“Hey, how about we introduce ourselves, seeing as we’ll be living together from now on and everything.” One girl spoke up. “We’ll be practically short of sisters, my name is Zi-yu. Please look after me.”

The other girls began to huddle closer. “I’m 20.” All the girls here were indeed stunning and she was no different. It must have been her age, you thought, that she possessed a natural air of authority.

“Do you want to introduce yourself?” she ushered the girl next to her, who nodded timidly.

“I’m Chiao-Han, I’m 16. Please look after me.” The introductions continued and in the end, Zi-Yu was the eldest, by a month with another girl. The air of the group was pleasant and no one was antagonistic; the last government official had certainly done a great job in filtering out the ditzy problem girls and left sophistication and grace in its place. A lot of the girls were forced into joining the harem by their parents in the hopes of becoming a concubine of one of the princes, others were here to make money for their families – despite the answers being quite generic, the girls were all sincere, none vain and it was clear in that moment, the truly beautiful are the ones that don’t know it themselves.

“Anise, is it?” Zi-Yu smiled at you.

You shook your head out of the trance and reciprocated her look, “yes?”.

“You look a little tired, but would you mind helping me organise the girls in their sleeping chambers?” she looked apologetic.

“Sure,” you smiled back at her. Zi-yu and you, developed a friendship quickly and order began to calm the girls for their big ‘debut’.

“Back I see, how was the fish?” Kris put down his brush as his younger sibling Lay walked into the room.

“Dying.” Lay sighed and sat down on a floor cushion. Kris scoffed, “all things have to die eventually, it’s just life.” He got up and stretched, arching and then flexing his back and walked out from behind the table to where Lay sat, who was playing with the gloves Tao had left before.

“What are we having for dinner?” He asked idly, putting on the gloves and making gripping motions in the air.

“No idea…” Kris yawned, then smirked, “fish?”

Lay laughed and shook his head. “I’ve had enough fish for one day.”

Luhan then showed up at the door. “Knock, knock.” His collar was messy and his hair sticking up in all directions. Kris, who was just on his way to the door, walked up to his brother and fixed the elder’s collar in two quick tugs. “Lord Sun-ye’s calling for us-” he looked at his sibling and then glanced into the room before noticing his other brother, usually away from home in long periods and smiled.  “Lay, welcome back. How was the fish?”

Lay made a face that was a mix between a smile and grimace. “Great,” he sighed.

“Well, now that you’re here as well, you have to come too.” Luhan gestured for Lay to join the two already at the doorway and Lay got up reluctantly.

“What was it that Old man Sun-ye wanted to tell us?” Kris instinctively fixed his robes as well and straightened himself as Lay walked up to the two.

“Something about a harem, I heard from Chen earlier. The bugger’s getting too smart for his own good.” Luhan grinned and he slung an arm around Lay who had finally made it to the two. Lay gripped his brother’s arm, “and someone is too ditzy for his own good,” and raised his eyebrows at his brother.

Kris shook his head and rubbed his temples and Luhan chuckled as he flicked Lay lightly on the forehead, “you’re not one to talk, you look at fish all day” and Lay laughed in response.

“Hey, does Tao know that we’ve been summoned?” Kris began to walk down the corridor and the others followed.

“Why don’t we go and tell him ourselves.” Luhan shrugged and the three made the way down to the stables.