We ordinary people also need to fall in love.

The next morning, Nassos opened the attic window.

The sun was shining brightly, and the reeds by the stream had sprouted new ears, like brushes dipped in blue ink. He stood by the window for a long time, then suddenly looked down and smiled.

He didn't know why he was laughing; he just thought: waiting can be a happy thing.

Unbeknownst to him, at the same moment, a window in the palace was also open.

Princess Sefina stood by the window, with an open letter beside her, the ink still wet.

She wrote a short poem about the moon, the sycamore tree, and something she had waited seventeen years to finally decide to do.

She finished writing the last stroke and looked up.

Outside the window was a garden meticulously manicured by the Queen's men. Each plant was tied to a trellis, its branches secured with thin hemp rope, and the flowers that bloomed were all of uniform height, size, and red color.

Sefina looked at it for a while, then closed the window and folded the poem into an envelope.

Sefina knew all along that the maid was the queen's woman.

From the age of twelve, her maidservants, "on the orders of the Queen," accompanied her—combing her hair, changing her clothes, and recording who she met each day, what she said, and whether she showed any inappropriate emotions behind her smiles.

Sefina never smiled too deeply in front of her maids.

But she forgot about it these past few months.

That evening, Sefina was writing a letter under the lamp. When she wrote the word "wutong" (梧桐), her pen paused for a long time—she wasn't sure if the tree outside the city was a real wutong. She had never left the palace and had only read pictures of wutong in books.

She looked up, wanting to ask the maid.

The maid stood by the door, watching her.

That gaze wasn't that of a servant looking at his master; it was that of a jailer looking at a prisoner.

Sefina slowly turned the letter over and covered it up.

"Your Highness looks very well lately," the maid said with a smile.

Sefina did not answer.

That night, a maid entered the queen's bedchamber.

"Sefina is communicating with someone, not a nobleman, not a prince from a neighboring country."

The queen is removing her earrings in front of the mirror.

"What about the content?"

"Sefina is very cautious, and she never leaves her letter behind. But... she's been smiling a lot lately."

The queen's finger stopped near her earlobe.

Her face in the mirror remained dignified, only her lips were pressed flat.

"Does she have any plans for the full moon?"

"No, but I've heard that the knight has been frequently leaving the city recently, heading towards the mill in the western suburbs."

Silence fell as the Queen slowly placed the earrings back into the brocade box.

"Under the sycamore tree, she only ever read about that one view outside the city."

The maidservant lowered her head.

......

Full moon night.

When Naxos left, his father was sitting on the mill threshold.

He didn't ask his son where he was going. His son had changed in the past few months—he was no longer the shadow who walked with his head down, but someone who would open the window in the morning and laugh at the stream at dusk.

The father didn't know whether this change was good or bad.

All he knew was that his son finally had a place he wanted to go.

"...Don't catch a cold." He handed over an old cloak.

Nathos took it, wanting to say something. He used to resent his father for not understanding him, but now he suddenly understood that his father was simply loving a child in the way he knew—flour, a millstone, and an old cloak full of patches.

"I will come back," he said.

The father nodded.

Naxos stepped out of the mill. The moonlight was beautiful, and the stream looked like it was covered with a layer of flowing silver foil.

He walked along the stream for a long time, past the embankment where he had released hundreds of paper boats, past the stone where he had sat alone for countless dusks.

The sycamore tree was taller than in the book, its branches and leaves spreading out a dark green shade under the moonlight.

Nathos stood in the shadows of the trees, his palms sweaty.

He pulled his cloak tighter and tighter, smoothed his cuffs, and reviewed the first sentence he had silently recited hundreds of times on his way here, up to the seventeenth version.

Footsteps approached from afar, and Nathos looked up.

A girl ran towards them under the moonlight, her skirt damp with dew, her hair disheveled by the night wind. She didn't run gracefully; in fact, she looked somewhat disheveled.

She had no attendants or crown behind her, and wore only a plain, simple dress.

She stopped three steps away, panting.

Moonlight filtered through the gaps in the sycamore leaves, casting dappled patterns of light on her face.

Nathos wanted to speak, to say anything, but his throat felt blocked.

She spoke first: "You've arrived."

It's not about "Who are you?"

It's not "you are Nassos".

It means "You've arrived".

Nathos gripped the edge of his cloak tightly.

"……I am coming."

She smiled.

It wasn't the dignified smile in the portrait, with the corners of the lips only turned up slightly; it was a bright smile with eyes curving into crescent moons.

Nathos suddenly remembered what the knight had said—"Now her smile is brighter. The queen says it's not dignified, but I think it looks beautiful."

very nice.

He thought so too.

Sefina took a piece of paper from her sleeve.

It wasn't a new letter, but an old one—deeply creased, with frayed edges, clearly having been read countless times. Naxos recognized it as his first poem.

The character "永" is missing its last stroke.

"When I read it the first time, I was wondering why this character was missing a stroke," Sefina said.

Nassos lowered his eyes.

"It was so cold that day... my fingers got stiff."

Sefina continued:

"When I read it a second time, I wondered, in how cold was he when he wrote this poem? Did anyone hand him a brazier? After he finished writing it, did anyone tell him to get some rest?"

Nassos looked up.

The moonlight fell into her eyes as tiny fragments of light.

"On the third reading, I was just thinking—is he still writing? Is he still cold? Is he... still waiting?"

The night wind rustled through the leaves of the sycamore trees, like a sigh.

Nassos did not answer.

He would never answer such a question; he didn't know how to tell someone that he had written for two years, launched dozens of projects, and never once hoped for a reply.

He didn't know how to tell her that he viewed waiting as an endless process because "not having hope" was the safest way to protect himself.

But she came.

She walked up to him and asked: Are you still waiting?

"...I've waited for this," he said.

Sefina lowered her eyes, her eyelashes casting a small shadow on her cheek.

Just as she was about to say something, torches lit up outside the woods.

"Your Highness—!"

The sound of horses' hooves crushed the moonlight, the sharp clang of armor clashing against metal, the snapping of sword sheaths scraping against the bushes, and the high-pitched voice of a maidservant piercing the night mist:

"The Queen has ordered that Your Highness return to the palace immediately!"

Sefina's face turned pale instantly.

Before Nassos could react, she had already grabbed his wrist.

"run!"

They rushed into the woods.

Thorns tore through her skirt, and withered branches snapped under her feet. Sefina ran fast, as if every day of the past seventeen years, confined within the palace walls, had been accumulating the strength for this run tonight.

But the pursuers were faster—the torches, like a swarm of fireflies chasing the moon, drew closer and brighter.

Nassos isn't fast.

He was never a fast runner. He couldn't outrun the boys in the village when they chased him, and when his father scolded him, he could only stand still and take the scolding. He didn't know how to escape, and no one had ever taught him.

Sefina did not let go of his hand.

A stream lies in front of us.

The water murmured softly, reflecting the shattered moonlight. There was no bridge in front and no road behind. The light of the torches shone through the gaps in the trees, casting a thin silhouette of her profile.

Sefina stopped, panting, her long hair disheveled, a long tear in her skirt from the thorns. She didn't look down, but stared at the stream blocking her path.

Then she smiled.

It was very light, very faint, like the sentences they wrote in their letters—separated by paper, by distance, by all the fear of not daring to speak out.

"At least, I saw you."

Nassos gripped her hand tightly.

He had so much to say. He wanted to say that he had kept all of her letters, tucked under his pillow, with every corner smoothed out.

He wanted to say that he had practiced painting the reeds three times, but still couldn't get them right, but he would continue to practice.

He meant to say, I didn't know what "the other side" meant until your boat drifted into my creek.

He wanted to say—

A small boat emerged from the bend in the stream.

The knight stood at the bow of the ship, his armor askew, his helmet long gone, and his short hair disheveled in the night wind like a clump of weeds.

With one hand she poled the boat, and with the other she swung her sword to cut off the willow branches that drooped into the water. Moonlight slanted down her shoulder, casting a silver edge on the worn scabbard.

She spoke, her voice louder than ever before when she urged, "Don't write too long a reply":

"What are you standing there for—get on here!"

Nathos jumped onto the boat first, then turned to catch Sefina. The small boat rocked violently twice, and the knight pushed hard, causing the boat to spin into the middle of the stream.

The pursuers caught up with the shore.

The maid's face flickered in and out of the firelight, her voice shrill: "Your Highness! Are you going to commit treason?!"

Sefina did not turn around.

The boat glided downstream into the night fog, and the reeds parted on both sides like thousands of silent pens writing poems that no one could read under the moonlight.

The knight placed the pole across her lap, looked up at the moon, her sword still dripping with water, the old cloth wrapped around the hilt loosened and fluttering gently in the wind.

No one speaks.

Sefina leaned against the ship's railing, her long hair cascading over her shoulders. She looked down at the hem of her skirt, torn by thorns, for a long time.

Nassos sat opposite her.

He didn't know what to say, so he simply took off his father's old cloak and gently draped it over her shoulders.

Sefina looked up, and the moonlight fell into her eyes like shattered silver falling on the surface of a stream.

She asked softly, "Are we friends now?"

Nathos looked at her.

He recalled the young blade ceremony when he was twelve years old. All the boys reached out to touch the scabbard, but he stood still, watching the shadow cast by the sunlight.

He remembered hiding behind the mill when he was fifteen, folding paper into boats, telling himself it was nothing.

He recalled a spring evening when he was seventeen, when an unsigned letter was slipped into his hand. The first line read, "You said the wind can talk. I believe you."

"Yes," he said.

It's not "Yes, Your Highness".

It's not "Yes, Your Excellency".

Yes—yes.