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Chapter 6: “Where His Shadow Lingers”

Yume and Auren

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The winters had grown longer since Rikuya left.

Or maybe time just moved slower without him.

Yume had stopped asking for news.

Because every answer was the same:

> “Nothing yet. No letter. No word. No body.”

So she learned to smile again. In court. At balls. During empty conversations about silk patterns and marriage prospects.

> But her smile never reached her eyes.

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One afternoon, she was summoned to the palace garden for tea. She expected another tiresome noblewoman or a matchmaking aunt.

Instead, she found Crown Prince Auren waiting for her.

He stood beneath the blooming magnolia tree, holding a porcelain cup like it was too fragile for his fingers.

“Didn’t expect you,” Yume said, carefully sitting down across from him.

Auren offered a faint smile. “And yet, here we are.”

---

They sipped in silence for a while.

The breeze was gentle. The air smelled of early spring.

Finally, Auren spoke.

> “Do you still think of him?”

Yume’s hand tightened around the cup.

> “He’s not easy to forget.”

Auren looked down. “He never was. Even as a boy, he stole all the silence from a room without saying a word.”

She glanced at him. “You hated him.”

“No,” Auren replied. “I envied him. There’s a difference.”

---

Yume turned to the sky, watching a single bird vanish into the clouds.

“I loved him,” she said quietly. “Or maybe I loved the version of him I thought I saw.”

Auren didn’t flinch. He was good at hiding pain.

> “And what about now?” he asked.

She paused.

Then looked him in the eyes and said:

> “Now I just hope he’s still alive.”

---

Auren reached across the table, his hand brushing hers—not possessively, but gently. Carefully. As if asking for permission.

“Yume,” he said softly, “you’ve waited long enough. I don’t ask for love. Only companionship.”

She didn’t pull away.

But she didn’t lean forward either.

---

> Because even now, years later…

Rikuya’s shadow still sat beside her.

And some ghosts are too heavy to let go.