“The spring night is short, the sun rises high; from this day forth, the King attends no morning court.”
To put it more bluntly—the night life was so rich that one couldn't get up in the morning.
This didn't quite apply to Klein.
He was naturally the type to stay up late and wake up late. Whether in his past life or this one, waking up early had never been a priority in his dictionary.
So, for him, “waking up even later” just meant moving from the sun being high in the sky to being even higher. The nature of the act hadn't changed, only the degree.
The one truly affected was Ophelia.
The morning light squeezed through the gaps in the curtains, falling onto the Knightess's eyelids. She woke up.
At this time, according to her past habits, she should have already completed her first set of basic swordsmanship in the courtyard. Cleaving, slashing, stabbing, and parrying—repeated endlessly, unshakeable.
Yet, here she lay.
The third day? The fourth? She had lost track. In any case, it had been several days in a row.
Her lower body still felt a bit sore. Not the soreness from training, but another kind.
…Truly slothful.
Ophelia sternly scolded herself in her mind.
A knight should exercise restraint.
Restraint of desire, restraint of laziness, and restraint of anything that would weaken one's willpower.
The old her had carved these principles into her bones.
The instructors on the training grounds used to say, “If a knight cannot even control their own body, how can they hope to control the battlefield?” At the time, she felt that was only natural.
A knight who couldn't even manage themselves certainly had no right to manage anything else.
However, at the thought of last night…
No, don't think about it.
But the images surfaced on their own—
Ophelia couldn't help but press her knees together. The movement under the blanket was subtle, but she was acutely aware of it. Very aware.
…A knight should exercise restraint.
She chanted it again.
It was useless. Mostly because Klein was simply too unfair. He wasn't forceful or overbearing, yet his mild-mannered way of doing things was the most lethal.
There was no way to guard against it.
Simply no way at all.
She took a deep breath and lifted a corner of the blanket, intending to get up.
Training could be delayed no longer. If this continued, her swordsmanship wouldn't be destroyed by sea monsters, but by this bed.
Just as she braced herself to sit up, there was movement behind her.
Klein rolled over.
An arm reached across, neither too heavy nor too light, catching her exactly at the waist and pulling her back.
Ophelia froze.
Her back bumped into a warm chest.
She stiffened for a moment.
“…Klein?”
There was no response.
His breath hit the back of her neck, steady and long.
He was asleep.
He wasn't awake at all. It was a purely instinctive movement—pulling her in like he was hugging a pillow.
Ophelia tried to gently pry his hand away.
He held her tighter.
He even nuzzled into the base of her neck, finding a comfortable position. The tip of his nose brushed against the hair at the nape of her neck, and then he stopped moving entirely.
“…………”
The warmth of his arm seeped through her skin.
Ophelia stared at the light on the curtain for a long time.
The morning light gradually brightened, expanding from a narrow line into a broad patch.
Birds chirped in the courtyard. From the distance came the faint sounds of servants moving about—the rustle of a broom across the flagstone path, the muffled thud of a bucket hitting the rim of the well.
She usually heard these sounds from the training ground, but the perspective was different—there was a huge difference between hearing them while standing and hearing them while lying down.
When lying down, the world seemed very far away.
It was as if all those things were outside an invisible wall, and inside the wall, there was only her and the arm wrapped around her waist.
The breathing of the person behind her didn't change, and the arm holding her didn't loosen.
Ophelia moved slightly.
She didn't break free.
She moved again.
This time, she wasn't trying to break free.
She rolled over to face Klein.
The sleeping Klein was a bit different from when he was awake.
He lacked that refined composure and had a bit more of a boyish quality.
His lips were slightly parted, his eyelashes were still, and his brow was completely relaxed—he wasn't thinking about alchemical arrays, he wasn't flipping through alchemical literature; he wasn't thinking about anything.
She watched him for a long time.
Then, very lightly, she touched his brow with her fingertip.
There was no reason for it; she just wanted to touch him.
When her fingertip made contact, she even held her breath, as if she were doing something more nerve-wracking than a sword duel.
Klein let out a muffled hum, mumbling an unintelligible word—probably the name of some alchemical material, or perhaps just a meaningless syllable.
Ophelia withdrew her finger.
The warmth of that small patch of skin still lingered on her fingertip.
This morning's training would have to be abandoned as well.
She processed this conclusion in her mind.
Without a hint of guilt.
None at all.
...
Ophelia's body is soft.
That was the first thought that popped into Klein's mind when he opened his eyes.
It wasn't some profound realization, but a purely physiological, intuitive feedback.
He was holding a warm, soft bundle in his arms. Before he was even fully awake, his instincts had already made the judgment for him.
He glanced down.
Ophelia was lying on her side, facing him, her breathing steady.
Most of her golden hair was spread out across the pillow, with a few strands clinging to her neck. In the morning light, the color was as pale as flowing honey.
The lines of her collarbones were shallow, and the contours extending downward were half-hidden by the thin blanket, leaving her shoulders exposed—narrow and rounded.
Slender.
This word shouldn't have applied to this Knightess, but it was the truth.
Her frame wasn't large, her waist was very thin, and he couldn't feel many hard blocks of muscle beneath her skin—her strength was hidden too deep. You couldn't tell when she was wearing armor, and you still couldn't tell after she took it off.
Klein silently marveled in his heart: Praise the Creator.
Then his gaze became a bit less honest, sliding down a bit further.
Voluptuous was indeed the word for it.
He dutifully pulled his gaze back.
He couldn't look. To keep looking wouldn't be appreciation; it would be a crime.
Of course, that wasn't quite right either, considering she was his wife.
But staring at someone in this clear-headed state in the morning was a different matter entirely from the two of them being driven by desire in the dim light of night.
One was bold at night and dared to do anything; when reason returned in the morning, just running certain images through his mind was enough to make his mouth go dry.
At the same time, the rather unfortunate part was—
Neither of them was wearing clothes.
They had been too exhausted after finishing last night to bother looking for nightgowns.
Klein remembered his last conscious thought was “I should pull up the blanket,” and then he knew nothing more.
The blanket had been pulled up, but that thin layer of fabric was essentially just a decoration when it came to skin-to-skin contact.
He could feel Ophelia's knee pressing against his inner thigh.
Her abdomen was pressed against his waist.
There was no need to elaborate on the soft pressure against his chest—talking about it too much would lead to trouble.
Trouble was already brewing.
Klein closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
It didn't help.
A man's morning physiological response didn't exactly need mental preparation, especially when he was holding a naked, warm, living person whose breath was puffing against his chest. He'd have to be dead not to have a reaction.
He tried his best to control his breathing, wondering if he should quietly shift his body back a bit—to preserve his last shred of dignity.
However, it was too late.
Ophelia moved. As if sensing something strange in her dream, she knit her brows slightly and then opened her eyes in a daze.
Her golden pupils hadn't fully focused yet, carrying the hazy blur of someone who had just woken up.
She blinked twice.
Then her gaze cleared.
Rate on N.U.
