Chapter 1 – Wednesday’s Knight

‘My curtains…… where did they go?’

Looking at the spotless white curtains, Lara White thought.

Lara, blinking her half-awake eyes heavily, soon covered her face with the back of her hand. The morning sunlight stung her eyes.

“What’s the point of new curtains when they block the sun worse than curtains that were three years old.”

Quietly mourning in her heart the pink flower-patterned curtains that had left her overnight, Lara muttered.

Inside the small patch of darkness formed beneath the back of her hand, Lara’s eyes repeatedly closed and opened. As the drowsiness that had been weighing heavily on her head gradually eased, her mind began to return.

Something was strange.

Come to think of it, it was not only the curtains that had changed. Between the window and the bed, she felt a sense of distance she had never once experienced in her own room, which in kind terms was compact and in blunt terms no bigger than a speck. Feeling an unease she could not put into words, Lara swallowed hard.

Lara moved away the back of her hand that had been covering her eyes and opened them narrowly. Both hands immediately reached for the bed sheet.

‘This excessively soft texture……’

She was certain. This was not something that should be on her bed.

Lara, now fully opening her eyes, let her gaze rise to the ceiling. The ceiling mold that had been with her as long as her pink flower-patterned curtains was nowhere to be seen. In fact, that ceiling was even whiter and cleaner than the new curtains hanging at the window.

This isn’t my house. The moment she reached that bewildering conclusion, a sigh slipped out.

‘Then…… where on earth is this?’

Come to think of it, she smelled faintly of alcohol. No, if I was drunk, I should have quietly gone home, so did I spend money on a place like this? While busily calculating in her head how much the lodging fee for this sparkling, white, spacious room might be, Lara grabbed her head.

“No.”

As Lara abruptly sat up, the soft cloth wrapped around her body slid downward.

Lara’s gaze naturally shifted from the ceiling to the wall. Soon, she noticed the chair placed before the wall and the clothes spread over it. To Lara’s eyes, that scene…… looked exactly like someone was drying wet clothes.

But there was one major problem with that sight. The shirt and coat carelessly draped over the chair on the right were far too large to be hers. No matter how she looked at them, front or back, they could only belong to a well-built man.

Staring blankly at the clothes, Lara began feeling over her own body. Please let me be wearing clothes, she prayed desperately. But that wish was not granted. Instead of rustling cloth, what touched her hand was soft flesh.

Lara was n*ked. The moment she realized it, strange aches began making themselves known in her hips, thighs, waist…… It was pain that seemed to have arrived solely to tell her that this situation was not a dream.

Wow. Lowering her head, Lara let out a hollow laugh. Red marks of congestion were imprinted here and there on her body. Traces not of insects but of a person, that is, of someone who had very diligently kissed and sucked at her. No, wasn’t this kind of excessive kissing something that only appeared in novels? Lara’s face immediately crumpled with bewilderment. That was separate from the way both her cheeks had grown hot for no reason.

“Lara White…… just what in the world have you been doing……”

Having finished speaking, Lara shut her mouth tightly. She was trapped inside the silence she herself had made. They said that if you were shocked enough, you could not think at all, and that was exactly how it was right now.

Still, one thing was certain. I’ve gone mad. There’s no question I must have gone mad, right?

The longer the silence lasted, the clearer her mind became. Then one thought came to her. Lara had to look to her left. There was no longer any need to look at the fluttering white curtains, the tea table, the chairs with clothes hanging over them, or the clean mold-free ceiling.

The moment had come to face the trouble she had caused with her own eyes. Like a roughly carved wooden puppet, Lara’s body awkwardly turned to the left.

“……”

Just as expected. A man was sharing the bed with her. And on top of that, he was completely bare from the waist up. Afraid that the man might wake at the sound of her breathing, Lara quickly covered her own mouth.

Calm down, calm down. After chanting the word calm about ten times in her mind, she really did settle a little. So I spent the night with that man. And like this too…… a very passionate night. Floundering between embarrassment and shame, Lara pointlessly clenched and unclenched her fists again and again. But soon, as if making up her mind about something, she clenched her fist tightly and began studying the sleeping man’s face.

……Without realizing it, Lara removed the sleep from the corners of her eyes. She even remembered to rub her eyes with the back of her hand to make her somewhat blurry focus clearer.

‘How absurdly handsome.’

That was the very first thought that came to her on seeing the man’s face.

From the oddly bright-looking black hair, to the pretty yet handsome face, to the muscular body like that of a well-trained Knight, and the large and small scars engraved here and there across that body, Lara’s gaze gradually lowered.

A very dangerously handsome man was sleeping softly right beside her.

It was not a familiar face. If he were the sort of person she had only passed by once or twice, that could happen. But there was no way she would easily forget a face handsome enough to stand out this much—even with his eyes closed.

Of course, she had met a dark-skinned southerner as handsome as this man before. Though, to be fair, half of his face had been covered. But unlike the man before her now, he had bright platinum hair like grains of desert sand. He had also been somewhat smaller in build. Sweeping from her mind that nameless man with whom she had only spoken once, years ago, Lara continued her thoughts.

Then this man had a high probability of being someone she first met yesterday……

‘I spent the night with a man I had never seen before? Me?’

Truly, Lara wanted to deny reality. But denying reality requires at least some room to breathe. First, she had to put on something, anything.

Hastily glancing around, Lara picked up the underwear and shirt lying on the floor. Her skirt and coat were hanging very neatly inside a half-open wardrobe some distance away. She had no choice but to gather and put on whatever was nearby first.

“Let’s think this through……. Just what exactly happened last night.”

Busily fastening the buttons of the shirt, Lara leaned closer toward the man. Her eyes narrowed as she examined his handsome face. But she could not study him for long. Because the man opened his eyes.

“Good morning, isn’t it?”

The man’s low voice struck Lara by the ear.

Her own stunned face was fully reflected in the man’s dark purple eyes. Now that his eyes were open, his face was even more strikingly handsome. No, how could someone who had just woken up possibly look like that?

“Still handsome when you see me again, right?”

The man smiled brightly at Lara, who had gone silent.

“……Aah!”

Startled a beat late, Lara sprang to her feet and shouted. Though she failed to stand fully because her foot caught in the blanket. As Lara’s body started to topple off the bed, the man, who had followed her by lifting his upper body, caught her softly with his large hand.

“Got you.”

“……”

“I think it’s even nicer seeing you in daylight. Or is that just me?”

Lara’s eyes met the man’s, his eyes drooping slightly downward in contrast to the sharp shape of his brows that gave off a cold impression. The hand holding Lara’s arm slipped away as gently as it had caught her.

The man smiled at Lara once again. It was nice to see such a handsome face smiling, but…… why was he acting so familiar? Lara’s eyes sharpened with caution.

“Excuse me, but……”

Lara trailed off. As if telling her to continue, the man gave a kind nod.

“……Who are you?”

“You don’t remember?”

At the man’s question, Lara answered in place of words with a nod.

“That’s a lie.”

“W-why would I lie?”

“Do you remember us drinking together?”

She did not remember.

“How about how we got here?”

It was the same.

Making a small sound, the man stared intently at Lara and then asked her several more questions, as if to see whether she remembered this at least. It was…… utter nonsense. He said he had washed her hair because bird droppings had gotten in it, wiped vomit from her face, and even brushed her teeth for her.

“You haven’t forgotten what happened on the bed too, have you? That would hurt my feelings quite a bit.”

The man spoke in a tone that truly sounded hurt. But unlike the mouth speaking of wounded feelings, his eyes were still smiling brightly, so his words did not feel sincere.