Chapter 52: The Rose That Once Bloomed
After settling Luna down, Armand and Evelia went to the "scene of the crime." Luna really wanted to follow and see the rest of the drama, but when she saw the complicated look on Armand’s face, she thought, Better not get involved. So, she quietly obeyed and returned to her stable to rest.
In the garden, when the servants saw Armand and Evelia appear together, they looked over with great interest. They had always heard that “any man and woman seen together in the garden are probably in love,” so this pair didn’t come as a surprise.
In fact, many of them already believed there was something between them. it was just that Armand and Evelia themselves seemed completely unaware of the unusual atmosphere between them.
The servants were curious and wanted to gossip, but when they saw Armand’s not-so-happy face, they quietly left the garden, leaving it to the master of the manor and his young maid, who looked small in age, but was not small in other ways.
It felt like Armand was walking a suspect through the scene of a crime. Evelia quietly walked up to the blue rose bushes, which were now completely bare, and gently pointed at them with her finger, silently admitting what she had done.
“Haah…”
Armand sat on a stone bench across from her and let out a long sigh.
“Eve, why did you pick all my roses?”
“Because they looked nice.”
Evelia’s answer was short and direct.
“Just because they looked nice?”
“They looked nice, just like your eyes.”
Whoa, that’s not fair.
After being calmly complimented by Evelia, Armand felt a little happy inside.
“Eve, you know that even though I let everyone use the back garden freely, the rule is that no one should damage anything, right?”
Actually, Armand made that rule just to stop people from picking his favorite flowers, especially young couples in love who would grab flowers without thinking. He never expected that even with all those rules, the one flower he most wanted to protect would end up completely gone in one go.
“Yes, I know,” Evelia lowered her head. “I’m really sorry, Mr. Armand. The flowers were just so beautiful, and I thought they suited you. So I wanted to pick them, wrap them nicely, and give them to you.”
“Give them… to me?”
“Yes, to you.”
“Ah...”
When he heard that, something seemed to click in Armand’s mind.
He remembered the old butler once said that Evelia had received a big bouquet of flowers, but the butler had only seen her holding the flowers. He never saw anyone give them to her. And after that, when Armand rushed to the garden, his blue roses had already disappeared.
Could it be… this is what happened?
“Eve, have you ever received flowers before?”
Armand wasn’t sure of his guess, so he asked carefully, feeling nervous. He was afraid he might be wrong, and that someone really had given Evelia flowers.
“No, Mr. Armand.”
At that, Armand let out a huge sigh of relief.
“Haah—good, good…” He couldn’t help but smile.
No one had ever given Evelia flowers. What the butler saw was her holding the flowers she had picked, and those flowers weren’t for someone else. They were for Armand himself.
When he realized what had really happened, Armand couldn’t help but feel a little happy.
"I'm really sorry, Mr. Armand. I didn’t know those blue roses were so important to you."
Evelia was still apologizing, but Armand’s expression had clearly changed from how it was at the beginning.
"It’s okay," Armand said with a smile he couldn’t hide, shaking his head. "I was planning to give them to you anyway."
When he first heard that Evelia had received flowers, Armand’s first thought was to give her his favorite blue roses. So in the end, the flowers were always meant to go to her. Even though it happened in a roundabout way, they still ended up where they were meant to be.
"But... aren't they really precious?"
"Even if something is precious, it only becomes truly valuable when it means something. What matters isn’t the flower itself, but the meaning we give it."
Armand leaned his face on one hand and looked at the bare rose bushes. Strangely, he didn’t find them ugly anymore.
"Just like good wine is offered to a hero, flowers should be given to a girl who truly deserves them. Otherwise, if the flowers bloom and then wither, falling to the ground, they’re nothing more than extra compost."
“……”
Evelia listened quietly to Armand’s words. She stared at the bare rose bush and then nodded. "Looks like I’m a little more valuable than compost."
“Haha, of course you are, Eve.”
Armand looked at Evelia, standing beside the rose bush. To him, she looked like a pink flower blooming among the green branches.
And in Evelia’s eyes, when she looked at Armand, it felt just like when she had looked at the blue roses and thought of his beautiful blue eyes. Now, when she looked into his eyes, she saw a bouquet of blooming blue roses.
But… those flowers were already gone.
Their bright, clear blue had faded, leaving behind nothing but the dull gray of withered petals. The remaining buds, still trying to live, were touched by death as well. One by one, they would all die too.
Would Armand be like that one day?
What would it be like when his eyes, just like those roses, lose their light?
Evelia didn’t want to think any further. To her, that kind of thought wasn’t important right now. She only felt that one day, she would have to face that moment.
“Eve?”
“I’m here, Mr. Armand.”
Right now, there was still light in Armand’s eyes. Just like when she had sprinkled water on the roses to make them shine more. They looked bright and clear, like tiny glass drops.
“It’s nothing. I just saw you spacing out, so I called your name. What were you thinking about?”
She was thinking about death.
That was Evelia’s answer in her heart.
She had killed many people. She had seen countless dead bodies. To her, lives were just something the Second Prince could take away with a simple order.
"I was thinking about the blue roses."
Evelia changed her answer and gently touched the bare flower branches.
“Hmm… If we count from the time they bloomed, it’s about time for them to wither, I guess.”
Evelia looked slightly surprised. She hadn’t expected Armand to talk so calmly about his favorite roses dying. She looked up and saw that Armand was now standing beside her. His tall figure blocked the sunlight in front of her. But then he leaned slightly to the side, leaving the warm light shining down on Evelia.
“Aren’t you sad?” Evelia lowered her head again, watching as Armand gently rubbed the lush green leaves between his fingers.
“I am. They were my favorite roses, after all.”
Armand smiled. Even though he said he felt sad, there wasn’t any sorrow in his voice.
“But still, the flowers bloomed once. They fulfilled its purpose and meaning, didn’t they? At least when they withered in the end, they didn’t have any regrets.”
“I see...”
Evelia said nothing more. She simply stood quietly next to Armand, saying nothing more.