Aravel

Chapter 100

When Lunaria woke up, it was already evening time and close to dinner. This made her realize how long she had already slept, but it wasn't enough to quell the sadness and pain in her heart.

Sniffing gently as memories of her discussion with her father resurfaced, Lunaria wiped away the tear stains on her face that had leaked during her sleep. She knew that regardless of what happened, there was no point crying about it unless she tried to do something about it. With a huge sigh, Lunaria sat at the side of the bed and stared blankly at the wall in front of her for several minutes before getting up to refresh with a shower.

"Oh?"

"K-Kaze?"

Lunaria, being in a daze, did not realize that her bathroom was occupied. When she opened the door, Kaze, who was inside taking a shower, heard her entering and turned around, revealing his fully nude body. This gave Lunaria a slight scare as she didn't expect anyone to be inside, causing her to unintentionally avoid looking at him with a huge blush on her face when she would normally just smile from his nude body.

"I didn't know you woke up already. I finished training with Lunatea and came for a shower," Kaze told Lunaria, not minding her weirdly shy expression as he continued scrubbing his body while water rained down on him. "If you still want to sleep, I have already made arrangements with Tuarle and Ilesta to bring you your dinner."

"N-No, I want to stay awake," Lunaria stammered, fanning her face with one hand to calm down from the image of Kaze's abs in her head. "W-Want me to join you?"

"Come on in then," Kaze nodded, washing off the soap suds from his hair. "Are you alright?"

"Mm... not really," Lunaria shook her head and hugged him gently, allowing the water to flow onto her from above too. "Sleeping seems to only delay the pain."

"I see..." Kaze stroked her head while saying so. "Does hugging help to ease the pain?"

"A little," Lunaria closed her eyes to enjoy his warmth. "After dinner later, please follow me. I want to vent my frustration."

"Okay," Kaze nodded, not minding where they were going. "I love you, alright? Nothing's going to change that."

Without a word, Lunaria tilted upwards and leaned in for a kiss, answering his words with an action of her own.

- - - - - - -

"Thank you for dinner."

Lunaria stood up from the table and left the dining room first. Everyone watched her leave in silent, feeling bad for the Crown Princess. Kaze had told them what Lunaria did to herself upon realizing what the impact on Kaze was from the new letter. This was expected, especially when it caused her appetite to severely decrease to the point that she barely ate anything and left without saying a word throughout dinner.

However, nothing hurt more than knowing that this was going to be their last dinner together at the palace before departing the next day. They had decided to leave after breakfast as a final meal together with the royals and thus return to Aravel. With the mood being so sour from the recent few announcements, nothing seemed to be helping their case in finding a solution to either keep Kaze there or have Kaze return with them. Yuuji had suggested an appeal to the school but even that might not work if it had been discussed by the school board and went against Aldwolf himself. As such, the assumption was that Kaze would return with them to Czech, leaving Lunaria and the others.

Kaze soon finished his and went to meet up with Lunaria at the place they had discussed. Laevia gave him a knowing nod before he left, which he responded with a forced smile. Their secret message did not go pass his friends' eyes, leaving them slightly confused with what Kaze and Laevia had signalled to each other. Still, this didn't stop Kaze from leaving to meet with his lover.