I Came Prepared
They had finished a simple dinner and cleared the table.
As the night deepened, the lights along the Han River grew sharper. Beyond the living-room window the city’s glow stretched and swayed, while inside only a single low lamp was lit. The Saintess was still wearing the Hero’s white dress shirt. The sleeves covered the backs of her hands, and the hem fell past her thighs.
She sat quietly on the sofa.
The Hero came out into the living room carrying a blanket and a pillow.
The Saintess lifted her head.
“What is… that?”
“For me.”
He set the blanket down beside the sofa as if it were nothing.
“You take the bed. I’ll sleep here.”
For a moment she looked at him as though she could not understand the words.
The bed.
The sofa.
Beside the sofa lay one blanket and one pillow.
Seeing her expression, the Hero explained more gently.
“You were exhausted today. It’s a strange house, and you got a scare while you were washing. Sleep comfortably in the bed. The sofa’s fine for me.”
She knew it was consideration.
He had always been like that—the one who stepped back a pace so she would not have to push herself.
So it would be the same heart now.
In front of that blanket the Saintess gripped the shirt hem more tightly.
The small distance felt enormous.
The glass doors of the Management Bureau had already closed. They had entered the same home, eaten dinner at the same table, and right now his shirt was draped over her body.
And still a blanket lay on the sofa.
She clenched the shirt hem in her fingertips.
The moment she spoke it aloud, she feared every word would take on a different meaning. Too many large words caught at the base of her throat—words still too unfamiliar to leave her own mouth.
Yet she knew one thing.
She did not want to grow farther apart.
“Hero.”
She called him carefully.
“Mm?”
He looked up mid-motion, still holding the blanket.
The Saintess could not continue at once.
Her chest was racing too hard. She did not know what to say. Asking why he meant to sleep apart felt too blunt; saying she wanted to be with him felt even more shameful.
But if she stayed silent, this night would simply pass.
He would keep his distance for her sake.
And she would be left inside that distance again.
She did not want to leave this night on the far side of a single blanket.
Slowly she rose from her seat.
The white shirt hem swayed above her thighs. The fingers that emerged from the cuffs were trembling.
The Hero froze with the blanket still in his hands.
She took one step closer.
The nearer she came, the hotter her face grew; her toes gripped the floor again and again.
Still she took the next step.
“I…”
Her voice trembled, small.
She looked up at him.
Worry rose first on the Hero’s face—an expression she knew well. The face of someone who hoped she would not be hurt, would not be startled, would not overreach.
So she did not speak at length.
If the words went on, he might step back again.
She clenched her trembling hands.
“I came prepared.”
The Hero could not speak.
The blanket in his hands suddenly felt awkward.
She did not lower her head. Her fingertips shook, yet she remained standing before him.
Only then did he set the blanket down.
Very slowly.
“Ria.”
His voice dropped.
Her shoulders trembled faintly.
Instead of answering she lifted her face.
He started to take a step closer and stopped.
His toes stayed where they were.
His fingertips hovered a moment in the air.
She looked at that hand—the same hand that had been holding the blanket only moments before.
“Really…”
He stopped there.
She knew the question he never finished asking.
And carefully she reached out first.
She took his fingertips.
His hand was a little cold. So was hers. Both of them were trembling.
Because of that shared tremor she finally let out a breath.
He was trembling too, like someone who knew nothing.
He might have brought her here as her protector. Yet in these fingertips he stood as awkward as a man receiving someone’s confession for the first time.
“To the bedroom…”
he said low.
He stopped again after that much.
She did not let go of his hand.
“Yes.”
It was a small answer.
That single word set them both in motion.
The bedroom was quieter than the living room.
A wide bed and white sheets. A low bedside lamp. City light faintly visible through the closed curtains.
She paused a moment at the doorway.
It was neither the temporary quarters of the Management Bureau nor the Saintess’s chamber in the other world.
The Hero’s bedroom.
And now a room where she too would stay.
That fact alone made her breath shallow.
He stood beside the bed and waited for her. He did not come closer first. He waited until she herself stepped into the room and stood before the bed of her own will.
That waiting was grateful.
And it made her ache.
She stood at the foot of the bed.
Her toes brushed near the white sheets. Her hands held the front of the dress shirt.
The clothes she had borrowed after the bath.
The clothes that had wrapped her all day, faintly carrying his scent.
She set her hands on the buttons.
At first she could not even find the small holes easily. Her fingertips slipped over the fabric again and again, and each time the shirt hem trembled finely.
He stood in place and waited.
His gaze followed her shaking fingertips.
When at last one button came free, cool air slipped in through the open collar.
The ends of her damp silver hair brushed beside her collarbone. Below it, white skin rose quietly under the low light.
Her fingertips sought the next button.
The cloth parted a little more.
The shadow inside the shirt deepened, and the soft line of the upper swell of her breasts showed between the fabric. Each time she drew breath the open edges of the shirt swayed faintly.
His breath swayed low as well.
There was no sound of water from the bathroom now.
This time it was Ria’s own hands undoing the buttons one by one.
His hands stiffened at his sides; his gaze followed hers downward—
from collarbone to the rise of her chest, from her chest farther down.
Under the low light the revealed skin slowly widened. Her fingertips trembled with it.
That gaze made her more ashamed.
Yet because of that gaze she was able to free the last button.
The final button came undone.
The white shirt slid slowly from her shoulders.
Instinctively she caught the hem.
The cloth that had covered her breasts crumpled in her hands.
For a moment her hands stopped.
Her body still wanted to hide.
But she did not want to retreat behind the fabric again.
She swallowed a trembling breath and lifted her face.
He said nothing.
He was waiting.
Her hands slowly opened.
The shirt slipped down past her shoulders.
Cool air touched her chest first.
Before his eyes her white skin slowly revealed itself under the low light. Damp silver hair lay scattered over collarbone and shoulders; the rounded lines of her breasts trembled faintly with each inhale. The small, stiffened pink tips stood clear against the white skin.
The shirt hem slid past waist and thighs and farther down.
Her fingertips trembled near the falling cloth. Her shoulders drew in a little. In that interval the shirt brushed past her fingers and continued to slide beneath the low light.
In that brief gap, even the deep place between her pressed-together thighs was momentarily revealed under the lamp.
A single drop of water fell from the tip of a damp strand, slid over her collarbone, and trailed across her breast.
She hunched her shoulders in shame. Her arms opened slightly. Her face was flushed; her fingertips shook.
Still she did not catch the shirt again.
His breath caught in his throat.
In the bathroom he had been able to look away.
He had entered in surprise, and checking whether she was hurt had come first.
But this was different.
Ria had let go with her own hands.
His gaze stayed on her.
It traveled slowly over the bare shoulders and breasts, past the belly that trembled finely with her breath, down to the inner thighs briefly revealed beneath the shirt hem.
His fingertips slowly curled at his sides.
She was different from the Ria who had prayed in her saintess robes.
The Ria of this moment was trembling. Ashamed yet not averting her eyes, shoulders drawn in yet not catching the shirt again.
His toes rooted to the floor.
“I’m scared.”
She said it very softly.
Her voice shook.
“But… if you’re here, Hero, I can be strong.”
He came closer slowly.
Even standing before her he did not reach out at once.
He looked first at her eyes and her trembling fingertips.
“Ria.”
He called her low.
She lifted her face a little.
His voice had dropped just a fraction more.
Her heart beat harder at that small change alone.
“I don’t really know.”
She spoke first.
“What I’m supposed to do, or how much I’ll tremble.”
His gaze wavered.
She raised her hand and took his fingertips.
Her hand was cold and shook a little.
His fingers slowly closed inside hers.
Holding those fingertips tightly, she said, very small,
“So… hold me.”
His hands rose slowly.
This time they did not stop halfway.
Very carefully he drew the Saintess into his arms.
Her body stiffened faintly inside his embrace. The warmth against bare skin was unfamiliar. Yet the strength of the arms supporting her back felt as known as something she had always known.
They were the hands that had steadied her back after battle.
The hands of the man who, at the end of a long march, had offered water first and had simply stayed beside her when she tried not to cry.
Those hands were holding her now.
She closed her eyes.
His breath was close.
And that breath, too, was trembling just like hers.
