Aravel

Chapter 21

The next morning, Kaze's body felt heavier than usual as he got up from bed. He didn't even feel like going to train anymore after remembering what Lunaria had told him. At this point, her words had replayed so many times in his head that it was permanently stuck on auto-repeat.

"... Ah, right, I don't have a sword to train with anymore," Kaze muttered, picking up the hilt alone and sighed. "Maybe I can just do physical training for the time being..."

Dragging his feet off the ground, Kaze got changed and headed out to the compound of their house. One good thing about them moving here was that Kaze had more privacy now and was able to secure a much larger piece of land to train. Even without his sword, Kaze went on with the training regime he came up with for himself. It was a mixture between personal and his grandfather's schedule, making it such that he was pushing himself every time.

Kaze balanced himself on both hands and lifted his entire body off the floor, making it such that he was doing a hand-stand. As if that wasn't enough, he began to do push ups while maintaining such a state. From an outsider's point of view, it was likely weird to see someone in such a pose so early in the morning. But it was what Kaze had been doing ever since he was back at the church, which explained his balanced posture of not falling down.

Even training wasn't enough to distract his mind. Many a times he tried to keep his mind empty and calm while training, but it always floated back to Lunaria's face last night. At the thought of seeing tears falling down her face, it made Kaze's heart clenched even tighter. He had never thought that it would be this painful to see someone he cared about telling him their life story, yet accepting it like it was nothing just because it had passed.

Lunaria was never the type to show weakness in front of the people she knew because of being a princess for so long, she 'forgot' how to. Under circumstances like last night, that was the first that Kaze had seen. Maybe one of the other few situations was when he was sleeping for days, but that really wasn't Lunaria showing her weak self, but just her soft spot.

'I told you the story of this girl is not because the girl asked for your pity....'

'When the time comes...'

'Superior species...'

'She regretted it...'

'Kaze...'

'Kaze...'

"Kaze."

Kaze finally snapped out of his daydream when he realized what he thought of was exactly what he was hearing right now. Looking up from his regular push-up stance, he realized that he had been doing the one-hand push up for a little too long now.

Turning his head around, he saw Sera waving at him from the sideline, still dressed in something comfy as a sign of her having just woken up.

"Are you that engrossed in training? I called you a few times but you didn't respond," Sera giggled. "Good morning."

"Ah... good morning," Kaze awkwardly replied and stood back up. "S-Sorry, I was caught up in my own thoughts."

"... Is now a good time? I would like to enquire about yesterday," Sera's soft expression turned tensed at her own words. "I know that we decided not to talk about it, but the way you and Lunaria reacted was obviously irregular."

"Um... okay," Kaze nodded, his heart tensing up as it was sort of a reminder of what happened the night before. "What do you want to ask?"

"Did Lunaria say something that made her react that way?" Sera approached him from the porch and sighed. "Having known her for so long, I can tell when something is going on with her. She was looking at you all funny throughout dinner last night too, but I didn't bring it up since we were all talking about... you know."