Don't Come to Wendy's Flower House

“Are you really going to cause me trouble? Why are you doing this? ”

He looked down at her, “No, I’m not…I’ve never thought about doing anything that can harm you.”

“Then, what’s all this? Why are you here? ”

Her expression looked like ice in a glass of water, shaking and cracking.

He looked at her bitterly and said, “I missed you.”

“… ”

“I just came here because I want to know about the woman named Wendy Waltz.”

She frowned when he mentioned her name.

“Please! Don’t say that. I don’t want to continue my relationship with you anymore!”

She then handed the bouquet of flowers to him roughly. White petals fell here and there.

Faced with her rough actions, he did not feel embarrassed. It was she who felt more embarrassed. A white petal, like a wound healed wrong, landed on the top of his foot.

Looking at the prints of the petal, she said carefully, “I can’t include you in my life anymore. You know that. I told you everything. I’ve gained my current life in a hard way, so please go away.”

“Let me leave if you insist… But your life won’t be ruined because of me. I want to protect you, too. I want to protect you more than anybody else. ”

She quickly shook her head at his reassurances.

“Please leave,” she said, opening the door of the flower shop. He was almost driven out of the door, but he seemed to be satisfied because he could say what he wanted to.

Wendy, who expelled him from her shop, grabbed the broom from the corner. Sweeping the messy floor ferociously, she tried to shake off her complicated thoughts.

Later that night after returning home from work, she sat in her room with a frown. Like a child sitting at the desk reluctantly, she opened the book of plants vacantly and closed the book. As she felt stuffy, she opened the window and took a deep breath, but she didn’t feel better.

She blinked when she inadvertently turned her eyes to the window next door, where there were no lights.

‘He is late today.’

She suddenly felt irritated about the darkness occupying her room. While she was lost in gloomy thoughts for a while, she finally raised her head when the lights turned on in the window next door.

‘Oh no…why am I thinking about him now? How bizarre I am!’

She quickly hid how she felt about him.

There was a shadow near the window. As if he knew she was on the opposite side, Lard opened the window. His collar seemed loose as if he was unbuttoning the uniform.

“It looks like you’re quite busy. You’re late today. ”

She quickly regretted having greeted him like that because she gave the impression that she had been waiting for him.

“… The meeting was longer than I expected.”

“You look tired.”

“I am tired…I seem to have been swamped with work all day. ”

He rarely showed his feelings, but today he let out a sigh with a haggard look.

She asked, looking at him massaging his stiff neck with one hand, “Was there anything wrong?”

“It took me a lot of time to pass an agenda. I’m getting sick and tired of it.”

As she felt it was rude to ask the details, she stopped asking.

“You look tired too.”

Wendy nodded at Lard’s words.

Obviously, it was her alone who had a difficult day. He also leaned back like her when she leaned her head against the window sill. The moonlight fell on their shoulders side by side.

The same moonlight touched their foreheads, noses and lips. She felt a little comforted.

“Have you ever experienced the feelings of fear?” He asked in a lonely tone like an empty sky. She looked at him without replying.

“That was something I had forgotten for a long time,” he murmured with a feigned smile.

She raised her body from the window sill, with a curious look.

“…I am afraid I won’t be able to come here for some time.”

All the unpleasant pressures he had suffered all day long, such as turmoil, anger, doubt, resistance, darkened his eyes.

He recalled what happened today at the imperial palace. Since he supported the crown prince at the meeting, he had no choice but to think about the impending danger to his life.

Lard easily concluded that the prince would try to make use of her to persuade him.

“I liked this room very much, so I feel it’s a regret.”

Given the strong resistance of those nobles who opposed the crown prince’s agenda on the creation of a new hiring system, Lard couldn’t stay near her for her safety. When he noticed the icy attitude of Duke Auguste Engre towards him, Lard decided he would stay away from her for the time being. He couldn’t help it even if it was his own groundless fear. He could not afford to be greedy. If he planted a couple of moles to protect her and silence the rumors about her in the social circles in the capital, they would probably not do any harm to her.

“What happened?” She asked carefully.

But he quietly shook his head, though there was some kind of regret in his tightly closed lips.

‘I can’t take the risk with your life at stake.’ He thought to himself.

“When I come back, I wish the flowers in your front yard will have changed.”

Swallowing silently, so she could not hear it, he pulled on his collar as if he felt stuffy.

“Haam…”

After a big yawn, Wendy wiped away the teardrops with her sleeves.

Her yellow green sleeves turned dark green. She was enjoying a leisurely afternoon after entering the flower shop. She rubbed her drowsy eyes several times and took a nap at the table.

Contrary to her concern, she never saw Dylan again.

After staying nervous about his potential reappearance for a week or two, she was relieved that he didn’t come back. Of course, he could come back anytime he decided to, but she decided not to worry about it, as if she intended to erase his existence from her mind.

Thanks to that, she was having a peaceful day everyday since then.

But she wasn’t really peaceful deep down because she recalled what Dylan had told her with respect to his past.

She sometimes thought about Earl Hazlet, his wife, and Francis who did the dirty trick of separating her from Dylan and their wicked actions. On such occasions, she couldn’t stand putting up with her raging anger, so she had to gulp down cold water.

She deliberately tried not to recall the members of the Earl Hazlet family. Of course, she hated them. Although she hated them, she couldn’t allow her resentment of them to ruin her daily life.

She didn’t want to value anything worthless, so she tried to forget the mean and disgusting things the earl’s family had done to her. Her hard memories of what she had suffered at the Hazlet mansion ironically helped her to deal with her anger against them. She steeled her heart more firmly than she thought possible.

As a result, her daily life was peaceful.

Except for Benfork’s singing love songs every night and the hike in the price of Montrapi bread, there was nothing that bothered her daily life. Compared with her life just a few months ago, her life these days was so peaceful.

Yet, she couldn’t go to sleep at night.

She tried a few cups of chamomile tea that helped her sleep better to no avail.

After counting up to the thousandth sheep, she tossed and turned in bed, but she still couldn’t fall asleep easily.

When she couldn’t sleep easily, she habitually approached the window and stared at her neighbor’s window through the dim dawn. Her actions were meaningless. Rather than making her feel sleepy, she found herself wide awake. Unable to calm down her troubled heart, she crouched and buried herself in the bed.

Her sleepless night lasted until she felt drowsy at the shop almost everyday.

Suffering from insomnia, she barely kept her heavy eyelids open. Pressing on the eyelids, she drank a glass of water.

‘Can I overcome insomnia if I feel exhausted?’

Today, she decided that she would close the store early and stop by Rainey Forest and River Burtuwat nearby. She also vowed that she would collect plants and do the experiments that she had delayed for a long time.

She quickly cleaned up in the shop and changed into comfortable work clothes, packing sturdy leather boots suitable for walking in the rough woods. The sun was still high in the sky when she came out of the shop with a pack of Montrapi bread wrapped in paper and a canteen .

Unlike her lonely shop, the streets were noisy and crowded with people. The day before had been the emperor’s birthday, all the places in the empire were full of festive atmosphere. That’s why she had to deliver more flowers to her customers than usual in the morning.