Seira was startled when Theodore walked up to her and held both her shoulders. Their eyes met, settling on each other with a gaze that was quite different from usual. Theodore who met Seira for the first time looked at her with a gaze as if he had met her before.
"Are you her? Are you the girl I met under the wysteria flower tree?" he asked while continuing to stare into her eyes.
Ordinary would search for the truth in her eyes, searching if it was true that she was the same girl he had met there when he was a child.
For a moment Seira remained silent, as the man continued to ask the same question. She slowly removed Theodore's hand from her shoulder and looked back at him.
"I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not the girl you're referring to. I never even met you when I was a child because my home was so far away from where you live, Your Grace," she replied.
"But you look so much like her! You look a lot like the girl I met under the wysteria tree. Now I can clearly remember who you are."
He said that at that time the girl was wearing a pink dress, with a very pretty hair ornament. Plus he remembered the look in Seira's eyes, which was so innocent.
"Are you sure you don't remember it? You should remember that day! We met under that tree and we exchanged promises that we would meet again there. But you never came and I was there waiting for you!"
Seira kept trying to say that she didn't remember that and didn't understand what Theodore meant. She said that she really wasn't the girl Theodore was looking for.
"Please stop, Your Grace. You have the wrong person. I'm just an ordinary country girl born into a peasant family. I am not that girl," she replied.
Hearing that, Theodore finally gave up on his words and accepted the fact that Seira was indeed not the girl he met in the past. Even so he did hope to meet that girl again.
"I see, I'm sorry. I pushed you too hard to say that you were her. Even though this is our first meeting but I made a bad impression on you," Theodore apologized to her.
She shook her head. "It's okay, it's a normal thing when you feel that you recognize someone so much. You would want that person to remember you too but the truth is that I'm not her," Seira replied calmly while slightly returning his smile.
Theodore then sat on the dining table chair while determining his head. While Seira immediately put some food on the table while waiting for the knights to arrive.
"I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I know you must be dying to see her again. Is that right?" asked Seira.
He nodded his head. "Yes, I really wanted to see her again after all this time. I was 14 years old and I met her under that tree when it was raining. I couldn't go home wet. So I chose to stay under the tree until the rain stopped. And that's where I met her."
He said they were good friends and waited until the rain stopped.
"We were both scared of the thunderous sound. So she hugged me and I hugged her like two scared kids. It's quite embarrassing when i think about it. Because I guess I was much older than her but I was also afraid of thunder," he says with a chuckle.
But he fondly remembers that when they were about to part, they promised each other that they would meet again under that tree.
"I always came there and sat waiting for her. But she never came back to see me. Even until I was 16 years old, I still foolishly sat waiting for her," he continued the story.
Seira turned to him, and noticed the look in Theodore's eyes that looked very sad but there was also pain there. She understood that, it must be because of a promise that was never kept.
"I think there must be a reason behind why that girl didn't come there," she said.
"You think so?"
"Yes, there must be a reason for that. Everything that happens must have a reason why it happened. I'm sure that girl also really wanted to see you again. But she couldn't go see you," Seira replied.
In her opinion, there was no way that the girl wouldn't want to see her again.
"You seem like someone who is very kind to your friends, even to me who is a servant. I'm sure that girl must be very happy to have a friend like you."
He smiled when he heard that. "Thank you, I somehow feel better when I hear that from you."
Seira had asked the name of the girl, but Theodore had forgotten her name because they met almost 9 to 10 years ago.
"I don't really remember her name, but I remember her name starts with the letter S. Samantha? Selena? Sofia? Hmn... Sera-"
Not finished with his words, the knights finally came into the kitchen and saw Theodore who was chatting with Seira.
"Sorry to keep you waiting, we have some things to discuss beforehand," said Harvey who walked over to his chair and sat down.
"No problem, Seira is here with me to chat while we wait for you to arrive. The lunch is ready and it looks really good," Theodore replied with a smile.
"The cooking is very good indeed! You should try it, Your Grace!" said Albert to which Theodore nodded his head.
They then began to eat their lunch, and Theodore admitted that Seira's cooking was very good. He even joked that he wanted to make Seira his maid. But Harvey immediately rejected it, because he didn't want to replace her wirh other servants and only wanted Seira to be a servant in their mansion.
"It's unusual for you to keep a woman like that. Did Seira catch your eye, Lord Harvey?" asked Theodore with a hint of humor.
"Don't make it up, Your Grace. I have no interest in her whatsoever," he replied.
"I just don't want to see anyone else in this mansion. Seira does a good job and there's no way I'm wasting a servant like her to do this job," the man continued.
He chuckled. "But isn't Seira very beautiful? And I admit that she has her own beauty. I'm sure Leonard and Albert would agree with me."
"Thank you, Your Grace," Seira said as she bowed slightly before him.
Finished with lunch and chatting for a while, the Duke finally chose to go home as he had some things to do.
"I have to go then, thank you for lunch and I'm very pleased to have made your acquaintance, Seira," Theodore said as Seira escorted him to the front door.
"No problem, Lord Leonard invited you to have lunch with them after all. I am pleased to make your acquaintance as well."
He then mounted his horse and left the knight's mansion.
From the front door, Seira watched as Theodore slowly moved away until he was no longer visible.
Slowly her eyes dropped, and she closed her eyes as she sighed.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I couldn't fulfill my promise that day."