Disclaimer: I do not, by any means, own Hakushaku to Yousei (Earl and Fairy).

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Chapter 3: Daffodils

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Lydia flopped onto her bed, already in her night gown. She stared at the white ceiling of her apartment, trying to form objects from the designs on it. She found herself just staring at it blankly instead of looking for a star-shaped object or an animal of some sort. "Keith." The image of the man whom she had danced with appeared in her mind, his sapphire blue eyes mysterious and inviting.

She thought about his strange silver hair that had a luster and shine so similar to that of the night moon. She's never seen anyone with silver hair before except in...

She immediately sat up straight, a thought coming to mind. "Is he—" she said to herself but stopped and shook her head. She laid herself down on her bed again and turned to her side. "He can't be a fairy," she said to herself and laughed inwardly, feeling ridiculous for having thought that Keith was a fairy. "If he was a fairy, I'm sure that I would have notice right away."

"Keith. . . A strange fellow."

"Maybe I'll meet him again someday," she said and chuckled, then moving on to her next thought: Raven. She was disappointed that he didn't come. She was also surprised that he listened to Edgar and did not come since she thought that he would protect his master at all costs. But then again, she was proud of Edgar for making Raven stay. She giggled, feeling a bit silly for giggling alone in her room. "Edgar treats Raven not as a servant but as his own brother."

The image of Edgar in his glory wearing his black suit to the ball that night made her blush a bit. "He looked very... handsome, as usual." Her eyebrows furrowed, remembering how he dazzled a lot of other women at the ball as well. "Handsome, but still the same, lecherous, perverted, flirtatious person that he is."

She stopped ranting about the blue knight earl and froze, another thought coming to mind. "No way," she said in disbelief, beginning to panic frantically. Was she jealous? She wasn't jealous. ...Right? She was only pointing out how Edgar was and how he unjustly he treated women, like she usually did. ...Right? The way he complimented that one girl on how wonderful her dress looked and how he complimented another on how nice her hair was arranged meant that he was trying to make them fall into his little trap. She wasn't jealous that he complimented them or anything.

She bobbed her head up and down, trying to reassure herself. "I'm not jealous. I'm not jealous. This is how I always act toward Edgar." She froze again and grimaced. If she always acted or reacted like that because of Edgar, did that mean that she has always been jealous because of Edgar.

"No! No, no, no." She mentally slapped herself and forced herself to sleep to cease all the confusing thoughts from just flowing, one coming after another.

"No," she murmured, half-asleep. She soon dozed off, the word "no" still on her mind.

--

The following week, Lydia received an expected bouquet of flowers. She did her usual routine: place the fresh flowers carefully on a flat surface like the table or her bed, throw out the week-old flowers that she received the previous week, refill the vase with water, place the new flowers in the vase and sniff them briefly, and get the book about flowers to know what the flowers meant.

She opened the red hardcover book and flipped through the pages, which had the names of the flowers sorted alphabetically.

"What kind of flowers are these again?" she asked no one in particular and checked; the flowers always came with tags that said what kind of flowers she was sent. "Ah, daffodils."

She continued on the page containing information about the said flower. "Let's see..." She sat her self comfortably on an armchair, reading the information about daffodils carefully.

Her eyes widened a bit; and the book slipped from her hands, dropping onto the floor. She picked it up, her hands trembling a bit. She reread the meaning of daffodils. Again. And Again. And Again.

"Daffodils," she read out loud, "can mean any one or all of the following: uncertainty, chivalry, respect, or unrequited love."

She half-smiled, feeling flustered. She gently cupped her cheek with her free hand. "Someone possibly loves me?" She was shocked; the feeling of having butterflies in her stomach surprisingly pleasant. She never thought that someone would like her—let alone lover her. It made her happy since she was always thought of as a freak. "I want to get to know this 'Flower person'..."

She glanced at the clock. It was almost nine o'clock. "Holy cow!" She quickly put the book away and got ready for work. Still, she couldn't help but smile. "I might be attractive or appealing to someone after all."

--

"Raven! Good morning!" Lydia called out as she got out of the carriage. She waved her hand at him and smiled, approaching Raven, who was currently watering the plants for some reason. It was unlike him, but something must have happened for him to have taken a sudden interest in gardening.

"Mi- Lydia, good morning," he greeted, keeping himself focused on carefully watering of the plants. "You seem awfully enthusiastic today."

"Ah," she agreed and smiled wider but frowned once remembering that she was late. "Where is Edgar?" she asked rapidly.

"Oh, he's not here. He said that he had some urgent business to attend to and that he's sorry for leaving you alone. He didn't let me go with him again. I wonder why. He'll be back in about three days."

"Oh. Well, you won't believe what kind of flowers I've gotten this week." She grinned widely.

"What kind are they?"

"Daffodils. They were a mix of a bunch of colors. Ah, they looked wonderful, but what they meant was even more amazing!" Her face alone was brimming with excitement and joy. It wasn't that often that she showed her unlady-like side, so this was kind of a surprise for Raven. "Well, I don't want to bother you and interfere with your work, so I'll tell you more about it later. I'll be waiting in the garden!" She ran off before he even got to say anything else.

"She's unusually happy. They're just flowers. Simple flowers..."

--

Raven walked into the garden, heading to their usual meeting place. He spotted the russet-haired girl dancing around by herself and bending down, as if giving the flower in her hand to someone very small. And she most likely was doing that. She smiled and waved her hand, the flower floating on its own and going away.

"A fairy?" he asked, approaching her.

She nodded. "A brownie. He looked adorable."

"I saw it."

She stood up and walked to one of the nearby benches. "About the daffodils... Well, they have four possible meanings: uncertainty, chivalry, respect, and unrequited love." She sighed dreamily: something Raven had never seen her do.

"Is it really that shocking or important?" he asked bluntly, not having a single clue about how Lydia was feeling.

"Well, yeah."

"Is that so..." He looked away, as if something had caught his attention.

"I guess that he's not really that interested in what I have to say," she thought, disappointed.

Raven stood up immediately and got into a fighting stance. "Who's there?!" He stared intently at a nearby flower bush, ready to pounce if it was an enemy of some sort.

Out came a silver-haired man with blue eyes. "Calm down. I'm no enemy."

"Who are you?" Raven growled defensively.

"Keith? Is that you?" Lydia asked, surprised. She rushed to his side to get a better look at him. "It is you! What are you doing here?" she asked and smiled sweetly.

He kneeled down on one knee and kissed Lydia's hand, making her blush; she did blush often and turned red easily, but Raven did not like how he was acting toward her. He felt irritated toward the guy, who just barged in to his and Lydia's private moment. He had felt the way he did toward the guy right now; it was how he felt toward Edgar at times, but his annoyance toward this guy was much, much stronger for some reason.

Nope, he definitely didn't like this guy already and he didn't like how he was treating Lydia. He did not like him at all.

Review please! Flames are highly accepted.

Ja!

-Aimee