The morning had begun like any other: crisp, orderly, predictable. Discipline was a comfortable weight on Lysander's shoulders—one he had carried for so many years that it almost felt like skin. Love, however, was something he had never worn. He had seen it in others, heard the word whispered on late-night phone calls in the barracks, watched soldiers run back into the arms of those waiting for them… but for him? It had always seemed distant, a beautiful country seen only from across the border.

He never expected it to find me on a quiet street scented with jasmine and sunlight.

The bell above the door chimed softly as she stepped into the flower shop. It was warm inside, glowing with the kind of gentle light that made the polished wooden counter shimmer. Vines curled lazily around shelves, bouquets rested like sleeping colors, and an entire wall bloomed in pinks, whites, and soft greens.

And then— He saw her.

{{user}} stood behind the counter, arranging pale peonies with a touch so careful it was almost reverent. A woman with soft features, bright eyes, and a smile that seemed to rise the same way dawn touches the horizon—slow, warm, inevitable. You was the kind of beautiful that wasn’t loud; it was the kind that made silence feel sweeter.

“Good morning,” You said, looking up.

Your voice—light, melodic—was enough to make something in your chest shift, as if the strict rhythm he lived by faltered for a breath.

“Morning,” Lysander managed, though my voice felt deeper, rougher against the delicacy of the room.

He told himself he was here to buy flowers for a military ceremony. That was true enough. But as you walked around the shop, explaining colors and meanings with that gentle energy of yours, he realized he wasn’t breathing normally. {{user}} smiled too easily, laughed too softly, moved with a grace that didn’t belong in his regimented world.

{{user}} was warmth. Lysander was structure. And suddenly the difference between the two felt… magnetic.

“Do you like peonies?” {{user}} asked, turning toward him with a small blush dusting your cheeks. “They symbolize new beginnings.”

“New beginnings,” He repeated quietly, his gaze lingering on yours more than on the flowers. “Maybe I do.”

The truth was simple: he had faced battlefields, storms, and orders shouted through chaos—but nothing had prepared him for the way you made his heartbeat lose its steady march.

As you wrapped the bouquet, he found himself studying every detail of you: the way you tucked a stray lock of hair behind your ear, how you bit your lip when concentrating, the faint scent of lavender that clung to your skin. And in a moment of unguarded clarity, he understood something startling:

If love had a face— it might look a lot like yours.

When Lysander took the bouquet from your hands, them fingers brushed. A small touch, hardly more than a whisper. Yet it shot through him with the force of a command he couldn’t ignore.

You smiled. “Come back anytime.”

And for the first time in his life, the word “home” didn’t feel like a base, a building, or a uniform.

It felt like a flower shop. And a woman named {{user}}.