The blond and brunette arrive swiftly at the celebratory garden, only to meet the face of a worry empress. Empress Jang grips the blond's arm tightly. Her normally sharp, cat eyes dissolved to eyes of a feeble old mother. The blond's heart is strike with pains of pity and sorrow after looking into the eyes of the old and tired empress.

“Minhyuk, how is she?” She sighs as she falls back on her chair, roughly as if she could not move her lower body. Minhyuk grips on to her arm to support her. The empress's health is slowly declining at a fast pace like the emperor. YinRi is an uncaring, undedicated daughter to her poor mother. However, she does have a reason for her rudeness and purposely avoiding her mother. Rumors from concubines and court ladies traveled rapidly through YinRi's ears as a child about her mother's unfaithfulness. At a young age, she found out one of the dirtiest secret in the royal palace- Woo YinRi, the youngest, most adored princess of the kingdom is not the emperor's daughter. From the moment, she would ignore her mother shamelessly. One of the main reasons she became a tomboy was to protect herself and her mother against rumors that would taint their reputation. It was best to give the crowd something else wilder to talk about.

“Auntie, it's best to not expect the best, but not expect the worst.” Minhyuk whispers in her ear. As she look at him with a confused expression, he explains patiently to her. “She's not wearing the wedding hanbok you have prepared for her. She's wearing the hanbok Uncle brought her, which was the dress you wore when he first met you in the outskirts of the kingdom.”

Her eyes widen with terror. “The cream one. When I was horseback riding?” She hisses with slight nervousness. Minhyuk nods as the Empress's cheeks turn into a rose pink. She could recall memories of that dress clearly. It was not bought by the emperor, it was the empress's hand sewn work for herself and for one day that her daughter might wear. She sighs deeply, “Out of all days, it has to be today?”

“But she actually looks better with it than the wedding hanbok. YinRi's not a red lady, Auntie.” He chuckles charmingly.

“But she's still getting an earful from me, no matter how much resembles my younger days.” She shakes her head with a convinced smile. Then she frowns, “Where's the groom? And where's my baby princes?”

“Jiho's still pacing around in his room, thinking about ways to torture the groom one day. Jihoon's looking for YinRi's pups after they ran off in his care. Well, the groom is no where to be found for now.” The brunette, Jaehyo smiles at the frowning empress.

“Jihoon better find them fast.” The empress smiles as she rubs her thumping temples and sips her tea. “Everyone knows YinRi loves her pups more than her weapons.”

The two boys laugh at the frightening true fact.

The night is darkening as the stars blink against the dark canvas, setting a light upon the slouching figure sitting on a large, stone rock before the pond. His light brown hair covers his pale forehead and sets right on his eyebrows. He looks past the thin strands of hair at the moon, who appears to have more freedom than him. The air is full of silence with the exception of his light breathing and the skipping of rocks across the clear water of pond, making ripples in the reflection of the world. He glances to his side. The two golden Labradors as been laying on the grass next to the large rock for a while.

“Yah,” He calls out to the pups. The two pup rose their heads silently and their ears flop up, as if they're interested. He sighs, “I know you guys must think I'm crazy or some since I'm talking to dogs, but don't you belong somewhere?”

They respond with a bored expression. The larger one gets up on it's four legs and settles itself on his lap, while the smaller one lays its head on his feet. With his slender hands, he rubs both pups behind their ears and on their heads. While he was doing this, he discovers that they have tags. “Bangpae (Shield),” he reads the larger pup's tag. “Mugi (Weapon),” he reads the smaller pup's tag.

“Weird names.” He says in a mumbling voice. Averting his brown orbs from the golden pups, he turns to the starlit sky. The twinkling stars gaze back at him, blinking as the moon shine it's crescent smiling eye at him. Mockery? No, he's simply jealous. The stars are like jewels that decorate the sky. No one can harm them, no one can bother them, and no one could try to capture and use them. Him, on the other hand, is constantly monitored, bothered, hurt, and used throughout his life. He stares down again at the two comfortable animals at his feet. He envies them too. Life with freedom, running across the grassy field, having others care for you...he wants to be just like them. With one last longing glance at the night sky, he stands up, accepting his fate. The startled dogs glance up at him with curiosity. He looks at them with crescent eyes.

“Come along, buds.” He says with a wave of his hand as he started walking. In the distance, you can see a young man with two golden dogs trailing behind his back. A big red flowery ribbon hangs loosely around him. The ends of the ribbon flies wildly in the air as the fall wind twirls through the sky.

Suddenly, a shadow-like figure slips from a tall building into the darkness. As if feeling it's presence, he turns around gazing around his surrounds like a hawk. The last glimpse of the shadow is it's smirking eyes that glistened with sharpness. 

Author's note:

Short update ^^ hope you enjoy. Thank you for subscribing and upvoting. That gave me a lot of encouragement! Your comments are always valued no matter good or bad :D. Thank you for reading. I'm so sorry, but I won't be updating so often especially these months because I'm preparing for high school entrance exams. Thanks for understanding! I love you all! <3 Have a Happy day! ALWAYS SMILE :)