The Enchanting Prince #20

“Is there any place you want to visit now? Since I’m free for today, I’m all yours~” I cooed to Hyojin who was sitting next to me. “Cheesy. Can we just have some brunch and back to the house? I’m sleepy.” She replied lazily. “Urgh! Party pooper. Fine then. The decision is on me. No complaining.” I told her and drove. I know exactly that she would say that. This was all well-planned.  I drove to Viva Polo and parked my car once we arrived at the parking lot. We went inside and pulled out the reserved seat for her. “Wait here.” I told her.

“Where had you been?” She asked without taking off her look on the brown leather menu. I took the menu away from her sight and gave it to the passing waiter. “But I haven’t order anything yet!” Hyojin shrieked. “I ordered pasta and cream soup for you already. It’s their bestselling here.” I lied. “What if I don’t like it?” She argued. “You will. You’ll cry of joy when you eat it.” I replied nonchalantly. She looked at me with a WTH look. “Okay?” Hyojin replied unsurely and took a gulp of water from her glass.

“Here’s your order. Please enjoy your food. Bon Appetite.” Said one of the waiters and left once she was done. “It’s kind of weird.” I heard her muttered. She seemed to know that I heard her mutter then explain without waiting for me to ask. “It’s too well decorated for a portion of tiny bowl cream soup and really? The garnish is just…” She stopped in the middle as I dug in the puff for her. “Just eat it, will you?” I told her and she looked at me with that look once again. She scoffed at my action then took the spoon from my grip.

I was biting my escargot when she called me. I looked up to her and I could swear that her face was just ridiculous. “I think our order was accidentally exchanged with the other table. There’s a ring on my cream puff. I don’t think it’s…” “It’s yours.” I cut her words off and kept my stoic expression, pretended to be cool about it. “What? No way. Stop fooling me around. This is not a joke.” Hyojin stated seriously and put the silver ring into her glass then wipe it with the napkin next to her. Once it was cleaned, she looked at it closely then muttered once again, still in disbelief tone until she stopped in the middle of her sentence. I’m more than 100% sure that now she believed that it was from me.

“So…It’s really from you? Oh! That’s why you left me earlier. Right? Wow. This is a pretty ring. Are you sure it’s for me?” She asked again. “Is there any ‘JHJ’ I know? Why should I put it into your soup if it was belonging to someone else?” I rhetorically asked as I cut down the tiny piece of the escargot to the tinier one. Yes, I was nervous as heck and didn’t know how to react on her reaction.

“Why?” She finally asked. I knew that she would ask of the reason I gave her this ring. Well… It’s simple actually. It was like asking 1 + 1 to 12 years old kid. Too bad she’s too dumb to realize it. Yes, by what I said dumb means literally dumb. She might be a forte in interrogating things but not when it comes to herself. She’s too dumb in realizing on herself. Why did I say that? It is because she was just hiding in her inner ivory tower all the time, defense mechanism you might say. “Why? Let me think of the proper reason. Try to think about it. Why do people give ring to someone else?” I asked again. My words left her loss in words as she looked like she was going to reply but the words were tied on her tongue, made her unable to say a word.

“No tears needed. You’ve been too much of cry baby these days. It doesn’t suit your fierce image.” I joked, trying to ease my awkward feeling but there she was, tensed like a statue, still holding the ring between her thumb and index finger and looked at it intensely. I exhaled then pulled her hand forward. I took the ring from her fingers and slowly slid it on one of her right fingers. “It means that I want to be serious with you. This girl, Jung Hyojin has been the part of my life, the one that I can’t live without, the one that I want her to make me strawberry jam for every breakfast, the one that I want her to accompany me to dance in my studio, the one that…” She clamped her hand tightly over my mouth and told me to stop continue it. “It’s getting cheesier and I hate cheesy things.” She stated then pulled her hand away. “Good then because to be honest, I was running out of idea. Good thing you stop me before I stuttered in the middle. It’s not cool if it happened.” I truthfully told her and chuckled after she playfully hit me. “Thank you, Sehun.”

“Well… I got something else to confess but… I won’t tell you here. Don’t ask me why and what. I’ll tell you once we get there. You might want to take a nap since it quite far from here.” I told her once we got into the car after the brunch and grabbed a small blanket from the back seat. I didn’t know how many times already she looked at me in puzzled look for today. “Thank God for my awesome face that you keep on staring and seriously, after umpteenth of times you stared at my face today and still do until now.” She lightly threw the rillakuma on her lap to my face and scoffed. “It’s not good to disturb people who were driving or we’ll sure end up in hospital wards.” She scoffed at me before she looked away to the window and tried to sleep.

“Wake up.” She stirred a little then rubbed her eyes. “Where are we?” She inquired in hoarsely. “Somewhere? Try to think about it. You’ve been here before.” I uttered after 5 minutes of walk, following the path in this old park. “Not even a clue. What’s this place? Are you sure that I ever came here before? It is because I remembered nothing.” Hyojin said as she observed around. I exhaled desperately but decided to say nothing and kept walking instead until we reached the old gazebo.  I stared at her with a hopeful look, hoping her to regain any single memory of this place but ended up with nothing.

“Why do I need to know about this place? This park looked old and it’s creeping me out.” She asked again she walked in circle, engirdling the spacious round gazebo. I stood on my spot, unable to move. She turned around and asked if I had something to say as she was fully aware of my silence. I walked towards her and took her hand, showing her the ring I just gave to her an hour ago. “This,” I said and eyed on the ring. “Is the reason why we ever met for the first time. We fought over ring from your mother. It took place here, 17 years ago, when everything was still fine. We were bickering about our parents’ wealth.” I explained shortly.

She looked dumbfounded by the explanation and looked at me, demanding more explanations. “Yes, we ever met before. My dad and your dad were good partner before or should I say, brothers for life?” I chuckled sadly. “So…is this why you took care of me?” She croaked softly. “Not really.” I replied. “My father died in flight accident while yours, passed away because of car crash.” I continued my explanation. “Stop spouting nonsense. My parents are still…” “They’re not your real parents.” I cut her words off. She released her hands from my grip and sat down on the old wooden bench, flustered of the overflowing information.

“You lied.” I sat down next to her and held her shoulder. “You think that I’m lying? Do I look like I’m joking to you now? I’m telling the truth now before we fall deeper into lies that people made to fool us all this time.” I seethed cautiously. “Are you sure then you’re not remember anything at all? Not a single clue?” She remained quiet and stoic.

I stared into her eyes intensely, “I’m sorry for the sudden revelation but I’m here, telling you this now to help you. Please listen to my whole story then after that, you may decide if you trust me or not. Okay?” I inquired again to receive no words from her. We sat in sheer silence. None of us speak of any word afterwards. She was in loss of words and as for me; I didn’t know what else to say to convince her as I was so sure that she was contemplating in her mind.

After minutes of silence between us, finally I heard her uttered few words in soft yet demanding tone, “Tell me more.”

DOUBLE UPDATE as the return for the long wait!

Comment and subscribe are always welcome! ;D