After kissing like that at Hilda’s wedding, Dana actually felt too embarrassed and excited to face Kaiden. Throughout the reception, Kaiden and she sat close together, and their surroundings were constantly filled with noise that could have been either heartbeats or music. Everything felt hot, whether from the heat of the banquet or her own flushed state.

After spending the remaining time in that daze, they returned to Khalid territory – she in a carriage and he on horseback. When she finally collected herself after resting, all sorts of thoughts came to mind.

Once could be impulse, but if repeated, it couldn’t be called impulse or mistake. Everything about Kaiden’s kisses was hot, but Dana worried if that momentary passion was enough to determine his entire life.

Even if things were fine now, what about as time passed? Wouldn’t he want to create a harmonious family too? Wouldn’t he want to have children who resembled him and live with a family he created?

Dana wanted to ask Kaiden what he thought, but she couldn’t decide how to phrase her questions.

‘Why did you kiss me?’

What if he said it was impulsive or a mistake now? That scared her.

‘Will you kiss me again?’

Wouldn’t that make her seem desperate for another kiss?

‘Do you plan to continue this marriage?’

Isn’t that too direct?

She couldn’t decide what questions to ask. Amid this confusion and inability to make decisions, finding it difficult to stay close to Kaiden while teaching him the instrument in such a confused state, she made a new suggestion. She asked if perhaps they should call a real music teacher starting in winter. She said she wasn’t sure if she was doing a good job as a teacher since she had never taught anyone before.

In truth, she asked because she found it difficult to concentrate on teaching Kaiden at the keyboard. The man sitting at the black instrument looked impressive even just sitting still, and while there was pleasure in watching him, she felt this wasn’t right. She thought that for his sake, he probably needed a proper teacher rather than a woman who could only stare at him absentmindedly lost in other thoughts.

However, Kaiden cut her off with his answer:

“Not necessary. You are a good teacher.”

To be honest, Kaiden’s face looked gloomy as he said those words.

“The time learning the instrument is when I’m happiest.”

Dana couldn’t deny it when he said himself that he enjoyed it. Deep down, she felt relieved that he didn’t seek out a real skilled teacher.

And Kaiden’s words about this time being enjoyable were half true. Although Dana was running away from him or keeping her distance, the room he entered to play the instrument was Dana’s space.

Dana’s space smelled nice, was clean, and bright. Above all, it was a space where Dana, who smelled even better, was even neater, and shone even brighter, was always present.

This space was filled with everything Dana. He liked being in it. He thought that was enough. No, he had to think that way.

Sometimes his gaze would fall on the open door beyond the hobby room. The bedroom door was open for ventilation since it was summer. Every time Kaiden entered and left Dana’s hobby room, he saw the room glimpsed through the open doorway. Dana’s bedroom. The bed where Dana slept. The door he couldn’t cross.

The sight of that room, the shape of that bed, remained in his eyes involuntarily. He imagined Dana buried in that bed every night. His lewd imaginings gained concrete backgrounds.

However, since he couldn’t see with his own eyes what Dana would actually look like, his fantasies and dreams couldn’t be perfect. The end of pleasure felt alone in his delusions was deeper yearning. Self-loathing and guilt toward Dana, who knew nothing of this, came as a bonus.

Though in dreams he crossed that doorway as if it were natural, in reality he couldn’t even approach it, but Kaiden thought even this much was good. He was glad to be able to come in even this far and feel everything of Dana’s. Because in the past, even this would have been impossible.

He slept and woke in the same castle as Dana. It was more than he deserved, an honor. That’s what he had to think.

As they spent their days like that, having breakfast together in the mornings and sometimes Kaiden learning the instrument in Dana’s hobby room, each with different thoughts. One day Kaiden arrived at an empty hobby room. Mrs. Moyer, who had guided him, spoke from behind:

“The madam is not yet finished with her conversation with the administrators.”

Kaiden’s gaze, which had been looking around the hobby room, naturally fell on the open bedroom door. Standing in front of the instrument while turning toward the bedroom, Kaiden said to Mrs. Moyer:

“I understand. You may go.”

Mrs. Moyer bowed and left. The sound of her footsteps grew distant. When those footsteps had completely passed beyond the reception room beyond the hobby room, Kaiden swallowed.

He slowly rolled his gaze around to survey his surroundings. Dana’s space. Beyond the wall was Dana’s bedroom where she slept. The bathroom where Dana bathed. He was alone in this space now.

‘Alone…’

Kaiden, his fists clenched, took steps toward Dana’s bedroom.

Step. Step. Step.

The door grew closer. He was approaching Dana’s bedroom. To Dana’s most private inner space that wasn’t permitted to him.

His heart trembled. His heart raced. His hands grew sweaty with tension. Kaiden unconsciously stopped in front of the white doorframe. He turned his head to look into the room. Through the open window, the hot wind carried the room’s fragrance into his nostrils. The neatly made white bed and curtains swaying in the hot summer breeze.

As if drawn by something, Kaiden walked inside. He crossed the door he shouldn’t have crossed, without Dana’s permission.

Without realizing it, he approached the made bed and knelt before it. Unable to dare sit on the bed, he reached out his hand while kneeling in front of it. With a soft sound, his hand touched the thin blanket covering the bed.

Kaiden carefully slipped his hand under the blanket. As if undoing the collar of the bed’s owner and putting his hand inside, his hand trembled with tension as he touched inside the bed. Under his palm, the bed’s sheets felt smooth and soft like flowing water. The skin of the woman who would lie in this bed every night must feel the same. The woman’s lips he had kissed, the skin he had touched.

Kaiden unconsciously stuck out his tongue to lick his dry lips. It still didn’t feel real that these lips had touched Dana’s lips several times. Clearly at that moment, it was Dana who had closed her eyes first. Even that sight now felt like a dream.

He couldn’t understand at all the psychology of the woman who kept her distance again, even changing the instrument’s chair. Even suggesting having a separate music teacher.

Did Dana dislike spending time with him? Did she dislike him rushing at her unable to control himself? Did she not like the kiss then? To him, Dana still felt like a distant and incomprehensible being.

Kaiden touched the bed with an extremely tense face, and finally bowed his head. His face touched the white blanket. He closed his eyes.

He buried his face in the blanket that Dana’s body would have touched every night and remained still for a moment. A fragrant scent filled his every breath. Could it be Dana’s scent?

The smooth and cool sensation felt just like Dana’s skin. His throat burned. His hand unconsciously gripped tighter on the bed. As if grasping the flesh of the woman he coveted, he clutched the bed sheet. His touch, filled with the desire to feel her body, wandered over the bed.

As Kaiden lay there with his face buried, feeling the place where Dana would have lain, he suddenly opened his eyes wide. His keen knight’s ears heard approaching footsteps. Still far away beyond the reception room. Probably footsteps walking down the corridor.

Kaiden jumped up and turned to leave the bedroom. Just as he was about to pass through the doorframe, he suddenly stopped. He turned his head to look at the bed he had touched. The blanket that had been neatly arranged was now wrinkled from his touch.

Dana’s space that had been immaculate without a single flaw. The space that had no trace of anyone else now bore his mark. The impression where he had bent down to feel it.

“…”

After quietly looking at that sight, Kaiden left the bedroom as is. Behind the man turning his back to leave, only the bed remained, bearing the traces of his intrusion. As if someday he would invade this room again and carve his presence into the white, pristinely arranged place, it remained holding the marks of the man’s hands.