Yuri sat on the chair and watched as the girl who cried her eyes out on his chest a few short hours ago sleep peacefully. He still did not understand why Sooyeon suddenly broke into tears as he was trying to ask why she acts the way she does. He knew that it was not because of the way he raised his voice against her. No, her tears lied deeper for a shallow reason like that to pull them out of her. The young man dug deep within his thoughts until he reached the depth where his head began to ache. He decided to set it aside for now and went outside to get some fresh air. As he walked along the corridor, he saw the maids about to throw away the food their mistress ordered them to cook a while ago. Yuri told them not to throw it but join him in eating instead. It would have been a great waste if it were just disposed of in the trash. There were some leftovers enough to fill a few plates after they were done and he gave it to them for their families’ supper. The house servants thanked the young man for his kindness and saved the remaining food for themselves. He went out to the back and leaned against the small bridge above the pond. Yuri pondered in his thoughts again, only to meet the same unanswered question.

“AGH~! This is making my head hurt~. How can I not find an answer for it?” He ruffled his brown hair before pulling on it lightly. He needed to know why Sooyeon seemed troubled and his inner conscience was telling him to find out soon. “I must remember the point where all of this started. Maybe I can find an answer there.”

Yuri retraced his steps all the way back to the day the girl lashed out at him for no reason. He remembered going out to buy custard buns that day but that was the only thing he did. The young man felt a ping inside his head when he remembered that he also talked with Yoona that same day. He also remembered feeling an odd presence while he was in the girl’s room which was also present as he was on the way to the girl and her grandmother’s bakery. Yuri felt that someone was following him that afternoon but it still led him to a dead end. Then it hit him. Sooyeon was the one who followed him. It would explain why she was sitting at the corner across his room the morning of that day and the way she panicked when he questioned her. The young man’s fears came true when he just realized that the daughter of the family he was tasked to protect, the heir of the Jung family may have developed feelings for him. It was the only plausible explanation for the way she acted around him for the past few days. The girl lessened her screaming around him and at certain times, completely ignored him. And going back to the current situation, everything fit perfectly.

“Ani. Aniyo. This cannot be happening. It is just too impossible to happen. She seemed so angry at me all the time that it just does not make sense.” But it indeed made complete sense. It was just the fact that he could not accept it due to it adding more complications to his already complicated life. Yuri was battling against his thoughts and feelings. In those days that passed, he grew fonder of the girl to the point that he actually missed her sourness, but his duty as the family’s protector was against that fondness. “I have to talk to her. I need to hear it coming from her. It is the only way I can truly know.”

Sooyeon was still deep in her slumber when the young man went back to the room. He stared at her deeply, his eyes focusing on the sleeping girl’s face. Yuri smacked himself mentally for having such particular thoughts, but to no avail. There was no doubt that he had become attached to Sooyeon but again, his sense of morality was silently screaming to him that his duty comes first and that swimming in such dangerous waters would only cause trouble for him. Though the young man wanted every single thought of it out of his head, he cannot deny that his heart was also shouting out to him. He could feel it pounding in his chest everytime he saw glimpses of the cold girl’s calm face. It would beat even faster whenever he saw her smile, which was already a rare sight. Yuri fell to his knees, confused and lost. The feelings that he thought he felt for Yoona were not what they seemed to be. They were for Sooyeon and now that he knows, it slowly began to kill him inside. As the young man was trying to fight back the grief he experienced, the girl on the bed shifted her position and started to wake up. Sooyeon could barely open her eyes due to them being puffy after crying so much. Yuri heard her low groans and quickly went out of the room. The girl heard a loud banging sound coming from the door and stood to see what it was.

“I swear, whoever was inside my room while I was asleep, they will see the rest of their days living in a dungeon cell.” She suddenly remembered why she fell asleep and sat down on the floor. Sooyeon could feel the thing inside her chest call to her. She was not accustomed to it yet but she knows that she was beginning to understand everything around her. “What did you do to me, Kwon Yuri? How could you have made me grow to like you so much when I have always thought of you as a nuisance?” She reminisced the day she learned how to feel. The day she saw him smiling while he was holding another girl’s hand. Tears formed at the corners of her eyes again. “Ah, molla~! You will pay for this, Kwon Yuri!”

Just as Sooyeon was screaming her frustrations out, Yuri ran and ran until he was out of the village and headed straight for his training area in the forest. He needed to calm himself if he was to face the girl later but he was too restless to do it by meditation. The young man set up targets on different spots. High up in the branches, down by the tree roots and on blind spots behind huge boulders. He got his throwing daggers and shuriken ready. Yuri took a deep breath before jumping high up in the air, throwing each small blade as he spun in mid-air, hitting each target right on the mark. He missed the last of his targets when his focus was suddenly interrupted by that same girl he had been thinking about all day. Again, he set up his targets and again, he would miss at the last moment. The young man went to the largest boulder and began to hit it with his full force backed up by his frustration. Yuri managed to crush the large rock into smaller pieces after he was finished, not showing even the slightest hint of any injury. He was still uneasy. He looked for another boulder and did the same thing he had done to the previous one. Rock after rock, hit after hit, the young man’s arms and legs were getting beat up but he wou