Chapter 8: Why He Quit Being King
Quartz wanted to see how the hot spring facilities were progressing, so he headed to the construction site. The exterior frame of the facility was nearly finished; all that remained was to complete the interior.
“Wow, incredible. It looks almost done, I see,” Quartz commented.
“Yes. The entertainment facility is almost finished as well,” Ruri explained. “All that’s left is staff training, and that’s also coming along.”
“You said you’d hired kids from the slums?”
“That’s right. But all of them are ambitious, hard-working employees.”
They all were diligently studying, learning how to serve customers so they could function in front of potential patrons without fear. Perhaps that was thanks to the money-hungry Amarna, who put education before work.
“It seems you’re working hard on a lot of fronts, Ruri, even though this is actually something the nation itself should be tackling.”
“Well, I only put in the suggestion. Euclase-san did most of the legwork.” In fact, the nation had overseen and carried out much of the work since the chancellor was the one pulling the strings.
“Still, the hot spring isn’t the only thing that needs your care. You need to give Jade some of that care as well, or else he’ll keep sulking.”
“Jade-sama?” Ruri asked. “Why is that?”
“He said he couldn’t spend time with you because you’re going out every day,” Quartz said with a chuckle, even though he’d recently been teasing Jade about his predicament.
“I mean, It’s not that I’ve been neglecting him. Plus, Jade seems to be busy preparing for the tournament.”
Ruri had been thinking about how little time she’d spent with Jade lately, but when she’d seen how busy he was, she’d figured it was best to limit her visits and not disturb him. Ruri had been missing him, but if he felt the same, it was probably a good idea to make some more time for him.
“Speaking of the tournament,” Ruri started, “will you be participating, Quartz-sama?”
“Me? No, I won’t be. I already abdicated the throne. It’s too late for me to go butting in.” Quartz’s gentle expression turned slightly sorrowful. “After all, I’m the one who ran away from that position. I can’t go back.”
“So...why did you quit being king, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Ruri knew it was an insensitive question, and she didn’t know if it was safe to ask, but she felt she needed to ask it anyway, especially after seeing Quartz looking so sad. He had been smiling ever since they’d met, but every now and then his expression would take a somber turn—as it had just now. She guessed that something earth-shattering must have happened to make him give up the throne.
“Hey, Ruri. You like Jade, don’t you?” Quartz asked.
“Yes,” Ruri replied concisely. Ruri had been intentionally vague before, but after seeing the look on Quartz’s face, she decided now wasn’t the time to fudge the truth.
“What would you do if Jade were to suddenly disappear?”
Ruri was surprised by his question, but Quartz looked far too serious to reply jokingly, so she answered truthfully. “I would be sad, of course.”
“Yeah, I figured. But your sadness is hypothetical. I actually did lose my mate—my beloved, my one and only,” Quartz said as he looked toward the sky, his eyes steeped in sorrow. “Being a dragonkin is a burden, you know? Once you find your mate, they become your everything and you can’t find it in yourself to look at anyone else. She was my other half, and there’ll be no other. Losing her was as if my body had been torn apart. I fell into darkness and despair with Seraphie gone.”
Hearing Quartz speak about his mate greatly affected Ruri. Her heart sank. Everyone had always told her about a dragonkin’s love for their mate, but just hearing it probably wasn’t enough to comprehend it.
“I thought we would die together,” Quartz said, the words practically straining the words from his throat. “I pleaded for her not to leave me alone. I asked to follow her into death. But I couldn’t—because of Seraphie’s last request. She begged me on her deathbed not to follow her after she passed. I couldn’t help but find it cruel. I couldn’t continue to live in a world without her.”
Ruri had thought that Quartz hadn’t been able to put his mate in the past yet. He still loved her and suffered from her absence.
“She promised me something, however,” Quartz stated.
“What kind of promise was that?” Ruri asked.
“She said, ‘I assure you I will come back reborn, so come search for me.’”
“Reborn? But that seems...”
Was that possible? Supposing someone was reborn as a different person and lived somewhere in this world, would one even be able to find them?
“I know what you want to say. But the spirits told me that it’s not impossible. A person may die, but their soul cycles through and is born anew. The quality of that soul’s mana doesn’t change when it’s reborn, so finding the new owner isn’t an impossible task—from what I’ve been told. No one knows when they’ll be born, but the spirits told me I stood a chance with my long dragonkin lifespan.”
Ruri wondered whether there would be a point in finding Seraphie if she didn’t remember who Quartz was, but she couldn’t say that aloud since Quartz’s eyes held such honest belief.
“I decided to look for her—something I couldn’t do if I remained king. After all, she wouldn’t necessarily be born here in the Nation of the Dragon King. I can’t do my kingly duties if I’m traveling around to different nations, so I stepped down. I threw it all away to find my one and only, my other half. The cleanup after I suddenly exited the throne must’ve been enormous. I feel sorry for the vassals in my court I left behind. That’s why I haven’t been able to come back to the Nation of the Dragon King.”
Quartz smirked, adding that he had no incentive to return unless he heard news of a Beloved—a statement he’d made before he left.
“I’ll keep looking for Seraphie. Forever until I find her, in fact,” Quartz said. His determination and persistence were virtually palpable.
Quartz turned to face Ruri and smiled sweetly. The depression that had tinged his face was gone. He was back to his usual calm and gentle demeanor.
“Ruri, that’s just how absolute the existence of a mate is for dragonkin.”
Quartz gently tapped on the glass sphere encasing Jade’s scale hanging around Ruri’s neck. Ruri cocked her head, unsure of what he meant by that.
“I don’t know what you’re hesitating about, but I can tell you that he didn’t give this to you half-heartedly. That is how we dragonkin operate. Don’t make him wait too long, okay?” Quartz said, obviously referring to Jade.
Ruri felt at a loss as the conversation suddenly shifted to her. “It’s not that I’m keeping him waiting... It’s just that I wonder if it’s true. Like, maybe he mistakenly likes me. Maybe he really just likes me as an extension of a pet because he has a fondness for small animals.”
“Impossible,” Quartz asserted. “This dragonheart carries more weight than that. He would only give this to someone he has set as his one and only, someone irreplaceable.”
Rin and Celestine had told her as much before, but it was more convincing coming from a fellow dragonkin such as Quartz.
“But he just gave me the dragonheart without telling me he loved me,” Ruri added.
“Is that what’s been bugging you? Maybe Jade was just scared to tell you himself. Maybe he felt that your heart wasn’t quite there yet and you’d reject him. But he wants you to be aware of it. He doesn’t want to give it to someone else. He can’t say it out loud, but he wants you to notice. That may be why he decided to give you the dragonheart.”
“But I’d prefer it if he just told me, clear and straightforward.”
“In that case, you should tell him that. Despite appearances, he is a wimp at heart. You should make him make it clear to you.”
Ruri felt like all the escape paths were blocked off. “Ughh, but how do I break the ice?” she asked.
“It’s just a matter of feeling and momentum. I mean, that seems to be your specialty. Right, Ruri?”
To be fair, Ruri was prone to deciding things based on feeling and momentum.
“Don’t worry. I give you my guarantee, so just give it a shot,” Quartz retorted.
“Well, that’s one shot I don’t think I should take...” Ruri replied, racking her brain.
Ruri couldn’t deny that she’d been avoiding him and using the hot spring as an excuse as of late, but she couldn’t just keep dancing around the subject forever. Despite knowing that she would have to come to grips with the dragonheart matter at some point, she kept putting it off. Hearing about Quartz’s deep love for his mate, however, made her realize she needed to stop running away from this issue and give it the consideration it deserved.
At the same time, Ruri also felt somewhat angry with Jade. He should have given her a thorough rundown on dragonkin mating habits like Quartz just did. If Jade had done that, Ruri probably would have reacted and felt much differently than she did now.
“This is all Jade’s fault to begin with, isn’t it? I’m not from this world, you know. If he gives me a scale and tells me it’s a ‘good luck charm,’ how in the world am I supposed to know that it’s a dragonheart? Women absolutely want it in words!”
“Men are romantics and women are realists, so yeah... Well, if you have something to say, then you should just be direct about it. He needs to understand how a woman’s heart works.”
“That is really true. Jade-sama never uses enough of his words!”
“Jade has always been like that. Not really much you can do about it. That reminds me of something similar that happened to me in the past...” Quartz started as he began to launch into old stories and complaints about Jade from the past.
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