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Sometimes, memories that you think you’ve forgotten come back in a vivid strike, as clear as the day you earned it.
“Love is a mutual happiness, Han-ah.”
He still couldn’t remember who said it, but he remembered taking those words to heart, and swore to love his future significant other respectfully and wholeheartedly.
A mutual happiness…
He hadn’t been happy for a long time, but now, with Cale and everyone…
It was no wonder he started coughing up rose petals.
Hanahaki seemed to disregard the barriers of realities and worlds.
He remembered reading about it and glancing over some common knowledge, how the flowers of unrequited love would tear the owner of the flowers asunder, and yet, how most of the time, the love was requited after it was confessed because the object of love almost never realized their feelings until they were given the possibility of it—
And you know what?
Cale was just the type of person who didn’t think he was lovable or had the right to love until it was brought up in front of him.
Choi Han held the red and white petals gently but determinedly.
He had a confession to make.
“Cale-nim, I love you!”
He had thrown open the doors of the dining hall, where Cale was having a late breakfast.
The kids had dragged him out of bed, so he had to eat like a proper human being at a proper table instead of picnicking in his room like a gremlin. He had been the perfect image of a nobleman, but at the sound of Choi Han’s confession, he spit out the lemon tea he had been drinking, the furthest action any nobleman would take.
It flew across the table in a brilliant spray. The sunlight streaming from the window made it shine like a rainbow.
Ohn, Hong, and Raon yanked their plates away from the splash zone.
The cakes at the center display couldn’t be saved, but a majority of the breakfast fare had already been piled onto the kids’ plates, so they were more amazed than disgruntled.
“It’s got your spit on it, you gotta eat it now nya!” Hong grinned.
“I can’t eat that much,” Cale choked out, grabbing a napkin that Ron had so-kindly offered.
“Did the young master not say that wasting food is shameful?” Ron proceeded to betray Cale.
Cale was about to reply, but the old man’s viscous gaze had him looking away, directly at Choi Han who had also been waiting for a response.
Cale, of course, looked away again, this time at the kids.
“You’re just going to have to have it for lunch and dinner too,” Ohn said commiseratingly, but with an expression of smug amusement.
Who wanted lemon-tea-spit-soaked cakes? Certainly not Cale, but it seemed that everyone was bullying him today.
Choi Han barely took another step forward when Cale rose hurriedly. His day had been just fine before Choi Han barged in and said he l-l--lo—before he said absolute nonsense. So he decided it was time to run away.
Survival was important. Sure, it wasn’t a life-threatening situation, but it was about dignity, and that was almost synonymous. Especially when he wasn’t drunk enough to act like trash.
“I just remembered I had a meeting with someone.” Specifically, the alcohol bottles stashed in his room. “Excuse me.”
“Cale-nim—!”
Choi Han tried to block his way, but Cale had stealthily jammed a piece of slightly-more-moist-than-usual pound cake into his mouth, and Choi Han immediately thought: indirect kiss.
He blanked for a moment.
Was this acceptance of his confession?
Before he could ask for clarification, the redhead had left nothing but a breeze behind him, disappearing down the hall faster than anyone could blink.
“Why is the human running away?” Raon asked, shoving a pie into his mouth.
“Because he’s stupid,” Ohn stuck out her tongue with a grin. “Listen up little brothers, when someone confesses to you, you don’t run away. You gotta answer them!”
“Got it noona!”
Ah. So it wasn’t an answer.
Choi Han chewed thoughtfully, ignoring Ron’s murderous gaze. It was only slightly more scathing than usual, and it wasn’t likely that he would attack Choi Han when the kids were still here and eating, so Choi Han used this time to gather his thoughts.
The kids continued to talk in the background—or rather, Ohn continued to talk about the nuances of romance while her little brothers listened. They would usually be uninterested in talks about romance, but when it involved their human…
Well.
Confession attempt 1 was a failure.
Choi Han wondered if he was too blunt.
Should he have used a word other than “love?” But it was the most direct and least likely to be misinterpreted…
“—and if you’re ever gonna confess to someone, it better be with a gift!”
Choi Han perked up.
“Ohn, you’re a genius!”
“Oh, you were listening?”
“Naturally! What gifts should I get Cale?”
“Things he likes, obviously,” Ohn sniffed. She snapped her fingers, and Raon and Hong shot off.
“Money!”
“Food!”
“Us!”
“He already has all those,” Choi Han said petulantly. He supposed he could add to Cale’s hoard of wealth. After all, he never passed up on free money. However, Choi Han couldn’t possibly offer as much as Alver could with his golden plaques.
As for food…
He’ll admit it.
He’s not the best cook.
Who was he to compare to Vicross?
And the kids…gifts and gifted as they were, they were not romance gifts.
“Flowers would work too, I guess,” Ohn sighed with exasperation.
“Genius,” Choi Han repeated.
Yes. Flowers.
Obviously not the ones he coughed up, since they were full of spit and blood, but flowers!
He skipped out of the dining hall, continually ignoring the butler’s death glare.
“Cale-nim, I love you,” Choi Han said, laying down a bouquet of red and white lilies on the table that Cale was in front of.
Cale had gone to the library to escape from reality, as books promised refuge from headache-inducers, but it seemed that reality followed him.
“Thanks, I guess.”
He made no move to accept the flowers. Or to even look up from his book, even though his pupils had been stuck on the same spot on the page for the past few seconds.
Choi Han made no move to leave.
Cale then sighed heavily. “What’s with the sudden…need to proclaim your feelings?”
“I just realized that I felt very strongly and felt that you should know,” Choi Han smiled sweetly in answer.
Cale tried not to stare but a glance was all it took for the image to be seared into his brain.
Goddammit.
“Alright, I know now, you can go.”
“But Cale-nim, Ohn said that confessions needed to be answered.”
Cale stared. That sweet smile didn’t seem so sweet anymore.
“I don’t have one.”
“That’s okay too. It’s not a no, so then I can continue professing my love, right?”
“Haah…do whatever you want.”
Choi Han wanted to sit right next to Cale and enjoy a quiet moment together with the object of his affection, but he could tell that Cale was on the verge of bolting. He decided to have mercy, and only grinned before leaving.
And plotting his next confession.
“Cale-nim, I love you!” he said, in lieu of good morning.
Rosalyn choked on her spit.
Lark tripped on thin air.
The three of them had gone sparring early before dawn. It was soon reaching noon, and they had a block of time reserved for a picnic with the kids.
Naturally, Cale accompanied them and…
Well.
“Good morning, Choi Han,” Cale said dryly. “Rosalyn. Lark.”
“Young master Cale,” Rosalyn said, a tamed grin seeping into her face.
“Young master Cale,” Lark followed, the most flustered out of the three of them.
Choi Han’s face was naturally flushed with the exertion of sparring, and perhaps a mix of exhilaration of being near Cale. Ohn pulled Hong over to assault Lark, leaving the spot next to Cale free, and Choi Han eagerly sat there.
“So you two are a couple now?” Rosalyn asked curiously.
“No,” said Cale.
“Yes,” said Choi Han.
They didn’t seem to be on the same page, but they also didn’t seem to be shocked that the other answered contradictorily.
Rosalyn laughed.
“Okay,” she said simply.
It was a surprise that their family didn’t know about this little thing yet, especially regarding their young master and ex-commander, but they would soon. She would make sure of it.
The entertainment it promised was too good to simply keep it to herself.
“Cale-nim, I love you!”
“Haah…don’t you have anything else better to do?”
“Nope!”
“Should I call another time?” Alver asked.
“No, continue,” Cale grunted, brow furrowed in annoyance.
Outside the range of the video call, a glass of wine was offered to the annoyed man, and that annoyance seemed to mellow out at the first sip of alcohol.
Alver thought back to Rosalyn’s suppositions, and knew she was right.
This was funny.
“Cale-nim, I love you!”
“Go take a bath,” Cale scowled, scooting away from the approaching man who was covered in soot and blood.
Peaceful though the Empire may be, there were always insurgents and upstarts hoping to do the impossible. People who thought they were right and had the right, people who didn’t but did self-righteous things anyway—
It wasn’t like Alver couldn’t handle it on his own, but sometimes, it was better to nip things in the bud before they blossomed.
Especially considering that the opposition had a swordmaster this time. They were no match for Choi Han, but they played dirty and was able to render Choi Han filthy when he would otherwise come out of battle spotless.
“Alrig—cough, cough—!”
Choi Han hacked into his elbow and turned his face away from Cale, whose eyes immediately darted over in concern.
“Choi Han…?”
Was there something that he had missed? A dirty tactic that he hadn’t caught?
Choi Han felt the Hanahaki crawl up his esophagus and the petals welling up to tumble out of his throat, sticking to the roof of his mouth and making him cough more until it was fully out. Expertly, he pinched the petal with the crook of his elbow and let his cape hide it as he brought his hand back down.
Luckily, his clothing was mostly dark, and he had already been drenched in blood.
Perhaps someone as observant as Cale would notice it, but Choi Han had also turned away.
“I’m fine, Cale-nim,” he said without a hint of lies.
He really did feel fine.
The flowers weren’t that painful anyway.
“Alright. Just…let’s just go home then.”
“Wasn’t there a package you wanted to pick up?”
“It can wait.”
“Cale-nim, I love you,” Choi Han said more boldly as ever, hand having grabbed Cale’s in a gentle, if determined grip.
Cale, used to the confessions, was not used to hand holding. His heart skipped a beat. Whether it was fear or anxiety, he couldn’t begin to say.
He wanted to pull away, but Choi Han had his hand in a secure hold. It wasn’t forceful or anything, but it would certainly require Cale to yank his hand away to be free.
But with how earnest Choi Han was looking at him, knelt on the ground like a knight pledging eternal loyalty—
He couldn’t bring himself to.
He looked away, only to see Eruhaben and Raon in the distance.
They were too far away for him to say for sure, but he had the feeling they were laughing at him.
He looked back at Choi Han.
…and then squeezed the hand holding his.
The beaming smile he got sent his heart aflutter.
Oh.
Oh.
This wasn’t fear or anxiety.
He was in trouble.
Even if he was mentally in his late thirties, it wasn’t wrong to say that he had learned and grown as a person, mentally, emotionally, spiritually…
So when he realized that he loved Choi Han, it was just a matter of acting upon it.
Rather than waiting for Choi Han to initiate their hand-holds, he would reach out first, when convenient and private.
Sitting beneath a tree with their family distracted, he would entwine his fingers with the swordsman’s calloused palm, enjoying the warmth and pressure.
It…wasn’t so bad.
Love wasn’t so bad.
It was nothing to be afraid of.
He smirked when Choi Han turned cherry-tomato-red when he planted a chaste kiss on his knight’s cheek.
The kids were preoccupied with a new souvenir that Whitira and Paseton had brought back from the depths of the sea, some seashell or conch that could record sound at will. They seemed to be playing some sort of telephone game with it.
There were probably magic tools that could do the same thing, but the fact that the shell was a naturally occurring artifact made it a novelty, he supposed.
If there was one thing he missed from earth, he supposed it was cameras.
A selfie with his blushing knight would be commemorable.
“Love,” he whispered. The word was easy to say.
But in a sequence, it was much harder to get out.
“I love…you. Choi Han.”
Cale quailed.
If it was this difficult to say in front of a mirror, he feared just how hard his heart would pound if he was looking at Choi Han and his stupidly beautiful smile.
A few more tries, and he gave up.
He’ll say it one day.
He honestly preferred actions better. Kisses conveyed more than words ever could, anyway.
”I love…love…goddammit. Haah.” A deep sigh. “I…I love…you. Choi Han.”
The words were soft, hesitant, cracking at the ends as if chased by the tails of embarrassment, and incredibly stilted—so stilted that it sounded like Choi Han when he was lying—but they were the most beautiful string of words Choi Han has ever heard.
The flowers in his lungs seemed to wither away, light as air, and he inhaled.
He’ll miss the smell of roses constantly in his nose, but this was good too.
“Thank you,” he said to the kids who had been stifling their giggles so the love confession was loud and clear to him.
He held the conch shell close to his chest. It was a full half hour of Cale practicing those words, and goodness, was there anyone as cute as his lord?
“You should give him a reply,” Ohn said cheekily.
Choi Han nodded and left the room, a man on a mission.
He found Cale taking a nap outside in a hammock specifically hung up for him. There was sun all around, but he was shaded by the leaves, his skin danced upon by what light beamed through the canopy.
The wind fluttered around them, and there was nothing more fairy-tale-like than this.
But Choi Han didn’t wake him.
“I love you too, Cale-nim,” he whispered, laying a kiss on the redhead’s brow, and answered the confession to ears that belonged only to the spring breeze.
But suddenly, it wasn’t enough. He closed his eyes and settled into the hammock softly. It was large enough of a net to hold the kids along with Cale, so it could easily support Choi Han too, who used his athletics to make sure it didn’t rock too severely when he laid down along with Cale.
He cuddled close, and closed his eyes. Words came to mind.
“I adore you,” he added to his confession. “I cherish you. I worship you. You…are my world.”
Each word spoken lighter than the last, but also weightier than the last…
And Choi Han didn’t see the redness that was slowly starting to creep up Cale’s ears, but he could hear the heart of his liege, beating heavier and heavier.
Choi Han hid his smile in Cale’s chest.
One day, they would say it to each other, meet each other halfway, and maybe Cale would stop being a coward that ran away and pretended to sleep during the most important parts of their romance.
Today, they took a nap, warm with the knowledge of indirect reciprocation.