Chapter Four: The Camellia Garden

Camellias did not belong in snow.

And yet, in the Kurokami estate, they bloomed defiantly.

The garden behind the eastern veranda was reserved for nobles. No servants were meant to linger there—only pass through quickly when sweeping leaves or lighting lanterns. It was a place of stillness and symbolism. Of things meant to be admired, never touched.

Melissa went there anyway.

Not during her chores. Not by command.

She went when no one was looking—just before dawn, when the sky was still purple and the frost clung to the stone lanterns like forgotten breath.

She didn't go for beauty.

She went for quiet.

For the strange peace of seeing something survive where it shouldn’t.

The camellias were deep red. Their petals thick like velvet, heavy with morning dew. Snow dusted their edges like a shroud, and yet they did not wither.

Melissa knelt beside one and brushed a single petal with her fingertip.

“You favor this garden,” a voice said behind her.

She didn’t jump. She didn’t need to.

She knew it was him. From the cold voice but something else.

Lord Kaito stood just beyond the stone path, arms folded behind his back. He wore no armor—just deep blue robes, embroidered faintly with silver cranes. His hair was tied back in the same neat loop it always was. Even the wind seemed hesitant to move it.

“I favor the silence,” she replied softly.

He stepped forward, his shadow falling across the stone beside her.

“They say silence can be dangerous,” he said. “It leaves space for thoughts that should not grow.”

Melissa looked up at him then—properly, for the first time.

“I find that silence is more honest than words,” she said. “Words obey duty. Silence obeys truth.”

His mouth twitched—not a smile, not quite. But something almost warmer than cold.

He knelt beside her, against all custom.

“Camellias,” he murmured, “are the flowers of the blade. Beautiful, but fallen easily. Once cut, they do not wither slowly—they drop whole, like severed heads.”

Melissa blinked. “That’s a heavy metaphor for a garden.”

“It is the only kind I know.”

A pause.

Then, a question neither of them should have asked.

“Why did you come here?” he asked.

She looked back to the camellia. The dew had frozen on its edge, turning the crimson petal into something glasslike.

“To disappear,” she said.

He didn’t answer. But something in the air between them shifted—barely there, like a hand not quite brushing another.

They were too close. He knew it. She knew it.

But neither moved.

And in that shared stillness, among the red flowers and fallen snow, something began to bloom.

Not a confession. Not yet.

Just tenderness, forbidden and wordless.

The kind that takes root in silence.

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