A Table Set for One
Birdsong drifted in from beyond the window. The moment she registered the sound, she felt the bright light pressing against her closed eyelids as well.
Laniakea opened her eyes slowly. Everything was a blur. She blinked a few times, and only then did the world begin to sharpen, little by little.
Soon the familiar ceiling and window came into view. When she turned her gaze, she found the quilt and sheets equally familiar. And then…
“……Ah.”
Lowering her eyes, Laniakea saw her own bare body, and the thick arm wrapped around her waist.
She was not startled. The arm was familiar, and she knew perfectly well whose it was.
Right. He stayed here all of yesterday.
The arm holding her waist as though it had every right to be there was Hyperion’s.
Laniakea lay still and looked at it. In the bright sunlight, things the lamplight had failed to show her stood out with painful clarity. Not only his fingers, but the back of his hand and the length of his arm were covered in small scars—cuts, scrapes, and deep wounds that looked as if the flesh had been gouged away. For a prince, his body bore far too many of them.
She considered a moment, then carefully reached out. Beneath the first place her fingers touched, she felt a scar. It was callused and uneven, and it looked as though it had been there a very long time.
The border must have been terribly hard on him.
Laniakea called to mind what she had heard of that place, how harsh and barren it was. Where Hyperion had been stationed, winter claimed half the year. The mountain range that formed a natural border with the barbarian lands meant that only a little farther south lay a fertile breadbasket, and yet the ground he occupied was said to suffer perpetual bitter cold, snow that never melted through the whole of winter. The people there claimed that losing a finger or a toe to frostbite was simply a matter of course.
“Ah, the very tip of my left ear went necrotic. Fortunately, it wasn’t a large piece.”
Hadn’t Signo said as much once, casually brushing his hair aside to show her? However small, it was still a part of his body lost, and yet he had spoken of it as lightly as if he were describing a paper cut.
“I’m only a civil officer, so I sit safely indoors. It was His Majesty and the other knights who suffered.”
These, then, must be the traces of the hardship he had meant.
Laniakea’s fingers, tracing along his arm, came to rest against his fingertips. She felt the calluses of a man who had gripped a sword for a very long time. The moment that rough texture met her skin, she flinched. The night before last, and all through yesterday, these same fingers had worked their way into her.
She had felt it even while he suckled at her breasts, but Hyperion was more persistent than she had imagined. At first he had slipped in a single thick index finger, and once her body accepted it with some ease, he quietly added another. When two went in, her breath caught hard in her throat. But he pushed carefully, slowly, stroking her from within, and before long even those two—overwhelming at first—slid smoothly inside. When his fingertips rubbed along her deepest wall, Laniakea could feel those calluses with unbearable vividness.
“Haa…….”
She had only remembered it, and already breathing was difficult. If she stayed like this, she would soak herself down there all over again, and all on her own.
I should get up and wash.
Right up until she fell asleep he had been stirring between her legs and licking her everywhere, and yet she did not feel sticky or unclean. He must have wiped her clean while she slept.
Just as Laniakea gently lifted his arm and tried to slip out of bed—
“Where are you going?”
A voice far too clear to belong to a sleeping man came from behind her.
“You were awake? Then you might have given me some sign.”
“I wanted to see what you were doing, so I kept still. Though it was a bit of a struggle, holding out through the tickling.”
As he spoke, Hyperion buried his face against the nape of her neck, and their bodies drew even closer. Feeling him press between her buttocks, Laniakea caught her lower lip between her teeth. A faint, lingering ache she could not quite call pain still throbbed below, and she had the distinct sense that she was growing wet.
All of yesterday, Hyperion had spent the entire day loosening her there.
“Th-the Emperor’s Palace… y-you ought to go…”
“Don’t worry. I finished everything ahead of time, so I could spend the whole day with you.”
So that was why he had not come sooner. In any case, his answer left Laniakea no choice but to brace herself. It meant he intended to hold her all day and refuse to let go.
Perhaps it was thanks to his efforts. By yesterday evening, Laniakea had managed to take three of his fingers. It had not hurt. She had felt only a snugness just shy of too much. She had begun to think they might leave it there.
“I’m told that loosening the entrance isn’t the end of it.”
With that, Hyperion crooked the fingers he had pushed deep inside her.
At the sensation of being opened from within, she had clung to him and spilled short, shallow breaths. What left her dumbfounded was that even that drew pleasure from her body. Watching her tremble each time he carefully spread her open, Hyperion had whispered in a voice thick with delight.
“I’d like you to grow used to me a little sooner. Then taking me won’t be so hard on you.”
And then, last night, against her thoroughly softened entrance, he had pressed the tip of himself—only just.
She had thought it might be easier than before. It was a misconception. The weight and the feel were nothing like fingers, and Laniakea tensed before she knew it. Noticing, Hyperion stroked the small of her back and murmured.
“I don’t mean to rush. There’s still time enough.”
And with that, hadn’t he told her to sleep now, and quietly drawn himself back?
Exhaustion closed her eyes soon enough, but until her awareness faded, Laniakea held on to a doubt. The time left to him was by no means plentiful. A year was long, of course, and if she conceived, their contract would be extended until the child was born. Even so, they had not yet properly lain together, and he said it was fine.
There’s no way it’s truly fine.
The nobles’ veiled petitions had not ceased. Under imperial law, they were asking that the line of succession be settled—collateral royals included—even if there was no child yet. It was not truly a request to hand the throne to a side branch. It was a demand that he secure a stable heir quickly, lest the imperial authority only just being set in order fall into danger again. It was not even a matter that came before the Empress’s Palace, and still Laniakea knew of it. The pressure reaching him directly, as Emperor, must be fiercer still.
So he really ought to be in a hurry.
And yet the moment he saw her struggling, he had withdrawn at once. Strangely, that fact set an itch stirring deep in her chest. He had watched her. He had drawn back for her sake.
“You’re still tired. Sleep a little longer.”
The hand stroking her hair felt good, and the morning sunlight was warm. In the end, weariness still clinging to her, Laniakea sank back into sleep.
“Even so, I never thought I’d sleep clear through to lunch.”
Laniakea sat alone in the dining room of the Main Palace, looking at the light meal laid out for her, so recently risen. She had thought that when she opened her eyes again they might eat together as they had yesterday, then prepare to return each to their own palace. But when she woke, Hyperion had already gone back to the Emperor’s Palace.
The head maid told her an urgent matter had arisen there, so he had returned first. He had also said the Empress was tired, and that they were to leave her to sleep as deeply and quietly as possible.
It was plainly a kindness she ought to be grateful for. She was not glad.
Yesterday we ate together.
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner, all of them. Nor had they spent the whole day only tumbling in bed. They had gone over the documents she had brought just in case, and in the afternoon they drank tea and traded the small stories they had never told each other. Then they had climbed back into bed and tumbled about again.
Today, suddenly, she was alone.
In that moment Laniakea understood. They had not been together so very long, and yet she had already grown used to his being there.
Her heart, even before her body.
Listlessly, she speared a bite with her fork and put it in her mouth. She had always eaten alone. Strangely, today of all days, the food had no taste.