Simon pov:
"How much longer is this going to take?" whined Wille, resting his head on the table for a moment before I nudged him. "I'm wondering the same thing. Still, please sit properly." I said with a smile and wrote down the solution to the third task on my sheet. Wille straightened up and squinted slightly at my paper.
"What do..."
"Whoever is interrupting, please stop." the teacher said, looking at Wille and then around the class. Wilhelm nodded unobtrusively and smirked. He turned his paper to the white page and wrote something, then slid it over to me. I pushed it right back because I knew what was on it.
I took my arm back so that Wille could read my solutions. He laughed softly and quickly scribbled down the solutions before we were dismissed from class. "Finally." I heard Wille say before he took my hand and pulled me behind him until we stepped into the slightly fresh yet warm summer air.
I closed my eyes for a moment and stopped to enjoy the moment, feeling the sun in my face and the warm and still cold wind blow into my face. When I opened my eyes again, I saw Wille looking at me with a slightly tilted head and a slight grin on his lips, as if I were the center of the universe.
He reached for my hand again. "Shall we?" he asked. I nodded and we walked the rest of the way to Forest Ridge, trying to get in as much sun as possible.
The days before it was always a bit grayish in the sky but still warm. It was almost unnerving.
When Wille closed the door behind him, he put his school supplies on the desk and snatched mine out of my hand aswell. "They'll stay here until we come back Sunday." he said, grabbing his gym bag that I had seen the day before. "Are you, or apparently we, up to something I should know about?" I asked laughing as we left the building again. "Yep. You'll see the rest soon enough."
In front of Forest Ridge there was a car that I knew all too well by now. "Hello Malin." Wille said smiling after he threw his bag into the trunk and we sat together in the back seat. "Crown prince." said Malin happily. The good weather probably has a magical effect.
The sun continued to shine through the car window as we drove home to Wille. It still felt strange to say that. Wille's home. It was a castle after all.
"Does the castle feel like home to you?" I asked after my thoughts without thinking. "Sorry, it was a stupid question," I said, trying to move away from Wille.
"Not a stupid question," he said, pulling me closer to him than before "justified sounds better. It's my home, sort of. Sometimes at least. But since Erik isn't here anymore, it hardly feels that way most of the time. Hillerska and your house are more home by now." He laughed nervously and I squeezed his hand lightly.
We looked deeply into each other's eyes for a moment. A smile formed on Wille's lips and I smiled along with him.
"Crown Prince," Malin interrupted the moment, "We are here."
Wille jumped out of the car and pulled me after him. I almost fell down, but like a prince (duh) he caught me. "Don't fall down. I have plans for and with you." he said and I blushed a little. He gave me a quick kiss on the forehead before pulling me towards the castle.
He led me through corridors, greeting people by name that I had never seen in my life before. And I had been to the castle many times. At one point, Wille pulled me into the family's small private kitchen. "Have you been here before? I don't remember at all." Wille questioned and I nodded slightly. He walked around the room and gathered a few things together but I didn't really pay attention.
Whenever I was in the castle, I liked to look at the pictures. Whether it was artwork on the wall, or the private ones in the smaller private rooms. Especially when I found children's photos of little Wilhelm with or without Erik. He looked so happy in them, even if you could see the facade crumbling in some of them.
"Come on!" called Wille, who was already halfway out the door. I had been too distracted not to notice that Wille had finished whatever he had been doing for the last few minutes.
I left the kitchen with him and we went to the back exit of the castle that led to the castle park. Like Hillerska, stairs led down to the meadows and paths.
"Have you ever played with Erik here?" I asked as we slowed our pace again. The meadows were so big I just couldn't believe they didn't use to play in them. I put one hand in my pants pocket and latching the other to Wille's hand.
"We could sometimes play Frisbee in the summer and in the winter we built snowmen. In the fall, the gardeners always made big piles of leaves for us to throw ourselves into, and in the spring we always took walks with Mom and Dad. But they had never found this." Wille finished his answer and only now I realized that we had arrived at the other end of the "garden".
We were standing in front of a hedge with a path leading to the right and left. "This way." Wille ordered and went to the right. I followed him and we walked along the way. The trees gave us shade, and through the treetops a little sun shone down on us.
I admired the landscape but Wille suddenly stopped. "Are you all right?" I asked. "Yes. Here." Wille answered and pushed away a few branches from the weeping willow we were standing by and what I saw was (besides Wille himself) the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
A small extra garden and when I say small I mean that (compared to the rest of the garden) came in sight. A small stream meandered through the meadow floor and flowed down the slope. Because if you looked straight out, you saw a pond to which the stream took its course.
In the middle of the garden stood a pavilion that had a glass roof. Around the framework of just this, vine tendrils twined. It looked beautiful. And we are not talking about all the red roses and other wonderful flowers around us just yet.
"Wow." I said, taking a few steps forward and feeling Wille's nervous gaze burn into the back of my neck. "What's that?" I asked excitedly and now Wille just took the steps that were missing to me.
"This secret garden Erik had shown me. I don't know if my parents or the staff know about this, but at least they are never here. There is a gardener who takes care of this small part," said Wille and put the small basket he had with him in the pavilion.
I also came closer to the small enclosure now and in it there was a small table with two chairs.
"Why did you bring me here?" I asked Wille and he smiled. "I wanted you to know one of the only places on this compound when you need your peace. When we need our peace." he almost whispered the last part.
The butterflies that had been just raging in my stomach until just now, were now flying around Wille and me. "It's beautiful. Thank you for showing it to me." I said, putting my hands on his neck and kissing Wille. It felt like a fairy tale. A prince and me in a almost magical garden.
Wille pov:
When I broke away from Simon, I saw a broad grin on his lips. "Do you like it?" I asked nervously. The place meant a lot to me. It was one of the last things I had personally received from Erik.
"It's wonderful, as I said. How long have you wanted to show me this place?" he said after a short pasue with a knowing look on his face. I laughed out loud. "A long time. A very long time. Probably since our second kiss. I wanted a place where we could just be you and me without anyone disturbing us." I said and I felt a tear roll down my cheek.
Thinking back to that time made me happy but also absolutely sad. It was actually painful. On so many levels.
"Oh Wille." said Simon, wiping away the tear with his thumb. I laughed to show him that all was well and he believed me, settling down on one of the chairs next to us.
"Hungry?" I asked, turning to my bag. "Always," Simme replied with a smile and continued to look around the area. I pulled a stack of Uno cards out of my bag and some cookies.
When Simon saw the cards, he clicked his fingers. "You lose there, Crown Prince." he said, confident of victory. "I don't think so, dearest." I replied to his fight announcement and spread the cards on the table.
We played a few rounds until it was six to two for Simon. "I was right." he said, putting his hands to the back of his head. "Shut up." I said laughing and left the pavilion. I lay down on the grass and after a while Simon sat down next to me.
I felt something being put on my head and when I opened my eyes, which were closed until now because of the sun, I saw Simon placing something on my head. "What are you doing?" I asked and Simon smiled. "A crown suits you. Whether you like it or not." he said.
I pulled out my phone and opened the camera. On my head was a wreath, or as Simon called it, a crown of daisies. "Come closer." I said, holding the phone higher. Simon pressed a kiss to my cheek while I took a selfie of us.
I posted it on Insta with the caption:
Garden💜
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I think I've fallen in love this time, I blinked and suddendly I had a Valentine - Laufey