"Blue, we may have a problem."

The transmitter in her ear crackles to life and Seungwan is immediately on her feet, footsteps rapidly heading back towards the main building.

"What's the situation?"

A familiar rush of adrenaline pumps through her veins and Seungwan's mind whirls a million miles a minute, trying to think of what could possibly have gone wrong in the fifteen minutes she had been on lunch.

She breaks out into a run, realising that she's quite some distance away and inwardly curses her luck. The one time she decides to have lunch in the furthest place away possible, only for her presence to be called upon.

The lack of reply from her teammates doesn't help and a foreboding dread of panic stirs within as the deafening silence stretches.

She pumps her legs to move faster. "What's the situation?" She repeats urgently.

"Head on over to the kitchen, Blue."

Seungwan doesn't slow down when she enters the inner palace. Time was a luxury in their line of work; a luxury that meant the difference between life or death, literally and figuratively.

"Can someone please tell me what is going on?" She hisses whilst sprinting down the hallways, ignoring the odd looks from others inside the building.

"Ignore her, Blue." A different voice filters through this time. "Watermelon is safe, but we might need your assistance in the kitchen."

Seungwan slows down. "Do you have sight of her?" She huffs, catching her breath.

"Affirmative."

A look of confusion flits across her face. "Then what the hell is going on?"

"Just...come to the kitchen."

It takes her less than a minute to enter the double doors leading to the gargantuan kitchen that was the heart of the palace. Equipped with the finest high-end appliances and housing an abundance of exquisite ingredients, the royal kitchen boasted of capabilities that enabled it to cater hundreds of guests whilst ensuring five-star service. Needless to say, it was just as impressive as any other part of the royal palace.

Seungwan cautiously makes her way towards the lone figure hunched over the stainless steel counter top.

"Your Highness?"

Joohyun drops the spatula in her hand, or rather throws it, in shock. She jumps mouth opened --which Seungwan was certain ready to scream bloody murder-- only to pause when she realised who it was. The hand that had instinctively flown to her chest in surprise, clutches into a fist and promptly comes flying towards Seungwan’s arm in dulled thumps.

“Did you have to scare me like that?” Joohyun hisses.

Seungwan laughs. "My apologies, Your Highness. I didn't mean to scare you." She takes a good look at woman before her, eyeing the smudges of flour on her cheeks and the stains of batter splattered across her apron. "I see that you've been quite... busy." She scans the room. It looked like a warzone and quite frankly, that was putting it lightly.

"Did you happen to wrestle with a bag of flour or something?"

"Very funny." Joohyun narrows her eyes.

The bench top was dusted in flour, which spilled over onto the floor and bowls of questionable looking mixtures were haphazardly scattered on the counter. Meanwhile, an ominous looking liquid bubbled away on the stove in the background whilst a strange scent wafted in the air.

Seungwan discreetly takes a sniff. Something smells... burnt.

Before she gets a chance to question what it could possibly be, the oven timer chimes with a 'ting' and Joohyun’s face lights up in excitement. "The cake's ready!" She rushes to the oven with her mitts and carefully removes the pan, setting it onto the counter.

"Uh, what is that, Your Highness?" Seungwan peers at the deformed, dark, thing that was steaming away.

"Cake." Joohyun furrows her brows and looks at her like it's the most obvious answer.

"Oh, of course." Seungwan clears . "What's the occasion?"

A string of incoherent words tumbles out and Seungwan has to lean forward because Joohyun speaks so softly that she isn't able to catch her words.

"Sorry, can you repeat that?"

"I said, it's to celebrate your one year anniversary of joining the team."

"This is for me?"

Seungwan's not sure if it's the heat from the kitchen because Joohyun's cheeks look a tad pink, despite her cool outer exterior.

"Yes." The older woman mumbles softly refusing to meet her eyes, instead finding great interest in the stain on the counter top.

Seungwan smiles warmly and her eyes twinkle in amusement when the Princess darts her eyes away upon catching Seungwan's gaze.

"Thank you, Your Highness."

The blonde dips her head so that she can look Joohyun in the eyes and the shy curve of her lips makes Seungwan's heart flutter. It makes her breathing falter and her palms sweaty and suddenly, she's so conscious of how close they were.

The feeling threatens to consume her and it scares Seungwan, because her thoughts teeter dangerously along the edge of a fantasy that she could only dream of and the cold reality of who they were.

Seungwan was a guard and Joohyun was her Princess.

"Let's taste it."

Joohyun cuts a slice and plates it with care, before walking over to the stove to grab the ominous look pot. She proceeds to drizzle the viscous liquid onto the cake and Seungwan nearly regrets her decision. Nearly. But the child-like frown on Joohyun's face as she concentrated on the finishing touches had Seungwan thinking otherwise.

"I want you to be honest, okay?" She sternly warns as she pushes the plate towards Seungwan.

"I promise."

Joohyun watches intently as Seungwan shovels a hearty forkful into . She slowly chews the cakes and it takes every ounce of the latter's willpower not to gag at the horrendous mush that swirled in . It was bitter, salty and simply not palatable.

Crunch.

Wait, that's not right. Cake is meant to be...soft.

"Well? How is it?" Joohyun looks at her expectantly and Seungwan feels a part of her die when she finally manages to swallow down the abomination.

"It's so good! How did you make this?" She widens her eyes dramatically and beams at Joohyun, desperately praying the latter couldn't see through the facade and against better judgement, shoves another bite into for good measure.

She regrets it instantly.

"Really?" Joohyun stares at her incredulously. "Oh, thank goodness, because I accidentally burnt the paper with the recipe halfway through the process, so I kind of just threw in random things and hoped for the best as I went along."

Right. That makes a lot more sense.

"But I'm so glad it worked out, let me try some."

"WAIT! NO!"

Joohyun steps back in shock as Seungwan looks at her alarmingly, hand gripped tightly around her wrist preventing her from reaching the cake.

"Seungwan, wha-"

"It's, uh, it's mine! You can't have any!" Seungwan blurts out.

A look of puzzlement crosses Joohyun's face. "What do you mean I can't have any?"

"I -uh..." She racks her brain and sputters the first thing that comes to mind. "You said it was my gift, so I don't want to share it with anyone else. In fact, you know what?" Seungwan rambles, grabbing the remainder of the cake, making a swift exit for the door. "I'm going to go and show this off to the others and then eat it all in front of them so that they can be jealous."

She's not entirely sure what she's saying at this point and it's evident by the bewildered frown on Joohyun's face, but Seungwan knows that she needs to get this thing away from the older woman as far as possible. Possibly have it sitting in the trash somewhere.

And so, with that, Seungwan leaves behind a speechless Joohyun who wonders what has gotten into the her.

***

Her stomach makes a terrifying noise that she doesn't know it was capable of.

Seungwan groans.

"Are you going to be okay?" Seulgi eyes her with concern.

"I hope so."

They're currently in their breakroom with Seungwan lying on the couch, attempting to recover from the rather disastrous cake.

Her stomach spasms and Seungwan grimaces in discomfort. She doesn't know if she's going to make it out alive.

Yeri walks into the room and stops when she spots her ill looking teammate.

"You look terrible. What happened?" The younger woman curiously gives her a once over.

"She had cake."

Yeri looks at Seulgi questioningly.

"You know how Princess Joohyun was in the kitchen earlier and she asked us to taste test for her but then we all ran for it and proceeded to lie to Seungwan so that she would hurry in our place instead?"

Yeri nods.

"Yeah, that was the end result." Seulgi points a finger at Seungwan.

Yeri's lips curve into an 'o' shape as she recalled their rather poor attempt to excuse themselves from the situation.

"That was certainly a close call." She sniggers.

"Go away and leave me in peace." Seungwan whines.

"I'll get you some medication and something warm to drink. You're in no state to be guarding anyone so I'll cover you for the rest of the day."

"Thanks, Seulgi." Seungwan mutters and puts an arm over her eyes only to scramble onto her feet seconds later, startling the other two in the room, as she dashes to the bathroom.

The muted sound of dry heaving filters through the wall followed by the sound of the toilet flushing momentarily.

"That bad, huh? Are you sure Princess Joohyun was meant to gift Seungwan unnie because it certainly looks like she's trying to kill her." Yeri comments dryly.

Seulgi sighs. "I'm just glad she never thought of baking a cake for any of us."

"That reminds me, why the hell does Seungwan unnie get special treatment? We never got anything when it was our one year anniversary." Yeri complains.

"You really want to call that special treatment?" Seulgi nods her head at blonde's direction who languidly dragged herself back into the room and flopped unceremoniously onto the couch.

"Okay, fair point."

****

"Has anyone seen Seungwan?"

Her assistant shakes her head. Joohyun realises that she hasn't seen the blonde woman all day since their last encounter in the kitchen. Between being preoccupied with endless meetings and the influx of foreign dignitaries arriving for the upcoming state dinner, it left her barely any time to eat, let alone notice the younger woman's absence.

She glances at her phone.

It's past midnight and usually Seungwan would be accompanying her right now before the first watch when Joohyun retired for the night, but she had yet to see the woman show up.

Maybe she's busy.

Joohyun turns the corner expecting to see a familiar face but stops when she spots a palace guard instead, standing outside her room. She frowns.

Where was Seungwan?

The man bows when he sees her approach. ""Your Highness."

"Where's Lieutenant Son?"

"Lieutenant Son is not well and had asked me to take her shift tonight."

A line appears between her brows as Joohyun attempts to recall the state of the woman when she had last seen her. Seungwan had seemed fine, but knowing the latter, she was also very good at hiding her pain. A memory flashed in her mind to a time when the woman had been involved in a freak accident when one of the chandeliers has fallen loose. Joohyun who had been standing underneath it was shoved out of harms way, but in the process, the falling light fixture had scraped down the entire side of Seungwan's arm when it nicked her.

It was a bloody mess and she vividly remembers Seungwan's arm trembling from the bleeding gash, but the woman had been too engrossed with Joohyun's safety that she didn't notice. But she had seen the flicker of pain that flashed in Seungwan's eyes once the adrenaline had worn off, despite the reassuring smile and indifferent dismissal of her injury.

She thanks the guard and makes her way towards the familiar part of the palace that was the designated residence to the royal guards. It's quiet and everyone must have been sleeping by now aside from those who were on duty.

"Princess Joohyun?"

She halts at the familiar voice and spots Sooyoung, hair wet and a towel slung over her shoulders. "What are you doing here at this hour?"

"Uh..." Joohyun doesn't know why but she suddenly feels like a deer in headlights. Almost like a teenager caught sneaking off into the night away from their parents and it's hilariously stupid because there was nothing wrong with checking up on a sick friend, right?

"Did you need some help with something?"

"I was actually looking for Seungwan. I heard she wasn't feeling well."

"Oh that's right, she caught food poisoning from eating cake of all things. Like, how does that even happen?" Sooyoung rolls her eyes in amusement.

Joohyun on the other hand is not amused because she's not entirely sure if she had heard the taller woman correctly.

"Cake?" She tentatively asks.

Her fear is confirmed when Sooyoung nods and it must have shown because she shoots her a warm smile.

"Don't worry, she'll be fine. She won't die from something like this."

But the assurance doesn't help the gnawing guilt that bubbles away inside of Joohyun when everything clicks into place and her brain registers the reason for Seungwan's weird behaviour earlier in the kitchen.

"I'm... I'm just going to check up on her." Joohyun laughs nervously and continues making her way to the blonde woman's room with rapid steps after bidding Sooyoung a good night.

She stops in front of the door and hesitates for moment. It would be selfish to disturb the resting woman, but a part of her, the guilt-ridden part, wanted to see for herself that Seungwan was fine.

She gently knocks on the door and waits.

There's no response. Maybe she should leave.

Joohyun's about to walk away but stops at the sound of shifting locks. The door creaks open revealing Seungwan tiredly rubbing her eyes. She lets out a relieved sigh.

"Your Highness?" Seungwan rasps, hair a dishevelled mess. "What are you doing here at this hour?" She opens the door wider and gestures for her to come in.

"I heard you weren't feeling well. Sooyoung said you had caught food poisoning from eating cake." Joohyun looks at her guiltily. "It was my cake wasn't it?" She timidly asks.

The blonde woman pauses and grins wryly.

"I wasn't sure if you were trying to secretly kill me or not." Seungwan jokes but it only appears to make the older woman guiltier because her eyes droop apologetically, looking very much like a kicked puppy that she finds it adorable.

"I'm so sorry."

"I'm joking, Your Highness." Seungwan replies softly and resists the urge to pull Joohyun into her arms and tell her everything's alright.

"I'll make it up to you."

"Please tell me it's not going to be another cake, is it?"

Joohyun gives her a deadpan look.

"I'll take that as a no."

"How are you feeling?"

Seungwan moves to sit on the edge of her bed. "Much better. The medications Seulgi gave me earlier really helped."

"That's good."

There's a beat of silence.

Joohyun closes the distance between them and Seungwan is not prepared when she suddenly feels a soft hand against her forehead.

"You're not burning up."

She glances up and Joohyun's so close that the lines of fatigue and dark circles under her eyes are prominent even in the dim lighting.

"Your Highn-"

She doesn't get to finish, however, because Joohyun gently cups her cheeks and places a tender kiss on her forehead. Her touch lingers, as if willing for the pain to disappear and despite catching Seungwan off guard, the gesture makes her heart swell.

Joohyun pulls back -but doesn't remove her hands- and under the sliver of moonlight that seeped through the cracked curtains, Seungwan could not help but become entirely entranced by the soft smile on Joohyun's face, eyes glazed over with an emotion she could not discern. Or, perhaps, one she dared not to.

Seungwan wonders if Joohyun can feel the thrumming beat of her heart through her skin.

Joohyun wonders if Seungwan can see the longing hidden in her eyes.

"Sleep well."

And so Joohyun quietly slips out of her room, as though she had not just whisked away yet another piece of Seungwan's fragile heart. Seungwan wonders what would happen when Joohyun finally takes it all and all that's left is an empty cavity inside of her.

She only hopes that perhaps by then, in exchange, the hollow space in her chest would have been filled by the heart of a certain someone.

~~~

Maybe I'll write a sequel to this. No promises though...