“A tradition?”
I tilted my head, and Xenon nodded.
“Yes — it started long ago. The ladies-in-waiting began coming to watch the knights train, and since the imperial household never put a stop to it, it simply continued. A tradition, in that sense.”
“I see.”
“I heard that the knights actually make a point of removing their shirts because they know the ladies come to watch. Ha! Rather entertaining, isn’t it?”
Who knew there was a tradition like that.
No wonder they all seemed to be performing for an audience during training.
I settled into the seat set up inside the tent and watched from a distance. The knights seemed to have finished basic conditioning exercises and were now preparing to spar — each of them holding a sword.
Which meant Axel would be—
I quickly scanned for him and found him already prepared, meeting my eye across the distance. Across from him stood a knight whose nerves were showing.
I waved enthusiastically in Axel’s direction.
“Please don’t get hurt, Your Highness!”
He was looking right at me.
Even from a distance, his face was radiant. And he was, unmistakably, smiling — a quiet smile, clearly directed at me.
Since this was my first time seeing Axel use a sword, I reached for my camera with great anticipation.
I cannot let this moment pass without documentation.
This could produce extraordinary photographs.
Axel’s sparring match began.
He moved through it with complete ease, conducting himself against his opponent with the calm of someone who had infinite margin to spare. After a single exchange, the knight was already being pushed back.
After perhaps two or three more passes, the match was over. Axel had subdued the knight with almost effortless simplicity.
The knight’s sword flew skyward, then embedded itself with a sharp ring in the training ground floor.
I had been watching all of it, and a sound of genuine admiration escaped me.
Axel with a sword was beautiful — like watching a sword dance performed in verse. Petals seemed to drift through the air above him.
I knew instinctively that extraordinary photographs were being taken.
And it was right in the middle of my camera-work that the problem emerged.
Why… why…
I closed my eyes tight with great suffering.
Why do my eyes keep going somewhere else—
What had started as a gaze fixed entirely on Axel had begun drifting to other places. Specifically, toward the other knights.
Axel’s first match was over, and now he was moving among the other knights, correcting their form. With his own sparring finished, the immediate attraction had naturally diminished somewhat.
Was I always this visually susceptible—!
Well — obviously I was — but still. How could I do this with Axel right beside me—!
Even now, even as I sat there scolding myself, my eyes were dutifully following the knights around the field. A lapse in attention and the gaze was back on them.
The camera was functioning as something close to a telescope — even the figures at distance were rendered in excellent detail. None of them were Axel, but they were all presentable and built in the way people who have trained for years tend to be.
No — stop—
I closed my eyes again, sharply.
I decided it would be better to redirect my attention elsewhere, and looked around — and found something to focus on in the voices of the ladies-in-waiting.
The same ones from earlier.
“Nothing else matters. This is a genuinely excellent workplace benefit.”
“Absolutely. Without this, plenty of people would transfer somewhere else.”
“Oh by the way — Larian, didn’t you say things were going well with Sir Theo?”
“What? Really? You’ve been holding out on us! Did it actually happen? Larian, go wave at Sir Theo right now!”
“How could I just — I can’t.”
Sweet, tentative palace romance. One of the ladies-in-waiting seemed to be developing something with one of the knights. She protested through her embarrassment.
Adorable.
It was like watching high school students. I was quite absorbed in their back-and-forth when one of them let out a startled exclamation. All heads turned.
“…Wait? What? They’re all putting their shirts back on?”
“What? Suddenly? They really are!”
“This can’t be happening! I waited all week for today! What do you think you’re doing?!”
The anguished voices of several women. I turned as well.
Putting their shirts back on? Why?
Indeed — the knights who had been shirtless were looking around awkwardly and beginning, one by one, to put their tops back on. They looked distinctly like people checking to see whether someone was watching.
I couldn’t entirely hide that I shared in the disappointment.
If I’d known, I should have looked more while I had the chance — the thought was just beginning to form when I became aware of a gaze. A gaze so pointed and intent that it was physically impossible not to turn around.
What is this?
I turned toward the source of the feeling — and there was Axel. He had been looking at me for who knows how long. He was staring, with an intensity that could bore holes.
I hiccupped.
When exactly did he start watching…?
Cold sweat. Somehow the temperature of the gaze aimed at me felt several degrees lower than usual.
S-surely he didn’t notice?
Notice that I had been looking at someone other than him.
He couldn’t have. He hadn’t.
Telling myself it was all just imagination, sweating more than a little, I watched as Axel — who had been watching me in complete silence — began walking toward me.
Oh no…
When Axel first spotted Judith, surprise flickered through him — and then, before anything else, a quiet smile found its way onto his face.
Why is she here? was a secondary thought. The first was simply that he was glad to see her.
The moment she found him across the distance, she had broken into a bright, immediate smile — the kind that seemed to open like a flower in full bloom — and come toward him at a quick little trot, holding out a towel and ice water.
He had been told she wasn’t coming today. And yet here she was. The moment her plans fell through, she had come directly.
She likes me that much?
He worked to keep his expression under control. If he let it go, the corner of his mouth was going to embarrass him.
Something light and feathery was filling his chest, tickling at him. He found the unfamiliarity of the feeling strange to sit with.
He was still turning that over in his mind when all of it was gone, all at once.
The careful composure he had been maintaining, and the upward pull he’d been suppressing — both went flat, replaced by something cold and rigid.
He had just watched, right in front of him, as Judith smiled at the other knights with that bright, open smile.
The smile she had given, until now, only to him.
The one that made you smile without meaning to just from seeing it — that honest, clear smile.
The fact that she was giving it to others hit him harder than he expected. And then the reaction from the knights made it worse.
…Excuse me? Beautiful?
Every knight who caught sight of Judith was turning red to varying degrees. And it wasn’t just that — the expression on Judith’s face as she heard them was, unmistakably, a pleased one.
Something was burning ferociously in his chest. A feeling entirely unlike what he had been experiencing a moment ago.
And so, without quite intending to, Axel stepped in front of Judith — blocking her from smiling at them again. He had no desire to watch that smile go to anyone else.
Whenever he was with Judith, his emotions moved faster than his thoughts. He didn’t understand it himself.
Rational judgment grew fuzzy; he acted on feeling instead. None of that was like him.
He knew it wasn’t Judith’s fault. And yet in that moment, his tone had come out cold — pressing at her in a way he hadn’t needed to. He had realized the mistake too late to correct it.
She said she missed me…
But a fire that had seemed unstoppable was extinguished entirely by a single sentence from her.
When he came back to himself, he had already apologized to her for everything.
Given the gap in their abilities, Axel almost never participated in actual sparring with the knights — today being a rare exception.
Because Judith was there, watching him with eyes that practically sparkled with expectation.
He allowed himself to enjoy being the fixed point of her gaze. The way she looked at him and only him, with an intensity that didn’t waver — he found that he liked it.
But the match ended, and before long he noticed, with his usual sharpness, that her eyes had stopped being on him.
They kept shifting sideways.
…Who is she looking at?
Axel turned his head to follow her gaze, and finally identified the object of her attention.
His own knights.
More specifically, his shirtless knights.
