Don't Come to Wendy's Flower House

She walked quickly, earnestly hoping that Lard would not talk to her.

Of course, she had lots of things to ask him about the details of Altarin’s case, but she didn’t want to be distracted anymore. Whenever the cool night air tickled the tip of her nose, she found herself warming up to him gradually, so she deliberately avoided talking to him.

She knew she was now avoiding him.

There was a faint sound of barking dogs somewhere. She turned her head, as if to check its direction. Of course, she wasn’t interested in the barking sound at all, but she was nervous he might speak to her.

Every time she took a step, his fingertips seemed to touch her.

So, she repeatedly closed and opened her hand.

It wasn’t too late, but there were few people on the street. It was so silent that even the sound of them walking across the grains of sand was loud.

Some strangely faint and pitiful sound was heard nearby like someone walking up the wooden stairs of an old house. She looked at her knees with an embarrassed expression.

Her body hadn’t fully recovered, to say the least. She felt stiffness in her hips, calves and thighs, apparently caused while struggling not to fall from Snowyko yesterday.

Besides, she felt pain in her legs due to the impact of the crash and the long walk on the trails in the forest.

That’s why every time she walked, she heard some weird sound from her knees. He also began to look at her knees with worry. She felt uncomfortable under his gaze.

In the end, she had to open her mouth first, giving up her decision not to talk to him, “By the way, are you okay now? Do you have pain in your shoulders?”

While trying to distract him from her knees, she belatedly stared at his shoulder, pretending to be indifferent. She was trying her best not to give him the impression that she was genuinely worried about his condition, so he could not misunderstand her.

He kept an eye on her knees as he responded, “I feel fine. Fortunately, I have no pain because of timely treatment. But you seem to…”

“Oh, your voice is hoarse. Please take a break immediately after you return.”

While pretending not to hear his comforting words, she kept talking about his physical condition. As expected, his voice became more and more heavy and subdued as time went by.

She now forgot that she initiated talking to him to distract him from her uncomfortable knees and unwittingly came up with a list of plants good for refreshment.

‘Wait a minute. I had some pickled roots somewhere in the kitchen.’

While trying to recall the location of the herbal plants in the kitchen cabinets, she suddenly thought that she was sliding into a situation she created.

She quickly shook her head as if blaming herself after giving up the search for the herbal plants.

If she hadn’t heard someone’s loud crying when she arrived at the entrance of the alley leading to her house, she might have spiraled into serious self-criticism and weak attempts at justifying her actions.

The man who was crying loudly was familiar to both Wendy and Lard.

“Benfork, what’s up?” She asked him in a gloomy tone, looking down at his hunched shoulders.Though she didn’t want to talk to him, she couldn’t help it because he was crying, sitting right in front of her front yard.

Benfork looked up at Wendy, raising his tearful face. The guy looked at Wendy and Lard alternately then wiped his tears with the sleeve as if he were trying to control his emotions.

“Sis… What should I do?”

Benfork began to cry again while trying to speak. Looking into the boy’s face, who seemed to think the world was over, she sighed, assuming he must have caused some big trouble this time.

“Tell me calmly what happened.”

She pressed on him to speak quickly instead of trying to soothe him, conscious of the psychology of children who would cry out louder if someone appeased them.

“Sis… I may never see you anymore. My father listed our house for sale.”

“…Are you moving?”

As Benfork’s reply was rather unexpected, she looked at him with more seriousness.

Obviously, he was not crying because he had been rebuked by his father.

“Yeah, we’re moving to Jopiern, that remote town… Screwed! I can’t see Sarah anymore, and I have to break up with my friends here. Besides, I can’t learn swordsmanship from the knights. I wish you had not given my father the Zahato tree seedlings…My dad kept saying he was missing Jopiern after he planted the tree.”

Benfork again cried loudly, upset with her.

A few months ago, she gave his father the Zahato plant, a kind of azaleas that bore brown fruit in autumn. It was drawing lots of attention as a high-income crop in rural areas these days. Obviously, the tree must have prompted his father to sell his house and move.

She recalled how delighted his father was after receiving the Zahato seedlings. In the end, Benfork wanted to vent his anger and frustration on her, squatting in front of her house.

She felt sorry for him and disgusted with his actions.

He wailed, “Sarah complained that she smelled it coming off me on the day I spread fertilizer in the back garden… I think if I live in that rustic village, they will smell fertilizer on me. I’m afraid it’s going to be my signature smell…”

“If your friends don’t like you because of that fertilizer smell, you had better not meet them.”

She gave him wise advice like that, but he didn’t listen and cried again.

Shaking his shoulders, Benfork stood up and looked up at her, saying with a tearful voice as if he was disappointed, “Ugh, how can you say it so easily, sis, when you have a lover next to you? I feel sorry for this knight! ”

“What the heck?”

Looking at Lard’s face with a pitiable expression, Benfork now became more emboldened as Lard didn’t respond. Even before she began to intervene, Benfork continued quickly, “What do you think about love? Isn’t it natural that you want to look good to your lover as much as possible, but you don’t want to do things that your lover doesn’t want? When you love someone, you keep missing him or her, right? How can I follow my father to Jopiern? How can I break up with Sarah? You know my feelings as you are in love, sis, right?”

Benfork sniffed with a sullen look and finished complaining to her. She contemplated how to respond to this cocky kid’s scathing accusation.

‘How much do you think you know about love? This little boy is coming off as cocky, babbling about love as he wishes?’

She barely suppressed her anger, though she wanted to punch him on the head.

“Benfork!”

Lard, who had been listening to their conversation quietly, began to talk to him in earnest.

“… Hey, Benfork, I know how you feel. It’s late at night, so you’d better go home and talk with your father again tomorrow. Just tell your father honestly what you have said to her. Wouldn’t your father think twice about moving if you seriously talked it over with your father as a man?”

As he dared not even respond to the imperial knight, Benfork moved his lips a couple of times then lowered his head.

“Yes, I’ll…”

Benfork took a few deep breaths as if he wanted to calm down and looked at the two.

After calming down a little, he belatedly noticed the imperial knight’s mention of the expression “as a man.” As he was caught crying with a runny nose, he was afraid he might not have a chance to learn swordsmanship from the knight in the future.

“I am really sorry to both of you… I guess it happened when I was three years old. I think that was the last time I cried, and it’s been a long time since I cried like this today. Please don’t misunderstand me because I’m not a crying boy. ”

Benfork belatedly managed to control himself, smiling at Lard awkwardly.

Wendy stared at his swollen eyes as if she was dumbfounded at his actions.

“Sure. By the way, let me keep my promise to check you and your friends’ fencing posture as soon as possible. I will let you know about the training date through a messenger one of these days, so tip off your friends.”

“Oh yes… ! You haven’t forgotten it, sir!”

Benfork shouted with joy, hearing Lard’s confirmation of his promise.

Without caring about him, Lard stared at something, lost in thought. At the end of his gaze was his small two-story house. Lard narrowed his eyes and said in passing, “By the way, has your house already been sold?”

At the moment Benfork made a puzzled expression, and said, “Oh no. My father didn’t say that.”

Lard nodded blankly, as usual, and stared at Benfork’s face, signalling to him to go back home.

Embarrassed, Benfork moved back and made a beeline for his house.