JINHAE

“H-how?” I asked him after he had related the story at her. Oddly enough, I felt something tugging at my heart while he was relating it and I couldn’t quite put a finger on what I was exactly feeling. Loss? Hurt? I didn’t know why, but I just did. Fairy tales were supposed to be happy, but then again, I was in a different realm. Shinhye was right to have disputed it. She never really believed them and was on the practical side of things, seeing through the characters and what they truly represent in the human world. I was a fool to have contradicted her. She was right all along. There were no things such as happy endings, but we can always make every moment happy if we so choose.

Lu Han raised his gaze at me, a gentle look about his face. “She was never allowed to see her husband and their child and the roses grew thorns as she was cursed as well.”

“Oh.” I found myself swallowing a nonexistent lump in my throat as the truth in the story became fully realized. I couldn’t help but wonder if he was telling me the story about my family that never even came to be with the absence of our mother, not to mention a lying father. I started to turn away from him, gently letting my hand slide off of his mild grip. I didn’t know what to make of the feelings that were coursing through me. It was strange, but relating myself to it hurt too much. “That’s very sad,” I managed to say.

“Indeed,” he said and saw him watching me warily from my periphery. He could probably read what was going through my head.

“It sounds very familiar.”

He didn’t speak for a while and we stayed there in companionable silence. Somehow, everything was clearer to me now. The ire I felt for the Guardians for putting me, my sister, the nobles and everyone else in peril just worsened. I can’t believe I was actually half guardian with their blood running through my veins.

To my surprise, he suddenly spoke. “Have you ever been in love?”

I my heels too swiftly I was afraid I’ve left a circular rubber track where I was standing. I was honestly taken aback by his question. “I-in love? Me?” He nodded, pure innocence in his eyes. I guess he was just asking after all. But why? They all had the right to be curious about me, but not in such a personal note. “In love…” I repeated without inflection, thinking about it. “I guess?”

His eyes rounded a bit. “You have?”

I frowned, trying to remember that time. “Taking my honest feelings, I guess I have, but my friends in the human world insisted that it was just infatuation.”

“Those are two very different things, you know.”

I nodded. “I don’t know, but I guess it counts since I thought I was.”

“Is that so?” He looked down, but pressed n. “How was it like?”

I had to smile at the memory of that. It had been two years ago, but I remembered it quite vividly, especially the part when everything seemed to have plummeted down to the ground due to my folly. “Promise me something first.”

“You know you don’t have to ask,” he said, grinning at me. “What is it?”

I pouted. “Don’t laugh. It’s quite pathetic if you ask me.”

“What happened?”

“Well…” I sighed, trying to figure out what to say, pacing in front of him. “I once liked this person. He was our next door neighbor and we used to be playmates as kids. You know, the typical boy next door that everyone likes.”

He chuckled and shook his head. “I do not think I could relate to it at all.”

“Oh well, there I said it. He was my three years my senior and he’s really hunky so I liked him a lot.”

“Did you tell him how you felt about him?”

I snorted. “That’s the worse part. I did.”

“And?”

“He said he only saw me his little sister. Pretty pathetic, huh?  Little sister…” I could only laugh at my stupidity back then. I saw it coming, but I never really paid attention to it since all I could see was his face. However, when I looked at Lu Han again, he was neither laughing nor frowning. He just looked pensive.

“Don’t you think it’s better that way? You didn’t lose him in anyway.”

I arched a brow at him and stopped pacing. “Being told by the guy you like that you’re just a ‘little sister’ to him is the worse position there is!”

He shook his head. “Why is that? At least you still have a place in his heart.”

“Heart?!” I rolled my eyes, shaking my head.

“Alright, maybe not his heart, but most certainly his existence.”

I continued pacing again, not sure of what to say. “Theoretically speaking, if you said that to me, even if I don’t see you in that way, again, theoretically, I’d be offended.”

He was torn between a pout and a smile. “Why?”

“It’s because it would mean that you wouldn’t see me as a woman ever. Brothers don’t see their sisters as women. They’re rather someone to annoy.” I was feeling agitated with our little talk.

His eyes flicked to me and suddenly, he looked disgusted. “Men in the human world must be either dead or blind, not to mention unfeeling imbeciles to not have fallen for someone like you.”

My heart skipped a beat when he said that. I stopped walking again and slowly gazed at him. “Did I just hear that?”

He nodded.

I blinked at him several times and realized that I’ve just been complimented. “You’re kidding me?”

“Definitely not,” he stated flatly.

I couldn’t help but smile. “Thank you, I guess, but why? It’s only natural that not everyone would be attracted to me.”

“It’s probably because their humans and you’re Elyxian.”

Huh? It doesn’t add up. “I don’t get it. I haven’t actually seen men gawking at me when we went to the village. I don’t see any of you in the house doing that either except when you first saw me, of course.”

“A kind to its kind, correct?”

“Yeah, but…why?”

He stood up from the bench and stood right in front of me. The smile on his face was gone, replaced by a rather serious yet warm expression that was fathomless as far as I was concerned. Ever so slowly, he lifted his hand and tucked away some stray strands behind my ear as he gazed at me deeply, making my heart hammer against my chest cavity. I bit my lower lip and looked down for a while and when I risked a glance at him, it became a sidelong stare as he was still looking at me with those beautiful eyes of his. I looked away again, well, I tried to, but then, I felt his hand under my chin, lifting my head so that I was looking straight into his eyes.

“You’re beautiful inside and out. Don’t you ever forget that.”

My stomach did somersaults as I let his words sink in. I felt like I was suddenly floating as he lightly ran his finger across my jaw line. It felt rather flattering when the beautiful Oracle Minister told me that I was beautiful, very honoring, but this time, it was a whole new experience being complimented by Lu Han. I was too stunned to even speak…or breathe. I just stared at him.

All so suddenly, he brought his hand down and broke into a breathtaking smile that swept me off my feet. Damn it, why did he have to be so good-looking? It was enough to give me a heart attack. He relentlessly held me in his gaze, but I guess I was too weak to handle it. I ended up diverting my gaze somewhere else, laughing nervously.

“W-what about you? Have you ever been in love?” I blurted out.

“No,” he said matter-of-