Gardenia Of Blooming D.e.s.i.r.e

I silently watched Young Lord sitting together with that man called Gaum. He was charming and handsome, but he over exaggerated everything. It felt disgusting hearing him flirting, especially with Young Lord.

'Young Lord must be in pain hearing all those nasty stuff he said.'

"Sure, Young Lord is not feminine at all. But you could capture the hearts of many men and women, including me," Gaum said.

"Y--You are not here to say such nonsensical thing! Stop it before I cancel today's meeting!" Young Lord rebuked him.

I expected Young Lord to be really angry to him now, if possible, drive him out of Grand Duchy as soon as possible. I couldn't bear to see human like that who dared flirting with Young Lord.

However, what I saw was Young Lord blushed with the pink tint decorated his cheek. I was taken aback, how could Young Lord blushed with such cheap words! I gritted my teeth silently.

The more I heard, the more I felt like molten steel was poured into my ears. It felt too painful.

'This must be a bluff! Young Lord would never fall into stupid words like that. It's summer now, Young Lord must be burning in heat, that must be it!'

I turned my body and took the towel soaked with ice-cold water from the basin. But I saw Jain immediately appeared in front of me. He gripped my hand with enormous strength. I was strong too, since I worked as lumberjack for two years, but Jain's strength was unbelievable. My hand couldn't even budge.

"What are you doing?" Jain asked with his sharp eyes.

"I want to give Young Lord the cold towel, look at him, his face is so red!" I said boldly. Me and Jain were about the same height, thus, I tried to intimidate him. But he didn't even show any sign of nervousness and glanced at the scene of Young Lord and Gaum.

"I wont let you." Jain said shortly.

"What? Why?"

"You will ruin Young Lord's moment," Jain loosened his grip and put his hands on his back again. "Don't you see? Young Lord and that man called Gaum are having a good time together. They are also discussing important partnership between each other."

"But..."

Jain looked at me coldly. His eyes were no different than those of Grand Duchess and others, unfeeling, cold, as if looking at an unusable good. "I will not let you ruin Young Lord's important moment with your nonsensical feeling, he is the number one priority for me."

"T--That man must be doing some trick to Young Lord, we must prevent him from fooling Young Lord``" I tried to reason, but what I got was a knife that moved incredibly fast in front of my throat, just one more inch and Jain might decapitate me. I gulped.

"Once more you say unreasonable stuff, I will gut you," Jain moved the knife closer to my neck until the tip touched my throat.

"Y--Yes, I understand... please move the knife away."

Jain sighed, he hid the knife in his sleeve again and glanced at those two flirting like pair of lovebirds, "Don't you see. They don't even notice us missing. They are in their own world," Jain said. But this time, his lips curled up a bit.

I saw at the beautiful scenery of Young Lord and Gaum. My eyes observed every subtle move they did to each other.

'Young Lord... are you really happy?'

'Why can't you be as happy when you're with me...'

'Am I really not enough...'

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't enjoy it. I couldn't say that I felt grateful for Young Lord to finally be able to communicate with other person. I couldn't admit that it was a beautiful scene between two good-looking men being intimate to each other.

'I can't do it Young Lord, I'm sorry...'

'I don't feel any gratefulness in my heart, I couldn't be happy for you.'

'Because it's not me there.'

'Your smile, your happiness isn't directed towards me.'

I clenched my teeth. I was about to close my eyes to hide the pain, but I heard Young Lord called Jain. When I saw the reason, I wished that I never saw that. Gaum gave a gardenia to Young Lord, but it wasn't just a simple gardenia, it was the extremely rare Gardenia of Blooming Desire.

It was so rare and popular, that even a slave like me ever heard about it once. Gardenia with Pink petal and white around the edges. Only the richest nobles had those, and it was given as a love declaration, or a grand proposal in Golden Camellia.

'Did Young Lord really accept it?' I saw Young Lord opened the box and put the gardenia inside. My breath shortened and my heart burned instantly, I gripped my chest because the pain was unbearable.

I bit my tongue to defeat the pain in my heart. It was so painful that I thought I was going to die.

After a while, I walked back to my place near the door and lowered my head. I heard all their intimate talk, but alas, my eyes didn't see anything. As long as I didn't see them, I still could bear it.

I heard their footstep approached the door. Young Lord ordered me to open the door, his tone didn't even have a tone of kindness. It was similar to his old way of ordering me.

I opened the door. But Gaum decided to embrace Young Lord and whispered something in Young Lord's ear. Then he lightly pecked Young Lord's cheek.

I saw everything. I clenched my fist immediately and about to separate them. But Jain moved fast and strangled Gaum.

Jain's eyes was glinting with murderous glare, "Young Lord, this man has touched you indecently, give me your order."

'Yes, Young Lord! Give him order, he dares touching you indecently! Kill him!' I screamed in my heart. My excitement surged up.

Young Lord wiped his cheek, but his face was beet red once more, "R--Release him, he meant no harm."

'He meant no harm? HE MEANT NO HARM?!' I stepped in to kill this man myself, but Jain glared at me.

I deflated once more. I stepped back to my position and lowered my head again. After the endless torture was over, I still lowered my head. Because I didn't want Young Lord to see my bitter face, he didn't have to see a jealous, low class human like me.

"Ramuja, come here."

"Yes, Young Lord."

Young Lord held my hand with his delicate fingers, and my hand was trembling slightly.

"Well, what do you think about this Gardenia of Blooming Desire, beautiful isn't it?" Young Lord asked.

'Beautiful? Certainly, just like you, Young Lord.'

"You should feel it, it's very soft and beautiful. It's um... rare too. You might found one if you're really lucky and um... you... can give it to someone you like," Young Lord said.

'But you are the one I like.'

'Is this the price of your love? An expensive flower that I cant ever afford?'

I stared at this beautiful flower on my palm. It was indeed magnificent, it kept its luster for many years. Yet, it felt like a scorching coal on my palm. The more this flower showed its shine, the more my palm burning in pain.

I had this urge to crush this flower and my hand trembled slightly.

'I shouldn't, I would make Young Lord sad if I crush this gardenia...'

'Ramuja, calm yourself... think of Young Lord. As long as he is happy, you are happy right?' I tried to reason with my emotion. I knew I was just a slave, that was why such thing like jealousy was ridiculous to me.

'Remember! You were a sex slave, filthy sex slave!'

'Know. Your. Place.'

I kept repeating the same sentence over and over in my head to remind myself about my position. Know. Your. Place.

"Ramuja?" I heard Young Lord called me.

"Yes... it looks beautiful... like you, Young Lord...' I replied weakly.

"I--I don't need to hear you bootlicking!"

"I... said the truth... Young Lord's beauty is unreal... like this flower..."

'I never lie about one thing. Young Lord, no, you... you are so perfect, too perfect that I can't help to get blinded by your dazzle.'

"You're really fascinating..." I said sincerely.

Instead of saying thank you or at least threw a smile at me, Young Lord ran to the bathroom and snarled to me "Ramuja! You are dismissed for today! You can leave!"

I bit my lip and put the flower carefully inside the box and left Young Lord's room. I knew I wouldn't get the same respond like Gaum. But he just directly went to the bathroom and told me to leave. Maybe he was so disgusted with my compliment that he vomited in the bathroom.

I walked to the workers hut and lay down on my bed. My heartbeat slowed down, but every time I took a breath, a strange pain would sting my heart.

'I thought my heart was already numb from those constant suffering when I was a sex slave. But you make me feeling such thing again. Yet, the pain you inflicted is far more excruciating.'

'Did I disgust you that much? Young Lord...'

'Pardon this slave for having this feeling, but...'

'I am still human, I still have a human's heart.'

'Please treat me as a human being too.'

I glanced at my drawer, there were plenty of gold coins there, but it was definitely far from enough to buy my freedom, I should contact Grand Duke in this situation.

'I will definitely buy my freedom.' I said in my heart.