The Knight Who Memorized the Guidebook
It was the day before my third exhibition with Everett.
I was out shopping for clothes with Connie.
I’d tried picking an outfit the night before and ended up completely frustrated. My wardrobe was pathetic because I never wore anything fancy to a drab place like work.
I can’t show up in the same clothes again.
The moment the sun rose, I dragged Connie out and we made the rounds of the atelier district. I bought an armful of outfits while deliberately ignoring the price tags.
There are still two exhibitions left. Why on earth did I buy ten outfits?
I felt a flicker of regret the second I stepped out of the atelier, but the damage was already done.
I headed to a nearby restaurant with Connie to treat her to dinner, as promised for tagging along on my shopping spree.
“Want to split the couple’s set?”
Connie wrinkled her nose, clearly unable to contain her mischief as she pointed at the menu.
Couple’s sets deserved to be banished from the capital entirely.
“Just order something normal.”
I confiscated the menu from her and ordered the top item—today’s special.
“Ugh, I don’t even like fish.”
Connie grumbled for a moment, but once the food arrived she dug in with gusto.
“I thought you hated fish dishes.”
“I do, but this place actually knows how to cook it.”
Connie gathered the flaky cod onto her fork, praising the chef with every bite.
“Wipe the sauce off your mouth.”
Once our stomachs were full, the worry that had been occupying my mind swelled up again. I poked at the garnish with my fork a few times before finally blurting it out.
“So, this is about a friend of mine…”
Connie wiped her mouth and asked innocently, “You have friends I don’t know about?”
No.
“Fine, it’s about me.”
When I shamelessly changed my story, Connie snorted.
“Yeah, I figured. So what’s up?”
She seemed willing to listen after all. She set down her fork and knife and straightened up.
But now that it was time to speak, the words stuck in my throat. I practically whispered the beginning.
“Well… I think Sir Rohas might be interested in me too?”
I explained what had happened at the second exhibition.
It was the day of the second exhibition.
Maybe because he’d been late last time, Everett was already waiting when I arrived—far earlier than our promised time.
His face had been visibly annoyed and bored by the crowds, but the moment our eyes met it brightened like the sun coming out.
Everett strode over with those long legs of his, closing the distance and offering me his hand.
I placed mine over it out of habit.
He froze for a second in the exact posture Edwin used when requesting an escort, then his cheeks flushed pink.
Those golden eyes flicked toward me, hesitant, before darting away again.
As if seeking silent permission, he looked at me once more and then laced our fingers together.
For the first time in my life, I became acutely aware of the sensation between each finger.
The ticklish tension made me avert my gaze without thinking. Everett bit his lip and started to pull away.
I’m not telling you not to hold my hand.
I gripped his hand firmly before he could untangle our fingers.
His expression brightened noticeably.
I pretended to look elsewhere, trying to hide my own burning face.
That’s how we walked through the exhibition hall—hand in hand.
The physical distance was actually greater than when he escorted me properly, yet the feeling of our touching skin made this far more intimate.
Our joined hands grew damp.
Ugh, I can’t focus on anything.
At some point I was simply pretending to look at the exhibits with interest while we walked.
This was the exhibition I’d been looking forward to most, too.
I moved mechanically from piece to piece, lingering for a moment before moving on.
Still, the time I spent doing that gave my racing heart a chance to get used to the pace.
I finally gathered the courage to glance sideways at Everett.
I wanted to know if this moment—so thick with tension that even the air felt heavy—was the same for him.
Unfortunately, he was looking at me too. Our eyes locked perfectly.
It felt like that single glance had cast a spell that turned us both into ice statues.
We couldn’t even breathe properly; our gazes simply clung to each other.
The ears that had just begun to cool down grew hot again.
I quickly looked away.
But it was useless.
Our reflections were caught in the glass protecting the exhibits.
Everett’s golden eyes reached me through that glass.
The image was blurry, yet his gaze was sharper than ever.
Our bodies faced the displayed artifacts, but our eyes were only for each other.
A faint electric current seemed to run from our fingertips.
In the end, I was the one who looked away first.
I exaggerated my admiration as if I’d been studying the artifact the whole time and spoke in an artificially cheerful voice.
“Sir Rohas, this is believed to be a bellows crafted by dwarves.”
I let go of our clasped, slightly sweaty hands and stepped closer to the artifact.
Only then did oxygen—thin as mountain air until now—fill my lungs again.
While pretending to admire what now looked like nothing more than a lump of scrap metal, I secretly wiped my palms on the carefully chosen outfit I wore.
Everett, freed a moment later from the same petrification spell, lifted the corners of his mouth in a small laugh.
It was the kind of laugh that said what an insignificant little hobby.
“Indeed. It really is fascinating.”
Everett spoke the word “fascinating” like he was reading from a textbook, then cleared his throat with a small cough.
He stared into the empty air and continued.
“Dwarves are a mysterious race that no longer reveals itself in this world. Every member possesses innate talent as a blacksmith. The bellows they used could raise the temperature of molten iron to a degree no human could match.”
I’d thought his tone sounded a little awkward. It was exactly the explanation from the exhibition catalog.
Wait… did he actually memorize the whole thing?
It seemed he’d noticed how excited I’d been by myself at the first exhibition.
That’s kind of sweet.
I smiled secretly to myself and tested him with a question.
“They’re the only blacksmiths who can work mithril, the mineral that only appears in legends, right?”
It was the very next sentence in the catalog he’d memorized.
“So they say. If not for the ancient empire’s policy of rejecting other races, human civilization would have advanced far more dramatically.”
He really did memorize it.
Everett’s adorable sincerity made it feel like feathers were brushing the inside of my ribcage. I kept wanting to laugh.
Excited now, I dragged him all over the exhibition hall from that point on.
Whenever I looked at an artifact and then at him, the catalog explanation flowed out without pause.
He really seemed to have memorized the entire booklet.
He’d make an amazing docent with that voice.
I grinned behind his back.
After we’d gone full circle through the hall, Everett let out a sigh of relief, looking proud that he’d used up every bit of his preparation.
Why is he so cute?
I secretly found the man eight years older than me utterly adorable.
That day, as Everett walked me home, I whispered my parting words like I was sharing a secret.
“By the way, you don’t have to memorize the catalog for the next exhibition.”
“That’s not…”
Everett had been about to deny it out of embarrassment, but when our eyes met he sighed and admitted it honestly.
“You’re right. I did memorize it.”
The red that usually only touched his ears this time spread all the way down his neck.
To hide his flushed face, Everett lowered his head and tapped the ground with the toe of his shoe, whispering.
“You seemed to like that kind of thing, Miss Diaz… so I wanted to match you.”
Everett Rohas was, for a thirty-year-old man, truly—adorable.
When I finished recounting the second exhibition, Connie tapped her plate with her fork in delight.
“There it is. He’s interested. Very interested.”
I know that now too.
Connie had been about to tease me like she’d caught me in something, but she flinched at my gloomy expression.
“He’s obviously crazy about you. So what’s the problem?”
She looked genuinely puzzled.
“There are only two exhibitions left.”
Which meant only two meetings left with Everett.
“Then just make another appointment after that.”
Connie sounded like she couldn’t understand why I was worrying.
“If we keep meeting without any reason, what kind of relationship is that?”
I let out a long sigh.
In short, I knew we were in the middle of something like a budding romance, but I had no idea how to move past this stage.
The remaining two meetings feel like some kind of limit.
“Hmm.”
Connie ruffled her vivid scarlet hair.
It didn’t seem like any brilliant answer was coming to her.
If my dating experience was in the negatives, Connie’s was at zero.
She was especially weak with these subtle situations, which was why she’d ended up completely messing up her already curly hair.
Then she squeezed out an answer.
“Why don’t you just take the initiative a bit more?”
“Me?”
It somehow sounded like a surprisingly plausible solution.