The sea breeze blew past, tangling the hems of their cloaks together. The rustle of fabric against fabric blended into the sound of the waves. The ship continued its course into the open sea, its sails billowing full as it sliced through the water, kicking up white spray on either side.
The living things beneath were gathering with increasing density. Ophelia's left hand hung at her side, those black patterns pulsing faster and faster.
“Are we still going?” Ophelia asked.
It was a question that came out of nowhere.
“Leave this to me,” she said after a pause. “I can handle it alone.”
The pollution on her wrist was a ready-made key. A cognate resonance, a natural tracker. By following this thread, she could find those things underwater no matter where they hid. If she truly ran into a tough opponent—she glanced down at the hilt at her waist—she would just draw her sword and cut them down.
Klein leaned against her shoulder and let out a low laugh. The vibration of his chest traveled through their clothes, muffled and deep.
“What are you laughing at?”
“Don't you think the current situation is actually quite nice?”
Ophelia turned her head. She couldn't see his face from this angle, only the messy crown of his head. His hair was sticking up from the sea breeze, and a few stray strands brushed against her jaw, itching.
She didn't understand.
They hadn't really closed their eyes for three days. They had stumbled upon a bunch of creatures that shouldn't exist. They had even come up with something like information alchemy, which couldn't be found even in the sages' manuscripts. And they still had to stay on guard against whatever new tricks the will of the deep sea might pull at any moment.
What was nice about it?
“Things went a bit sideways. Not too much, not too little—just enough to be within the limit of what the two of us can handle.” Klein's voice was very soft, carrying an undisguised exhaustion. “A boat, a sea. You and me. If we took this setup out into the world—wouldn't we look like those freelance bounty hunters from the storybooks?”
Amusing himself despite the circumstances.
Ophelia could tell.
She didn't respond.
Silence lasted for a few seconds. Waves slapped against the hull. The wind whistled through the rigging. The things beneath the water were still gathering.
The ship gave a slight shudder. It wasn't a wave hitting it; something had brushed past beneath the keel, leaving a dull, heavy thud.
Ophelia's breathing hitched for half a beat.
Then she moved.
Her palm pressed against the side of Klein's face.
Her fingers didn't apply pressure; they just rested there. Her thumb touched just below his cheekbone, feeling the temperature of his face—it was on the cooler side. The consequence of only six hours of sleep in three days was that even his peripheral circulation had worsened.
Klein's breath hitched.
It was very brief. It couldn't even be called a 'pause'; it was more like a change in rhythm.
Her palm was dry and slightly hot—forming a contrast with the coolness of his face.
He didn't move. He didn't speak either. It was as if he were afraid that moving his mouth would brush her hand away.
Ophelia revised her assessment. Poor complexion, low body temperature, and even his pupil focus was slowing down—it wasn't just a matter of being tired; he was overdrawn.
She gave him a push. The force was neither heavy nor light, just enough to straighten him up from her shoulder.
Klein was forced to sit upright. He opened his eyes, momentarily failing to react. He thought he had crossed a line with his joke and the supervisor was about to resume her post. His mouth opened slightly, preparing to smooth things over.
Ophelia didn't give him a chance to speak.
She moved half an inch to the side. She straightened her bent leg, her boot heel digging firmly into the anti-slip wooden strip at the edge of the deck. She gathered the excess fabric of her cloak to her side, piling it up to make space.
Having finished these preparations, she reached out and grabbed Klein's collar.
She pulled him down.
The force was perfect. It wasn't enough to actually damage the collar, but it left him no room to struggle. A knight's strength, precise to the millimeter. Crisp and efficient.
Klein's vision blurred for a moment. The back of his head landed on something warm and soft.
A lap.
Actually resting on it was completely different from what he had imagined.
It was warm. Supple. The elasticity of her muscles was just right, not soft and mushy—these legs ran, jumped, and kicked daily, and beneath the leather armor was nothing but pure strength—but while resting on them, all of that transformed into a solid sense of comfort. Her knee was slightly bent, cradling the back of his head at an angle that was just right, preventing him from slipping.
There was a hint of hardness from the leather armor's buckles beneath the fabric. It didn't poke him; it just served as a faint reminder that this wasn't a pillow—it was a knight who could stand up and fight at any moment.
A very faint scent drifted up from between the layers of fabric. It wasn't perfume; Ophelia never used such things. It was the scent of leather, of cotton and linen dried in the sun, and beneath that, a subtle hint of body heat—clean, living, and carrying a faint saltiness.
“Lie still.”
Ophelia cleared her throat.
Her gaze swept over the railing, falling on the distant sea. She looked at the sky. She looked at the water. She watched the sea birds gliding past the low-hanging clouds. Her gaze patrolled between various distant sights, pointedly avoiding her own knees.
“That posture earlier was making my shoulder sore,” she said. Her voice was as flat as if she were reading a combat report. “You'll fall asleep faster like this.”
Klein's back was against the deck. His field of vision was inverted.
From this angle, he could only see the lines of her jaw and neck. The wind blew a stray lock of golden hair onto her cheek, where it stuck.
He turned his head slightly, the back of his head brushing against her leg as he found the most comfortable angle.
Ophelia's leg tensed for a moment.
Just a moment. It was so brief that Klein wasn't even sure if he had felt it correctly. But he was certain he hadn't—the sensation of her thigh muscles tightening and then relaxing in that instant was distinct even through the fabric.
He kept his mouth shut, deciding not to press the issue. Some things lost their flavor if you looked into them too closely.
Another dull thud came from beneath the ship, further away than the last one, deep and heavy, as if some large creature had rolled over. The glinting light on the sea surface wavered for a moment before returning to calm.
Ophelia's left hand moved slightly, adjusting the outward angle of her palm by a degree or two. Those black patterns were still pulsing, but her expression remained unchanged.
Klein closed his eyes in peace. The canvas of the sails flapped against the mast overhead, and the sea breeze rushed in, carrying grains of salt. The ship moved over the waves with a steady rhythm. The warmth from beneath his head seeped through the fabric bit by bit, soothing the back of his skull.
With his ear against her leg, he could hear something—not a heartbeat, as the heart wasn't there. It was the sound of blood flowing, an extremely faint hum that could only be captured when it was very quiet and very close. A sound only living things possessed.
He suddenly felt that the debt of three days and six hours of sleep didn't seem so hard to repay after all.
“This day...” he said, his voice already becoming slurred, the end of the sentence swallowed by an irrepressible yawn, “...should be written into the experimental log. The subject title will be 'A Study on the Benefits of a Lap Pillow for an Alchemist's Sleep Quality'—”
“Shut up. Sleep.”
He let out a small laugh and didn't speak again.
His breathing slowed down. It became even. The exhaustion accumulated over three days finally stopped tugging against his will and came rushing in all at once. This time, there was no resistance.
Ophelia looked down at him.
Just for a moment.
His brow was still furrowed. Even in sleep, it hadn't fully relaxed. His mouth was half-open, and his exhaled breath brushed against the fabric on her knee, over and over, warm.
She retracted her gaze and continued to look out at the distant sea.
The palm of her left hand was turned outward, sensing the cognate blood aura beneath the water. They were still swimming. Still gathering. They were even closer than they had been a moment ago.
Her right hand dropped down at some point, hovering near the edge of his forehead—not touching him, but suspended there to block the wind.
Her fingers were curved, her knuckles slightly bent; maintaining this posture was actually more tiring than simply resting her hand on him. But she kept it there.
The wind blew over the back of her hand, but it was completely blocked by her palm.
The stray lock of hair on his forehead rested quietly against his skin in that windless sanctuary, remaining perfectly still.
Rate on N.U.
