You were perched on a low tree branch beside Kiyoshi, the young man assigned as your guardian. Though he was only a few years your senior, his duty was clear: to watch over the princess. Together, you observed the quiet drama of the rain and the veiled moon.

A sudden slip broke the stillness. You braced for the hard ground, but it never came. Instead, you found yourself cushioned against Kiyoshi’s chest, his arms immediately encircling you in a protective hold. In trying to catch you, he had tumbled as well. The gentle rain had already begun to dampen your silken robes.

His voice, usually so composed, was tight with a strange tension. “Your Highness… your hand…”

Only then did you become aware of it—your palm resting not on the embroidered fabric of his tunic, but lower, against a firm, unmistakable shape beneath. The truth you had never questioned—the assumption that all your close attendants were eunuchs—shattered in that instant. A confused, involuntary flex of your fingers confirmed it.

A sharp, stifled gasp left his lips, warm against your rain-cooled skin. “You must —ah— you must retrieve your hand.”

His sentence trailed into a breathless silence, the professional distance between guardian and charge dissolving in the soaked, moonlit grass.