It was impossible to believe. She wondered if this might be a dream. She wanted to be certain that this wasn’t an illusion. She wanted to hear his voice once more. But he just looked at her silently. Neither smiling nor crying. With an expression difficult to describe.

Elios, looking at her with such an expression, found each word she uttered overwhelming and unbearable. That thin, pretty voice, barely audible, was so unbearably warm that it seemed to rise like a heat haze the moment it reached him.

Elios traced every detail of Snow’s image reflected in his black eyes. He had thought that just seeing her would be enough, but the moment he saw her, he realized it was far from sufficient. The touch of their gazes wasn’t enough. He wanted to touch that white, soft hair, those long eyelashes, and smooth cheeks with his hands.

She wasn’t a holy maiden. At least to Elios in this moment, she was the goddess herself.

But suddenly, as she looked at him with flushed cheeks, her face began to contort. Seeing her expression that looked like she might burst into tears at any moment, Elios felt his heart sink. He had thought she seemed surprisingly fine, but something was clearly wrong.

As Elios was about to say something, Snow beat him to it.

“Do you know how long I’ve waited?”

A tear finally fell from Snow’s eye. Strangely, even though she was crying, the wind was subsiding. The clouds were clearing. Stars began to bloom one by one in the night sky, like moss roses growing from soil. But Elios, his heart sinking at the tears falling from her eyes, had no chance to notice such things.

He took a step closer to the window where she was. In response, Snow leaned further out of the window. Tears fell drop by drop from the window. Elios felt like he might cry with her, finding her falling tears precious and heartbreaking.

“I thought you had forgotten me.”

She was now almost hanging from the window. Elios tried to say that could never be the case. But Snow didn’t give him a chance to make excuses and continued almost accusingly. After saying “I,” Snow stopped as if choked up. Hic! She hiccupped. Despite all this, with indomitable will, she finally continued her sentence.

Snow leaned her body further forward, precariously perched on the windowsill, and said:

“Do you know how many times I almost cried because you didn’t come…”

“Snow, be careful!”

“What?”

Startled by Elios’s voice, which she had finally heard again, she momentarily lost her balance. Her upper body tilted, leaning out the window.

In that brief moment, Snow bit her lip tightly to prevent herself from screaming. If she screamed, the priests would come, and El, who had trespassed into the Santarium, would be driven out. She really didn’t want that.

Anticipating the impact of the impending fall, she closed her eyes tightly in fear.

But where she landed was not the cold, hardened ground.

Strong arms pulled her down forcefully. Snow, who had fallen head first, was cradled in Elios’s arms. Elios sat down on the ground to safely catch Snow as she fell upside down.

Snow took a deep breath, surprised again by the body heat of another person felt throughout her body. The cool scent of Elios, who had rushed through the cold wind, enveloped her. She held her breath after inhaling. Her heart was racing uncontrollably.

Elios, who had caught the falling Snow, felt dazed. A fragile and warm body, like a newly born fluffy baby animal, was fully cradled in his arms.

When they were young, they had seemed to be of similar build. Now it was normal for there to be some difference in physique, but even considering that, Snow seemed too small and weak. Elios awkwardly released Snow. Her warmth still lingered in his arms.

“Th-thank you.”

Snow said. Her face was bright red, just like when she first met El, and she couldn’t raise her head. After a moment of silence, she was the first to speak.

“Um, why did you come only now after not coming for so long?”

A hint of resentment mixed into her tone. Snow was surprised. Usually, she was extremely careful not to say things that might hurt others’ feelings. She had always thought that was the first step in not creating situations that would anger herself. Complaining and grumbling to someone as she truly felt was unfamiliar even to Snow herself.

Snow was a bit worried about what she had said and carefully observed Elios’s reaction. He opened his dark, warm eyes wide. And blinked several times. He seemed flustered. But that expression unexpectedly suited him so well that Snow couldn’t help but find him cute, despite him being about a head taller than her.

She burst into a small laugh, “Pfft.” The night sky instantly lit up as bright as a flower garden.

Elios now realized that stars had returned to the previously dark sky. He could tell that she was genuinely laughing at this moment. Elios also followed with a relaxed smile. Seeing this, Snow laughed even more.

“Snow.”

Elios called her for the third time. Snow looked at him with tightly closed lips and sparkling eyes. She loved his gentle voice so much that she focused all her attention on his words.

“When the wind suddenly started blowing fiercely, you don’t know how worried I was.”

“You were… worried? About me?”

“Since you said your emotions are related to the weather. I was so worried I couldn’t bear it, so I rushed here.”

“You remembered that I said that? After so many years?”

Snow, who until just a moment ago seemed to be reproaching him, quickly changed to having eyes full of emotion, her lips moving slightly. She seemed to want to say something but couldn’t find the right words.

Elios truly found her unbearably adorable. Her fidgeting white fingers, her blinking eyes looking up at him, her slightly disheveled white hair.

As he was examining her, Elios suddenly noticed that the tip of Snow’s nose had turned red from the cold. White breath rose from her moving lips. He fumbled to take out the extra beige cloak he had brought. He had brought it just in case, and he was glad he did. As he was wrapping it around her shoulders, he could feel Snow staring at him. Trying to act nonchalant, Elios spoke.

“Snow, isn’t there somewhere more comfortable where we can talk besides this place?”

Elios was worried that Snow, shivering from the cold, might catch a cold. Snow had also been thinking that they couldn’t talk comfortably right in front of the Santarium.

After thinking for a moment, Snow remembered that there was an old, unused temple building near the Santarium. She occasionally went out to other temples to perform prayer rituals as part of her duties as the holy maiden, and she had seen it on the way.

“There is! El, there’s a place where we can talk.”

“Good. Can you guide me there?”

“Of course. Follow me.”

Snow’s range of movement had expanded since her childhood when she rarely even left the Santarium, but it was still limited to the area around the Santarium. Even then, she didn’t often go outside the building. It was very fortunate that among the places she knew, there was an empty temple where she could talk with Elios.

She walked ahead and then glanced back. Elios, following behind, curled up the corners of his mouth in a warm smile. She was startled and quickly turned her head forward again.

Her head felt a bit dizzy. When had he grown so much? Snow thought she had grown quite a lot compared to when she was twelve, but it was nothing compared to Elios. Elios’s whole aura had changed. At twelve, he had definitely been a mischievous, carefree child, but now he exuded a serious, weighty presence that made it hard for her to breathe.

No, was it just Elios’s aura that made it hard to breathe? Her heart was beating unusually fast. Snow had been in this state ever since being held in Elios’s arms.

Fortunately, the temple was open. The large door opened slightly when Snow pushed it with force. Elios approached and opened it completely.

It wasn’t a very large temple. Unique columns, slightly thicker in the middle, surrounded and supported all four sides. The statue of the goddess that would have been at the center front of the hall had been moved somewhere, leaving only an empty trace of its existence.

Dozens of white-painted wooden chairs were arranged in rows, and Snow and Elios chose two of them to sit on.

“Now, tell me, Snow. What exactly happened today?”

Elios asked as soon as they sat down, feeling incredibly happy and overwhelmed to meet Snow, yet still concerned about the correlation between Snow’s emotions and the fierce wind that had blown all day.

Only then did Snow recall that before Elios arrived, she had been nervous about the coming-of-age ceremony. The joy of regaining a precious friend after six years had, if not completely, then almost suppressed the tension that had been troubling her before. The stomach pain was gone too. It was amazingly strange that what had been causing her so much suffering just a short while ago now felt almost like nothing.

Still, seeing Elios’s worried gaze made her feel both sorry and grateful, so Snow decided to tell him the truth.

“El. Actually, tomorrow is my coming-of-age ceremony.”

“I know. Is there a problem with that?”

‘How does El know about my coming-of-age ceremony?’

Snow wondered briefly, but soon understood. In Snow’s mind, El seemed to be a noble. Since many nobles would attend the coming-of-age ceremony, it wasn’t unreasonable for El to know about it.

‘Wait. Come to think of it, will El also come to my coming-of-age ceremony tomorrow?’

She felt that if only El would come, if only he would be among the hundreds of nobles, she could really do well without trembling. Snow asked El with a hopeful heart.

“Will you come to my coming-of-age ceremony tomorrow?”

“No. I really wanted to attend, but due to circumstances…”

‘El’ wore a very regretful expression. Snow, who had been hopeful, was deflated by El’s words, but continued what she had been saying.

“I’ve been nervous all day because of the coming-of-age ceremony. I only learned about the procedure today. I thought it was just a quiet ceremony that would end with a few priests gathered, but when they said His Imperial Majesty and nobles would be coming…”