The Beginning of the Fall

The door clicked open.

Klein looked up. The faint remnants of his earlier smile still lingered at the corners of his mouth. He didn't have time to compose himself, or perhaps he simply forgot.

Ophelia pushed the door open, already changed into her nightgown. It was a light-colored cotton, with one button at the collar undone, revealing a sliver of her collarbone and skin on her neck still beaded with water. Her hair was unbound, wet and draped over her shoulders and back, the tips still dripping, leaving two or three small dark spots on the floor.

She walked in, radiating a warmth, and the subtle scent of her bath diffused, pushing away a layer of the room's original air.

The lingering smile on Klein's lips froze completely, then vanished at a somewhat unnatural speed.

Compared to when she first arrived, Ophelia's bath time had noticeably lengthened.

Klein still remembered the night she first came here; without clothes prepared for her, she had to make do with Martha's maid uniform. Back then, she bathed quickly, like completing a task—in, rinse, out, swift and efficient.

Lately, it was different. Her baths took longer, and he didn't know what extra steps she might have added. Klein hadn't asked, nor did he intend to.

Ophelia walked to the dressing table and picked up the cloth towel draped over the chair back to dry her hair. Her movements were unhurried, stroking through her hair strand by strand, far more patiently than usual. Her right hand held the cloth towel, while her left hung naturally at her side, not participating.

The dark patterns and scales occasionally glinted under the candlelight.

Klein's gaze slid down her back, lingering on her dangling left hand for less than a second. The edge of a scale reflected the warm yellow candlelight, like a fish scale pressed beneath her skin. He withdrew his gaze, not dwelling on it. It wasn't avoidance. It was that there was no need to look further. Resolving this was now only a matter of time.

“I’ll go wash up too.”

He stood up, his voice normal, his steps normal, and his breathing normal as he walked past her. Only after the door closed did he realize his palms were damp.

Klein bathed quickly.

So quickly that he barely registered it—he couldn't recall the water temperature, nor how many times he scrubbed. He only remembered a thought flashing through his mind: “What a perfect opportunity,” immediately followed by a second thought, twisting the knife: “She’s right outside the door. Right outside, sitting on your bed, wearing a nightgown, her hair still wet—”

He splashed cold water on his face twice. That wasn't quite enough, so he splashed it again.

By the time he dressed and emerged, he had probably taken only a third of Ophelia's time.

The bedroom door opened. Ophelia sat on the edge of the bed. Her hair was still half-damp, the cloth towel folded and resting on her lap. She wasn't reading, nor was she doing anything else—she was just sitting there.

Her eyes lifted when he pushed the door open, watching him. Her gaze was quiet. It wasn't a prompt, not anticipation, nor a question. She was simply looking at him.

But Klein suddenly felt that “simply looking at him” carried more weight than any other emotion.

She was waiting for him. Doing nothing, just sitting there, waiting for him to return.

The cloth towel was folded perfectly, resting precisely in the middle of her lap, its edges neatly aligned. It was as if, while waiting, her hands needed something to do, so she had folded it twice.

This realization circled in his mind, then crashed head-on into Martha's words—“You're husband and wife, you know.”

Her tone had been so matter-of-fact, so self-assured, as if he were the abnormal one.

And yet, he couldn't refute it.

Klein stood at the doorway, looking at Ophelia sitting by the bed, and suddenly felt Martha was right.

Not the “bursting in to watch her bathe” part—that part deserved a slap.

It was the latter part. He truly was too serious.

He walked to the table and reached out to grasp the candlestick. His fingertips felt a slight coolness as they touched the iron base of the candlestick, and his fingers paused for half a beat.

Ophelia was still watching him.

The candle went out. The last flicker of orange-red light from the wick shrank, then dimmed, and a wisp of grey-white smoke curled up, quickly dissipating.

The room wasn't entirely dark. The curtains weren't fully drawn, and a narrow sliver of white moonlight leaked through the gap. Enough to discern outlines, but not expressions.

It was enough.

Klein walked up to Ophelia. He didn't speak.

With Ophelia's eyesight, this dimness was no different from daylight. She could see his expression, and the color of his earlobes.

Klein knew she could see. So he simply stayed silent. Speaking would only be more embarrassing.

He bent down and reached out, pressing on her shoulder. The force wasn't great, and his fingers were even a little stiff with uncertainty—it wasn't quite a push. It was more like a signal for action. Go on, just go through the motions—that's what his hand conveyed.

Ophelia understood. When that hand pressed against her, she felt the direction and weight of the force. With her strength, this slight pressure was akin to a dandelion landing on a suit of armor.

She could remain still. She could also push his hand away. In fact, given the physical disparity between them, she could even push him down with a backhand.

But Ophelia did none of the above. She yielded to the pressure of his hand and leaned back.

Her back hit the bed with a muffled thud. Her half-dry hair spread out, forming a layer on the pillow.

Klein leaned over her. His hands were braced beside her shoulders.

Ophelia watched him in the darkness. His breathing was a little quick, and even the lines of his profile seemed rigid. A faint tendon was taut on the wrist of the hand braced beside her shoulder, pulsing slightly in the moonlight.

“Klein.”

Her voice was soft, just her usual speaking volume, yet at this distance, it was excessively clear.

“Hm?”

“You’re trembling.”

Silence fell for a second. Klein let out a deep breath and buried his face in the side of her neck.

“...Don't say another word.” His voice was muffled, tinged with annoyance and something he couldn't quite identify. His nose brushed against the still-damp skin in the hollow of her neck, and the scent of her bath flooded his senses, tightening the taut string in his mind even further.

The warm breath from his words brushed against Ophelia's neck. It tickled. Not the kind of tickle from a feather, but one that seemed to burrow up from beneath her skin, crawling along her spine. Ophelia's shoulders involuntarily twitched, her back arching slightly before settling back down, her hair spread on the pillow shifting with the movement.

Her right hand unconsciously gripped the bedsheet beside her. —It wasn't like this on the battlefield. When a blade grazed her neck, she wouldn't even blink. But now, with a single breath, she felt something tingly and numb rush from her tailbone straight to her brain.

Ophelia wasn't quite sure if she was trembling too. Probably not. Probably.

Klein felt that subtle tremor. He lifted his head from her neck, bracing himself above her. The moonlight only illuminated half his face, the other half hidden in shadow.

Ophelia's heart skipped a beat. It wasn't an illusion. She clearly perceived that momentary loss of rhythm in her chest, like a gear slipping a tooth before re-engaging, then spinning faster than before.

Klein lowered his head. His nose touched hers first. The contact was so light it didn't seem intentional—more like a coordinate point inevitably passed as the distance closed. But neither of them dodged.

Nose pressed against nose, their breaths already mingled. Then came their lips.

When Klein leaned in to kiss her, a hint of his earlier uncertainty still lingered in his movements. The angle of his lips was slightly off, landing on the right side of her lower lip. Incorrect. He adjusted, shifting half a hairsbreadth to the left, before finally aligning them.

It was like lighting a lamp for the first time with a tinderstick. His hand was unsteady, striking it twice before it caught.

Ophelia didn't move. Her eyelashes brushed his cheekbone at the last moment before her eyes closed. Klein felt it—a butterfly's wingbeat against his face. So light it felt like an illusion, yet too real to ignore.

It wasn't the first time their lips had met. But this time was different.

Klein's lips pressed against hers, restrained at first. The contact was dry and warm, with a clumsy, cautious gentleness—as if he feared hurting her, the force too light for his character.

But he tasted the lingering moisture on her lips—faint, with a hint of warmth from her bath. His reason cracked open in that instant, and his tongue slipped through the fissure.

When he touched her teeth, Ophelia froze for a moment. She had no experience with this. All her memories of close contact involved blades, iron armor, and the scent of blood. None applied to the current situation.

But her lips parted unconsciously, her teeth yielding a gap—not a deliberate cooperation, but her body reacting before her mind. The slight tilt of her chin was a movement she herself wasn't aware of.

When Klein's tongue probed deeper, it met hers.

Ophelia stiffened for an instant. The sensation was too alien. Warm, soft, invasive. Different from any physical contact she was familiar with. She knew how to react when a blade's back tapped her wrist, how to deflect force when a fist struck her abdominal armor—but this, this moist, slow, unavoidable probing, she searched through every training manual in her mind, and not a single page taught her what to do.

The bedsheet clutched in her right hand tightened further. Her fingers squeezed so hard her knuckles turned white, but she didn't realize it.

Klein's fingers threaded into her half-dry hair spread on the pillow. Strands tangled in the gaps between his fingers, still damp and cool, several degrees cooler than the warmth in their mouths. His thumb inadvertently brushed her earlobe—it was scorching. So hot that his fingertip recoiled slightly.

He deepened the kiss. As his tongue curled over her palate, Ophelia let out a very short, muffled groan, escaping from her nostrils, the last syllable trapped between their pressed lips. She probably didn't realize she had made that sound. But Klein heard it. Every single syllable was clear.

That muffled groan struck his teeth, the vibration traveling along his jawbone all the way to his earlobes.

When they parted, there was a faint sound in the air.

Ophelia gasped for breath. It wasn't heavy, but the intervals between her breaths were nearly twice as short as normal. Klein's breathing was also heavy.

Their breaths intertwined, brushing against each other's faces. The distance was too close; the air exhaled by one was inhaled by the other before it could dissipate. The air circulated back and forth twice, its temperature warming.

Silence fell for two seconds.

“Your heart is beating fast,” Ophelia said. Her voice was a little hoarser than usual, with a lingering breath that hadn't quite settled. She wasn't teasing. She had genuinely heard it—with her perception, at this distance, Klein's heartbeat was not much different from a drumroll.

Klein was still braced above her. His arms were a little sore, but he didn't change his position.

“Yours too,” he said. His voice was also hoarse. The same kind of hoarseness as hers.

Klein shifted the arm he was bracing with, moving it slightly to the side. The narrow sliver of moonlight fell directly on Ophelia's face.

Her lips were a little redder than usual, glistening slightly from the repeated pressure. The corners of her eyes were also red, flushed at some unknown point. Her breathing hadn't fully settled, the rise and fall of her chest more pronounced than at any other time. The collar of her nightgown had, at some point, loosened another button—or perhaps it hadn't loosened, merely appeared so from the different angle.

Klein stared for two seconds. Then he smiled.

“Ophelia,” his voice was very low, but the teasing and smugness in his tone were impossible to hide, carrying a hint of post-ordeal swagger, “Gasping like this from just one kiss?”

Ophelia didn't answer.

“Your ears are red too,” Klein added, his thumb naughtily brushing her earlobe. The temperature his fingertip felt was a little higher than before. “Burning hot.”

Ophelia's eyelashes fluttered.

“And here,” his fingertip traced down her ear, then tapped her neck, where a small patch of red spread upwards from her collarbone, like a dye bleeding into the skin, its edges blurring. “Isn't this flushed area of yours a bit too large—”

“Klein.”

“Hm?”

“Have you said enough?”

Klein suddenly had a bad feeling.

The premonition was accurate.

Ophelia's right hand lifted. Without any unnecessary preparatory movements, from releasing the bedsheet to gripping his wrist, there wasn't even a blink of an eye in between. Her movements were as clean as drawing a sword on a battlefield—she didn't even change her expression.

When the back of Klein's head hit the pillow, his mind buzzed. The ceiling. He was looking at the ceiling.

One second ago, he had been propped above her, looking down and mocking the honorary knight of the Empire for her red ears. One second later, he was lying flat on the bed, both his wrists pinned beside his ears. The back of his head sank into the pillow, which still held the warmth and bath scent from where she had just lain.

Ophelia straddled him, her unbound golden hair hanging between them, strands brushing his cheeks and neck—it tickled. The same kind of tickle he had just inflicted. Now it was returned. Her weight wasn't heavy, but the sensation of her pressing on his hips was excessively clear. Moonlight shone from behind her, making her facial expression difficult to discern.

But Klein saw her eyes. Golden. Unnaturally bright. The candlelight had long since died, but her pupils glowed on their own—not a metaphor, but genuinely glowing. At this extremely close distance, he could see very fine vertical slit pupils within those golden eyes. Normally, they weren't visible.

“What did you just say?” Ophelia asked. Her tone was flat.

Klein tried to move his right wrist. He couldn't. It wasn't “hard to break free” couldn't. It was “this wrist no longer belongs to me” couldn't. She wasn't even using much force; she was just holding it there, firm and steady, no different from an iron clamp. His left hand too—that hand with the dark patterns and scales was now pressing on his other wrist, the edges of the scales in her palm digging into his skin, not painfully, but with an extremely strong presence.

“I said…” Klein's voice caught, his Adam's apple bobbing, “...rare.”

“Rare in what way?”

His gaze involuntarily drifted downwards—from this angle, as she looked down at him, the neckline of her nightgown sagged due to gravity, the gap from the undone button more than twice as wide as when she was standing, the shadow beneath her collarbone deepening, revealing vague outlines within—

Klein fixed his gaze on the ceiling. Fixed it hard. As if searching for some important crack pattern on the ceiling.

“No,” he said, his voice very dry, “nothing’s rare.”

Ophelia didn't let go. She lowered her head, her hair sweeping past the side of his face, the tips brushing his ear, still damp.

“You were quite smug just now,” she said. A statement. No question mark.

“No.”

“Yes, you were.”

“That was—normal emotional fluctuation.”

“Your earlobes are red too,” Ophelia said. “Did you know?”

At some point, her thumb had released his wrist, moving instead to brush his earlobe. The touch was very light.

“And very hot,” she said.

Klein's mouth closed. Completely.