A Princess Story

Quality Time

"Hey, what are you doing out here? It's not safe for you" RJ sits next to me.

It's been about a week since the attack. My dad is still considering Yeonjun's offer about making RJ my personal guard and Yeonjun hasn't bug him or visited the kingdom since.

Since then I've been hanging out near this small pond area to just get away from everything. There was a lot of damage in the palace so there's rebuilding happening. Chaeryeong is busy training all the guards again while the more experience ones are making sure the palace is secure. That's the reason why I'm alone right now without anyone watching me. My dad thinks that the palace is secure enough that I can be alone as long as I don't go anywhere near exit or entry points.

Somehow, though, RJ is able to get past the guards. I'm not complaining but it does make me think that maybe she would be the best one for the job of protecting me.

RJ has been sneaking into the palace for a few days now. I'm not sure why but whenever she sees me alone, she sits with me and just talks. She would ask me how I'm doing or we will just sit in silence which I would appreciate.

"I just want to be alone. I miss the old days when life was simple. I hung out with friends while watching movies but now I have to be worried that someone is trying to kill me" I sigh while throwing rocks in the water.

She doesn't say anything and just watches me, "How come you never take off your mask? It's just the two of us."

She chuckles, "I'm not permitted to do so. I still have to follow Yeonjun's orders."

"I find that so odd. Your relationship with him" I stop throwing rocks and look up at the sky.

"Why is that?" I sense her looking at me.

"I noticed that you don't call her Prince Yeonjun. You just call him by his first name and you seem used to it. Even though I'm really closed friends with Chaeryeong and Lia, they still refer to me as Princess."

"I guess I'm just used to calling people by their first names. I'm not used to being surrounded by royalty" I glance at her and she's looking up now too.

"Does he know you're here? You might get in trouble that you're here instead of doing your job" I chuckle.

"This is my job. No offense, Princess but the fact I'm still able to sneak in and be with you says a lot" she glances at me but when she notices I'm already looking at her, she turns her gaze back up at the sky, "Yeonjun's orders" she says right away.

"He must really like me" I shake my head.

"You don't like him?" She's looking at me now, I can tell through her body movement that she's curious.

"He was one of my finalist when I was being courted so I think he's nice but I don't know if I like him per say. You can't like someone when you don't know anything about them."

"I guess to me, there's different forms of likes. You can like someone you just met as just finding them attractive then when you get to know them then that feeling of fondness becomes deeper. It won't be just physical anymore. I once met this girl and the first time I saw her I cursed at her. Then I saw her again and another unpleasant interaction. Then I saw her for the third time and thought maybe the universe is really pushing her to me. The third is when things changed. This may sound weird but I liked her innocence. I've witnessed so many horrible things in this world so seeing someone like her and her eyes were so pure, she captured my heart right away" she shares a story about herself surprising me because she's never done something that personal.

"Are you two together?" I ask, feeling a sting in my heart which I ignore.

"No" my heart feels relieve for some reason, "I left her because I didn't want her to be in my world. I wanted her to experience just good things in life and keep that innocence in her eyes" she says.