Alma 114 Finding Him; Finding Her

Summer Ambrosia was known for the beautiful angel that worked there, but the owner himself was no slouch either. Many a fair maiden had come to frequent the bakery in order to meet the other half of Summer Ambrosia.

He was now referred to as Aeschylus and she as Maia.

There was a strange, charming quality about the mysterious pair that left many customers perplexed and seemingly enthralled. It was as if they possessed an invisible halo, an unseen aura that made them unbelievably unique to the eye.

Like they were special in some kind of unexplainable way. Whatever it was, it made them stand out and by extension, their little business.

He naturally didn't dislike the attention he received from the young girls who'd come to frequent the bakery — he was a healthy young man, after all — but he knew that their feelings weren't genuinely real.

They aren't infatuated with me. It's what I sealed up that's caught their interest.

Reed let out a defeated sigh. He knew that the girls who'd come to fawn over him weren't looking at him for who he really was. They were being influenced by the slumbering power he'd sealed to become mortal again…

The same applied for Lu'um too, even though it probably played a part in her case. She possessed beauty and charm in spades, more than enough to attract people without the need of her slumbering powers. It annoyed Reed, but he couldn't deny that Lu'um was naturally enchanting like that.

Over the course of the last two years, he had come to terms with how he felt about her. It was an unexpressed emotion, borne from the myriad of experiences he had shared with her since they'd met years ago. She, too, had come to a similar conclusion based on what they'd been through…

Infinitely close, yet distant to the touch.

A single glance was enough for anyone to figure out the relationship between the two of them. How they gazed at one another. How they finished each other's sentences and thoughts. How they behaved around each other.

In many ways, they were endearing. That was why the Hartfords continued to frequent the bakery every day. The old couple saw themselves within them. It was like peering into a looking glass that reflected one's past back to them…

With nothing better to do, the old couple took it upon themselves to impart their hard-earned wisdom and meddled in their affairs, egging both of them to change their ways and adopt new habits.

They'd done what the could for the young couple and it had proven somewhat effective, from the look of it. The air around the pair had grown much more harmonious as of late, much to their pleasure.

In their minds, it wouldn't be too long before they saw their labor bear fruit, so to speak. At least, that was they had thought.

Reed and Lu'um, on the other hand, had long since caught onto their little plot. Naturally, they were very appreciative of the well-meaning old couple, but they had some… reservations about the whole thing.

In the name of keeping up appearances, they had played along with the Hartfords' recommendation for the last two years. The last thing they wanted to do was make the old couple concerned about the nature of their relationship. They both understood that the Hartfords' only wanted the best for them, after all…

And it wasn't as if Reed disliked the Hartfords' aggressive approach. If anything, he'd eventually come to enjoy it. A part of him even found it frightening how well their plan had worked in the end.

He'd grown so much closer to her than he could have ever possibly imagined two years ago. They'd spent their days speaking, listening, and learning about one another. It was then that they had finally seen each other for who they really were, no longer bound by their previous biases…

Suffice to say, everything that he had once thought her had been wrong. Completely wrong. Reed learned a lot that day about her and who she really was beneath the composed facade she always maintained.

Reed had once thought of her as an infallible figure who had an unshakable resolution about everything she did. That she'd never bend to anything or anyone; she was a no-nonsense type of person. A true-to-life empress in the making that possessed overwhelming power at her fingertips…

He couldn't have been more wrong if he tried.

It was the complete opposite. Of course, she had moments of indecision. It went without saying that she also had her own worries and fears, too. She had revealed everything that she'd done in order to cultivate the outward facade that Reed had mistakenly assumed to be who she was on the inside.

She much, much cuter than Reed could have ever imagined. It was astonishing how different she really was compared to the projection that he had forced upon her.

She hated carrots. Hated them with the fury of a thousand suns and thought they tasted like soap.

She feared spiders and cockroaches. Apparently, a rather large spider had taken residence in her dormitory back when they'd been trainees back in the day, leading to her abandoning the room. It was why she had moved into his dormitory and never used hers ever again.

She even expressed how tiring it was to suppress herself for the sake of keeping her characteristically composed, lady-like image. It was a behavior that she'd been forced to adopt because of her family's upbringing. In certain sense, it'd become reflexive for her to act the way she did, but it wasn't representative of her real self…

He learned about her childhood before she had become the Heiress of the Moon. How she'd been nothing more than a clueless, sheltered noble girl until she had met someone very special. Of the childhood misadventures she had been forced to join and the traumatic experiences she had because of them — culminating in a permanent, irrational fear of spiders and cockroaches…

It was in this way that he had come to learn everything about her. He had finally met the real Lu'um and was, for the lack of a better word…

Captivated.

She was far more than what she'd let on… And so was he, much to her surprise. She thought that she'd knew already everything about him, but he had proven him wrong. Dead wrong.

He had told her about his life in the slums — the trials and tribulations he endured during his early life.

The many difficult, painful lessons he had learned over the course of his life up until he had arrived in Mulia. How he had kept his head down and laid low his entire life. How he had learned to abide by a certain set of rules that had come to define who he'd become.

He had told her about the dreams he'd have about journeying into the unknown on a grand adventure like in the storybooks he used to read as a child to escape the reality he lived in. How he had desperately wished to escape somewhere far away from the slums and find someplace where he could be somebody… unlike the nobody that he'd thought himself to be.

And then, in an act of true sincerity, he had told her how he really felt nowadays.

How he no longer desired to be someone special or to have some sort of unique purpose in order to define himself. He had told her that he'd been set free.

That he was content and comfortable as himself. And most importantly, he felt at peace with his existence as a mortal. That he did not desire the power he possessed and no longer felt the temptation, the dangerous influence it once had on him before.

Reed was satisfied living a mortal life, even if it was not as exciting as his previous life as a Chosen prince. He could do without living like royalty just fine as long as she was by his side.

They opened themselves up and had taken the first step towards something more than what they once possessed.

It was slow at first but eventually, things finally started to move along. What'd once been an ambiguous relationship between them had finally turned into something substantial, something real.

He had finally, after being hounded by Old Man Hartford, asked her out on a proper date. It was comically bad how bad he had messed up. He had stumbled his way through the proposal like a stuttering idiot. Even now, an entire year later, the memory continued to haunt him every now and then.

Simply put, it was the stuff of nightmares, but in the end...

Reed gazed at Lu'um who was cleaning one of the bakery's tables and she felt his wandering, mischievous gaze.

Lu'um turned around and said, "I knew I felt a pair of ogling eyes staring at me… What's the matter? See something you like?"

"Yeah, I do," said Reed and he leaped at her with outstretched arms.

She giggled and said, "What happened to everything you told Old Man Hartford? You're no better than him, you lecher!"

Everything had turned out alright. They'd finally found each other.

Chapter end