Sophie’s POV

“So, where are we going?” I ask L.Joe as we’re walking. I really have no idea where we’re going, I haven’t been out much on the streets of Seoul.

L.Joe just shrugs his shoulders. “Is there a particular place that you want to go?” I shake my head. “Have you even been anywhere in Seoul yet?”

“A couple of places,” I say. “I haven’t really been anywhere worth of substance. I went out to eat once, but that was only once. Other than that, I just eat where I’m staying.”

“So then I guess I should take you on an official tour, right?” he asks.

“If you want, I mean, if it’s trouble then you don’t have to.”

“It’s no trouble,” he says lightly chuckling at my foolishness. “I’ll take you around and then I’ll help you with your studies.”

“Are you sure?” I ask. “I mean…I don’t want to be a bother.”

“Why don’t you think you’re being a bother?” L.Joe asks as he stops in place.

“What?” I ask turning around to look at him.

“You’re not a bother and you’re never going to be a bother. Get that out of your head,” he says lightly pushing on the side of my head.

“Oh, okay,” I say nodding my head.

L.Joe and I continue walking once again. “So, why are you here?” he asks.

“Why am I here,” I repeat after him as I look up the sky.

“You don’t know?” he asks.

“No, I know, but…I could go home now. Everything is said and done.”

“Everything is said and done?” he asks.

I sigh. “Yeah, everything is said and done. I could go home, but I’m enrolled in school. Looks like I’m going to have to just deal with it now,” I say as I kick a rock on the sidewalk.

“Well, what’s said and done?”

“My life,” I say as I look at him. I can see that he has a very confused face on right now. “My parents passed away, that’s why I’m here. Their funeral was here.”

“I’m sorry about that, but if you’re from America, then why was it here?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” I say as I put my hands in my pocket.

“So you don’t know why it was here?"

“You surely ask a lot of questions,” I say looking at him.

“Sorry, if you don’t want to talk about it, it’s fine.”

“I just don’t want to talk about it right now,” I tell him. “Maybe later.”

I’m guessing that L.Joe can sense my sort of down mood because he suddenly jumps in front of me and brings his face close to mine. “I know something that can cheer you up. Let’s go.” L.Joe grabs my hand and navigates me to a place that he thinks can lift my mood.

Daehyun’s POV

“Where’s Sophie?” Hyosung asks as soon as I walk in.

“She’s…she’s hanging out with a new classmate,” I tell her. There’s no use in lying, she would see right through it since Hyosung knows that Sophie doesn’t know any Korean.

“Can this new classmate speak English?” she questions.

“Yup, apparently. They sat her next to him.”

“It’s a him?” she eagerly asks. I nod my head. “Why aren’t you hanging out with any of your new friends?”

“I didn’t feel like it.”

“So you made new friends? Is it a girl? Is it a boy?” Hyosung starts throwing out a thousand questions at me about my new friends.

“I only made one,” I tell her, “and it’s my seating partner. Her name is Jieun, she goes by the nickname of IU.”

“It’s a girl, very nice. Well, if you need any girl advice your noona is always available. Or Himchan, Himchan could help you.”

“Thanks,” I say as I make my way towards the stairs to go up to my room.

“Oh, I was supposed to tell you that Mom wanted to see you.”

“Really?” I groan. “Now or can it wait?”

“By the sound of her voice, I think she wanted you now.”

“In the usual spot?” I ask. Hyosung nods her head. “Tell her I’ll be there in a couple of minutes. I want to change clothes. Wearing a uniform is…is so stupid. Wait,” I say stopping at the stairs.

“What?” Hyosung asks looking up.

“Mom doesn’t know that I dyed my hair,” I say touching it.

“Crap,” Hyosung whispers. “There has to be a black wig somewhere. I’ll send it up to your room.”

“Thanks noona,” I smile.

“Anything for my baby brother.”

I quickly change my clothes, thankfully they manage to find a wig, and wonder what my mother could possibly want. Whenever she wanted to talk to me when I was younger, it only ever involves something about the bloodline or about the palace. There is no asking me about my day or what I did when she wasn’t there. She couldn’t have been bothered with that simple stuff. Instead, she wanted to inform me on the right path to take. And people wonder why I left in the first place.

I walk down the familiar hallway of when I was a child. Sophie will never go down this hallway. She’ll never see anything in here if I have something to do with it. There’s really no reason for her to be coming down here. Everything from the start of this hallway on has stuff to do with the palace and being a royal family. Sophie is never going to see this. That way, she’ll never know.

“Come in,” I hear my mother say from the inside after I knock on the door. “Daehyun, welcome.”

“Hello,” I say bowing before my mother and father. I see my father looking at my head. He’s probably wondering how I was able to get my hair back to black. He probably thinks that I just dyed it back and forth. If only he knew that I was wearing a wig.

“Your father here says that you had other appointments on the day of the funeral that were of the utmost importance,” she starts off. That’s what she wanted to talk to me about?

“I’m sorry,” I say bowing before her.

“They were errands that I sent him on,” my father butts in. “I wanted to let him have the feel of what it’s going to be like when he’s in charge one day, so he got to do the errands.”

“But on a day like that?” she complains.

“They had to be done and I picked Daehyun to do the job.”

“It was at least nice that Sophie had his blonde fellow there. Where he came from I’ll never know, but he helped her a bunch.”

“That’s nice,” I say putting on a smile. “She’s making friends already.”

“Yes she is and you should too,” she sternly says.

“I don’t need to make other friends, alright? I just moved back and now you’re forcing this on me?” I ask her.

“I’m not forcing this upon you. As the next heir in line, you should be prepared if anything happens. I surely hope that nothing happens, though.”

“Yes,” I say unable to say anything in a retort.

“That’s why,” she continues, “we’ve planned a ball tonight.”

“A ball?” I ask.

“Yes and we’ve invited a lot of people to come. A lot of young women especially.” Great, she’s playing the bloodline card. “We hope that one of them will be to your liking.”

“Mom!” I complain. “You’re forcing me to pick a person?”

“No, we’re just showing you your options for now,” she clarifies. “As of right now…well…let’s not start that conversation.” Good, I didn’t want to start that conversation in the first place. Once it’s started, it’s a never-ending battle for us.

“Anyway, there is a ball tonight and you shall attend. Youngjae shall attend also. Your sister is going to be attending with her boyfriend. You and Youngjae shall attend with no date.”

“What about Sophie?” I ask. It’s not like I was even planning on bringing her along because that would only mean that she knows about me being a prince. I can see the slightly shocked expression in my father for a second before it returns to normal. Thankfully, my mother didn’t see anything.

“Sophie…Sophie will stay in her room for the night.”

“You can’t do that,” I say, but secretly I’m thankful. Tonight, Sophie’s not even going to come home. There’s no way that my secret is going to get exposed now. If Sophie were in the house, it would be too suspicious if all of went out without her. Hopefully this L.Joe guy will be useful just once.

“I am doing it. Where is Sophie anyway? We never really got a proper introduction.”

“She’s…she’s staying with a friend for a while,” I lie.

“A friend? Is it that blonde-haired guy?” she asks.

“Maybe,” I say. “I’m not really sure, but at least let’s be thankful that she’s starting to put her life back together, shall we?”

“Yes, I’ll be happy with that,” my mother admits. “Well, that’s it. You better be prepared in a short while. It starts at five on the dot.” I take a quick glance at my watch and see that it’s about four since school let out at three thirty, such a long time for school, but there was a study hall attached, which made it longer. Normally we would get released at three.

“Okay, thank you,” I say bowing before I leave.

As soon as I get out of the room, I take out my phone to text Sophie. I ask her where she is so I can give her some of her stuff since she’s not going to be staying at the house tonight. I’m not going to tell her the reason, though. Hopefully she’ll never find out the reason.

Sophie’s POV

“What place is this?” I ask L.Joe as we get to a red tent looking place.

“It’s Seoul street food,” he announces. “It can cure any sadness. Let’s go inside.”

I follow L.Joe inside when the woman there immediately greets him. So I guess he must be a regular here. Does he feel sad all of the time? Maybe he just comes here to come here. “This place makes some great ddeokbboki,” he says.

“Ddeokbboki?” I ask as I’m unfamiliar with the term.

“Yeah, it’s this Korean spicy rice cake. There’s also this thing called a haemul pajeon, which is a seafood pancake. It just has a bunch of seafood in it and it’s shaped like a pancake,” he explains using his hands. “Let’s just get them both.”

Before I can object, L.Joe calls out loudly to the woman behind the counter of what he wants I’m guessing. I don’t understand Korean.

“Do you just yell out what you want?” I ask once he’s done speaking.

“Yeah,” he says nodding his head. “It’s a street vendor, so you do that here. If it’s in a restaurant, then it’s like back in America, you just order like regular people.”

“Okay,” I say nodding my head. “I understand.” Just then, my phone vibrates in the pocket of my jacket. “A text message,” I say looking at it.

“Who messaged you?” he asks.

“Dae…jae,” I say catching myself before I could say Daehyun. As I read the text message, I open my eyes wide.

“Is there something wrong?” L.Joe asks.

“Um…yeah, do you know a place where I could stay for the night?”

“A place where you could stay?” he asks slightly shocked. “Why?”

“Um…I don’t know, I can’t go back to the place where I’m staying. Daejae said that he’s going to be bringing me some clothes to where we are. Where are we exactly?”

“Just tell him that we’re at the street vendor like four blocks away from the school, he’ll be able to find it, but why would you need a place to stay for the night?”

“I don’t know,” I say shrugging my shoulders. “Do you know one?”

“Stay with me,” he suddenly says.

“Stay with you?” I ask pointing at him.

“Yeah, stay with me,” L.Joe says. “It’ll be no problem, plus I could help you catch up on what you missed.”

“Um…sure,” I say thinking it over a bit. “That’d be very appreciated. Thank you.”

“No problem,” he says with a smile.

Our food comes within a short while. It looks like L.Joe got two orders of everything. “This is the ddeokbboki,” he says pointing with a pair of chopsticks, “and this is the haemul pajeon.” I nod my head to signal that I understand.

I make an attempt to get some food, but in the end, L.Joe just laughs at me. “What are you laughing at?” I ask him as I attempt to get a rice cake.

“Your chopstick handling,” he says pointing at it.

“What about it?” I ask looking at him.

“Have you never used chopsticks before?”

“I have,” I say, “just not metal ones.”

“Is there a difference?” I give him a glare as I continue my attempt to grab some. “Here, let me help you,” he says.

“Help me, how are you going to help me?” Just then, I see L.Joe holding out his chopsticks in front of my face. “What are you doing?” I ask him.

“Helping you,” he says. “Open your mouth.”

I do as I’m told and L.Joe puts the food into my mouth. He’s feeding me. “Hmm, it’s really good,” I say putting two thumbs up.

“I knew you’d like it,” he says with a smile. “Do you want me to get you a fork? I’ll be right back.”

Daehyun’s POV

I make my way to the school and start walking the four blocks to get to the street vendor. I think I’ve seen it before when I was really little, but I’m not sure. There are a ton of street vendors around Seoul.

Finally, I spot them; they were sitting near the opening. I walk up with Sophie’s bag in my hand when I see L.Joe feed her. Are they already this close? I see him get up from his seat when I decide to go in.

“Dae—,” Sophie begins, but I cut her off.

“Don’t say my name,” I whisper. She just nods her head.

“Hey, did you have any of this stuff before?” she asks motioning towards the table. “It’s really good.”

“That’s awesome,” I comment. “Um…here are your clothes. There’s a school uniform in there along with some regular clothes, a pair of pajamas, and everything that you’ll need for bed like your toothbrush, your regular brush, things of that nature.”

“Thanks,” she says getting the bag, “but why do I have to find another place to stay?”

“Um…you see…” I say attempting to think of a lie, but L.Joe comes back so I’m unable to say anything relatively close to the truth, not that I was going to anyway.

“Hey, you’re Daejae, right?” L.Joe asks. I nod my head. “I’m L.Joe, nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you, too,” I say pretending to play nice.

“And don’t worry about the housing situation, Sophie is going to stay with me.”

“That’s good,” I say.

“Where are you staying?” Sophie asks me.

“Um…I’m staying over at noona’s boyfriend’s house,” I say not wanting to say my sister’s name because people could recognize it in public.

“Oh,” Sophie says nodding her head. She knows fully well who Himchan is, so she probably is believing that I’m staying with him.

“Um…I’ll get going now, sorry for interrupting you guys,” I say as I bow.

“Nope, no problem,” L.Joe says giving me a slight wave. Sophie does the same.

I walk back to my house in silence. I shove my hands into my pockets. I don’t know why my mother is forcing me to attend this ball. This is just like Cinderella, except I’m not going to be falling for anyone tonight. I have no one that I like and I especially don’t want to marry someone that they pick out for me, that’s just the worst. Why can’t they just let me pick out someone that I want instead of trying to force everyone on me?

I sigh as I look up at the sky and imagine that I was back in America when everything was perfect. People are probably wondering where we went, or they probably got over us already. I mean, we were best friends and you would always see us in the hallway. There are probably rumors going around that I got Sophie pregnant or maybe people are saying that when one of us left, the other one did, too since we were close like that. None of them probably know the truth. Maybe a couple of people have figured out that Sophie’s parents passed away and they’re probably figuring that that’s why she moved, but as to why I moved is a mystery.

No one’s ever going to discover that I’m a prince. It’s not good mixing family affairs with personal life, even though they’re co-existent with each other. Sophie will never know that I’m a prince. Even if it’s a hassle, it will be a hassle that I’m willing to take. I want to protect her, not bring doom on her life.

Thinking about it, my mother doesn’t know that Sophie doesn’t know about us being royalty, but she doesn’t need to know. There’s nothing that she’s done that would make Sophie know in the first place. I should be good…for now. Ugh, this is so confusing.

And when did she get close with L.Joe? It’s only been like an hour and a half and they’re already feeding each other. This is just absurd. Why am I feeling like this? I can’t possibly like Sophie. I can’t like her. If I like her, I drag her into my world. I just can’t like her.

Sophie’s POV

“Did you really like it?” L.Joe asks me. I nod my head in satisfaction.

“I really liked it,” I tell him. “I’ll pay.”

“No, let me. I’m the one that took you out,” he says as he reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a wallet. He goes up to the woman and pays her. “Let’s go?”

“Okay,” I say as I follow out behind him. “What are we going to do now?”

“There’s a bunch of stuff we could do now,” he tells me. “But since you have clothes with you, why don’t we go back to my house and you can change into regular clothes and so can I before we go out for the night.”

“We’re going out for the night?” I ask.

“Yeah, like hanging out. I can always tutor you later since you are staying over.”

“When you say it that way you make it sound like we’re going to do something,” I say hitting his arm.

“But we aren’t because I’m not that type of guy,” he says clarifying for me. “Are you sure you’re okay staying with me? If you want, I could find you a cheap hotel.”

“And what have me killed?” I ask. “No thanks. I think I’d rather stay with you.”

“Okay,” he says nodding his head as we continue walking back to his house.

I like spending time with L.Joe. Even if I did just meet him today, he’s really nice and caring. I’m glad that I was sat next to him, even if he is the only one in the class that can speak English. Now I won’t rely on Daehyun all of the time for translations or things. Maybe L.Joe could teach me Korean and I could surprise Daehyun, that would be nice. I could surprise him with speaking a little Korean one day.

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What is going to happen now that Sophie is going to stay at L.Joe's house for one night? What is going to happen at the ball? What are Daehyun's parents planning for him?

Here is Chapter 10. Hope you enjoyed :D