TLNTAAM Chapter 5

Your Majesty, Please Don't Touch Me

"It's Sineryphyll—have you heard of it?"

Seraphie shook her head. Fair enough. It was remote enough that someone who'd spent her whole life in the capital would never have reason to know it.

"Very deep countryside. I arrived here yesterday."

She gestured for me to come closer. No reason to refuse, so I did, carefully.

"This is the first time I've seen someone with the exact same hair color as me."

Seraphie held her long hair against my short hair, then let it fall. Platinum blonde scattered between her slender fingers.

Oh. You're right. Identical.

'I didn't know.'

I'd only just realized that Nina the saint-maid shared a hair color with Nina the Sacred. Come to think of it, their faces were somewhat similar too?

"I assumed this color was common. At the orphanage where I lived, a few others had it too."

"Really? I've never once seen anyone in the holy city with my same color. It always seemed strange to me. What's your name?"

I smiled.

"Nina, ma'am. Nina Cage—though I only got the surname yesterday, so it still feels a bit foreign."

"Why didn't you have a surname before?"

She accepted the glass of water I offered. Seraphie, it seemed, understood rather less about the world than Nina did.

"Orphans don't have surnames. And even if they do, entering a cathedral orphanage means losing them. I might have had one from my parents originally, but I was so young—I don't even remember."

Why does entering the cathedral erase a surname?

The reasoning sounded noble enough on the surface. One of those lofty doctrines. When a child becomes an orphan, they have entered the embrace of God—so the name is stripped away as a form of rebirth. In practice, this was how human trafficking was made possible.

'She wouldn't know, the Sacred.'

Probably had no need to. A saint's work was healing the sick according to the temple's orders.

'I'm not blaming anyone of high station. I'm just saying.'

If the people around her kept it hidden, of course she wouldn't know.

'But what would happen if she did?'

How would this kind, beautiful saint react?

"How terrible. You must want to know your original surname."

Whether or not she understood what was passing through my mind, she kept fiddling absently with my hair.

"But why is your hair so short?"

That caught me slightly off guard. I hadn't expected her to ask that. I smiled awkwardly and turned my gaze away.

'I should be honest, I suppose.'

It wasn't a shameful thing. I lowered my eyes toward the floor the way a child confessing something embarrassing might.

"I needed travel money, so I cut it and sold it. Luckily a noble young lady happened to want my hair color, so I got quite a good price for it."

Two-thirds of that price had gone to introduction fees and offerings, naturally. Still, what remained had covered the travel costs well enough.

'I personally have no strong feelings about short hair, but apparently in this world women's hair matters enormously.'

I actually found the shorter length lighter and easier to manage. But I kept that to myself.

"My goodness—selling your hair, though!"

"It'll grow back. And it fetched a decent price, so if the opportunity comes again, I'd sell it again."

Absolutely. Cash is king. No taxes on it either, in this world. And hair grows back.

"You can't! You simply can't! Hair this beautiful should obviously be grown out!"

The Sacred seemed distressed on behalf of my hair and kept smoothing the ends of it. I could only smile awkwardly back.

'She's kind. Genuinely.'

That made sense, given she'd spent her time healing the sick. Saints traveled across the country as a matter of course—and not just to bright, pleasant places.

Seraphie fussed over my hair for quite some time before finally managing a single sip of water. The skin visible through her gauzy layers of cloth was luminous enough to hurt to look at.

'A kind and beautiful saint…'

I was beginning to understand why novel-Nina had done everything this woman asked.

'Plus the territorial thing.'

Maybe Seraphie had been the only person in the whole novel who'd been kind to Nina.

'Sad.'

I was still turning that over when it happened. An unfamiliar presence. I looked up sharply.

"All this chattering. So noisy."

A low voice filled the room.

The layered canopy and curtains were pushed aside. Seraphie went visibly rigid and trembled at the sound, her body bracing almost before her mind could.

I didn't move. I only looked toward where the sound had come from.

A man walked out slowly.

The first thing I noticed was the long black hair. It swayed past broad-looking shoulders all the way to his waist, catching the light.

'Good lord.'

He'd only half-draped a long robe over himself, leaving the rest exposed. And even that robe had come loose on its own, falling open across wide shoulders.

'That—that is art.'

As Lee Hwayun, I had analyzed the bodies of many professional athletes. Nothing had ever looked quite like this.

The line from neck to shoulder met and parted in exactly the right way. The exposed collarbone anchored the whole structure of his throat.

'The proportions are criminal.'

Below the chest—not excessive, but solid—the abdomen divided into something that had absolutely no business existing.

'So TL novel male leads really don't just let anyone have the role.'

He built the Great Wall with the heroine for three days with that body?

My nose felt warm. I focused intensely on keeping my eyes at face level. My instincts had extremely strong opinions about going lower.

'Worth dying to see.'

They say a ghost who died well-fed looks radiant. What do you call a ghost who died from looking at something?

Probably a good death. Honestly.

I clenched my fist. Instinct and reason were conducting tense negotiations. Get a hold of yourself. Do you want to be executed for lèse-majesté?

I was in the middle of that desperate internal lecture when a scream interrupted.

"Oh, Nina! Your nose is bleeding!"

I startled and touched my nose. Red blood bloomed across the white lace trim at my sleeve.

'Nina is weak to excitement, apparently.'

Young body. Not built for stimulation or stress. I smiled awkwardly and whispered,

"I must be a little tired."

But someone else answered.

"You don't look tired."

My head was turned.

There was no time to react. By the time I registered what had happened, a firm hand had my chin.

Our eyes met.

'Red irises…'

The first thing I thought was the color of his eyes. In irises red as blood, the reflection of short-platinum-haired Nina looked back at me.

It had been a very long time since I'd seen my own face in someone else's eyes.

'Too close.'

The king had leaned in close enough for me to feel his breath. I bit my lip slightly. This was a little alarming.

'Was there a scene like this?'

Not that I could recall. Nowhere in Bound Bird's account of Seraphie and Nina's first meeting had anyone mentioned the king asleep in the bed. And the king physically turning a maid's head with his own hands—

"Curious."

I couldn't decide whether to look away or keep looking.

"Your eye color is the same as mine. Red irises—I've never seen them on anyone but myself. Were there many with that color at your orphanage too?"

I shook my head slightly. In Nina's memories, no one had shared her eye color.

The king released my face shortly after. He looked at his own hand and frowned. Cold sweat prickled down my spine.

'My nosebleed. On the back of his hand.'

The god of carnal literature had given me a spectacular punishment. This was why my mother always said not to look at too much of that sort of thing. I grabbed my apron and immediately began wiping the back of the king's hand.

"I'm so sorry!"

'His beautiful hand. My nosebleed. On his beautiful hand.'

No time for explanations. Only damage control. I wiped the blood from the back of the king's hand with thorough, focused attention.

Then, laughter.

"You're a funny one."

The king laughed—genuinely, easily—and raised the hand I'd just cleaned to eye level, examining it, then lowered it. I stood there holding my thoroughly ruined apron and stared at him blankly.

"You said Nina?"

"Pardon? Oh—yes."

Come to think of it, I hadn't even properly paid my respects. Should I kneel now? The atmosphere didn't really call for it.

"Platinum hair and red eyes. You look like a rabbit. I've never thought of my own eyes as rabbit-like before."

The king kept touching my face. He pressed the corner of my eye lightly, then ran a finger along the bridge of my nose. The tickle of it was unbearable but I couldn't pull away, so I just trembled slightly instead.

Kk—

The king found that funny. A short, low laugh. I was beginning to feel like I might cry. What on earth was happening, and why.

My heart was slamming against my ribs. I could feel the heat in my face.

"Interesting. And you run rather cool, don't you?"

What did that mean? The king bent at the waist this time, taking my cheeks in both hands and pulling lightly.

"Soft too. Weak, but because of the divine power? I'd heard you had some regenerative capacity, so I was curious—but it doesn't seem to conflict with my mana."

I had absolutely no idea what he was saying, so I just moved my eyes. Frankly, in this situation I couldn't even tell whether I was supposed to close them or keep them open. There was nothing to do but look directly at the king.

And in the moment I did, my mind went white.

'He's too handsome.'

His body had been so extraordinary that I'd almost forgotten. But this king was unreasonably good-looking.

'That nose is a work of art.'

The line from a fine forehead into a perfectly proportioned nose was just—clean. And his throat. His throat was immaculate.

'A face like this would sell anything it touched.'

Magazine cover—sold out. Fashion editorial—every piece of clothing gone before the ink dried.

I stared at his face in a state of suspended animation. When was I ever going to see a face like this again. No cameras in this world, so I had to preserve as much as possible in memory.

Even the slight smirk at his jawline was art. I could not afford to miss a single frame.

'There really are good things in this world.'

It was the first time since arriving in this world that I had felt grateful to God. Iberia must sit on excellent ground. Beautiful people everywhere. Even Nina was quite pretty, actually. Young now, but at this rate—high probability of growing into a real beauty. Right. I was absolutely going to survive this and, for the first time in my life, be beautiful.

"Oh! Nina!"

Seraphie screamed from behind me. The moment I felt something running above my lip, I startled back into myself and shoved the king's hands away from my cheeks.

"It'll—it'll get on you!"

Red blood dripped steadily onto the dark navy of my maid's uniform. I pressed the white apron I was still holding against my nose, fast.

The king looked at his pushed-away hands, then at my face. Back and forth.

I felt a sudden lurch of oh no. Shoving the king's arm away—that was probably rude, wasn't it? But if I'd left them there, the blood would have gotten on him, and I'd done it without thinking, and—was this a serious incident?

'Should I—should I kneel and beg forgiveness right now?'

What would I even say. Please have mercy, Your Majesty? Was that how it worked?

But I didn't have long to worry about it. The king laughed pleasantly and rested a hand on my head.

"My castle has been entertaining lately."

He looked between me and Seraphie.

"A beautiful bird and a rabbit arrived at the same time. And they have matching fur. I'm very pleased."

He ruffled my head roughly. His hand was strong enough that my head moved with every stroke.

"I—I am the Sacred! I am not your bird!"

Through my swaying vision, I caught Seraphie, fists clenched, voice raised.

"Let me go! I have the duties of the Sacred to fulfill! I have to return to the temple!"

"As I have said, Sacred."

The king pushed his long hair back over one shoulder. The fine black strands swayed through the fabric.

"It is because of you that I was able to sleep for the first time in five years. The pain that was driving me to madness vanished in an instant. How could I possibly let you go?"

His hand on my head didn't stop.

"You will not be returning. You will remain beside me. Forever."

"I am not here for you alone!"

"Then produce a substitute."