The Untouchable Prince | A Norenmin FanFiction

二十二

Twenty Two
Updated: February 1, 2021
Edited: September 7, 2021

The aftermath of Renjun's meeting with his fiancés was more positive than he originally thought. They had made an agreement that until Xiao Yue was fully recovered, Jeno and Jaemin would take her spot and become Renjun's bodyguards, and they were doing the job well. They followed him around and prevented people from stepping close to Renjun, but there was still uneasiness when he was around the two of them like they were constantly watching him, staring at him, observing him. When he asked, they only answered with, "nothing really. Just making sure you aren't hurt or anything." It would be fine if they were doing it occasionally, but they were doing it every second of every moment.

Whatever reason they had for watching him, he didn't like it, so he had told them to stop, and they did for a few days, but then continued again as if nothing happened.

Jeno's birthday came and went, and it wasn't as good as they thought it was going to be. They already had gone through Renjun's, which had a little incident. Jeno had received many, many, many gifts from everyone, which was expected, especially during a coming-of-age ceremony.

Renjun had gifted the prince a painting of a horse in the grass fields, and Jaemin had gifted him his love. Well, that's what Jaemin had said first before he brought out a small stack of expensive books from the Na Empire. Both of which Jeno loved. He received weapons, expensive jewelry, military books, carved statues, as well as a hawk that had just begun its training.

Yes, a hawk, specifically a sparrowhawk. She had no name yet, but she had gray feathers on her back, an orange-streaked front, yellow-orange eyes, and orange legs and feet. Quite a beautiful bird.

Renjun had seen her a few times when Jeno had taken it out of the room for a little fly-around. It wasn't 'little', as she would soar over their heads ten or so times and then come back down.

The days after Jeno's ceremony was much calmer than before. The attention of both Renjun's fiancés was put onto other things, for example, Jeno's new hawk as well as -actually, Renjun didn't know what else they were busy with. The two would just leave his side at least once a day, usually at noon, and disappear for an hour or so. He only hoped they weren't doing- uh- certain things.

Sitting at his desk, the crown prince was working on a new painting, specifically a self-portrait. Renjun was never good at portraits of himself or of other people. He preferred to paint animals and different sceneries. He found portraits creepy, especially the ones that looked directly at you—the eyes of the person would look back at you, staring into your soul as if trying to devour it whole. Even so, he still had to practice this type of painting, especially if he wanted to paint for the Imperial City. He already does, don't get me wrong, but he only paints the paintings that can hang on walls as decoration and not the portraits that would be stored away for later uses.

He was failing to make any progress in his self-portrait. Even with a mirror held and one hand, he couldn't seem to get the details right, and it absolutely frustrated him. He would begin with his chin and soon enough, that piece of paper would be crumpled up and tossed on the floor to be thrown away later. He could never seem to get things right, every stroke he made looked wrong. Was it the placement of the stroke that was wrong or was it because his face just looked weird compared to others?

Renjun's creative process paused for a moment. He stared at the empty piece of paper.

Himself and others. It had always been himself and others. There was never a time he put himself with the others. In portraits, he was always alone or separated from the others. It was the same in crowds, he was always away from people. He also never tried to become closer. He kept himself at a distance, especially with people who weren't his family.