"This one’s for Lord Matthias, and this one’s for Lucian…"
Arial prepared a special blend of chocolates for each: tea-flavored for Matthias, as he didn’t care for overly sweet treats, and a dark chocolate with bitter mousse for Lucian.
As Matthias accepted the chocolates, a rare, softened smile tugged at the corner of his lips.
“Does it suit your taste?” Arial asked hesitantly.
Matthias chuckled lightly. “Would I find any fault in something you’ve made?”
Wow, even when he’s being indirect, he still manages to make someone blush, thought Arial, her cheeks turning a rosy pink.
"But Arial," he added, gently patting her cheek, “you don’t need to make things like this.”
Arial blinked, slightly bewildered. 'What’s dangerous about chocolate?'
For a second, she feared that chocolates might be added to the "forbidden items" list like those origami boats, but Matthias didn’t go that far. Instead, he recalled the pack of knights who’d acted like a ravenous pack of wolves over her chocolates and clucked his tongue.
His mind simultaneously held the image of those brutish knights and his delicate Arial.
Yes, this is far too dangerous, he thought.
Perhaps I should just disband the entire knight order… make sure every last one of them disappears.
Completely unaware of Matthias's silent threat to the knights’ lives and careers, Arial tilted her head in confusion. 'What on earth is he thinking?'
Meanwhile, Matthias was already envisioning these precious chocolates proudly displayed in his private collection cabinet. Alongside the batch he’d confiscated from the knights, of course.
Thus, Matthias’s overprotective tendencies and obsessive collecting of all things Arial continued to intensify.
For Lucian’s chocolates, Arial carefully cast a preservation spell over the box and sent it off to the Academy, hoping he would enjoy them. She’d taken extra care to make them as bitter as possible, just to suit his taste.
‘I really hope Lucian likes them,’ she thought. But she couldn’t help but wonder if he’d end up preserving them instead of actually eating them, like he’d done with her previous gift, the canapés.
Shaking off the thought with a small laugh, she whispered, ‘No, surely not this time.’
A few days later, Lucian’s response arrived in the form of a massive glass jar filled with what appeared to be candies.
“Miss Arial, come see!” Susan called.
Inside the beautifully crafted jar, decorated with a whimsical mermaid design, lay rows of individually wrapped “candies” in vibrant packaging.
The knight who delivered it announced respectfully, “The Grand Duke’s son sent this gift.”
Cecil and Diana, who happened to be nearby, exchanged looks and promptly turned as red as beets, hitting each other’s shoulders in barely contained excitement.
‘Good heavens, Lucian sent 'candy'!’
‘Of all things… sweets from him!’
‘Cecil, help me stop grinning! Hold down my cheeks if you have to!’
Arial’s own cheeks turned a soft pink. Though she didn’t say it aloud, she felt a warm satisfaction as well.
Of all the gifts Lucian had ever sent, this was by far the most lighthearted and easy to accept.
'I won’t have to leave this behind when I leave Lacartel someday, right?' she mused, her heart fluttering.
For the first time, Arial felt genuine happiness at receiving a gift from Lucian.
That is, until she opened her first “candy” that evening.
“What… What is this, Lucian?”
Arial stared in shock at what she found inside the wrapper, sinking onto her bed in disbelief.
Wait a minute—why is this here?
Inside the enormous candy jar were diamonds, each glittering like a precious gem. They were massive, easily fifty carats each, and wrapped like sweets.
Not believing her eyes, she unwrapped a few more, but they were all the same.
'Are there no actual candies in here at all?'
Diamonds? Instead of candy? 'All' diamonds?
Staring at the jar with a ghostly pale face, Arial felt as though she were seeing not sweets but a hundred mansions’ worth of jewels.
He must have lost his mind, thought Arial.
“I… I need to send this back immediately.”
With her heart pounding, Arial carefully repacked the jar and promptly returned it to Lucian.
What she hadn’t anticipated, however, was that Lucian, upon receiving the returned gift, would come to her home 'in person' with the jar in hand.
* * *
Late at night.
Arial, feeling refreshed from a warm bath, dried her hair and sipped a glass of milk that Susan had warmed and sweetened with strawberry juice and honey. She felt the day’s fatigue melt away.
'This is so nice…'
She licked away her milk mustache, and Susan gave her an affectionate kiss on the cheek.
"All finished. Such a good girl. Now, off to bed with you."
"Yes, Susan."
Arial made her way to Matthias’s study to give him a polite goodnight before heading back to her room. But as she entered, she paused, her steps faltering.
The window, which she was sure had been closed when she left, was now slightly ajar.
'What’s going on?'
Just then, a familiar figure caught her eye—leaning casually against the wall stood a man whose striking blue eyes gleamed with arrogant brilliance. Had it not been for those eyes, one might easily mistake him for a flawless statue carved by the gods.
“Lucian…?”
Lucian turned his gaze toward her, placing the object in his hand on the bedside table with a quiet thud.
She recognized it immediately.
'The candy jar.'
It was the mermaid-shaped jar filled with “candy” that she had carefully wrapped and returned to him just days ago.
As her gaze shifted from the jar back to Lucian, his arrogant voice broke the silence.
"So, you didn’t like my gift?"
Pushing himself off the wall, Lucian stepped toward her with a silent, predatory grace.
Arial, feeling flustered, stammered, "When… When did you get here? How did you get in?"
Lucian drew closer, step by step, until he was nearly upon her, his presence pressing in around her.
Oh no…
Arial backed up until she felt the solid door behind her, leaving her no escape. Lucian placed his hands on either side of her, leaning in until she was trapped between his arms.
In a low, almost dangerously seductive voice, he spoke, “Answer me first. Did you send back my gift because you didn’t like it?”
The air felt heavy, making it hard to breathe.
“Did you… really come all this way just to ask me that?”
Lucian made a soft, hissing sound, his hand reaching up to gently cradle her cheek.
“One question, one answer. You answer mine, and I’ll answer yours.”
Arial looked up at him, flustered.
Did he seriously not understand why I sent it back after sending me all those diamonds wrapped like candy?
“I… I thought it was real candy,” she murmured.
Lucian’s brow furrowed slightly, a trace of confusion crossing his face as he replied, “It was. It was hard and wrapped, wasn’t it?”
Alright, if nothing else, at least I know he has no idea what candy actually is, she thought.
Her voice came out a bit grumpy as she muttered, “But diamonds aren’t edible. I just wanted actual candy.”
Lucian’s expression softened into something unreadable.
“She’s a difficult one, my wife.”
Hey! I’m not the difficult one—you’re the one making things complicated!
Arial pouted, feeling rather wronged.
Meanwhile, Lucian’s demeanor shifted, and he ran a hand through his hair, letting out a frustrated sigh.
“…Then you should have told me what you wanted. Just sending it back… how could I not imagine the worst?”
Imagine? What did he mean by that?
His long lashes fell as he cast his gaze downward, clearly lost in his own thoughts.
When he’d received her chocolates, the gesture had left him with a sweet, almost intoxicating sense of happiness. She had taken care to make them not too sweet, just as he preferred, and had even included a small, hesitant kiss mark on the corner of the note. The faint scent of ink had lingered on the paper, and though he’d known it couldn’t match the feeling of her lips, he’d pressed his lips to the mark anyway.
But his joy had shattered the moment her returned gift arrived. He’d been thrown into a spiraling unease, wondering if Arial truly didn’t care for him or, even worse, if she disliked him altogether. The thought had driven him from the academy, refusing to stay there another moment.
Lucian removed his hand from her cheek, trailing his fingers gently along her face. His voice came out low and constrained.
“If it’s real candy you want… I’ll get you all the candy you want. Just… accept what I give you.”
His tone and persistence left Arial with no choice but to nod her agreement.
After a brief silence, she finally dared to ask, “But… how did you get here?”
“I had business,” he answered shortly.
That the “business” was, in fact, Arial herself was something only she didn’t realize.
Grinning slightly, Lucian caught her soft cheeks in his hands, tugging them gently.
“Ow… Lucian.”
Seeing her scolding gaze, a soft chuckle slipped past his lips.
“You smell like honey and milk, Arial.”
“Ah… really?”
As she looked around in embarrassment, Lucian’s chuckles grew deeper.
Now that he was here, he decided he might as well stay a few days, brushing off any academy responsibilities that might suffer from his absence.
* * *
Meanwhile, the mansion was abuzz with activity late into the night as Lucian’s unexpected arrival stirred everyone into a flurry. As old butler Allen scrambled about, Arial, left alone in her room, sat on her bed with a heavy sigh.
Her eyes drifted to the candy jar on her nightstand.
"…Honestly."
She shook her head vigorously, trying to ignore the jar's true contents.
This is candy, not diamonds.
This is candy, not diamonds.
As long as she didn’t unwrap any of them, they’d look just like candy, wouldn’t they? It was much easier to think of them that way than to imagine hundreds of fifty-carat diamonds casually sitting in her room.
Perhaps because they were both so wealthy, Lucian and Matthias seemed to lack a typical sense of value. Things that would be considered the height of extravagance by anyone else were mere trifles to them.
With a determined sigh, Arial clenched her fists and made a solemn vow.
'From now on, I’ll be extra, extra careful when sending Lucian any gift.'
* * *
“Alright,” she whispered, trying to steady herself as Lucian’s intense gaze held her captive.
The warmth of his hand on her back guided her as they glided across the floor. Despite her initial nerves, Arial soon felt the rhythm flow through her, and her movements grew softer, following his every step. His hand pressed against hers, firm yet gentle, anchoring her in the moment.
The faint whisper of his fingers on her back and the music blending with his steady breaths seemed to slow time itself. All she could see was him, his figure both commanding and alluring as they moved together.
He smiled faintly, his voice barely a murmur, “There you go.”
Arial’s heart thumped loudly, and she felt a warmth bloom in her chest. ‘Is he always this mesmerizing?’ she wondered, barely able to keep her focus. They circled gracefully, her feet moving in sync with his, almost instinctively.
A soft clap broke her reverie, and she realized the music had stopped. Allen and the others were watching them, spellbound.
Diana’s eyes sparkled with excitement as she clapped in delight. “Oh, that was beautiful! Arial, you looked like you were floating!”
Heath, still processing, muttered, “So that’s… what it’s supposed to look like.”
Lucian stepped back, still holding her gaze as he let her hand slip from his, their dance coming to a close. His gaze softened, and his lips curved slightly, making her heart race all over again.
Arial’s cheeks flushed as she returned to her seat, her pulse still quickened from the dance.
Allen, sensing the right moment, cleared his throat and turned to Heath with a determined look. “Well, I believe you’ve seen how it’s done. Now, let’s work on loosening up that posture.”
Heath scratched his head, casting an uncertain glance at the spot where Arial and Lucian had danced so gracefully. “Fine. Just… don’t expect miracles.”
Arial exchanged a glance with Diana, who winked back at her, barely containing her grin. And as Allen resumed instructing Heath, Arial found herself sneaking a look at Lucian, her heart fluttering, the memory of their dance lingering like a sweet dream.