Chapter 9: All I see is danger and its companion

Impatient, he tapped his foot on the slippery wooden ground, looking up at the sun to see how high had it gotten, and that time was ticking endlessly. He inspected the other men now, he unable to carry any load himself. With eyes still searching the port because perhaps his dongsaeng had gone up with pranks again, Nichkhun saw her instead and therefore approached with an uneasy question mark across his face.

“Victoria! Hey, Victoria!” With an apple on , she titled her head in wonder.

“Where’s Kyuhyun-oppa?”

“That was something I wanted to ask you too,” he admitted, worried.

Victoria pursed . “But...wasn’t he tasked to deliver swords today?”

He nodded, knowing that fact. “Yes, and I told him to come back at once after delivering it. It must not be that far, for crying out loud, right? It had taken him three hours already. And it’s lunch.”

She handed him her other extra apple. “Then shall we eat without him? Mom has cooked a meal for us. Let’s go, then?”

“And what about Kyuhyun?”

“He’ll find his way home,” Victoria said nonchalantly, turning her back on Nichkhun and walking passed the men carrying loads of carts back and forth the boats. Uneasy, Nichkhun followed the woman back to her home, his mind still distracted as to where the child could be off this time, like how they ended up rescuing Kyuhyun from the strong tides ten years back. It was mistake he wished to never make after letting Kyuhyun out of his sight. Of course, that was when Kyuhyun barely had any idea about living in the outside world---yet that is, his thinking was still that of a child even at an age of 18.

-_-_-_-

More relaxed than minutes earlier, she took off her gloves, showing off the white palms underneath that looked rather scratched. Those frail delicate hands that probably had never worked in her entire life, Kyuhyun thought, except archery or sword holding if that would even be considered as work. Yet the princess was very astounding to look at it indeed, he further on noticed.

Her eyebrows were perfect symmetry; hair curled and braided mid-length, almost reaching her hips, upon that sporty attire that made her appear tougher than she was inside. The soft features on her face were now clear and much detailed than last night, Kyuhyun observed, for now the sun was out and refreshed.

Eyes with deep ends and a bit dark, cheeks as a subtle addition to flawlessness, and lashes that batted every time she started opening ---how could his friend Qian be not as beautiful as the princess? Well, Victoria was pretty, but...seeing Seohyun made a lot of difference now to his definition. Her eyes were the most striking thing in the whole universe, the way they just twinkled and glistened, same sparkle that he had seen even before he had actually laid eyes on Seohyun in the first place. But where? He just couldn’t remember anymore.

Her lips! Restrained thin line of pinkish rosy lips tamed him that fine morning---for every time she talked, her lips moved so gracefully, so willingly. How were they at kissing? Aish, Kyuhyun had to snap out of it.

“Where you...listening to me, though?”

“Huh?” his eyes widened at the conversation. “Oh, yes I was. Of course, your majesty.”

Seohyun scowled. “No, I recognize that tone when my maids talk to me that way. You’re lying to me.”

“I am not,” Kyuhyun snickered lightly, making Seohyun grin. “Okay, so yes your majesty, I absolutely did not understand a word you just discussed.” Tea arrived just as that, the maids handing the tray in the middle of their table.

Her laughter became a drug, the man completely pausing and just admiring the music. “That’s the first that someone admitted to me they were lying.”

“Well, we can’t always get away with it,” Kyuhyun explained to her, drinking now the warm tea. It had a delightful tinge of lime in it too, geez these royal people knew nothing of taste. “Hmm, pretty good tea.”

Seohyun also took a sip on her cup, then afterwards replying. “I hate it. But I hate liars more, though.”

“Caught me in the act, yet again,” he played along, a little amazed at the girl’s ability to catch on quickly. “Darling, they call it irony in Britain and in the West side countries. Have you heard of it?”

“Mockery, you mean?” she responded, remembering a book she once read as a child. “It’s a diverse language, but I’m forbidden to use it when I’m around the palace.”

Kyuhyun frowned. “I can see why you people here are all stiff and rough on the edges. You don’t get to have as much fun as street talkers like us. That practically is my childhood.”

“Cursing and mocking,” Seohyun mumbled. “They’re two of my unnie’s favorite things to do when she feels like disobeying his highness, the King of Byungmi.” The princess found it impossible to hide her joy at a memory. “My sister has actually been scolded and told that she would fit well with less-classed people. I really found it hilarious because unnie actually bargained to leave her throne. She was 15 then.”

“Your sister sounds like a...troublemaker for a princess,” Kyuhyun mused. “And she’d be the next queen of Sangdokchi.”

Seohyun, with her face glazed by the sun’s beams, agreed, getting her cupping. “She is. She is most definitely a ‘menace’, as my father calls it. It was either because the queen was still playing witchcraft while bearing unnie or that she was a gift from the goddess of mischief. There are many tales as to why Yoona-unnie is like this. But actually none of them was true.”

Kyuhyun looked up again, deep into her eyes, wishing his hardest and praying for a miracle that she would be looking back at him too. “Oh, and then what is the truth? Do you know?”

Hesitant, she bit her lower lip. “Do you know about Byungmi’s sad past?”

“I’m sorry, I’ve never been to Byungmi,” he answered her. Nichkhun’s words and his uncle’s thoughts returned at once. “Wait, I was born there but we immediately moved here afterwards. I’ve never met my parents because my mother died and my father was burned down in his own house. I was a lucky survivor, uncle says. So they adopted me, along with their son Khun who is my cousin. He’s...weird. We’re the same age but he’s older for some couple of months. I was trained to call him hyung though, but yes, we’re both 18 years old as of now since February came.”

“Well, you must have at least heard about the prince, right?” Seohyun interrupted, hands over her knees.

Kyuhyun was clueless, shaking his head. “No, I’m sorry.”

“The missing prince, he was dubbed to be,” Seohyun, narrating excitedly, talked as it has been centuries since she had opened a topic about the mysterious brother. “He disappeared or---according to Yoona-unnie---kidnapped one night eighteen years ago, said to be a witch who was the one who helped in granting my parents an offspring. Well, I really don’t know the whole story because unnie wishes to forget it but couldn’t, and so she tells me instead but ends up getting irritated and leaves.

“Anyway,” she sighed, feeling rather tired. It had been a while since she had actually become talkative, and just about anything perhaps. “My unnie...believes he’s...still alive until today, only we don’t know where to find him...” she fiddled with her ring now, making Kyuhyun look at her in sympathy.

He bobbed his head like a young boy, understanding somewhat the problem. “Then if you find the prince, he would be the one ruling on Byungmi, correct?”

“And we won’t be treated like useless heirs, yes precisely.”

“But since he’s gone, you’re the one who would take over that kingdom, right? Since your unnie is assigned to Sangdokchi,” Kyuhyun stated, Seohyun clapping her hands, very impressed.

The princess grinned at him. “Wow, you’re good. But this must not go out, okay? It’s our secret. And really, my sister has many ambitions. One of this as you can see is finding the prince. It’s her reason for behaving very antagonistic towards authority. She hates how people do not anymore acknowledge the prince as part of the royal family.”

The man sighed inwardly. “That must be harsh.” He gulped, taking one long stare, a chanceful stare at Seohyun as she toyed with the ring around her neck. “And I suppose the ring has something to do with the prince, too?”

Seohyun smiled deliberately, putting images of his father in his younger years. Well, he could actually pull off as the prince, now could he? Dark brown eyes, not as large but actually a bit doe-eyed like Yoona and the cheeks, pallid pink taints on those cheeks. He could have looked like him. And maybe added with her mother’s prominent nose bridge---ah simply stunning her brother could have been.

“Your majesty,” interrupted one of the maids, bowing her head at the two of them. Kyuhyun’s eyebrows rose awkwardly, feeling that he really had no place for this politeness anywhere. “I’m sorry to cut the conversation but his highness Prince Changmin has entered the courtyard.”

Seohyun stood up at once, Kyuhyun just following what she did. Later the gates where he entered were open a bit wider, as two horses strode in the center aisle, one where the other Byungmi princess, an uninterested scowl on her face, sat upon while the other was the Sangdokchian prince, himself and another woman driving on the white stallion.

Yoona alighted off Sunmi, nearing Seohyun with a beam. “I rode a horse today,” she told the dongsaeng happily.

Seohyun laughed. “And how was it? How did you take it? Why are we whispering?”

Kyuhyun’s eyes had fallen not on the two sisters but on the two other people behind them, where the prince had just easily hopped off his stead, a hand hurriedly supporting the lady that has ridden with him. Strange, Kyuhyun dismally viewed. If they were lacking horses in the first place, should it not have been Yoona and Cha