the guards are at the door, there's letters telling howl to come to the castle, markl and sophie has to go out to buy groceries in disguise because if not then they'd get asked 'where did wizard howl go?', 'why did he suddenly disappear?', and 'the king has been looking for him.'

in fact sophie has been looking for him too. she wasn't panicking the first few days howl went missing, sometimes he likes to be alone and would come back after a few days but it's been a week and she's starting to worry.

she had markl and calcifer watching over the castle while she went out to search for howl.. first place she went to? the private flower garden, where he did his wizard apprenticeship under his uncle.

she checked the small cottage in the middle of the flower garden, she looked through the window and saw some sort of figure in the corner, yep that's her lover alright..

"im such a coward...all i do is hide..." she heard him whispering to himself