Well… Lucen should have seen it coming. Truly. He should have mentally prepared himself for the worst before stepping into Eiran's room, but nothing — absolutely nothing — could have prepared him for what greeted him the moment he crossed the threshold. The room's overwhelming green palette hit him first, a bright, almost aggressive shade that enveloped the walls, the curtains, and even the bed sheets. It wasn't a gentle green or a soothing green; it was the kind of green that slapped you across the face and declared itself the dominant color of the universe. But even that wasn't the real shock. No, the true surprise came from the posters, the pictures, the magazines, the framed portraits, and the glossy cutouts pinned above the bed — every single one of them featuring Eiran's face. Intentional or not, the boy's room looked like a shrine dedicated to The Seventh Prince Eiran, as though the entire village had adored him so much that they collectively decided to immortalize him in print.
It should have been creepy. It should have made Lucen back out of the room slowly. But instead, Lucen found himself chuckling — a soft, helpless sound he couldn't suppress. Because the more he got to know Eiran, the more this made sense. The more he understood him. And the more he wanted to stay. There was something disarming about the boy, something that made even the strangest things feel oddly endearing.
Eiran turned around just in time to catch Lucen's expression, and his eyes widened in horror. "I am so sorry about…" He paused, scanning the room as if seeing it for the first time. "…all this." He let out an awkward, breathy laugh, rubbing the back of his neck like someone caught doing something embarrassing.
"Oh, you don't have to apologize," Lucen said, waving it off as he stepped further inside. "It is your room. You can decorate it however you see fit."
Eiran exhaled in visible relief, shoulders dropping. "That is great to hear. For a moment, I thought I weirded you out."
"Come on…" Lucen huffed, crossing his arms. "You make it sound like you were trying to impress me."
Eiran froze. Then chuckled nervously. "What if I was…?"
Lucen's head snapped toward him, eyes caught between narrowing in suspicion and widening in disbelief. "You were?"
"Of course," Eiran said, cheeks warming. "I mean… in class, you looked indifferent and cold. And you were with Princess Nyreal, so I thought you were reserved and off limits. I was a bit on edge…"
"On edge?" Lucen repeated, surprised. "Sorry if I came off that way. I just… did not fit in. So I did not want to be associated with anyone. And I had to focus on meeting all the princess's demands."
Eiran's shoulders relaxed even more. "Is that so? Sorry for jumping to conclusions."
"Come on now," Lucen said with a small laugh. "We both cannot be apologizing this much."
"I guess not." Eiran laughed softly, the tension melting from his face. Then his eyes widened. "Oh! Your fever."
Lucen blinked. "My what?"
"Here, rest on the bed," Eiran said, already ushering him toward it with gentle but firm hands. "I will get you some dragon-shell juice. It helps with fever."
He rushed toward the small kitchenette before Lucen could protest.
Lucen stared after him, baffled. "Just to be clear… You said dragon-shell juice, right?"
"Yes," Eiran called back. "Is there a problem?"
"They are hard to find in Solara," Lucen said, sitting up straighter. "The ones found are retrieved by palace guards. How can you have one?"
Eiran returned with a glass cup and an egg-shaped fruit cradled in his palms. The fruit was surprisingly large, its velvet skin layered with delicate scales that glimmered like embers beneath the surface. It seemed almost alive, pulsing with trapped sweetness, as though one squeeze would unleash a flood of golden juice. People called it a dragon-shell egg, a name born from its uncanny resemblance to the eggs in old Solaran legends — the kind dragons were said to sleep upon. Lucen's eyes widened.
"My word… it really is a dragon-shell fruit. But how do you have one?"
"Every healer has one," Eiran explained, setting the fruit down with care. "It is a requirement to bring some before entering the Academy."
"And you are using yours on me?" Lucen asked, genuinely confused.
Eiran narrowed his eyes, then nodded firmly. "Of course. You need it."
"But I am fine, really," Lucen insisted, though even he didn't sound convinced.
"So you doubt the words of a healer?" Eiran asked, raising a brow in mock offense.
"Oh, no. I would never," Lucen said dramatically, lifting his hands in surrender. He didn't want to drag this on — not when Eiran looked so determined.
"Thank you," Eiran said with a knowing little bow before beginning the concoction.
Lucen watched him work, mesmerized by the gentle precision of his movements — the way his fingers handled the fruit, the way he hummed under his breath, the way he moved with a healer's natural grace.
There was a reason the dragon-shell fruit was practically extinct. Once, its trees had colored Solara's fields alongside her many flowers, adding an enchanting glow to the kingdom's beauty. Their branches shimmered like living lanterns at dusk, and their leaves chimed softly in the wind, creating a sound that old poets claimed was the kingdom breathing. But when Solarans discovered the fruit's potent healing properties, they harvested it relentlessly, squeezing every drop of magic from its flesh until the groves thinned and the trees nearly vanished. Now, the dragon-shell tree grows only in the outskirts of the kingdom — guarded, rare, precious — a relic of a more enchanted Solara.
And Eiran was using one… on him.
Lucen didn't know whether to feel honored, overwhelmed, or terrified.
Maybe all three.
His chest felt tight in that strange way it always did when someone showed him kindness he didn't think he deserved, and that only happened with his mother on rare occasions.
"Wait…" Lucen said, the realization finally catching up to him. "The dragon-shell trees are guarded, are they not?"
"Mm." Eiran nodded without looking up, his hands moving with steady, practiced grace as he continued preparing the fruit. "That is why the palace guards are the only ones allowed to retrieve them."
Lucen blinked slowly. "I see…"
He didn't see. Not really. All he saw was the guilt settling in his stomach — guilt that Eiran had to waste something so rare, so precious, on his stupid fever. Something that should have been saved for someone important. Someone worthy.
"I am not wasting it."
Lucen looked up, startled, only to find Eiran pouting at him — an expression so unexpectedly adorable that Lucen nearly forgot how to breathe.
"Did you-"
"No, I did not read your mind," Eiran cut in sharply, though his tone held more exasperated fondness than irritation. "Healers do not read minds. We read emotions and body motions. So no, I did not read your mind. Just… close to that."
"Oh… Sorry. My bad…" Lucen muttered, rubbing the back of his neck.
"I know," Eiran said, his smile returning, soft and warm, before he turned back to the task at hand.
Lucen watched as Eiran scraped a small amount of the fruit's scales, each one catching the light like a sliver of emerald fire. He ground them into powder with deliberate slowness, as though rushing would offend the fruit itself. Then, with careful precision, he dosed the shimmering powder into a half-filled cup of dragon-shell juice. The liquid glowed faintly, swirling with hues of gold and green as he mixed it.
Eiran inhaled deeply, centering himself, and then began to recite an incantation — low, melodic, and ancient. The kind of words that felt older than the Academy, older than Solara, older than the kingdoms themselves.
"Solara's breath, awaken light,
Scale to spirit, mend the blight.
By root and fruit, by shell and flame,
Restore the balance, heal the frame."
The juice shimmered brighter with each line, responding to his voice like a living thing. The air around them warmed, carrying a faint scent of sweet earth and distant rain — the scent of the dragon-shell groves that no longer existed.
Eiran's voice softened as he finished the final verse, almost a whisper:
"By the healer's vow, let harm release."
The glow faded into a gentle pulse, settling into a steady, soothing warmth.
Lucen stared, wide-eyed, unable to hide his awe. He had seen magic before — violent magic, destructive magic, Talent-driven magic — but this was different. This was soft. This was intimate. This was… beautiful.
Lucen continued to replay the breathtaking scene in his mind — the glow of the fruit, the soft incantation, the way Eiran's voice seemed to coax warmth out of the air itself. His thoughts were still tangled in the shimmer of the dragon shell scales and the warmth that had pulsed through the room when the incantation ended.
It was so intense that he didn't even notice Eiran standing right in front of him with the finished medicine. It was only when he lifted his gaze and found Eiran's face inches from his own that he jerked back so violently he nearly toppled off the bed. His heart thudded in his chest, a mix of embarrassment and the lingering warmth of the magic still humming through him.
"What- You have to stop doing that," Lucen muttered, trying to regain whatever dignity he had left.
"Doing what?" Eiran laughed, his eyes bright with innocent mischief.
Lucen rolled his eyes and shook his head. "Forget it."
"Here," Eiran said, offering him the cup with both hands. "Drink it in one gulp."
Lucen accepted the warm liquid, nodding obediently as he braced himself for something foul, something sharp, something that would burn his throat and make him regret every life choice that led him here. He held his breath and swallowed the entire concoction in one go, Eiran watching him with his arms crossed and a smirk tugging at his lips like he already knew what was coming. But the moment the liquid touched Lucen's tongue, he froze. It didn't taste medicinal. It didn't taste herbal. It didn't taste like anything he had prepared himself for. Instead, it tasted… divine. The liquid was thick but smooth, sliding down his throat like warm honey. It carried a soft sweetness at first — gentle, floral, almost like the scent of Solara's dawn gardens — followed by a deeper, richer note that reminded him of sun-ripened fruit and something faintly spicy, like warmth blooming in his chest. There was a cool aftertaste too, a refreshing whisper that lingered on his tongue, leaving him feeling oddly light, almost floaty, as though the concoction had reached into his bones and loosened something tight inside him.
Lucen blinked, confused. "What happened? Why is it not sour or bitter?"
Eiran raised a brow. "Did I say that it was sour?"
"No… but you said to drink it in one gulp…" Lucen muttered, still lost.
Eiran chuckled. "That does not mean bitter."
Lucen stared at him, then at the empty cup, then back at him again — completely unsure what to do with himself. The warmth from the concoction was already spreading through his limbs, softening the tension in his shoulders, easing the ache behind his eyes. It felt like someone had poured sunlight into his veins, and the sensation made him sit a little straighter, breathe a little easier, and feel a little too aware of the boy standing in front of him.
All Lucen could do was sit on the bed awkwardly, unsure whether to thank Eiran, apologize again, or simply melt into the mattress and pretend none of this was happening. Eiran watched him for a moment, his expression softening into something gentle — something Lucen didn't know how to name — and the room itself seemed to grow warmer, quieter, almost too safe. Too soft. Too dangerous
"You are not used to someone being kind to you, are you?" Eiran asked, observing Lucen's expression sternly.
Lucen was gone the moment the last word left Eiran's lips. Kindness… he had never truly known it, not in the way people described it in stories or whispered about in passing. His first real taste of it had only come months ago, when his mother finally began to notice him — a fragile, hesitant warmth that arrived far too late to undo the years of damage. His brothers' treatment had shaped him long before that; their cruelty had carved deep grooves into his childhood, grooves that made him cry himself to sleep when he was very little, tears that eventually dried only because he learned not to expect anything better. Over time, his pain hardened into a shield, and that shield became a wall — high, thick, and unyielding — built to keep everyone out, not that anyone had ever tried to enter anyway. He had grown used to being unseen, unheard, unchosen, and the world had taught him to accept that as normal.
Lucen looked back up at Eiran, the boy who had barged into his life without warning, without permission, and somehow resurfaced a smile he thought had died years ago. Eiran had slipped past his defenses with a gentleness Lucen didn't know how to fight, didn't know how to reject, and wasn't sure he wanted to. Even though his fears still pressed deep into his bones — the fear of being hurt, of being abandoned again, of being foolish enough to hope — he found himself willing, cautiously and hesitantly, to take the risk and loosen his grip on the walls he'd held for so long. Maybe he would regret it. Maybe he wouldn't. But for the first time, the possibility didn't terrify him as much as it used to. He might have been disowned by his brothers, cast aside like an afterthought, but maybe… just maybe… a kind stranger was the answer to the childhood wish he had buried: the wish for closure, for connection, for someone who chose him without being forced. And as Eiran stood there, warm and patient and impossibly sincere, Lucen felt something shift — small, fragile, but real — like the first crack in a wall that had stood far too long.
He didn't know what tomorrow would bring, or whether this fragile warmth would last, but for now… for this moment… the wall around his heart loosened just enough to let a little light in.