.
His expression was full of affection and bottomless love, unlike anything she had ever seen before.
“What’s…the matter?” Her question came out hoarse.
“I was just thinking about how much I want to hug you.”
He always hugs me without asking first, so why is he holding back today? Rose found his comment so curious, she tilted her head.
He must have guessed her unspoken question. Harij’s lips formed a small smile as he shook his head.
✦ ✦ ✦
“No one else…is here.”
“Indeed.”
“I’m not confident I can leave it at just a hug.”
His eyes gleamed in the lamplight. They blazed like torches. His ultramarine eyes burned with desire, holding her captive in their shimmering depths. It shouldn’t have been possible, but to Rose, it seemed a small fire was kindled there.
“I have never felt this much love before.”
Neither of them had taken the love potion, but she felt the dizzying flames of love coming from him. She struggled to breathe.
“Let’s get married soon,” he whispered in a low, heady voice.
“…Mm-hm.” A second later, she repeated, “Mm-hm.” She couldn’t risk looking at his face a moment longer.