Chapter 20 – Bright Sunshine
Hadius safely returned to Nowak after completing all his schedules in Trunia.
Caitlyn Meyer immediately called him to the Krambitz Villa. She was never worried about her son who suffered from exhaustion on the last day due to his hard schedule.
As soon as he met his mother, Hadius opened the mine contract like a gift. He also said he plans to meet the King soon to negotiate the breakup.
In an instant, Caitlyn felt that the weight that had been on her mind completely disappeared. She was so proud and endearing of her perfect son that it was unbearable.
“It’s been a while; would you like to have dinner together?”
“I’ll come see you again next time.”
Hadius left the house without meeting his bedridden father.
Just after passing the tree path leading outside the Krambitz Villa, Grozhang approached him from the opposite side.
“I have a message from His Majesty the King. He accepts all three conditions. He only said that he would need some time to prepare for the third condition, as it needs a pretext to convince people and to avoid raising Mrs. Meyer’s suspicions.”
“Alright.”
They were finally over the most crucial moment.
Unlike his nervous heart, his achromatic pupils passed Grozhang’s face and headed somewhere in the sky. There were a lot of dark clouds, as the early rainy season was about to begin.
A dark and stuffy air wrapped his whole body like a snake.
Heavy rain was coming.
Hadius was silent, lost in thought.
The weather that day, five years ago, was just like this.
Not only his mother but also relatives, Reinen and other allied families, the parliament, the media… Everyone said so.
The Meyer family was completely caught in a trap that the King made under the name of ‘marriage’.
Sixteen-year-old Hadius also thought the same. It was unpleasant and annoying.
It wasn’t that he disliked a political marriage in itself. For the sake of his family, whether it was an ugly woman or a beautiful woman, a noble woman or a commoner, he was determined to suppress his personal preferences and accept her as a wife.
However, it was the King’s command, and a marriage that was like a trap to control his family’s financial status…
Hadius was going to wait patiently and throw it away at the right time. He controlled his boiling displeasure by imagining himself laughing at the pretentious King laid down under his feet.
The others, including his mother, expected the commoner fiancée to be vulgar and indecent. Wasn’t she the daughter of a poor rural farmer and not just a commoner? It was natural that she would be empty-headed due to illiteracy, and she may have rough skin, rotten teeth, and a bad smell coming from her body.
Hang in there. Hang in there for a while and it’s over.
Hadius entered the ceremonial hall without hiding his disgust.
And then he saw her. A girl standing with a calm face under a big window in the large hall.
The thick dark clouds slowly cleared up, and a ray of light poured in intensely.
Under the bright sunshine, the child shone in gold. Hadius frowned without realizing it.
And their eyes met the next moment. The deep-blue eyes were stuck in his mind.
***
A mat was laid on the wide sandy beach, and a basket and water bottle were placed. The weather was gloomy, but it was rather fortunate that there wasn’t a scorching sun. The shady beach is the perfect place to practice dancing.
“Alright, let’s get started.”
Mitch grabbed Emilia’s hand and held her waist.
The first pose looked quite decent. Expect that the man’s head barely reached the woman’s chin.
“Three, two, one!”
With the chant, the two pairs of legs facing each other began to move in the same direction. Mitch hummed the melody of a three-beat waltz.
The quite decent steps started getting tangled within seconds. When Mitch’s foot turned to the right, Emilia’s foot turned to the left, and when Mitch turned, Emilia stopped.
The two faltered, like a machine with a loose screw, and completely collapsed in an instant. Mitch fell first, and Emilia fell next to him. She giggled with her face in the sand.
“Are you really learning how to dance?”
“That’s what I’m saying! Aren’t you the one who skipped class?”
Mitch and Emilia laughed while blaming each other.
“One more time?”
“One more time.”
After drinking water, the two posed again. On the darkening beach, the brother and sister danced and stopped, and danced and laughed, repeatedly.
“Mitch Bern, I’m afraid you will get a failing grade because of the waltz.”
“Ha! Just worry about yourself. You look like a wallflower at your first ball.”
“Popularity doesn’t depend on your dancing skills.”
“No matter how beautiful you are, if you dance like you have two left feet, your charm will be halved.”
Emilia laughed.
“Shall we take a break?”
The two sat on the mat. Mitch frowned heavily and looked up at the sky for a long time. Then, he looked worried.
“This won’t do. It looks like it’s going to rain. Didn’t Mom hang out the laundry earlier?
Emilia also looked around in the darkness.
“Yeah, I have to go and bring it in.”
“I’ll do it. I’ll go and get ready to go out… What about you?”
“I’ll stay here a little more. The wind is very refreshing.”
“Alright. Then, I will go first.”
And like that, Mitch disappeared on the trail.
***
Emilia cleaned up the mat and water bottle, and then walked to the small mound with a hammock.
The sky was unusual. It looked like it was about to rain at any moment, should she have just gone home?
When she turned around, to her surprise, Hadius Meyer was there again. He wasn’t even surprised, appearing out of nowhere as if he’s using magic.
Emilia stopped, calmly facing the black hair fluttering in the wind, as if it was dancing.
The closer the man got, the weirder she felt.
Something is different…
“How have you been?”
Hadius’ eyes are very strange.
“You said… You were going to Trunia…”
“I’m back.”
Her heart pounded annoyingly.
His cold look, his indifferent eyes, everything is the same; but why does he look different?
Hadius stopped at such a distance that the end of his frock coat was almost within her reach.
“Why are you here… Again?
“I came to see the sunshine.”
“Sunshine?”
The two looked up at the sky at the same time. Rather than the sun, it felt like it was going to rain anytime soon.
When Emilia looked down again, his silver-grey eyes were strangely boiling with emotion.
That’s right, that’s the problem.
The eyes that illuded her every time, as if she didn’t care about anything in the world.
“But… It seems like it is going to rain now.”
Emilia murmured as though she was sorry, avoiding his gaze.
“It would have been better if you came yesterday. The sun was bright…”
She looked up at the sky once more, wrinkling her small nose. Hadius’ gaze immediately followed. Feigning coldness, his eyes reached her slender, white neckline.
“I don’t care.”
Her head, which had been turned towards the sky, came back to its original position. The man’s Adam’s apple wriggled, and his eyes turned towards somewhere else, as if running away.
“But why are you really here?”
Emilia asked suddenly, with a serious look. Realizing that her entrancing blue eyes had also begun to contain a cold and indifferent alertness, Hadius was seized with displeasure.
“It seems like you were dancing.”
“Ah, did you see it?”
“I watched for a while, what you two were doing. Stepping on each other and falling…”
Emilia’s face turned red. That fueled the man’s perverse instincts.
“You need to practice dancing a little more.”
The red cheeks took on a deeper glow.
Only then was Hadius satisfied. Emilia, smiling brightly and spinning around, remained like an afterimage in his mind; and it kept urging him.
“Shall I help you?”
“What? No, it’s fi…”
“It’s for me anyway.”
“… What?”
“The graduation ceremony.”
Emilia’s mouth opened like a clam, as if trying to say something. Then, it closed again.
“Isn’t it for that day?”
Hadius reached his hand towards Emilia, without hesitation. For the first time since their engagement ceremony, a long time ago.
“Ah…!”
He gently pulled her hand, which was trying to escape.
The man’s hand took hold of Emilia’s wrist and lifted it high up. Emilia had no choice but to stare blankly at the scene of her hand touching Hadius’ shoulder.
Another hand wrapped around her waist. Their bodies pressed against each other.
He was completely different from her skinny younger brother. He was much more intense and stronger.
She doesn’t know.
She really doesn’t know if this loud throbbing sound is a raging wind, a rushing wave, or just the beating of her heart.
As Emilia gradually lost her will, the sky darkened with thick, dark clouds. In the meantime, Hadius grabbed her other hand, which had dropped powerlessly. Their fingers brushed against each other and their palms bumped, intertwining tightly.
It’s weird. He only touched her hand, so why is her heart palpitating? Along with the man’s clean body odor, pungent like mint, Emilia felt dizzy.
“Look up.”
Emilia’s head lifted automatically as it was what she always heard every time the dance class started.
Their eyes met. In front of his silver-gray eyes, deep like an abyss, her pulse accelerated uncontrollably.
Chapter 20 – Bright Sunshine
Hadius safely returned to Nowak after completing all his schedules in Trunia.
Caitlyn Meyer immediately called him to the Krambitz Villa. She was never worried about her son who suffered from exhaustion on the last day due to his hard schedule.
As soon as he met his mother, Hadius opened the mine contract like a gift. He also said he plans to meet the King soon to negotiate the breakup.
In an instant, Caitlyn felt that the weight that had been on her mind completely disappeared. She was so proud and endearing of her perfect son that it was unbearable.
“It’s been a while; would you like to have dinner together?”
“I’ll come see you again next time.”
Hadius left the house without meeting his bedridden father.
Just after passing the tree path leading outside the Krambitz Villa, Grozhang approached him from the opposite side.
“I have a message from His Majesty the King. He accepts all three conditions. He only said that he would need some time to prepare for the third condition, as it needs a pretext to convince people and to avoid raising Mrs. Meyer’s suspicions.”
“Alright.”
They were finally over the most crucial moment.
Unlike his nervous heart, his achromatic pupils passed Grozhang’s face and headed somewhere in the sky. There were a lot of dark clouds, as the early rainy season was about to begin.
A dark and stuffy air wrapped his whole body like a snake.
Heavy rain was coming.
Hadius was silent, lost in thought.
The weather that day, five years ago, was just like this.
Not only his mother but also relatives, Reinen and other allied families, the parliament, the media… Everyone said so.
The Meyer family was completely caught in a trap that the King made under the name of ‘marriage’.
Sixteen-year-old Hadius also thought the same. It was unpleasant and annoying.
It wasn’t that he disliked a political marriage in itself. For the sake of his family, whether it was an ugly woman or a beautiful woman, a noble woman or a commoner, he was determined to suppress his personal preferences and accept her as a wife.
However, it was the King’s command, and a marriage that was like a trap to control his family’s financial status…
Hadius was going to wait patiently and throw it away at the right time. He controlled his boiling displeasure by imagining himself laughing at the pretentious King laid down under his feet.
The others, including his mother, expected the commoner fiancée to be vulgar and indecent. Wasn’t she the daughter of a poor rural farmer and not just a commoner? It was natural that she would be empty-headed due to illiteracy, and she may have rough skin, rotten teeth, and a bad smell coming from her body.
Hang in there. Hang in there for a while and it’s over.
Hadius entered the ceremonial hall without hiding his disgust.
And then he saw her. A girl standing with a calm face under a big window in the large hall.
The thick dark clouds slowly cleared up, and a ray of light poured in intensely.
Under the bright sunshine, the child shone in gold. Hadius frowned without realizing it.
And their eyes met the next moment. The deep-blue eyes were stuck in his mind.
***
A mat was laid on the wide sandy beach, and a basket and water bottle were placed. The weather was gloomy, but it was rather fortunate that there wasn’t a scorching sun. The shady beach is the perfect place to practice dancing.
“Alright, let’s get started.”
Mitch grabbed Emilia’s hand and held her waist.
The first pose looked quite decent. Expect that the man’s head barely reached the woman’s chin.
“Three, two, one!”
With the chant, the two pairs of legs facing each other began to move in the same direction. Mitch hummed the melody of a three-beat waltz.
The quite decent steps started getting tangled within seconds. When Mitch’s foot turned to the right, Emilia’s foot turned to the left, and when Mitch turned, Emilia stopped.
The two faltered, like a machine with a loose screw, and completely collapsed in an instant. Mitch fell first, and Emilia fell next to him. She giggled with her face in the sand.
“Are you really learning how to dance?”
“That’s what I’m saying! Aren’t you the one who skipped class?”
Mitch and Emilia laughed while blaming each other.
“One more time?”
“One more time.”
After drinking water, the two posed again. On the darkening beach, the brother and sister danced and stopped, and danced and laughed, repeatedly.
“Mitch Bern, I’m afraid you will get a failing grade because of the waltz.”
“Ha! Just worry about yourself. You look like a wallflower at your first ball.”
“Popularity doesn’t depend on your dancing skills.”
“No matter how beautiful you are, if you dance like you have two left feet, your charm will be halved.”
Emilia laughed.
“Shall we take a break?”
The two sat on the mat. Mitch frowned heavily and looked up at the sky for a long time. Then, he looked worried.
“This won’t do. It looks like it’s going to rain. Didn’t Mom hang out the laundry earlier?
Emilia also looked around in the darkness.
“Yeah, I have to go and bring it in.”
“I’ll do it. I’ll go and get ready to go out… What about you?”
“I’ll stay here a little more. The wind is very refreshing.”
“Alright. Then, I will go first.”
And like that, Mitch disappeared on the trail.
***
Emilia cleaned up the mat and water bottle, and then walked to the small mound with a hammock.
The sky was unusual. It looked like it was about to rain at any moment, should she have just gone home?
When she turned around, to her surprise, Hadius Meyer was there again. He wasn’t even surprised, appearing out of nowhere as if he’s using magic.
Emilia stopped, calmly facing the black hair fluttering in the wind, as if it was dancing.
The closer the man got, the weirder she felt.
Something is different…
“How have you been?”
Hadius’ eyes are very strange.
“You said… You were going to Trunia…”
“I’m back.”
Her heart pounded annoyingly.
His cold look, his indifferent eyes, everything is the same; but why does he look different?
Hadius stopped at such a distance that the end of his frock coat was almost within her reach.
“Why are you here… Again?
“I came to see the sunshine.”
“Sunshine?”
The two looked up at the sky at the same time. Rather than the sun, it felt like it was going to rain anytime soon.
When Emilia looked down again, his silver-grey eyes were strangely boiling with emotion.
That’s right, that’s the problem.
The eyes that illuded her every time, as if she didn’t care about anything in the world.
“But… It seems like it is going to rain now.”
Emilia murmured as though she was sorry, avoiding his gaze.
“It would have been better if you came yesterday. The sun was bright…”
She looked up at the sky once more, wrinkling her small nose. Hadius’ gaze immediately followed. Feigning coldness, his eyes reached her slender, white neckline.
“I don’t care.”
Her head, which had been turned towards the sky, came back to its original position. The man’s Adam’s apple wriggled, and his eyes turned towards somewhere else, as if running away.
“But why are you really here?”
Emilia asked suddenly, with a serious look. Realizing that her entrancing blue eyes had also begun to contain a cold and indifferent alertness, Hadius was seized with displeasure.
“It seems like you were dancing.”
“Ah, did you see it?”
“I watched for a while, what you two were doing. Stepping on each other and falling…”
Emilia’s face turned red. That fueled the man’s perverse instincts.
“You need to practice dancing a little more.”
The red cheeks took on a deeper glow.
Only then was Hadius satisfied. Emilia, smiling brightly and spinning around, remained like an afterimage in his mind; and it kept urging him.
“Shall I help you?”
“What? No, it’s fi…”
“It’s for me anyway.”
“… What?”
“The graduation ceremony.”
Emilia’s mouth opened like a clam, as if trying to say something. Then, it closed again.
“Isn’t it for that day?”
Hadius reached his hand towards Emilia, without hesitation. For the first time since their engagement ceremony, a long time ago.
“Ah…!”
He gently pulled her hand, which was trying to escape.
The man’s hand took hold of Emilia’s wrist and lifted it high up. Emilia had no choice but to stare blankly at the scene of her hand touching Hadius’ shoulder.
Another hand wrapped around her waist. Their bodies pressed against each other.
He was completely different from her skinny younger brother. He was much more intense and stronger.
She doesn’t know.
She really doesn’t know if this loud throbbing sound is a raging wind, a rushing wave, or just the beating of her heart.
As Emilia gradually lost her will, the sky darkened with thick, dark clouds. In the meantime, Hadius grabbed her other hand, which had dropped powerlessly. Their fingers brushed against each other and their palms bumped, intertwining tightly.
It’s weird. He only touched her hand, so why is her heart palpitating? Along with the man’s clean body odor, pungent like mint, Emilia felt dizzy.
“Look up.”
Emilia’s head lifted automatically as it was what she always heard every time the dance class started.
Their eyes met. In front of his silver-gray eyes, deep like an abyss, her pulse accelerated uncontrollably.