Another bright and sunny morning promised Chunhwa a pleasant feeling the next day. Mounted on her ebony black mare, she made her way towards the Hwarang House together with her maid, Damyi who was on the other hand mounted on a brown stallion that had a few white spots on its body. Princess Sookmyung unfortunately told her that she cannot go with Chunhwa, as she had a few errands to do as the Princess of Silla but had promised her that she will follow in the evening.

Master Wi Hwa, Hwarang’s Chief Instructor stood in front of the gates of Hwarang House as he expects her arrival. As their horses stopped in front of him, the Hwarang guards escorted Chunhwa and her maid down and held their horses for them as Chunhwa approached the Chief Instructor.

Master Wi Hwa bows at her as she stops in front of him and she politely bows back in return, giving the elder a smile.

“I was informed you were coming this morning, and you really did come early.” Master Wi Hwa says with an amused smile.

“My apologies for being a burden so early in the morning and for coming sooner just right after the Princess had visited yesterday. I was just completely looking forward to see the Hwarang House that I have to visit as early as I can.” Chunhwa bits back a shy grin and Master Wi Hwa chuckles at her.

“You’re really as kind as always, My Lady.” The Chief Instructor bows at her. “Even so, please do not feel burdened. Having you visit the Hwarang House today is an honor.”

 “Well then, please come inside. I will you.” Master Wi Hwa says, gesturing towards the Hwarang House.

“Then let us go ahead. I am thankful for your hospitality, Chief Instructor.” Chunhwa nods at him and the two made their way inside the Hwarang House with Damyi following behind them.

“I heard she came from the North but was a former princess of one of Silla’s conquered countries.” Yeowool says as he looks at Sooho and Hansung who were busy watching Chunhwa being escorted around by Master Wi Hwa from their spot on one of the rest huts in Hwarang House.

“Wow, a real princess yesterday and now a former princess. I have never seen one before.” Hansung says in complete awe as he turns to face Yeowool who crossed his arms in front of his chest.

“That’s what you also said yesterday when the princess visited. Can’t you think of a different reaction this time?” Yeowool sighs, shaking his head.

“Anyway, some say that she is the granddaughter of a former rank one ministry official in the palace who died protecting the late King but she was sent away to hide.” he then adds, Hansung who then went back to watching Chunhwa from a far turned his head again towards Yeowool.

“She was sent away to hide?” the youngest blinks. “But why does she have to be sent away to hide?”

“Isn’t it obvious? It’s because she’s beautiful.” Sooho speaks for the first time, turning around for a moment towards them before turning back again to watch Chunhwa laugh gracefully as Master Wi Hwa tells her a joke.

Sooho, however, was not the only one watching her with a dreamy expression as almost all the Hwarang men in the area were watching her and were murmuring at each other.

“A face like that shouldn’t be easily shared to the world for free.” Sooho nods to himself and Hansung tilts his head to the side as he suddenly thought of something.

“So, is she here to find a husband as well?”

Yeowool shrugs, “Perhaps.”

He stands and walks over to their side to take a look at Chunhwa as he leans on the space beside Hansung. Chunhwa at the same time looked up towards the three of them, making an eye contact with Hansung, Sooho, and then at Yeowool before averting her eyes away as she follows Master Wi Hwa towards another direction and finally out of their sight.

“Just now...she looked at us, right?” Hansung excitedly says as he turns towards Yeowool who only gave Hansung an amused smile.

“It’s because I was so pretty that she had to look up here.”

Sooho sighs as he finally turns away from his twisted position, a smile on his face.

“She is so much more like the Queen than the princess who is her own daughter.”

“What?” Hansung scrunches his face in confusion while Yeowool softly snorts.

Sooho turns to them.

“Have you seen the way she smiles? It’s so warm unlike the cold princess. She’s just as warm as the Queen.”

“Huh?” Hansung frowns, “The Queen is just as cold as her daughter though.”

As Chunhwa and Master Wi Hwa made their way towards his office, they both passed by Jidwi who looks at her with a frown on his face. Chunhwa and Jidwi’s eyes met for a brief moment before she averts her eyes towards the path in front of her. Pa Oh looks at Chunhwa as he made his way towards Jidwi and stops just right beside him.

“Yesterday was Sookmyung, today is a princess from the North.” Jidwi says as he looks away, thinking.

“What could possibly be the purpose of a princess from a far away land in this country that she had to come all the way from the North?”

“I really do think the Queen means nothing of it, Your Majesty.” Pa Oh reassures him. Jidwi looks back again at Chunhwa and Master Wi Hwa as their backs slowly disappears from their sight.

“However, she does seem to look familiar.”

Time seems to fly a little fast today, as Chunhwa had found herself and her maid walking by the pond in the Hwarang House that afternoon. Master Wi Hwa had showed her almost every nook and corner of the Hwarang House as much as he can before he had to excuse himself as he had a class to supervise.

The servants of the Hwarang House— that were all male, she takes note— had served her a scrumptious soup and some grilled pork for lunch which, she definitely told them, she enjoyed.

Now, Chunhwa and her maid are trying to look around the Hwarang House themselves as she doesn’t want to bother the Chief Instructor anymore.

While she was looking at the beautiful flowers adorning the small pond by the bridge, the wind suddenly blew causing her hair to fly towards the direction the wind was blowing. Just as she turns her head to fix her hair, she makes an eye contact with a Hwarang standing and staring at her from a distance.

Sooho stared at the young maiden in front of him in awe. She was surrounded by flowers that had the same colour as her unique looking hanbok while the wind blows her hair towards his direction— making her look like a goddess.

The two seemed to stare at each other as if in a trance before Sooho was the first one to snap out of it. He put on a charming smile as he made his way towards her, bowing just as he stops a few feet from her and her maid.

Chunhwa continued to stare at him.

“I heard that besides the princess, there will be another visitor in the Hwarang House. It’s a pleasure to meet you, My Lady.” Sooho says smoothly and Chunhwa finally seems to snap out of her stupor. She finally nods her head to him in acknowledgement.

“Ah, yes. It’s nice to meet you too.”

Sooho’s smile widens.

“I was satisfied by only looking at you from a distance but I didn’t expect that we will meet like this. The wind must have blessed me for it made you look at my direction.”

Chunhwa blinks at him, taken aback but it seemed that he didn’t notice her expression as he continued.

“But then again, no woman in Silla had ever missed looking at me after all.”

Chunhwa blinked at him once, twice. She didn’t know how she should act accordingly on this kind of approach from a man.

‘He looks so handsome that I was captivated at first, but his overconfidence about himself and the terrible pick-up line made me change my mind. Now I feel bad about him.’

Chunhwa hesitantly gave him a smile, which made it look like it was strained as she gave him a reaction or at least a reply.

“I’ll just pretend that I never heard what you have said and just remember you as the Hwarang whom I bumped into and greeted on the way.” she tries to tell him as politely as possible.

“Well then.”

With that, she gave him a small bow and quickly made her way past him— her maid immediately following her from behind.

“I can’t believe he just dropped a terrible pick up line.” she deadpans when they were out of earshot.

Damyi chuckles at her reaction, nodding in agreement. “I thought so too, My Lady.”

Sooho turned around to follow Chunhwa’s departing back with an awed smile. Hansung and Yeowool then appeared next to him.

“Sooho hyung, where did you go? We were looking for you.” Hansung says as he reaches him. The older Hwarang did not move an inch as he continued to stare at Chunhwa until she was out of sight.

“Huh? Isn’t that the visitor?” Hansung says as he looks at the direction Sooho was looking at. “Have you met her?” he says excitedly and Yeowool shakes his head in amusement.

“As expected of Kim Sooho,” he sighs, “Having already made his move to the new face in Silla.”

“So? How did it go?” the youngest in the group asks, his eyes sparkling. “Did you get her name?”

Sooho finally looks at him and gave him his signature ‘Kim Sooho look’.

“A man doesn’t need to know a woman’s name in order to get her heart.”

Yeowool snickers at this.

“An expected reply from a playboy,” he puts his hand on Sooho’s shoulder. “Yah, why don’t you just tell the truth and admit to us that you were actually dumped by that woman?”

Sooho glares at him, looking offended and swats his hand away.

“I was not!” he defends himself, his look immediately turning into a dreamy one as he looked towards the direction Chunhwa disappeared to.

“If I learned anything from meeting countless women, it’s that— a woman does not show her true feelings towards the man who makes her flutter.”

He looks at them, still in his dreamy state. “And for me, the Queen and that lady is the most womanly woman of them all.”

Yeowool looks at Sooho with a disgusted expression while Hansung tilted his head to the side in confusion from the Hwarang’s words.

“What? I don’t understand.” he comments as he looks at Yeowool, hoping that he will at least give him some enlightenment.

Yeowool sighs in exasperation as he slings an arm around Hansung, “Forget it, you will learn nothing good from this man.”

“Let’s go, we still need to practice our performance for the festival.” he drags Hansung away, leaving Sooho looking annoyed at the two of them for ignoring him.

“Yah! Did you two just ignore me!?”

Author's Note:

I'm thinking on how frequent I should update this story.
Like, two chapters a week? For example every Wednesdays and Saturdays?
Although I am not yet sure how many chapters this story will have since it's
so hard for me to distribute them lol. I have almost finished the whole story
script— it has originally 14 main chapters with 5 to 6 scenes each (I have 3
more chapters left to write) which just mostly contains some scenarios and
their lines,  or how will the story flow and stuff but of course I have to write
them with some eloquence and I have to arrange a lot of stuff in the story so
I could post it here for the readers. Since writing those 14 chapters with 5 to
6 scenes each in an eloquent way would mean it would take a very long ride
to write, I decided to divide the chapters and the scenes. Also, I decided to add
more scenes to make it more intersting and give some fillers just like what I did
in some parts in the first two chapters and here in this chapter and the other
chapters to come. So all in all, it could possibly reach until 30-40 chapters, 45
the most. Meaning it could end as early as next month or in June depending on
the number of chapters but that's much better than taking a long time right? 

Anyway, please let me know in the comments with what you think.
I can't believe I talked that much lol I'm so sorry~
If you are reading until this point then, I love you! kk

Comments and Feedback are appreciated!

- flyingjunmyeons [20170426]