Chapter 7 I’m the one to love your first, and now I’m hurting first

The air was moist that morning, like their other previous morning in the village. She curled slowly, puller her sheets, and bit her lower lip, putting a stop to the dream she hated. A reoccurring dream for her----he one where she was still holding on to her baby brother, taking him tightly until he disappeared in her arms. She wished to avoid it every time.

Dream...she wouldn’t dream if she wasn’t asleep. Then...had she really fallen asleep?

Bolting, the princess sat upright just as quick as her realization. She stared to her side, noting that her partner was nowhere to be found. She fell asleep. The day, bright sunny day, entered her bedroom already, brightening the once dark chamber. The curtains were parted aside, tied with golden ropes---unlike exactly how she had left them before the drowse last night completely stupefied her consciousness. Afraid to face her husband, she closed her eyes in anxiety, shaking her head as she buried her whole face inside the cloth and started kicking her legs. Startled by the knock on her door, the Byungmi princess staggered on the velvet floor. Could it be...could it be Changmin now, laughing at his spare food and in her misery?

“Awake?” came his voice, passing through the door. She lost to him unfortunately---she lost her breakfast to that unforgivable man. “Hurry up and get to the dining hall before I do.”

“Yah!” Yoona shouted, quickly dashing to open the door. But when she did arrive at the doorway, popping her head at the hallway, she saw Changmin walk away. She kept on shouting, but he wouldn’t turn his back. Running as fast as lightning, Yoona had still not managed to reach him in time that when he turned left for the staircase, he seemed to have disappeared into thin air. Not a single sound of his footsteps was heard from here so she sighed.

“He cheated his way,” she whispered tiredly and began walking down all by herself.

-o0o-

Dragging her feet to the dining hall with the least energy, Yoona kept a disgruntled face, despite all the compliments and how-are-you-your-majesty greetings she received along her way. Her tummy growled. She placed her hand on it. Kimchi stew, chicken, crabs---whatever the menu may contain that morning, even if it was hard coal, she would eat it. That silly dance last night made her exhausted, famished still in the morning.

“Oh? Just waking up?”

She didn’t even notice Krystal passing by. Yawning, the princess waved. “Oh, yes apparently.”

The young girl frowned. “Well, I wouldn’t expect much for your breakfast though.”

“So you’ve heard,” Yoona rolled her eyes.

“Heard? About what?” Krystal asked, a little shocked she changed topics. “I just think there wouldn’t be any left for you. Better request the cook or something.”

Yoona pouted, scratching her head. “Aish, I’m too lazy to head for the kitchen.”

And with these words, they no longer looked back at the other, proceeding to where their destination was. At the dining hall, where the long table made of the strongest red wood was located, she only saw the maids, picking up the platters and wiping the utensils.

She nearly cried at the sight of this. “Eh? Where is my breakfast?” Her voice was loud, high-pitched indeed, not very Yoona-like because of this----somewhat expecting that Changmin would leave even an untouched bone, or any leftover for that manner, her stomach wasn’t choosy anyway. But with the wide-eyed helpers stopping and greeting her, she quickly knew what kind of person Changmin was. When they said he fulfilled his wishes, they were right.

“Your highness, I thought you---”

“That man ate my ing breakfast! I…I…Aish!” she kicked the chair in front of her. “Where is he? I’ll make him pay for it!”

She pressed her knuckles together, feisty for a woman the house cleaners thought. One bravely stepped up.

“Your majesty, we can always make you another----”

Yoona shook her head more calmly now. “Please don’t go through that trouble just because a certain glutton finished everything. Where is…that sour excuse of a prince?”

The women pointed east, where Yoona’s room was located. “He said he was going to wake you up. He requested to eat alone and we left him like that along with your sister and Krystal-ah.”

Biting her lips, Yoona gracefully bowed her head, and still in her nightgown, she treaded heavily up the staircase, with one infuriated thought. It was either he apologized or she had to pulverize that beautiful face of his.

-o0o-

Arriving finally at her doorstep, the princess noticed what was amiss. Her bedroom was opened---had she left it as so after chasing the great pathetic prince? She shut it, not very tightly but at least, she recalled, no one would enter without proper consent.

And already aware that Changmin was involved in this, she hurriedly entered her quarters, meeting the bright sun on her eyes. Why was that large window facing the door in the first place? Squinting, looking across her was Changmin in the flesh, reading a book with eyes utterly trapped within the story that he had not even glanced up at Yoona (or perhaps this was also pretends like everything else with him).

“Yah! Who in their sane mind---”

The man flipped the curtain, partly covering half of the large windows, and Yoona just couldn’t believe her eyes.

-o0o-

“Did you sleep well last night?”

With eyebrows crunched together, he looked at the visitor, yet again inside his room without permission. He pushed her face away, laughing when he finally heard her squeal.

“Yah! Yah, you can’t shove hands on a girl’s face like that!” she complained.

He stretched, sitting upright. “Khun has to stop letting you in our room.”

Victoria raised an eyebrow at him, making that face again. Her fingers swiftly fell on the man’s cheeks, pinching them out of sudden irritation. “I don’t know how I’m going to live without you.”

Kyuhyun scowled, retreating and slapping a pillow. “That sounds new. What else?”

“It’s just that…I thought a lot about it last night,” she confessed, sheepishly grinning.

“And?” Kyuhyun started getting up, taking off his shirt and searching his trunk for some new clothes. Although this was rather casual, Kyuhyun never really cared whether Victoria saw him differently. “And what about last night?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” she admitted to him. “Because I was worried.”

On his feet, he stopped; giving her a look so grave, it sent goosebumps up her spine. She couldn’t be serious about this, was she? He already had enough talk with Nichkhun, the way he simply told him to shrug off that awful bad feeling when doing that would have been truly impossible.

“Why?” he responded and looked at her best friend straight in the eye. Victoria, the girl who saved his life from drowning years ago, the person who has always been there to give him that slap, seemed frail, so easy of a target that he knew the more he would encounter what was yet to be known, the more she would get involved.

Victoria pouted, standing up and giving him a strong hug. He didn’t refuse her of course, even when he was totally t