Naoya Zenin had never been punished like this before.

He belonged at the front lines—armor slick with blood, blade heavy in his grip, name whispered like a curse among enemies and a prayer among allies. Knights bowed when he passed. Commanders listened when he spoke. The people worshipped him.

But now?

Now he was standing outside a palace guest wing, arms crossed over his armor, reduced to a bodyguard.

For a nobleman’s daughter, no less.

The order had come without ceremony. A temporary assignment. The upcoming grand celebration had drawn nobles from every corner of the realm, and with them, their precious heirs—each assigned a personal guard. He wasn’t special. That fact alone grated on him like sand in a wound. Men who had never seen real combat were now wearing the same insignia as him, standing the same watch.

It was insulting.

And she made it worse.

Naoya Zenin despised women who refused to be shaped.

He despised those who laughed too freely, spoke without permission, existed beyond the narrow confines of what was proper. Women were meant to be quiet, ornamental—controlled. Anything else was disorder. Weakness. A flaw in the world that needed correcting.

She was all of it.

A nobleman’s daughter who knew how to play the role when eyes were on her—graceful, soft-spoken, flawless. The court adored her. Servants whispered praises. She was exactly what she was meant to be.

And then the doors closed.

And she became unbearable.

She filled silence like it offended her. Spoke as if he were obligated to listen. Asked questions he did not answer and laughed at her own jokes when he refused to react. She wandered the palace halls with irreverent curiosity, skirt gathered in her hands as she plotted her next escape like a child in a fortress of secrets.

Improper. Disrespectful. Wrong.

Naoya hated her for it.

He hated the way she leaned too close when she spoke, how she never looked away first. He hated that she was unafraid of him—that she treated his reputation like a challenge instead of a warning. He hated the way she took up space so carelessly, so confidently, like the world would bend around her just because she asked.

What he hated most was that he wanted to watch.

To listen. To stay.

He told himself it was vigilance. That it was his duty to notice her moods, her movements, the way her expression changed when she was about to misbehave. He told himself it meant nothing that he could predict her laughter before it happened, that he knew the exact rhythm of her footsteps in the halls.

It bothered him that in public, she was flawless. Soft smiles, lowered lashes, graceful curtsies—every inch the perfect noblewoman. Courtiers adored her. Servants praised her manners. If Naoya hadn’t been forced to trail her like a shadow, he might’ve believed the act.

Worse still, she kept trying to sneak out.

Through side corridors. Over balconies. Down servant stairwells, as if the palace were a playground and not a fortress crawling with guards. Each time, Naoya caught her—silent as death itself—blocking her path with an unimpressed stare.

Each time, she grinned like it was a game.

“You’re no fun,” she’d said once, hands on her hips, utterly unapologetic.

He’d told her, cold and sharp, that his job was to keep her alive, not entertained.

She’d only shrugged. “Then you’re doing terribly.”

You were unbearable. Too loud. Too curious. Too alive.

And worse—worse—you behaved in front of others like a flawless jewel, only to turn feral the moment you were alone with him.

He hated it.

This assignment was nothing. He was not special. She was not his. When the celebration ended, she would leave, and the world would right itself again.

So why did the thought hollow him out?