Sharti silently scoffed at his clear expression that he didn’t need help.
‘As if there’s nothing injured.’
His upper body was already bare, and his lower garments had been shortened to resemble shorts, so she had already finished examining his wounds.
The wounds on his abdomen and thigh that concerned her most had slightly reopened.
‘So quickly, but that’s expected since he carried me while running.’
Fortunately, there was no problem with soaking his body in Sharti’s special herbal bath.
‘I wanted to help him bathe out of both gratitude and apology.’
She had said those words thinking of him, worried he might not remember how to wash himself.
‘Look. He’s standing there all awkwardly.’
Sharti shook her head at the man standing hesitantly without getting into the bathtub.
He clearly needed her help after all.
Sharti rolled up her sleeves.
‘I’ll start by washing his back.’
It seemed convenient that he had his back toward her. As Sharti approached the man, she blinked for a moment.
The man’s earlobes were red.
‘…Uh, what?’
Only then did she notice his back muscles tensed with nervousness.
Sharti rolled her eyes.
A warm, steam-filled bathroom. A half-naked person and someone ignoring his refusal.
It was a perfect situation for misunderstanding. With her face flushing red, Sharti quickly turned away and left a note.
<I’ll leave the towel and clothes here. You can put your worn clothes in this basket.>
Sharti decided to respect his wishes.
Click. After closing the door, Sharti cupped her burning cheeks.
She hadn’t been conscious of it because during hot summers in the village, men often went shirtless, and she had become immune to seeing bare-chested men while treating them.
‘I was too insensitive! I need to be careful.’
Sharti hurriedly left the bathroom area.
After a long silence, the sound of water finally came from the bathroom.
‘I should clean up the sleeping area in the meantime.’
The old log cabin where Sharti lived had a total of three rooms of various sizes. Besides the herb room and her bedroom, only the middle multipurpose room remained.
‘Even with all the stuff, I can still make space for him to lie down.’
She gathered blankets to make a place for the man to sleep in the multipurpose room.
‘He said the floor was comfortable anyway.’
Just as Sharti finished organizing the multipurpose room, the man came out of the bathroom. With a towel draped over his head, he looked at her with an expression full of unspoken words.
“The clothes, they’re only… never mind.”
As if he couldn’t complain about clothes he was receiving, the man dried his hair with the towel.
The clothes Sharti had provided were loose women’s pajamas. When he wore them, they were short in length and tight across his frame.
Somehow reminded of the bathroom situation earlier, Sharti shifted her gaze around.
‘…Should I have given him different clothes?’
Even though he wasn’t naked, strangely, there seemed nowhere appropriate to look.
What was she being conscious of? Was she suddenly feeling tense because he was an unfamiliar stranger?
“I’m done washing.”
At his words, Sharti quickly gathered clothes to change into.
“I want to clean where I sat earlier. What should I use?”
The man asked, pointing to the soiled floor.
Unlike in the bathroom, he had returned to his usual calm expression. Thanks to this, Sharti could also manage her awkward feelings.
<I left some ointment. Apply the ointment first.>
“…Alright.”
Leaving the man who seemed more interested in the broom than the ointment, Sharti entered the bathroom.
First, removing her hood brought relief from the stuffiness.
As she rubbed her mud-stained face with water, she untied the knot of her robe.
Knock knock.
“…!”
Startled by the knocking sound, Sharti immediately covered her face with her hood.
“Thank you.”
Sharti paused at the voice coming from outside the door.
From beyond the door that showed no sign of opening, the man’s voice continued.
“For everything… thank you.”
Then footsteps faded away. Sharti stared at the door with a slightly dazed expression.
Her chest felt tingly.
‘He said thank you…’
Mulling over the man’s words that had been filtered through the door, Sharti finished removing her clothes.
Starting with her right leg marked with hideous burn scars, she immersed herself in the bathtub.
‘It’s warm…’
The bath water, which she had expected to be lukewarm, was still warm.
Feeling the temperature of the warm water, Sharti curled up.
‘Did he keep it warm out of consideration for me bathing after him?’
She buried her face in her arms.
The man’s hair dripping with water. The droplets flowing down his collarbone. Recalling these images, Sharti startled herself and shook her head.
‘I need to get used to this!’
At this sudden thought, Sharti nibbled her lips.
From now on, she would see various sides of the man. At least while she was hiding him.
‘…I never thought I’d end up living with someone.’
Let alone with an amnesiac man—she couldn’t have imagined it even in her dreams.
With half her face submerged in water, Sharti massaged her scarred left hand. The scarred areas stung with pain, but strangely, her mind was at ease.
‘I really have no sense of caution. Grandmother would scold me if she knew.’
Sharti chuckled softly.
Even after being chased by soldiers, she felt more responsibility than caution after the man’s brief words of thanks.
Sharti opened her palm. The image of the man’s large hand overlapped with hers.
‘I too…’
Thank you.
Bubble bubble. The frog-like sound that she couldn’t bring herself to let the man hear spread through the water and disappeared.
Sharti worked hard to relax the muscles in her right leg before finally leaving the herbal bath.
‘Hmm, it’s still tingling a bit.’
Her left hand, covered in spider web-like burn scars, trembled slightly, but it was bearable.
Even after five years, the memories embedded in her body refused to fade.
Unlike the man, she had neither a skilled doctor nor treatment at that time.
‘I tried various remedies afterward, but nothing worked.’
All renowned doctors or treatments capable of removing such severe scars were in the imperial palace. Or she could have sought a mage who used magic-based healing methods.
But Sharti was neither of high status nor did she have the enormous funds needed for treatment. If even scars required chests of gold, she had to abandon any hope for her voice.
‘Come to think of it, I’ll have to wear my hood at home from now on.’
Though she had already shown her face to the man once, it was only for a moment, which was all the more reason to be cautious.
‘I have to live in hiding even at home.’
With a gloomy heart, Sharti pressed her cheek firmly with the back of her hand.
[As royalty, you have duties from birth. The same applies to you, Sharti.]
In the end, those so-called duties had always suffocated her.
It was because of the shackles placed by her half-sister, whom she had met just once, that ensnared her like a spider’s web.
‘No… it’s better to be careful.’
Sharti shook her head to rid herself of distracting thoughts.
Finally, she put on a long cloak with a hood to cover her body and face.
‘First sleep! I’ll think about everything tomorrow.’
Sharti resolutely gripped the bathroom doorknob and took a deep breath before opening the door.
“…Ah.”
And there was the man. More precisely, the man with the buttons of his pajamas torn off, exposing his front.
A button that had fallen from his chest rolled to Sharti’s feet.
At Sharti’s gaze, the man quickly turned his head away.
“I, I just sat down and when I got up…”
Sharti picked up the button.
His earlobes were red with embarrassment.
Sharti quietly bit her lip.
‘I guess… I’ll have to sew it first.’
Suppressing a smile and deferring to tomorrow, Sharti sat on the sofa and began sewing.
The man, who had draped a spare robe over his lower half, was sitting strangely far away.
He silently applied ointment, trying not to look at Sharti who had just come out of the bath.
“…I’ve just created more work for you.”
Hearing Sharti’s small yawn, the man muttered with his head deeply bowed.
Glancing at his drooping broad shoulders, Sharti gave him thread, spare needles, and leftover fabric.
“…Why are you giving me these?”
<Try to follow what I do.>
“Hm?”
Sharti taught the man how to sew.
With large hands and thick fingers, the man even fumbled with holding the needle.
“Is…this right?”
He diligently followed Sharti’s sewing with clumsy hand movements. His initially crooked stitching improved as he concentrated harder.
<You’re doing well.>
Sharti complimented him with a small smile. Then, as if patting Tein, she unconsciously stroked his head.
“…!”
The startled man slowly lifted his gaze to look up at Sharti. The moment she saw his slightly widened blue-green eyes, Sharti jumped in surprise and quickly turned away.
Her cheeks burned with embarrassment.
“…It’s nothing.”
The man returned to focusing on his sewing without much reaction. However, his hands seemed stiff as he continued to fumble.
The herbal scent from her hand that had been close to him lingered at the tip of his nose.
“……”
The small gaps in Sharti’s guard, her pure actions, shook him. As if spellbound by her, his eyes, head, and body seemed helplessly drawn to her alone.
Berating himself for his foolishness, he repeatedly pricked his finger with the needle, but he felt nothing.
The subtle atmosphere that had continued in silence for a long while ended with Sharti’s sewing.
<I’ll try to get men’s clothes. Until then, please bear with those clothes even if they’re uncomfortable.>
“Understood.”
<You can sleep in that room from now on.>
“Alright.”
Sharti watched as the man put on his clothes and also checked the bandage he had wrapped.
Unlike in the cave, the bandage around his abdomen was now perfect.
‘Did he practice in the meantime?’
Pushing aside the brief question, the two went to their respective rooms.
Click. Sharti, still in her robe, crawled into the bed under the covers. A deep breath involuntarily escaped from her chest.
‘Ah, I should feed him dinner…’
But her body had already become one with the comfortable bed, making it impossible to leave. Her eyelids were already heavy, ignoring her will.
Hesitating while tightly hugging the blanket, Sharti pulled it all the way up to cover her head.
‘A patient shouldn’t… skip… meals…’
As she worried more about the man’s meal than her own hungry stomach, drowsiness washed over her like waves.
Finally, in the warmth of the blanket, Sharti’s consciousness faded away.
****
At the time Sharti had fallen asleep, the man sitting on the bedding prepared in the multipurpose room was lost in thought.
It wasn’t because of the change in sleeping place.
“I can’t quite figure it out.”
More precisely, his mind was too preoccupied with thoughts of Sharti to easily fall asleep.
“One moment she’s guarded like a fortress… the next, whenever she lets her guard down, she acts so unpredictably.”
The man, resting his chin on his hand, reviewed each of Sharti’s actions from the day.
She seemed innocent yet bold, fragile yet daring and uninhibited.
It was difficult to predict her reactions, making it hard to act according to expectations.
The nape of his neck reddened as he recalled the several moments he had been dumbfounded in front of Sharti.
“She seems to have a personality that can’t ignore someone in need.”
But even that standard was ambiguous.
Hadn’t she hesitated to even take him with her at first?
“Haah……”
He had barely gained Sharti’s sympathy to continue receiving her help.
‘For a while at least.’
Though she hadn’t specified an exact date, he could anticipate that the period Sharti had set would be short.
The day his body recovered, or the day he regained even a part of his lost memories.
Of course, he planned to extend that period by any means necessary.
“I need to stay here as long as possible, even if I have to be tied down.”
Sharti lived alone in the mountains.
Just seeing how she hid her face, he could make a rough guess.
She was living in hiding.
‘I don’t know why though.’
He had no intention of digging into it.
It would be troublesome if she took it as a threat.
‘…I don’t want to see her frightened face again anyway.’
However, realistically, it was better to have Sharti’s weakness in hand.
The man clicked his tongue and lay flat on his back.
“If I show a submissive attitude, at least she won’t secretly hand me over to the soldiers.”
Having roughly concluded this, the man closed his eyes and forced himself to try to sleep.
However, the contours of Sharti’s face seen under the moonlight kept lingering, and in the end, he had to spend the night with his eyes wide open.
****
Bang! Bang bang! Bang bang!!
Woken by the loud noise, Sharti frowned reflexively at the morning sunlight illuminating her bedroom. As she hesitated, pulling her robe hood down deeper over her face:
BANG!! BANG! BANG BANG!!
Startled by the series of loud sounds, Sharti jumped up.
