The unexpected subject left Danyu silent for a long while. She walked with her head bowed, lost in thought, and only when our steps had brought us near the garden did she carefully open her mouth.

“Why did you give up on the Jubilion? You said it was something you desperately wanted.”

This time it was Danyu who raised a subject I hadn’t anticipated. I had been certain she would ask more about the problem with Sio’s hand. I studied her face, wondering whether she was deliberately changing the subject, but there was no sign of that in her expression. I scratched my head, feeling a little thrown off.

“It isn’t a particularly grand reason. I simply came to think that there was no meaning in obtaining what I wanted by borrowing the power of a god.”

“Pardon?”

Danyu tilted her head at the vague answer. I looked into her eyes, bright with curiosity, and smiled faintly.

“I realized that even if I were to obtain Miss Danyu through the wisdom of a god, if I myself did not change, you would eventually leave my side. In the end, what matters most is your heart. So I made my decision. Rather than what I wanted, I would make what you most desired come true.”

At the time, I had been firmly convinced that what Danyu Astrid wanted most was Sio Lieselotte. Not merely because of my own belief, but because she had truly wanted him, in all likelihood. Only what she had wanted was surely not his love alone.

The years of her childhood she had poured into him, and the music of his that had made her who she was today. She had wanted desperately to protect all of that, the beauty of the man called Sio Lieselotte in its entirety. Just as I had thought that I wanted to protect the brilliance of who she was.

“Then what you said you wanted to ask if you won the Jubilion…”

A murmur drifted from Danyu’s lips, more to herself than to me.

“I thought I was the one who fell for Astaire first.”

“No. I was first.”

I contradicted her without a moment’s hesitation. From the very moment her heart had been turned entirely toward Sio Lieselotte, I had already been watching her. If something called love had taken root between the two of us, the beginning had without question been mine.

The certainty in my words was unmistakable, and Danyu’s face flushed red in an instant. She darted her eyes around, not knowing where to look, and then chose to simply put distance between us.

“I, I’m going to go get ready for the performance.”

She was gone before I could say a word. Bold enough to express her own feelings, and yet this flustered by the words that came from my mouth. Perhaps it was only natural that every time I saw her like that, I wanted to tease her.

In good spirits, I had barely taken my seat in the garden when the ceremony began. Even as the groom made his entrance and the bride came in on her father’s arm, my gaze stayed fixed on Danyu. 

Watching her sit before the piano and draw breath after breath as she waited for her turn, it was plain she was quite nervous. She had performed without a trace of hesitation before the vast audience at the Jubilion, and yet here she was trembling at this small gathering. The contradiction was endearing, and I was letting out a quiet laugh when our eyes met.

What do I do? I’m so nervous.

Danyu mouthed the words. No sound reached me, but the shape of her lips was more than enough. I smiled and mouthed back.

I’m watching. Don’t worry.

I had said something embarrassingly earnest on a whim, and sure enough, Danyu’s face went red. The laugh that escaped me without my meaning to drew a strange look from the guest seated beside me. I stifled it with a cough, but the strange look did not go away.

“And lastly, we are told that Miss Danyu Astrid, younger sister of Liv Astrid and winner of this year’s Jubilion, has prepared a small performance to celebrate her sister’s marriage.”

The moment the host’s words fell, every eye in the garden turned to Danyu, sitting quietly before the piano. The instant the guests’ gazes reached her, Danyu smiled as though she had never been nervous at all, rose to bow to the audience, and then settled herself back before the piano. The chance to see a Jubilion winner perform up close was rare indeed, and the guests watched her fingertips with eyes full of anticipation.

The performance began with a long, slow exhale. Lento moderato. The notes followed one another at a pace that felt almost unhurried, yet never stifling, and in their wake a scene of spring took shape. The melody that stirred the air carried the vitality of flowers just beginning to bloom. Like green leaves giving way to red buds waiting to open, the harmonies that had moved in simple lines grew gradually richer with time.

Two separate melodies wove together into one. Just as notes that had been moving along their own separate paths came together into a single voice, two people who had each been living their own lives would, once this day was over, walk the same road together. 

The notes that had found their way to each other and become one bloomed like a blossom in full flower, radiant in their beauty. At the trailing edge of each beautiful chord that built upon the last, flowers opened in brilliant color. And so the piece was named Hwawon. The Flower Garden. It suited a spring wedding perfectly.

The performance came to its close in a richness of sound, and applause and cheers broke out from every direction. Had the bride in her dress not been standing across from the piano, one could have mistaken the place for a concert hall. The care that had gone into the piece shone through in every note, and tears had already gathered in Liv’s eyes. She ran to her sister and wrapped her arms around Danyu where she sat before the piano, and applause burst out from all around.

Thanks to the weeping bride, the wedding was a thoroughly lively affair. The guests teased the bride without reservation, and each time they did, Liv turned a reproachful eye on Danyu and grumbled that she had ruined the wedding by making her cry. Of course, everyone could see that the reproach was wrapped in embarrassment and deep affection.

The closing event of the wedding was a bouquet toss. It was a small custom that had recently become fashionable in the capital, and it seemed a belief had been circulating among the young ladies that whoever caught the bouquet would be married in the near future. Danyu had grumbled that Liv had heard about it and insisted the bouquet toss absolutely had to be included.

For all that grumbling, Danyu was watching the bouquet in Liv’s hand with a face full of anticipation. Seeing Danyu’s eyes gleaming with the determination to catch it left me with complicated feelings. Did Danyu truly want to be married?

“All right! I’m throwing it now!”

At Liv’s shout, every woman in the garden tensed with readiness. It was clear enough that this sort of event was quite exciting for the young ladies.

“One, two, three!”

With a short countdown, the bouquet left Liv’s hand. Every eye at the wedding followed its arc. The bouquet left her hand, reached its peak, and began to descend, and the ladies standing nearby all reached out at once.

Then the wind that had been blowing throughout the ceremony gusted sharply. It carried dry sand with it, and everyone squeezed their eyes shut. A few of the ladies cried out, blaming the wind for the havoc it was wreaking on their hair.

At last the wind passed, and amid a small ripple of murmuring, everyone opened their eyes. There was only one thing on anyone’s mind. Where in the world had the bouquet gone? The ladies hastily scanned the ground for it, but there was nothing on the grass below, only the green lawn swaying gently in the fading breeze.

“It seems I’ve returned just in time for a celebration.”

A distinctly male voice rang out through the murmuring crowd. The moment I realized how familiar that voice was, my body went rigid. I forced my stiffened neck to turn, and there stood the man I had expected, looking out at the scene with an unhurried air. His name left my lips before I had even registered it.

“Sio Lieselotte.”

“Sio Lieselotte is here!”

Beginning with the name from my lips, voices calling out Sio Lieselotte rose from every direction. And yet amid all that clamor, Sio stood where he was, perfectly composed, bringing the bouquet in his hand to his nose and breathing in its scent. Watching him like that, his return finally became real to me.

Unable to bring myself to look at Danyu’s face beside me, I kept my gaze fixed stubbornly on his. Whatever expression she wore as she looked at him, I knew it would unsettle me beyond bearing.

“It’s been a while, Astaire Werner.”

I was biting down on my lip and staring at his face when our eyes met across the distance. There was a flicker of something like warmth in the slight smile on his lips, but I could not bring myself to offer him a glad greeting in return.

Danyu’s first love. The man who had turned her world completely upside down. Sio Lieselotte, my friend and the rival who would remain so forever, had returned to the capital.