The Golden-Eyed Stranger
He was a man like a masterpiece crafted by a master who had devoted his entire life to it.
His forehead, half-hidden by black hair, was neat, and his flawless white skin resembled marble.
His thick eyebrows and the elegant line of his nose were as beautiful as if carved by a god with painstaking care.
His red-tinged lips were captivating, like the final touch that breathed life into a sculpture.
But what captivated my eyes the most were the man's eyes.
They had a slightly elongated shape that gave them a deep, lingering quality, and the irises shimmered mysteriously with the light of pure gold.
They were eyes that added both allure and a sense of gravitas to the face of a beautiful man who looked to be in his early twenties.
For a while, I stared as if entranced at those golden eyes, faintly tinged with crimson from the night market lights.
The prolonged eye contact, long enough to feel rude, ended when the man asked the child how to obtain more frigias.
“Is there no other merchant selling frigias?”
His voice carried a note of urgency, as if the flowers were absolutely necessary.
“Um……”
I called out to the man cautiously.
His gaze turned back toward me.
I held out the bouquet of frigias to him.
“I don’t know the story behind it, but you seem to need these flowers more than I do.”
The man stared at the bouquet I offered for a few seconds before carefully accepting it.
“I will repay you.”
Is he a noble? Using informal speech right off the bat.
I didn’t particularly like his tone, but the favor had already been given.
I shrugged lightly and said,
“Then buy me some other flowers to put in my vase instead of frigias.”
I had no intention of demanding grand compensation for a bouquet worth only a few coins.
“Will that suffice?”
The man asked, as if inviting me to name another price.
“A single bouquet is truly enough.”
When I smiled, the man ordered the child to wrap up every remaining bouquet.
“I don’t need this many.”
But seeing the child’s delighted face at the unexpected windfall, I didn’t want to refuse any further.
This much should be fine.
After thanking the man, I quietly waited for the child to finish wrapping all the flowers.
“Here you go. I’ll put them in a basket so they’re easy to carry.”
The child showed some thoughtfulness, carefully arranging the wrapped bouquets into a basket that looked like the one used to bring flowers to the night market.
“Thank you.”
The flower basket I received was quite heavy.
After paying, the man nodded once more in greeting and disappeared.
He’s curt. His stiff way of speaking makes him seem like a soldier.
I only watched the back of his head as he quickly walked away.
“They’ll close soon at this rate.”
Carrying the heavy basket, I headed toward the pub.
[My daughter is ill, so I will be closed for a while.]
“Wow, nothing’s going right today.”
I sighed as I read the notice posted on the pub door.
After trembling with frustration, clenching my fists, and wishing the child a speedy recovery, I turned around dejectedly.
I should just go home.
I had no will to search for another pub.
“I might as well get some sleep early.”
It was a bit of a walk from Rikel Street to my house, but still manageable on foot.
Anyway, I probably wouldn’t catch a shared carriage tonight.
I made my way home against the crowd that filled the streets.
It seemed as though every citizen of the empire had come out to enjoy themselves, but by the time I reached the entrance of Indar Street where I lived, the crowd had noticeably thinned.
On a night like this, not many people visit the cemetery park.
Besides the massive Grizel Park that took up most of Indar Street, there were only a few modest row houses, so it was a place naturally removed from the festival’s clamor.
In the distance, the green-roofed house I rented began to come into view.
First, I’ll go in and wash up……
Because of the cemetery view, the rent was cheap, but if my bathing time overlapped with another resident’s, the water would trickle out like some kind of medicinal spring.
While checking my wristwatch and calculating the other residents’ return times, a strangely familiar man appeared from the alley beside me.
Those frigias?
It was the same man I had met at the flower stall earlier.
He must have been heading to Grizel Park.
The man was carrying the bouquet of frigias and a wrapped box from a toy shop.
While I had gone to the pub only to be disappointed, he had stopped by the toy shop, and our arrival times had coincidentally aligned.
He’s going the wrong way.
The direction he was heading was the main gate of Grizel Park, but it was currently under construction.
He’ll be wasting his time.
Since the cemetery park occupied nearly an entire street, going to the main gate and then having to backtrack to the temporarily open west gate would take quite a while.
And there isn’t much time left before Grizel Park closes for the night.
I didn’t want him to go through all that trouble after I had given up the frigias.
I’ll meddle one more time, why not.
While I was thinking, the distance between us had grown even shorter.
“Excuse me!”
I quickly ran over and carefully reached out to tug at the hem of the man’s coat as he passed by.
Or rather, I tried to.
Just as my hand was about to touch his sleeve, the man grabbed my wrist.
“Ah!”
Caught in his firm grip, I froze with a dazed expression.
It felt as though I were a frog placed before a snake, unable to move of my own accord.
“You.”
A moment later, after confirming my face, the man released my hand.
I carefully rubbed the wrist he had grabbed with my other hand.
That really hurts.
He hadn’t seemed to use much force, yet my wrist was already reddening in the shape of his hand.
I’m going to bruise.
Since I was the one who had suddenly grabbed a stranger on the street, I couldn’t exactly blame him.
I pulled my sleeve down to cover my wrist and smiled.
“We ran into each other on Rikel Street earlier, remember?”
Though the line sounded like something a playboy would say and gave me goosebumps, staying silent would only make the atmosphere more awkward.
The man looked at my wrist and replied,
“You gave me your bouquet of frigias.”
Fortunately, he was quite cooperative in the conversation.
Edwin was carefully examining Lina’s wrist, which looked as though it would soon bruise.
I was too on edge.
Edwin briefly reproached himself.
The war he had fought immediately after becoming emperor ended after eight years.
With the victory of the Regencia Empire.
There was no longer any need to live with his guard constantly raised as before, yet the habits ingrained in his body did not disappear so easily.
When he sensed movement in his blind spot, he had immediately suppressed it as if dealing with an assassin.
The moment he grabbed the woman’s wrist, he knew.
It was a wrist that should be holding a pen, not a sword.
As soon as he realized she was not an enemy, he loosened his grip, but it was already too late.
Those frigias?
Edwin recognized the woman at once.
It was because he remembered how she had stared at his face as if entranced.
The woman rubbed her wrist, perhaps in pain.
Though he had eased his strength midway, he could have broken bones with his bare hands.
He worried whether he had caused her serious injury.
She was not an enemy soldier, nor was she a sturdy knight he could treat however he pleased.
On the contrary, she was someone he ought to protect and watch over.
While Edwin was considering compensation, the woman pulled her sleeve down to cover her wrist and asked,
“We ran into each other on Rikel Street earlier, remember?”
“You gave me your bouquet of frigias.”
When Edwin answered indifferently, the woman gave a faint, relieved smile and glanced up at his face.
“It’s nothing important, but are you perhaps on your way to Grizel Park?”
At the woman’s precise guess of his destination, Edwin’s brow furrowed.
In the early days of his reign, his appearance had been so beautiful that the boundary between genders was ambiguous, as he had not yet fully matured as a man.
On the battlefield, that appearance had easily invited mockery from enemies.
Fearing that his youth might also lower his allies’ morale, he had fought at the very front and behaved even more cruelly and fiercely.
It had been quite troublesome.
Therefore, Edwin did not like those who threw flirtatious glances upon seeing his handsome features.
Edwin began weighing the woman’s kindness against his own displeasure.
“If you go this way, there’s only the main gate of Grizel Park.”
Sensing his wary expression, the woman hurriedly added,
“I grabbed you to tell you that it’s under construction.”
The woman’s voice grew smaller toward the end.
The gaze that had been fixed on her cheek also dropped downward.
“If you want to enter Grizel Park now, you’ll have to go through the west gate.”
Edwin’s internal scale, which had been teetering in balance, tipped completely to one side with the added kindness.
“Thank you.”
When Edwin offered a brief word of thanks, the woman waved her hands dismissively.
“It’s nothing, really. I’ve said what I needed to, so I’ll be going now.”
Embarrassed, the woman quickly spoke and picked up the flower basket she had set down for a moment.
Then she bowed to Edwin and tried to leave.
“Wait a moment.”
Edwin blocked her path.
“That wrist.”
“My wrist?”
“Let me see it.”
When Edwin gestured with his chin, the woman hid one hand behind her back.
“It’s fine.”
“Do you want to make me out to be a scoundrel?”
Only after he urged her again did the woman hesitantly extend her wrist.
It did not seem to be fractured.
“I’ll tell you this now, so when morning comes, go to the nearby temple. If you mention the name Everett Rohas, that will be enough.”
After giving her his adjutant’s name, Edwin turned away.
He did not know it at the time.
That the woman would believe his name was Everett Rohas.
And what that misunderstanding would lead to.