A/N: I feel really bad that I haven’t update in so long. Excuse? It sounds lame but here it is : Last week was Aaron’s birthday week so I was busy making him videos and presents.

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-Recap-

“Let me officially introduce myself to you, your majesty. Princess Hebe, my name is Aaron and I will be your date for the rest of the day.”

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Hebe’s POV

“DATE!?!?! WHOA! I just met you and you are courting me already.” I screamed into his face. I can’t believe this jerk! Who does he think he is? Me, Princess Hebe Tian of Isaducha, will not let anyone make such an absurd decision for me.

“Calm down, princess,” he said it in a rather sarcastic tone, “Date as in just hanging out. I’m just introducing you to the definition of the word FUN. I can tell you have never truly experience fun in your life.”

“I have experience fun!” I tried to defend myself.

“Hide and seek where everyone pretends to lose is not fun,” Aaron said to me.

I thought about it for a second and he is right. How many phonies are around me in my life anyways? I guess it wouldn’t hurt to have a brave, blunt, straight forward friend.

“So what is your definition of the word “fun” anyways,” I said as I put air quotes around the word “fun”.

He didn’t reply verbally. Instead, he grabbed my wrist again and led me to a lake not far away.

“Fun is not always expensive tea parties or fake joy,” Aaron said and he pointed to the lake as he sat down on the grass near it. I followed him and I tried to find what he was pointing at.

“The lake itself is a beautiful scenery to enjoy,” he finally said smiling. I looked at the serene lake and listened to a mother duck warning her child to stay away from us.

I’ve never realized how much one can learn from nature just by observing the way of life of the plants and animals. I turned my head and looked over at Aaron who was sitting next to me. He was still staring at the lake. His elbows were on his knees and his hands were holding his head. His eyes supported by his long eyelashes mesmerize you and twirls you into the dark mysterious beauty. Ahh!!! What am I thinking? I just met him.

I looked around and saw something.

“What is that?” I asked Aaron.

“What’s what?” He looked around and saw the object I was questioning. It was something black, stationed not far away.

We walked toward the object that was near the edge of the lake and as we got closer, I recognized the object. It was an old boat.

“It’s a boat,” I said when we were so close that we were almost standing next to it.

“Ya,” Aaron said and after a few minutes, he made an absurd decision. “Let’s go on it!”

“What!?!? This is not ours and it looks so old. What if it has a leak in it?”

“Come on Hebe. We’d push it out into the water and then we’d know if it has a leak in it or not. If it doesn’t, then we would go in,” Aaron tried to convince me. It worked.

“Fine,” I finally agreed and helped him push the boat into the lake. Aaron was holding onto it with one hand so that it wouldn’t float away. Apparently, there was no leak in the boat. I looked around for old, long sticks or branches that could be use to paddle. After collecting a few, I put them into the boat. As Aaron tried his best to hold the boat still, I climbed in and then he followed. He paddled mostly.

We were in the middle of the lake. I sighed and said, “This is nice having someone serve me.”

“A princess is always a princess.” Aaron kept rowing the boat as I relaxed. He stopped paddling and relaxed as well.

I looked at him into his eyes. I don’t remember how long it was but it felt like forever. Our eyes interlocked and each sent out sparks. Our head paused not knowing what to do next and I felt nervous but joyful at the same time. Forever was too short. My nervousness and tension from looking at Aaron unconsciously made my finger crunch together and press down really hard into the floor of the boat. My fingers were poking into the boat too hard that it caused the floor to crack and water started to flow into the boat.

“Hebe! The boat is leaking!” Aaron tried to grab an object to cover up the leak but we both know that it would be useless.
“AHH!” I yelled as I try to think of something. The boat is getting heavier and heavier due to the water and I know that if we don’t get out of here soon, something bad would happen to both of us.

The flood in our boat continues since osmosis would not be stopped. The water was up above my knees now.

“We need to jump,” Aaron said to me.

“What? I don’t know how to swim.” Yes, it is true. I don’t know how to swim. I’ve been hydrophobic ever since I can remember.

“If you stay on the boat, you’d drown,” Aaron said. He was right. Our constant attempts to block the leak in the boat not only became wasted efforts, but also increase the size of the hole.

I was scared. I was afraid to die in this lake. A princess, drowned in a lake. But little did I know that my angel was standing right in front of me.

Aaron put his hand over my mouth and held me by my waist with his other arm. We were on the edge of the boat and he was ready to jump. Before he did so, his face came really close to my ears and he whispered, “Trust me.”

Those two words gave me all the power in the world. I closed my eyes as Aaron tried his best to lift both of our weight out of the boat and into the water. Once we were in the water, I felt water going up into my nose and I couldn’t breathe. I need…

Aaron’s POV

Hebe is so heavy. I tried to swim and drag her at the same time to the land. After a long time of struggling, I eventually got both of us onto the land.

I looked over at Hebe. She was unconscious.
“Hebe,” I said as I touched her face. Her whole body was freezing and I gently slapped her face to wake her up. She was still passed out and I screamed softly into her ears.

“HEBE!!!” She was still unconscious and I’m no doctor but I know this wasn’t good.

Maybe there is water in her body?

I used both of my arms to pump water out of her body.

Little droplets of water flew out from and attacked me. I tried to with all my strength to squeeze water out of her body and finally, she started to cough up water dryly. Her eyes started to open and then suddenly…

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Hebe screamed loudly in a high pitch.

“WHAT!?!?!” I screamed out of shock.

“Oh…nothing….I….I…umm….” Hebe stuttered as she tried to avoid eye contact with me.

“What?” I asked curiously.

“I…I…I thought you were an octopus,” she said quickly.

“Why would you think that?” No one had ever told me that I looked like an octopus before. What is going on in this absurd princess’s mind?

“Well, big, round eyes, thick lips, and flat, wet hair…” Hebe stood up hurried away.

“Hey! You’re not going to insult me after I save you and walk away from me,” I yelled at her and I pulled her back from her wrist.

Hebe’s POV

“Well what do you….” I said as I turned back and look at him. Our faces were only an inch apart.  Both of us froze. I felt my body tense up and it became immobile. Suddenly, my face was burning up internally and I prayed I was not blushing. His eyes were staring right into mine and I felt like my heart was setting off fireworks. My wrist burned under his fingers as I felt blood rushing back and forth confusedly in my mind. Suddenly, like magic, I snapped out of my trance and pulled myself back from Aaron.

“Well princess, seeing how clumsy you are, I can’t just let you go home by yourself.”

“I can take care of myself,” I declared loudly.

“Don’t you have a servant or a guard that protects you?”

“No, why would I need that?” I tried to act strong.

“Well, let’s see, you can’t swim and the guy that was suppose to be with you and protect probably hasn’t even start to look for you.”

“Who’s going to protect me? Everyone in our kingdom have their own jobs. I wouldn’t want to ruin our balanced economic system for my own selfish reason,” I said in my royal, princess way.

“I could be your bodyguard. I just saved you,” Aaron said with determination.

“You? Don’t you have a job?”

“Once John’s baby is born, I’d probably be jobless. I’m from out of town so I don’t have family here. Come on princess. You know you need protection,” Aaron said in a childish way as he teased me.

I stuck my tongue out at him and turned around to walk away. Something tells me that the quicker I get away from this guy, the better my life would be.

Afraid that Aaron would disallow me from leaving, I walked in a fast pace, almost running.

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After walking for almost an hour, I’m still not at the palace. I can see the palace clearly from here but for some reason, I still couldn’t reach it. It’s not hard to go home since the palace is so big but it takes time since I’d never actually paid attention to the street so I haven’t figure a path. I looked up at the palace. It’s really close, or so I think.

The sky is close to being completely dark. I started to feel the breeze brush against me as I hurried on home.

‘Stupid Aaron. If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be wet and I wouldn’t be this cold wandering alone on the empty streets trying to use the palace as a landmark.’

‘Stupid Aaron. If it weren’t for him, Prince Jiro would’ve brought me home to a warm fireplace and a nice supper.’

Something interrupted my thoughts.

“Hey there pretty girl, wanna hav’ sum fun,” the voice came from a dark alley on my right. I turned my head to find a gang of boys around eighteen years old. I ignored them and hurried on home but one of them ran toward me and yanked me back.

The way he pulled me back was different from Aaron’s. Aaron didn’t yank me back with all this might to the point where I almost fell to the ground. Aaron didn’t squeeze my wrist so tight that I think my vessels will pop out of my skin. When I tried to break free, Aaron doesn’t squeeze tighter and pull harder. When I turn around, Aaron’s eyes weren’t scary and cold.

‘What am I thinking? I’m in danger and I’m thinking about a stranger I met a few hours ago!’

“Let me go!” I tried to yank back again as tears flow out of eyes. The guy’s grabbed both of my wrists. His friends surrounded me and they reached their hands out to me. Some of them touched my hair. Some of them touched my face. Worst of all, some of them tried to pull my clothes off.

I tried to scream but my voice was dried. Tears rolled out uncontrollably and suddenly, some kind of magical freed me from the dirty hands. Some magical force saved me from being . Few seconds later, no one of touching me as banging sounds and yelling voices rang through my head.

But then, someone’s hands grabbed me on my sides. I struggled freed and I tried to scream again. A voice was yelling at me. I opened my eyes and stared into a pair of deep dark brown eyes. The same pair of eyes I that I had mistaken for an octopus’s eyes earlier.