Red Rose
Cupid at Heart
Over the course of the next few days, something seemed to have changed. As Seulyi was helping the princess out with their routinized medicinal soup brewing, she couldn’t help but notice the difference. Hyunmi was humming a lot to herself—a foreign melody she had never heard of in the kingdom of Heart. The princess smiled more often for no apparent reason.
“Have you considered to give the courting a try?” The head maid questioned curiously.
“What? Of course not,” Hyunmi spoke with a smile. She continued stirring the soup within the cauldron with that exceptional gleeful smile.
“Then why are you so happy? If I didn’t know any better, I would think you have fallen in love,” Seulyi said.
Hyunmi scrunched her eyebrows and snorted a laugh. “Don’t be ridiculous, Seulyi. I do not even know the meaning of love.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” a singsong voice chimed from the side. Sungjong had appeared, sitting on top of the wooden table. He took whatever delicacy he could find in the kitchen and ate it. “Perhaps the maid isn’t too far off from the truth.”
Hyunmi looked alerted at once. There he went, spreading nonsense gossips. But she couldn’t stop the cat from talking because Seulyi had the audacity to hold her back from hurting the cat.
“Tell me, what is it?” Seulyi asked eagerly.
Sungjong the cupcake frosting from his lips and grinned. “I assume you are aware of a Cupid’s presence in the midst of us,” he said.
“Certainly. The maids and I have been talking a lot about him. We wonder if a cupid can fall in love us humans. But we dare not think of such ways about the goddess’ son.” Seulyi squealed to herself even when she said those regretful words.
Hyunmi honestly didn’t know Woohyun would captivate so many women with his presence alone. Was it an effect he had because he was cupid?
“I have only seen him once, but he is godly. Oh, have you ever seen him, Hyunmi?” Seulyi continued dreamily.
“She has done more than just seen him, am I right?” Sungjong questioned with a suggestive smirk.
Hyunmi would’ve batted the cat, if only she wasn't afraid to get the kitchen dirty. “Apparently, cupid is tasked to make me fall in love with the prince of Spade,” she explained to her friend who did not seem all too surprised.
“I wished he would help me fall in love,” Seulyi said.
“Who would you want to fall in love with?”
“I don’t know. Anyone outside the castle. I have grown weary of looking at the men here,” Seulyi said and made a face. She, along with all the other royal servants, all grew up together within the castle. Being exposed to each other their entire life might have been dreadful.
This made Hyunmi chuckle. “When I meet him, I shall be sure to put in a good word for you. Perhaps he may help you out on that one.”
She scooped out the soup from the cauldron, and handed the bowls to Seulyi as per usual. “Please hand them to my father,” she instructed.
“What about you?”
Hyunmi side stared at Sungjong who was almost too ready hear her answer. “I have an appointment,” she tried to be as vague as possible to prevent the cat from gossiping.
“With who?” Seulyi blinked.
“Well,” the cat took the chance to interrupt, “With cupid himself, of course.”
Hyunmi would be lying if she said she wasn’t looking forward to these dance practices. Though the lesson itself was rather meaningless, she looked forward to meeting Cupid.
There he was, standing in the grand ballroom all by himself. He was facing the other side, watching the humongous painting of the king placed behind the throne. When he heard her footsteps approaching, he turned around right as she halted in front of him.
“Have I kept you waiting?” Hyunmi asked, holding back a smile from forming just at the mere sight of him.
“A true gentleman is defined by his virtue of patience. For the princess I am willing to wait forever,” Woohyun humored her, and she laughed. She seemed more cheery than usual, but he wasn’t sure why. “Has something happened to you, your highness? Your beauty radiates more with a smile that weakens a man’s heart.”
“I would like to skip today’s dancing lessons,” Hyunmi suddenly suggested.
The statement was shocking, and Woohyun showed his surprise and loss using his entire expression. He had known from people that the princess was one of principles who held on to rules as if her life depended on them. For her to suggest this idea was simply unexpected.
“We both know I can manage during the masquerade ball. So why should we spend more time on these lessons?” She elaborated.
“Because I enjoy holding the princess close to myself,” Woohyun answered with a genuine smile, and it was hard to tell whether he was joking or serious.
Hyunmi couldn’t help but let a bashful smile appear, having a harder time to keep staring into those enchanting eyes of his. She cleared .
“You are new to this kingdom, aren’t you? I’d like to show you the garden. We have the most beautiful red roses in all of Mirificus,” Hyunmi told him with great excitement. She was after all a royalty who took pride in her land.
“Really? I thought the most beautiful flower of all is the one standing in front of me,” Woohyun said, grinning at her.
He was making her heart feel all warm with those flattering words. If anyone else had said them, she would’ve dismissed it immediately. “Do you say that to every woman?”
“You are the first, and that is the truth.”
Hearing that reassured her for some strange reason. As if she was glad he wouldn’t captivate other women with such flattering words. Any other woman would immediately fall for such lines, and she was, alas, no exception.
“I want to show you something, and you do not have the right to disobey me,” she said playfully, and hesitated for a second before she grabbed his hand as casual as possible. Yet, there was nothing casual following the way her heart clamored afterwards.
Woohyun put in no effort to protest and simply let the princess guide him through the castle grounds. He remembered all the corridors and doors they had passed, finally going through a gate that led outside to the garden.
There were tall bushes around with several gardeners working to keep it in shape with clean precision. There were an abundance of red roses decorating the tall bushes, and indeed, they were the most marvelous type of roses they had ever seen. There were white roses as well, but the gardeners carried a bucket of red paint to color them red. Sometimes, the wet paint was still dripping from the rose petals.
“My mother used to love red roses. She was the one who grew and tended for them in this garden,” Hyunmi said, reading the confusion from Woohyun’s face. “We like to paint the roses red as a reminder of her.”
“They are remarkable,” Woohyun commented to acknowledge the deceased mother’s taste. He then continued, careful not to offend her. “Do you miss her?”
“All the time.” She sighed, strangely enough opening up to the stranger. “Mother would not have agreed on this courting. She would want me to have a choice of my own.”
“Why is that?”
“She has made a lot of sacrifices in order to accept the courting of a king, my father,” she said.
Woohyun then realized the king and queen of Heart were part of an arranged marriage who never had the chance to choose whom to truly love. Perhaps, it was the main cause to Hyunmi’s great reluctance to follow her parent’s footsteps.
“Did they love each other?” He then asked.
Hyunmi offered him a pretentious smile, and let go of his hand. “You tell me, Cupid. How does one define and measure love?”
“That is a difficult riddle you ask me, your highness,” Woohyun said with a small scoff. “There is no answer other than to experience it yourself.”
Hyunmi stared at him, waiting for him to elaborate on it, but he stayed quiet. She kept her gaze to the grass and fiddled her fingers around a dried up red painted rose. “Have you ever experienced it? Being in love, I mean.”
Woohyun widened his eyes in surprise, catching her occasional glances that were meant to go unnoticed. “I help people fall in love, but I have never tasted the feeling myself. My mother tells me it is forbidden to bring my personal feelings into the work I do.”
“Your mother?”
“The goddess of love and beauty, Aphrodite.”
The princess seemed to have forgotten Cupid was still the son of a deity. It suddenly explained the extremely handsome features embedding his skin, and the charm that captivated thousands of people with his presence alone. He was a god himself, and falling in love was taboo.
“You seem disappointed?” He noted the pout she was unconsciously making, and laughed when the girl panicked.
“N-no, not exactly,” she said, looking away to avoid his eyes. She could never get used to the way he always stared at her. It was different. He was different.
As if awoken by her own trance, Hyunmi suddenly moved away from their position as she scanned around the bushes filled with roses. She finally halted when she found what she was looking for, an authentic rose that was red by nature. She picked it up and winced when the thorn accidentally prickled her her finger.
“Be careful, your highness,” Woohyun panicked on her behalf. He quickly retrieved a white handkerchief from his pocket, and gently grabbed her hand in his. Using the cloth, he carefully brushed away the blood that formed from the scratch.
Hyunmi bit her lips together, feeling her breath quickening when he was so close to her. The way he held her fingers so carefully as if she was a porcelain doll, yet tended her wound using the same gentleness of a lover, made her heart gallop intrinsically.
“I told you to call me by name,” she whispered quietly. He looked up from her finger and met her eyes from such a close distance, it made her heart continue to race.
“Perhaps when no one is around,” he said, eyeing the gardeners who continued to paint the roses and trim the hedge and bushes to take on the shape of a heart.
The answer seemed to have satisfied the princess who beamed at him. She then raised her hand, handing the red rose to him. “Let me make a proposal to you,” she spoke.
Woohyun knew the princess was clever and had probably come up with her own schemes. “Enlighten me,” he urged her to continue.
“A red rose is beautiful to the eye, but hurts when it is touched. It shows that to every beautiful thing, there is a flaw,” Hyunmi spoke, determination was clear in her eyes.
Woohyun accepted the rose from her hand, watching the beautiful flower that was flawed in the way its thorn could make people bleed. “Go on,” he spoke.
“I want you to turn me into a red rose.”
The cupid wasn’t sure he was following her train of thoughts. The confusion was always so clear on his face, and Hyunmi elaborated before he could pose his question out loud.
“The prince of Spade has only seen my outer appearance and took an interest because of this… Curse,” she said, never accepting her eternal beauty as a blessing or a gift. She saw him about to say something to disagree, so she quickly continued. “But if we expose my unattractive side, wouldn’t that repel him?”
Woohyun had to give her props for her ideas, but could only muster a light chuckle. “Your highness, I am afraid you have no flaw. You are the most attractive lady I have ever met,” he said, unintentionally flattering her again.
“That is because you do not know all there is to know about me.”
“I suppose that is something we could easily change,” he told her with a grin.
“Are you going to help me?” Hyunmi asked with the hopeful glint in her eyes. She was so naive at times and trusted him far too easily.
“To be honest, I do not know whether I have such capabilities. It is something I have never tried or even dared to think of,” Woohyun said. Her smile turned into a frown, and there was something in him that disliked it whenever she frowned. “Have you been spending the last few days trying to formulate a solution against the courtship?”
“I am a woman who pursue the things I want. I do not retreat before a battle has been fought,” Hyunmi said, once again showing her great determination. It wasn’t that she despised the prince of Spade, but the idea of courtship and arranged marriages never interested her.
“I suppose there is someone who could assist us,” Woohyun suddenly spoke, looking away to the place beyond the castle walls. Seeing her determination made him change his mind.
“Really?” Hyunmi’s voice seemed to have gone a few pitches higher to express her glee. She was unconsciously holding unto his arms, shaking them like a child eager to receive presents.
“Although it may be dangerous and you would be required to break some rules,” he warned her.
Hyunmi was never too fond of breaking rules, nor was she the type who would normally take risks. But in order to attain her desire, she was willing to go against her own principles.
“May I invite someone to come along?” She asked.
Woohyun frowned. They were going to against the rules; the last thing they needed was having an additional bystander.
“Please? I would feel guilty being the only one breaking the rule after Hoya found me in the marketplace last time. I need someone to take the blame with me,” the princess spoke.
Her reasoning was so logically unreasonable, he laughed at her honesty. He returned the red rose back among the bushes and grinned at the princess.
“Very well,” he gave in to her pleas. “Tell your friend to get ready for a tea party.”
Idea based on Monsta X's Beautiful. Also, these were the cheesiest lines I have written so far. I'm doing my best not to kill you all with the cheesiness. Thank you for reading and commenting! You can already tell how heavily influenced it is by Alice in Wonderland :D
Yay! Won the bid today! I hope you will enjoy the story~ Would love to know your thoughts, so please do leave comments too~ Thank youuu <3
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