[Bonus Chapter] The Flower’s Star (2)

No, he said, with a smile akin to a challenge. 

It was as if he wanted to see what I would do with that rejection. This Radia Mallarc, who had never seen rejection in life before. 

I wondered sometimes; should I saw that smile and those eyes at the start of it all, before I got dragged in his pace this far, would I be able to just scoff at it and left him then? Just like how I did with everyone else?

Who knows. When I came to realize it, it was too late already. 

I had never been this close with everyone else but him. I had never desired someone as much as I desired him. I had never thought about someone as often as I did about him. 

Within five years, without me even realizing it, his presence had grown so much inside me; inside my head, inside my heart. Without him ever doing anything but just staying there, in his silence and heavy presence. 

No, he said?