It was scandalous. Seulgi knew, but she could not help it, especially not when the Strategist had offered so brazenly. This might have been the last chance for Seulgi for the Captain knew that if she had turned down the Strategist’s request once more, it will be completely over between them. The Strategist was taking a gamble, and it was a large one. A request which, if Seulgi had failed to reciprocate with a positive answer, would result in both of them losing and Seulgi could not afford to let that happen and therefore here they were.

Two days after the assassination attempt, the couple, was miles away from the training camp, lying beneath the tree under the shimmering moon. Their bodies untouching but anticipation both thick in their minds, especially on Seulgi’s. Her mind felt fogged up and her heartrate was unusually quick as they laid so close to each other, all alone. All that the Captain could think about was the Strategist; every movement she made, every breath she took, Seulgi was attuned to it all. It was an odd feeling, Seulgi felt as though she had been bound to the Strategist for an unexplainably long time and yet, they were not.     

The Strategist, or Joohyun, as she had preferred herself to be called by the Captain, was a tough woman, tougher than Seulgi would have expected. Not only could the Strategist eat well the day after the assassination attempt, she had not even increased the security around her tent. It seemed as though Joohyun had suffered little to almost no trauma from the assassination attempted on her.

What surprised the Captain the most was how the Strategist was the one who interrogated the assassin herself, everything she did from coaxing an answer out of the assassin, ways to prevent the assassin from premature death, it was all so well thought of that the Captain was certain that she had learnt more from this lady than most of the books she had read. That assassination attempt, which as Seulgi had suspected, was committed by their enemy Wei’Ya, who had been worried about the force of the Strategist and decided to silence her. This infuriated Seulgi greatly and the Captain wished she had the power to vanquish the enemy land for committing such a lowly attempt on Joohyun.

Later, Seulgi also learnt that Joohyun was used to such unscrupulous attempts on her. It began even before she was conferred the title of the Strategist while she was working alongside her father, the Lord Commander. Her wise tactics were famed and words soon spread to the enemy camp that the successes of Qi’An’s numerous manoeuvres were the result of a young lady. Since then, murder attempts on her had been relentless and Joohyun was forced to pick up self-defence tactics herself.

Joohyun had even boldly showed her a scar that was just slightly above her left , one that she had gotten nearly five years ago. Seulgi would have felt extremely agitated at whoever caused such damage to Joohyun but feelings of embarrassment had overtaken instead and her face flushed red. She heard Joohyun laughing unabashedly at her shyness after.

“Who would have thought that the brave Captain, young master of the Kang family, supposed winner of the Competition, was such a shy man.”

Joohyun asked Seulgi how she knew that there would be an assassination attempt and Seulgi narrated to her about how she found it odd that the number of patrols seemed to have gotten lesser but the most telling thing that she discovered were bloodstains on not only one, but two of the patrol’s uniform. Seulgi explained that these patrols were not their men but were the assassins who had stolen the uniform from the true patrols whom they have assassinated.

Then, she heard Joohyun laugh again and it sounded so pleasing to Seulgi’s ears that she could resist and turned to look at the lady again. There, she found those dazzling eyes staring back at her and time came to a stop for Seulgi. She was not supposed to be doing this, this was tantamount to cheating Joohyun’s feelings but in the end, Seulgi still gave in to her own lust for the fine lady. Grabbing Joohyun by her waist, Seulgi scooted so close that their faces were only a hair’s breadth away from each other. That distance was there only because she hesitated once again. Yet, that hair breadth’s worth of distance between them disappeared completely as it was Joohyun, once again, who leant it for the kiss that happened six months too late.

Seulgi had never kissed anyone before but she had heard about how to do it from the men in his company and unlike how sloppy it sounded from their description, this kiss with Joohyun felt enlightening. Perhaps it was enlightening because it gave an insight to Seulgi’s future relationship with Joohyun, ascertaining Seulgi’s own feelings that she wanted no one else except for Joohyun.

Seulgi could now feel that the passion burning within each other was mutual as the Strategist kissed her fiercely, almost possessively and the Captain returned with an equally firm response. This was the only set of lips that Seulgi would kiss for the rest of her life. By the time they broke off, Seulgi was panting hard. Not even the harshest training could make Seulgi this breathless, but she was yearning for more. The Captain dove in eagerly for another kiss however this time round it lasted much shorter only because Joohyun had pushed her away suddenly.

“This is for stringing me up six months ago.” Joohyun said, with a look of contempt on her face.

Six months ago? Seulgi’s mind reeled back to what had happened back then and the origins of the Strategist’s accusations. Then, the Captain realised that the Strategist must have been referring to that incident during the fire crackers.

“I am sorry, I have my reasons.” Guilt was so thick in Seulgi’s voice that she could not stand it herself. All of a sudden, the Captain wished the kiss earlier had not happened. This was all so wrong.

Seulgi then felt Jooh