Ch20. Scars Beneath the Moonlight

They held each other tightly. Moonlight streamed through the window, illuminating their bodies and even the dark traces of desire they had left upon the sofa.

“How was it...?” She rested her forehead against his and asked softly.

She always asked him at a moment like this. She wanted to know what he had felt through it all.

“If there was anything you did not like, tell me... I will do better next time.” A slightly wicked smile touched her lips, but her voice was sweet and playful.

Her fingers caressed his pulse, feeling its rapid beat gradually begin to slow.

Then she kissed him, as though helping them both steady their breathing, as though soothing the emptiness that came after everything had been released.

He accepted the kiss, allowing it to slowly fill the hollow feeling that had spread through his chest after the climax.

Her lips were soft and warm. They held something that calmed him. It was less like desire than the feeling of being cherished and given a place beside someone—a feeling he had not known since he was fourteen.

He kissed her in return.

None of the urgency from moments ago remained. He simply kept his lips against hers and felt their breathing slowly return to the same rhythm through the touch.

Moonlight passed through the window lattice and fell across their bodies, and across the faint dark marks they had spent the night leaving on the sofa. Those traces rested quietly in the silver light. They were nothing shameful, but a kind of proof far more honest than words.

Jeffery fell silent for a moment.

His fingers moved slowly along her back. The gesture was unconscious, something his body did on its own whenever he was thinking. He watched her with his forehead still resting against hers. Moonlight drew her outline with such clarity that she seemed like something too precious for him to close his eyes upon.

Jeffery lowered his face and looked at her.

He looked for a long time.

At last, his mouth moved slightly. The curve was so faint it could scarcely be called more than a loosening, yet it was the most unguarded expression he had worn all night. It was neither a bitter smile nor a mocking one. Something genuine and warm had quietly escaped the composure he always wore.

“When you ask that...” His voice was still hoarse and had not yet fully recovered. It rolled slowly and deeply from his throat. “What is it you want to hear?”

His fingers moved to the hand that had been stroking his pulse and covered it, letting her fingertips feel the beat beneath them exactly as it was. His pulse had begun to settle, but it was not yet entirely calm. A faint after-rhythm remained, one he had no intention of denying.

He paused before speaking again. His voice fell lower than before, drawing closer to something he would not ordinarily say aloud.

“It was good.” Only three words—simple, direct, and unadorned.

But his eyes never left her. In the moonlight, his amber gaze held something far deeper than those words. He gently enclosed the hand resting over his pulse, as though confirming something for himself. “It was good because it was you.”

Anna’s fingers slipped away from his pulse. She did not speak immediately. As if following the moonlight, her gaze lowered to his chest and to several scars she had noticed before but had never wanted to ask about.

Now, it felt as though she could.

Her fingertip gently touched the oldest and palest scar near his collarbone, tracing its short curve. There was no intention to entice him in the touch. It was a soft question, colored only by curiosity.

“This one,” she said quietly, raising her eyes to his. “When did you get it?”

She did not ask what had happened or whether it had hurt. She asked only when.

As though she understood that a wound like this did not need pity, only someone willing to listen.

Jeffery lowered his gaze to her fingertip once.

Only once.

Then he returned his eyes to her face and looked into the eyes raised toward him.

She had not asked what happened or whether it hurt.

She had asked only when. The way she framed the question left him silent for a while. Within that silence was a faint easing he had not expected from himself.

She knew how to ask him.

He did not answer immediately. He let her finger remain on the old scar. The skin there was smoother and thinner than the flesh around it, the texture left after a wound had fully healed. It had faded white, as though it belonged to a distant past.

“Fourteen,” he said. His voice was flat, without inflection, as though recounting something that had happened far away from him. “Not long before the great fire.”

He paused.

Moonlight fell quietly over them. He did not look away, but his eyes were fixed somewhere she could not see—on a memory he had left untouched for many years and rarely brought out.

“I fought with some people in the village,” he continued, his voice still even. “One of them drew a blade, and I did not avoid it in time.” A brief pause. “My mother stitched it closed.”

The final words were very light, almost an afterthought. Yet they carried a weight unlike anything else in the story.

When he said “my mother,” something sank slightly in his gaze, like a stone falling into deep water. It made no ripples, only disappeared into the place where it had settled long ago, the place he had already learned to live beside.

He said nothing more of the fire, nor of what had happened after he was fourteen. He merely placed those few words in the moonlight beside her fingertip.

Then he raised a hand and gently covered hers where it rested on the scar. Not to move it away. He simply laid his hand over hers and felt the warmth of her palm pass through his own and seep into the place beneath the scar.

He looked down at her. His voice was lighter now, carrying something he would never ordinarily let another person see. “You are the first person who has asked.”

There was neither complaint nor sentimentality in it. It was simply a fact.

A fact even he had not recognized until he spoke it aloud.

Before her, no one had ever come that close. No one had known how to ask him in this way.

Hearing his answer and noticing the way his gaze sank when he spoke of his mother, she did not ask any further questions.

She wanted to know. Even so, this was not the moment to press him.

She would let him speak when he was ready.

“You fought with them?” Surprise crossed her eyes, and then she resumed stroking the scar. “You really were a hot-tempered boy.” She smiled as she said it, though her voice did not sound particularly surprised.

She thought for a moment. It would be better to ask this first. “Why did you fight?”

Jeffery heard her call him hot-tempered, and his mouth moved slightly.

It was not a broad smile, only the faintest relaxation hidden within restraint.

Her description settled over him. He neither denied it nor answered, simply left the judgment resting quietly in the moonlight.

“Because of my mother,” he said. His voice was as even as deep water, without a ripple. “She was a witch. But that was not what the townspeople called her.”

He paused, allowing that sentence to settle.

“They called her a hag.” As he said it, his chin drew in slightly. The movement lasted only an instant and was almost impossible to notice, as though an old anger had been forced down there for years. Its heat was gone, but the mark remained. “That day, a man stopped her in the street. He claimed her herbs had killed his livestock and demanded compensation. He told her to kneel and apologize.”

His gaze lowered to her fingertip and its movement over the scar. As though the touch encouraged him, he continued. “I shoved him away. He was almost twenty years older than I was, and he had a blade in his hand.”

His tone remained calm, as though describing the obvious, as though anyone present would have done the same.

But through the way he told it, she could see the fourteen-year-old boy who had stood in front of his mother and refused to retreat even one step.

He raised his eyes to her. Something spoke faintly within his voice. “Afterward, while she stitched the wound, my mother scolded me the entire time. She told me not to be reckless, and that next time I should run first.”

He was silent for an instant, then added, “But she stitched it very carefully.”

The scene appeared so clearly before Anna that her chest ached—both for what his mother had endured, and for the boy who had defended her so fiercely at only fourteen. Surely it had not been the first time.

“Your mother must have been proud and heartsick in equal measure.” As she spoke, she rested her cheek against his scar and remained there quietly. “She was proud that you were such a loving son. But she must also have suffered because someone so young had been forced to endure such a thing for her.”

She fell silent for a moment before saying gently, “Your mother loved you very much.”

Jeffery did not answer immediately.

The instant her cheek touched the scar, his breath quietly stopped.

Only for a moment—so briefly that perhaps even he did not notice.

Even so, he felt the warmth of her cheek pass through the old scar and into him. There was no pity in her touch. It was something quieter, like someone placing a hand over a wound from long ago, not trying to heal it, but simply remaining beside it.

“Your mother loved you very much.”

The words entered his ears and fell into a place he had left untouched for twelve years, a place he rarely opened.

His arm tightened slightly, drawing her closer against his chest. There had been no warning in the movement. The response rose from deep inside him before he could stop it. He lowered his head and pressed his lips softly to her hair. He remained silent for a long time—long enough for the moonlight to shift a little farther across them.

Then he spoke. His voice was very quiet, scarcely more than breath, and carried a texture he would never ordinarily allow anyone to touch. “I know.”

A brief pause.

“Whenever my mother scolded me, her eyes were red.” As he spoke, his gaze turned toward somewhere far away—a place Anna could not see, but to which he sometimes returned.

It was not sorrow. It was what remained after living beside sorrow for a long time, settled like a stone at the bottom of a river. The water still flowed, and the stone was still there, but it no longer cut him.

His thumb gently stroked the nape of her neck. The movement was small and nearly unconscious, as though using that touch to confirm she was still here, to confirm the place they occupied now was real.

“She told me to run first next time,” he repeated. Something very fine curved faintly through his voice. “She knew I would not.”

She raised her face, her lips softening at an angle he already knew.

With a gentle hand, she caressed his cheek and continued to look at him, as though trying to engrave the person he was firmly into her heart.

“Then did your mother know about your dream?” she asked with curiosity.

Jeffery felt her palm against his cheek. He did not avoid it, simply allowed it to remain there. He let her look at him, quietly and intently, as though she wanted to memorize him.

He was not accustomed to being regarded this way, with a gaze so pure and free of calculation. But he allowed it from her.

He always had.

Something shifted slightly in his eyes, as if her question had opened a corner of memory he rarely touched. He was silent for a while, watching the curiosity and tenderness in her face as she waited for him to speak.

“She knew,” he said evenly. “She was a witch.”

He paused, as though deciding in what order the memory should be laid out.

“The first time I dreamed of you was two months before my mother died,” he continued. “I did not tell her then. I thought it was only a dream and that it would eventually disappear.”

His gaze sank slightly.

“But it did not. It was always you. Each time I dreamed, you became a little clearer.” He continued, “Eventually, my mother noticed on her own. The way she looked at me began to change. One morning, she stopped me and placed her hand on my forehead. She remained silent for a long time.”

His thumb pressed gently against the back of her hand, as though unconsciously confirming something.

“She said, ‘You will find that person.’” After speaking the words, he fell silent for a while. In his amber eyes, silvered by moonlight, there was something Anna rarely saw within him.

It was not grief. It was quieter than grief, something almost like gratitude. “She did not tell me who that person was or where she could be found. She left me only those words.”

He lowered his head and gently rested his forehead against hers. His voice fell with it. “That is why I searched for seven years.”

When his forehead touched hers, Anna felt as though her heart might melt. In eighteen years of life, she had never known anything like it.

So this was what it meant to love someone.

She quietly savored the moment, then raised her eyes to his. “Your mother... how did she...?”

Die.

She did not know whether she should say the word aloud. Even so, she trusted that he would understand what she wanted to ask.

“If you do not want to speak of it, you do not have to.” Her hand gently caressed his cheek again, as though trying to convey the words through touch, to tell him that whether he spoke or remained silent, she would still be here.

Jeffery did not answer immediately.

Her words and the warmth of her palm sank together through the skin of his cheek and into the place he rarely allowed anyone to approach.

He closed his eyes once.

It was not a refusal, but a way of quieting himself. Within that brief darkness, he seemed to take the memory gently from where he had kept it, place it before him, and look at it long enough to be certain he could speak.

Then he opened his eyes.

“A fire,” he said. His voice was flat, so controlled that what lay beneath it was almost impossible to hear. “A forest fire. It was autumn, when I was fourteen.”

He paused, letting the words settle.

“I was not at home,” he continued. “I had gone to the town market to collect herbs my mother had ordered. It was nearly two hours away on foot.” His gaze had gone far away, to a place she could not see. “By the time I returned, smoke covered half the sky, and the entire forest was orange.”

His chin drew in slightly.

“I ran back. But the fire had already—” He did not finish. The sentence broke off there.

After several seconds of silence, he spoke again. His voice was lower and heavier now, carrying something that had taken twelve years to compress into the shape it held today. “Everyone said it was lightning. An accident.”

He did not say whether he believed them. He simply placed the words there and left them standing on their own.

His hand covered hers where it caressed his cheek, his palm enclosing the back of her hand and feeling its warmth, feeling that she was still there. Then he lowered his head and gently kissed her forehead. There was no desire in the kiss. It was simply a way of keeping her beside him when he could not put the need into words.

“My father was in the fire too,” he said quietly. “When they died, I was not there.”

He had never told anyone the whole truth before.

He said nothing more. He only rested his forehead against her hair and let her warmth touch him, allowing the night and the moonlight together to quietly enfold the fourteen-year-old boy who had run home and found nothing but orange flames.

His father and mother had both vanished in that great fire.

In less time than it took for a day to end, he had lost everything at once.

Her chest ached.

But saying it ached was nowhere near enough. The instant Anna felt the weight and warmth of him above her, she tightened both arms around him with more strength than she had shown at any time in the past few days.

She said nothing and quietly wept against his chest. It was not pity.

His pain had become painful to her as well.

Her fingertips gently stroked his back, telling him she was here.

Jeffery felt her arms tighten.

It was not great strength, but it was an embrace unlike any she had given him over the past several days.

She was not seeking support or affection. It was something deeper—her way of drawing him against her chest, of trying to say with her arms what she could not put into words.

He said nothing.

Then he noticed the faint trembling of her shoulders and the way her breathing against his chest had changed. It was damp, light, and stifled, as though she believed he would not notice.

He noticed.

He lowered his head and rested his chin gently against her hair. He did not ask what was wrong or tell her not to cry.

He said nothing. He only tightened his arms slowly around her, holding her more deeply and more securely. At last, he became a place where someone could lean, quietly receiving the tears she shed for him.

Her fingers continued to stroke his back.

Beneath that touch, something in his chest began to loosen, quietly and little by little.

It was not his sorrow that loosened, but the weight he had carried for twelve years and never allowed anyone to touch. For the first time, beneath her fingertips, someone shared a small part of it with him.

However slight the change, he understood that her presence had transformed that weight into something else.

It had not become lighter.

He was simply no longer the only person who knew its weight.

Moonlight rested quietly over them. Jeffery closed his eyes and kept his lips gently against her hair. Only after a very long time did he speak. His faint, hoarse voice seemed to rise from somewhere deep within him.

“Anna.” He called her name. No other words followed.

But his arms tightened once more, as though her name alone contained everything he wanted to say.

Hearing Jeffery’s voice, Anna quietly wiped away her tears.

She lifted her face with a gentle smile on her lips. “Mm? What is it?”

Jeffery had seen everything.

The way she secretly wiped her tears. The redness still at the corners of her eyes when she looked up. The gentle smile she used to conceal it.

He saw all of it, yet pretended not to notice. He simply let each detail fall quietly into his heart and placed it somewhere he would remember forever.

He looked at her for a long time—long enough for the moonlight to shift once more.

He did not answer immediately.

The hand at her back rose, and the pad of his finger gently wiped away the trace of moisture at the corner of her eye. The movement was slow and tender, like touching something he did not want to break.

He did not ask whether she had been crying or tell her not to grieve for him. He simply caught the dampness on his fingertip and then withdrew his hand.

At last he said, “It is nothing.”

His voice was even, carrying its usual composure. But in his gaze was something that remained openly visible beneath the moonlight—something he could not put into words, though his seven years of wandering and every sentence they had exchanged tonight had already spoken it in full.

He rested his forehead against hers once more. From the closest place to her, his amber eyes watched her quietly.

“I only wanted to say your name.”