“Flowers blooming in my heart, the world colored in pink: all of that was done by you.”

Apink, Always

I fell on my back with a pained grunt, wincing as I watched Viscount Kim tutted over me.

He isn’t even sweating.

“You’re focusing too much on trying to topple me, you’re not even focusing on yourself,” he commanded, sinking into his stance, “Stand up. Again.”

I got up slowly, groaning as I massaged my shoulder. “We’ve been doing this forever.”

“And you clearly keep testing my patience by trying to play dirty when I clearly told you not to.”

I held up my staff, watching him smile lazily. “And I’d do it again,” I muttered, running towards him.

He spun the staff in his hand, meeting my heavy handed hits with his swift ones. “I’m getting bored,” he said, pretending to yawn as he shoved me backwards.

Before I could regain my balance, he swooped, sweeping me off my feet as he spun low on the ground, using his feet to trip me backwards.

I yelped, feeling the hot flash of pain erupt on my back for the millionth time that day.

“Is that the best you can do?” he asked, “I’m really starting to get bored.”

I rolled to my side, peering behind my shoulder to see the dusty smears on the back of my white training clothes.

Viscount Kim wore the same set of clothes, except his was as pristine as it had been every day we had been training.

And we had been doing it for the past few weeks - or maybe it was months, because the day I first came to the palace felt so long ago.

While my arms didn’t shake anymore after prolonged training with my brother’s sword, and my legs didn’t feel like heavy lead when I was tasked to climb the trees surrounding the palace for practice, I was ever so determined to spend the last hour of every session trying to best my teacher.

It appeared that today was going to be like every other day.

“The problem with you,” Viscount Kim pointed out, “Is that you focus too much on attacking that you forget that I have a blind spot.”

I blinked, looking at him hopefully. “You have a blind spot?”

He instantly thwacked my side, chuckling as I stumbled a bit. “My dear Eunji,” he said, as if I were a stupid child, “Everyone has a blind spot. There is no perfect opponent, although, I must admit, I do come at a close second.”

“Show-off.”

Viscount Kim sighed. “That’s enough for today,” he told me, “I admire the undying determination, though.”

I shot towards him, but he had evidently expected an attack, given my penchant for sudden lunges.

Viscount Kim simply stepped out of the way, before using his staff to plonk me on the head.

“Ow!” I cried, “You said no head hits! That’s a foul, you’re playing dirty too!”

“Allow me to briefly indulge myself,” he said calmly, walking towards his favorite spot by the tree, “Go wash up.”

I placed my hands by my side, bowing to him as I did every lesson. “Thank you, Viscount Kim,” I said, as I rose, “I’m going to beat you one day.”

“Sure you will,” came the smug reply.

I rolled my eyes. “I definitely will. You won’t even know what hit you.”

He tilted his head thoughtfully, staring at me with a little frown.

I blinked. “What is it, do I have something on my face?” I asked, using the back of my hand to brush my cheeks.

“No,” he only said, “I think I may have hit your head a little too hard. Did I hear you right? You’d actually best me in my favorite sport?”

I let out a groan. “Real funny, Viscount Kim,” I said, as he tossed his staff into my hand, “What a great joke.”

“You know you like it,” he returned, a smile playing at his lips, “I’m going to take a shower. It’s too hot for me to be sparring an overzealous student in the middle of the courtyard. I will see you in the library.”

I chuckled, walking towards the Phoenix Hall. “Idiot,” I muttered under my breath, walking up the steps of the hall. “Oh, Soonshim, you’re here. I was about to send for some water.”

The little boy held out a tray, where a folded rag and a bowl of water sat. “I thought I’d come early and watch you spar.”

“Well, it was very embarrassing,” I said, dipping the rag into the water, proceeding to wipe my staff, “Viscount Kim is a very hard person to beat.”

“Maybe you just need to see his blind spot.”

I paused, giving him a look; he must have been watching my training intently. “Wow, why did I not think of that?” I exaggerated, slapping my forehead for good measure, before I added in a flat voice, “Don’t you think that’s what I’ve been doing all along, you little ?”

Soonshim was unfazed. “No, you’re not,” he insisted, “You’re thinking you know his blind spot, but you don’t.”

I finished scrubbing the staff, moving onto the second one. “Alright, then, since you’re so smart, what’s his blind spot?”

He gave me a cheeky little smirk, leaning closer to whisper to my ear.

Oh.

“Hmm,” I murmured, as he beamed at me, “We’ll see about that.”

Whatever bold confidence I had for my morning training, I lost for my literacy lessons. I was never in my element here; somehow, learning to read was one of the hardest things to do, particularly because I was well aware that I was never going to be a scholar or an official, not like Jimin.

Viscount Kim was reading yet another of his books - he never seemed to run out of anything to stare intently into - and I was seated at my desk, murmuring as I tried to remember the letters Viscount Kim had taught me, while I glanced at the drawings on the paper beside it, illustrating what the sounds sounded like.

He was testing me on my reading today, and it was highly terrifying given the fact that I had been referring to my terrible renditions of what sound was what letter. It was nerve-wracking to say the least.

There was a reason why it was today, of all things.

It was my birthday, and I had hoped I would be able to defeat him with my staff, but that went well.

Now, it was time to try to excel at my second one.

I couldn’t disappoint myself a second time.

There was no room for failure. I had to prove I was good enough, even if there was no one to tell me I wasn’t.

Blame it on my need for validation from Father; I always wanted to impress him.

Meanwhile, in the back room, Yoongi was most likely hulking over an easel. While I had thrown myself into my physical training with Viscount Kim, he had taken to something less violent: painting for hours on end while I learned my letters.

Apparently, according to Lady Hong, it used his favorite pastime, and he had abandoned it given the fact that he found it incredibly vexing for some reason - this reason, however, was not disclosed to me, which didn’t seem to bother me in the least sort because why would I care what people did with their free time? I certainly disliked if anyone did the same to me.

Whatever it was, it definitely was suspicious, because what kind of monster with long sharp claws would even be able to paint, much less call it their favorite pastime? Yoongi wasn’t exactly subtle with the fact that he was cursed to be in this form.

Which made me all the more curious to what he really looked like; I knew that I wouldn’t be able to find any answers, not with how tight-lipped everyone seemed to be, but Yoongi didn’t seem like he was trying to hide anything about himself anyway, so I’d just have to be patient and deduce his origins for myself.

One thing was for sure, for someone who claimed that he used to paint, I couldn’t see any paintings of himself anywhere, nor of anything, save the occasional ones hanging in the library or the halls.

It had been a week or so since he started his little project, and would be very secretive about it. At first, he had been sitting across my desk, at the far corner of the library. Sometimes he would stand up, most times he would sit, but then as days passed by, he would move his things to the little room in the back of the library, a private nook that none of us were allowed in. The door would be locked for hours on end, preventing us from entering. At this point, I was sure I saw that red door more than I saw him.

He claimed he didn’t want it to be disturbed in any way, and told us to wait for whatever it was that he was up to.

Well, despite the fact that I was kept busy with my lessons, I was getting rather impatient.

I looked away from the red door, staring at the rest of the library distractedly, from the row upon row of bookshelves, teeming with books from heaven-knows-when, to the papers I had been practicing my writing that were hanging out to dry, to my ornate desk, whose floral carvings I was currently tracing absentmindedly.

Sitting in the library reminded me of the moments I would pass by my brother’s room, watching him pore over his books while I frolicked outside with Jungkook or Hoseok.

Reading was alien to me, and yet, it was a fascinating skill that, deep down, I so desperately desired to have. It seemed like the last thing a girl like me would want, given my lack of sophistication and gentle elegance, but I understood how powerful it was, reading.

The viscount cleared his throat. “Time’s up. We’re going to do your test now,” he said suddenly, “I want you to read to me-”

“I barely remembered everything!”

“-without referring to your notes.”

I pressed my lips together. “Not like they make any sense, but alright, I’ll try.”

My scrawls and poorly drawn letters looked like a sad mess.

“Do you remember your letters?” he asked.

I in a breath. “I think so.”

“Go on, then. Take your time, I’m not going anywhere.”

A bout of nervousness filled me. “It’s not that,” I told him, fingers playing with the hem of my top, “I’m clearly the loser here. You’re going to laugh at me and call me stupid.”

He frowned. “When have I ever shown that I would do that?” he asked incredulously, “The nerve!”

“That’s what Jaehyun and his little cronies do to my brother in the village,” I answered in a small voice, “I never got to land a nice punch on his pretty boy face.”

Viscount Kim regarded me for a moment, closing his book and getting to his feet as he walked towards my desk. “Humility is a virtue of a lifelong learner,” he said, “Whoever Jaehyun is, he is not living by the code of a scholar, and can’t be used to represent one.”

He tapped my book, his expression unexpectedly gentle. “I will not laugh at you, nor call you stupid,” he mused, “How absurd, to think of my hardworking student feeling unworthy in my presence.”

“Aww, Viscount Kim, don’t go all soft on me and call me your hardworking student now,” I teased, as he scowled.

“Flip open your book,” he snapped, going back to his chair.

I sighed, doing as he said, and peered at the pages swimming with letters.

I feel strange knowing that I’ve been looking at the same set of letters day after day, associating them with sounds and stringing them together to make sentences in a series of mundane routines.

I felt my anxiety thrum in my veins as I held up the book closer to me.

His eyes were trained on me. “One at a time,” he said, “You will be overwhelmed if you try to read all in one go.”

I nodded.

“Ea...eating,” I began, letting out a breath, “This is harder than I thought. Everything else looks the same.”

He rolled his eyes at my feeble attempt to make a joke.

I turned back to my book. “This looks like a square cut into half. I think it’s a f sound?”

He stared back emotionlessly. “I’m not telling you anything.”

He knows me too well already. “Eating rice...rice cakes...wh-while…lying,” I continued, “Lying down, I think? Eating rice cakes while lying down? Did I get it right?”

He gave a nod.

My eyes widened. “Really?” I cried, letting out a gasp, “I read that without seeing my drawings!”

“That is only half the battle. What does the expression mean?”

I blinked. “Um, well, it is what it is, I suppose. Eating rice cakes while lying down...it really isn’t that deep.”

He looked like he was fighting the urge to roll his eyes as dramatically as he could. “That is hardly a satisfactory answer.”

I gave him a sheepish grin. “Fine. If I remember correctly, Yoongi mentioned it,” I said, trying to remember said memory, “Because I said I couldn’t paint. And Yoongi said it was as easy as eating rice cakes while lying down. So it means, something that is very easy.”

That seemed to satisfy him. “Congratulations,” he said as he sat in his chair, chuckling to himself. “I thought we were going to take the whole day. Good job, Eunji.”

My smile froze on my face, the excitement ebbing away from my body for a second.

In that second, I was back in the village, beaming up at my father as he patted my head.

“Good job, Eunji!” he congratulated me, “That is your first gold coin, and don’t you forget it.”

I blinked and the memory was gone, as quickly as it had manifested before my eyes. Instead what remained was Viscount Kim in the wake of my momentary flashback.

“Next one,” he said encouragingly.

I looked down at my book just as the door to Yoongi’s solitary room suddenly opened, startling the both of us as Yoongi entered the room, hauling something that was covered with a large fabric in his hands.

He noticed me first. “Morning,” he said sheepishly, before casting a glance at our teacher, “I have completed my painting.”

Viscount Kim was unimpressed. “And are you going to show it to us?”

Yoongi placed the easel in front of the table, as both the viscount and I waited. “Before I show it to you, I want to reiterate that my skills are terrible,” he explained, “And that I haven’t been painting for a long time, so please, excuse my skills.”

“Just get on with it,” I interjected, “Or I’ll open it myself.”

“That’s the thing,” came his reply, “I want you to do it.”

I caught Viscount Kim’s head swivelling in my direction but I didn’t return his gaze.

Why would he want me to unveil his painting, how strange.

Confused, I got up, already walking around my table to the covered easel. “What is with the suspense,” I huffed impatiently, grabbing onto the top of the fabric and tugging it, “It’s just a painting.”

My hand paused, the paint-stained fabric in my hands as I stifled a surprised gasp.

Yoongi had painted the library, and the intricate details made it seem like he had simply captured an image in his mind and transferred it on canvas. I could almost feel the smoothness of the varnished wood beneath my fingers as I peered closely at the painting, but that wasn’t the thing that had taken my breath away.

Because the fact of the matter was, it was not a painting of the library, but simply a background to what was the real centerpiece of the painting, and that was the spitting image of a girl in a sunshine yellow hanbok, hunched over a book with a determined expression on her face.

“It’s a painting of me,” I breathed.

I looked down at the hanbok I was wearing, the same shade of yellow. Without knowing, I was always wearing this particular one, because of how happy it looked.

Yoongi must’ve noticed that. I didn’t think he would.

I stepped closer to the painting, holding my breath as I took in the delicate details: the strands of hair falling over my eyes, the thin paintbrush between my ink-stained fingers, the stubborn pout on my lips that I would do whenever I was thinking.

He must’ve noticed everything.

“What do you think?” he asked quietly beside me.

I turned to him. “What do I think?” I echoed, “I’m speechless.”

I felt my eyes burn with unshed tears.

Blinking fast, I let