"I can't believe you said it was supposed to be a group outing for the whole of us and you go disappearing off to a separate theatre just for you and Byul." Xiumin snorted. "That's hoes over bros, dude."

Baekhyun made a face and didn't seem sorry. "Did you just call my Eunbyul a hoe?" he frowned at the comparison. "It's called a little bit of alone time. Anyway we did have a good meal together at that eatery which I, might I remind you, treated you guys to. Talk about ungrateful." he harrumphed.

"If Tao hadn't thrown a tantrum about wanting to spend time with the Kungfu Princess, you wouldn't even share Byul with us for lunch." Lay pointed out knowingly, and he smirked when he saw Baekhyun's cheeks pink slightly at his comment.

"It was a nice play though, I wouldn't mind going for it again." D.O. hinted while wriggling his brows. "And I really wouldn't mind if a generous someone would pay for the meal again."

Baekhyun made a face and rolled his eyes. "I'm not doing it again." he declared. "If I'm going to play again, it'll only be with Eunbyul. Not all of you."

Sora watched silently, taking in every word. It seemed Baekhyun really did love Byul a lot. And by a lot, she really meant tons and tons and tons.

"Lovesick fool." Kris snorted. "That's so gay."

Kai shrugged and surprisingly defended Baekhyun on that. Men in love unite! "You don't understand because you're not in love with anyone and have never been, Kris hyung." he pointed out. "Especially for Baekhyun hyung, even though Byul is just here in the palace, he barely spends time with her because of her lessons and schedules. So near yet so far, that's something to suffer."

Baekhyun gaped at Kai in surprise and the latter cleared his throat in embarrassment. "It was a...burst of nonsensical talk."

"Nonsensical my foot," Sehun whispered in awe. "Wow I must really thank Minhee noona for this. It seems her presence has made Kai hyung a nice person. That is unbelievable."

It earned him a whack on the head. Sehun winced and rubbed his head. "Or maybe he's just a nice person to everyone but me." he pouted.

Baekhyun grinned and nodded at Kris. "So I love Eunbyul, damn me right?" Chanyeol sent Baekhyun thumbs up and Baekhyun winked back in triumph.

Kris raised both his hands in the air in resignation. "Alright alright. Love defeats all evil alright? All evil being me." he muttered in displeasure, causing everyone to laugh.

------

"Sora noona," Tao looked at Sora in interest. "How many siblings do you have? Where did you come from before you came to Palace to be a bodyguard?"

Chanyeol perked up at the change of topic. He wanted to see how she would answer this, seeing how brief her answers were to his questions previously. So many curious princes, he didn't think she would be able to get out of that one.

"None." Sora blurted. "At least I don't think so." she shuffled around on the shot, looking uncomfortable. "I...I'm an orphan." she whispered.

Everyone grew silent at the new information and Tao was immediately embarrassed that he asked the question. Sora was just so quiet all the time that they didn't think to ask where this girl had come from outside the Palace walls until Tao asked. They didn't know she had such a past.

Chanyeol immediately felt guilty. Had her avoidance in answering his questions been due to her grief from her loss? Was it his fault to probe?

"I'm sorry. I didn't know." Tao whispered sadly.

"It's okay." Sora cleared , still not looking at any of them as if she didn't deserve to do so. "I don't feel sad for their deaths because I never knew them. They were never present in my life." she shrugged like it was nothing but Chanyeol could tell it bothered her a bit that she didn't even know who her parents were. "I don't have any memories of them."

"Is it okay to ask how they passed on?" Suho asked carefully. "It's okay if you don't want to answer, we just want to know you more."

Sora nodded. "It's okay. I have no idea how they passed on, I was said to be found in a bamboo woven basket by a tree, and no one came to retrieve me." she murmured rather sadly. "It was concluded that my parents were dead and my caretaker found me, in which he fed me till today."

"What a nice caretaker." D.O. murmured thoughtfully.

Chanyeol watched Sora's expression and was surprised to see her flinching at D.O.'s comment. Why? Was it wrong? Shouldn't Sora be eternally grateful to her caretaker, whoever it was? Chanyeol knew he would be, if some random guy came to pick him up as a baby and raised him instead of leaving him to die.

But that sort of feeling wasn't detected from Sora at all. In fact, she seemed to detest and fear whoever this caretaker was.

"Whoever that caretaker is, he should get a prize." Baekhyun nodded in agreement. "So he raised you up and he climbed trees and you became such a kungfu expert?" he raised his brows.

Sora choked on her own saliva. "I'm not a kungfu expert." she murmured.

"You so are!" Sehun blurted. "I'll be waiting for the day when either you or Byul noona beats Chanyeol hyung. Now that would be awesome!"

Chanyeol met eyes with Sora at that moment and he sent her a small smile, an open invitation for future sparring. Sora looked at him for a few seconds before her lips twitched up so quickly and fell back down that Chanyeol nearly wondered if he hallucinated that happening.

And then he realized: Sora actually tried to smile back at him.

It made him chuckle softly at her stiffness and inexperience in social manners.

The conversation continued on, focusing on Sora and her family. They got more bits out of her, like how she only had male friends and didn't have female friends to play with in the past because all the kids her age were boys. Chanyeol couldn't help labelling them lot as lucky.

And then he found out that Sora wished she had a baby sister sometimes, that she had no idea if Im Sora was her real name. She even blurted out that she found Luhan too pretty to be male.

Sora was warming up to them, definitely. Chanyeol started to put his guard down around her even though his instincts told him not to. He shouldn't, he couldn't. He couldn't bear to hurt his heart so quickly and he couldn't hurt her in the process, assuming she got close enough to get hurt by him.

He also couldn't completely trust her, he knew, because Chanyeol was someone who could tell lies apart from truths. He had the ability to detect any ounce of untruths in whatever people said and none of the EXO boys could lie to him no matter how they tried.

Every sentence Sora spoke, it was spoken with such hesitance and uncertainty. Her words were mixed with truths and lies and lies and truths, every bit seemed questionable and suspicious.

Chanyeol couldn't tell which were the ones she was lying about and couldn't figure out why she had to lie. It was harder to detect lies when they were mixed with truths, as opposed to a complete big fat tale spun out of nowhere, which was why Sora's story seemed believable but not at the same time.

This girl was so mysterious and someone to be suspicious and wary of, and Chanyeol was warming up to her.

Could you see how dangerous this was becoming?

Chanyeol finally snapped out of his own thoughts and realized that he was staring at an empty space where Sora had been. He blinked and looked around in surprise, searching for the girl in his thoughts. "Where's Sora?"

"Were you even paying attention?" Xiumin laughed. "Sora said she needed to go to the bathroom."

"Oh." Chanyeol murmured. He didn't know.

Chanyeol fell into another daze, his thoughts occupied by Sora as time went past and conversation flew around him. He never noticed how much time passed when he was in a daze until he snapped out of it when Kai accidentally bumped into him. He blinked and frowned when he saw how high the sun was in the sky. It seemed as though quite some time had passed.

Sora wasn't back yet.

Strange.

"Where's Sora?" he asked without thinking.

Suho looked around and scratched his head. "Oh yeah, where is she? She's been gone for quite some time. That's quite a trip to the toilet." he joked. "It's just around the corner isn't it?"

"Yeah it's a pretty long time to be at the bathroom." Chen agreed. "But don't worry about her safety, Chanyeol hyung, she's a bodyguard. She can defend herself."

True. But still.

A few more minutes passed and Chanyeol grew more disorientated at the absence of Sora. He felt like something was wrong somewhere in the palace, he didn't know where and what though. It wasn't until a Minhee came running towards the pavillion that he realized his instincts were right. Something had gone wrong.

"Jeonha!" Minhee panted as she ran from the distance. "Jeonha! Bad news!"

Kai immediately shot up from his seat when he saw her and held her as she caught her breath. "Bad news." she repeated, sounding tired out.

"What happened?" Baekhyun raised his brows in question.

Minhee took another deep breath before blurting everything out. "Princess Byul fainted. I'm not sure what exactly happened but she collasped. The Royal Physician is seeing to her now in your quarters."

Baekhyun wasted no time as he bolted out of the place. His face had paled visibly and he disappeared fasted than the time taken for the boys to  take in the news. "." Kris shook his head. "This is bad."

Exactly.

Chanyeol immediately stood up when he saw another person walking back to the pavillion. Sora blinked at all the worried faces of the princes and met Chanyeol's eyes, looking confused.

Chanyeol's gaze hardened.

It was her.