Under The Oak Tree Manga 【ORIGINAL | 2025】

She reached up and unbuttoned the first button of her dress herself. "D-don't you dare," she said. And she smiled. It was the first real smile he had ever seen from her—crooked, shy, but radiant.

He opened his eyes. "You are not broken. You are the strongest person I know. You left a life of comfort to come to a war zone. You learn magic in secret. You tend to the sick when our healer is away. You are not a dove, Maximilian. You are an oak. You just haven't realized it yet."

"Because I am afraid," he confessed, the words tearing out of him like a dragon's roar. "I am afraid that if I touch you, you will shatter. I am afraid that the desire I feel will terrify you. I am a brute, Maxi. I have killed more things than I can count. And you… you are sunlight. I would rather freeze on the floor for a thousand nights than be the reason for a single one of your tears." Under The Oak Tree Manga

He rubbed the bridge of his nose, exhaustion pulling at his limbs. The day had been brutal. A patrol had been ambushed by monstrous orcs from the Dragon’s Grave Pass. Three men dead. He had spent the afternoon burying them, his hands blistered from the shovel. All he wanted was to collapse. But more than that, he wanted to touch her. Just a brush of his fingers against her cheek. Just to feel her warmth.

"I won't break you," he whispered against her neck, his voice a raw vow. "And you won't break me. We'll just… be broken together." She reached up and unbuttoned the first button

It was a chaste kiss. A wife's kiss. But it burned him down to his soul.

"Riftan," she said, and this time, her voice did not stutter. It was a quiet, firm river. "I… I want you to t-touch me. I have always wanted it. I was just… I was just s-scared you would see how… how broken I truly am." It was the first real smile he had

That was the moment something inside him snapped. Not with anger, but with a desperate, hollow ache. He was failing. He was so terrified of breaking her that he was starving them both. He had built a cage of courtesy around her, and she was wilting inside it.

And outside, the wind rustled the oak's branches, as if the old tree itself was sighing in relief.

"I… I am," she said, but the hesitation was a knife between his ribs. "The… the castle is w-warm. The servants are k-kind."

The silence stretched for an eternity.