An Artist in Love

Chapter 1: You?!

Dan's POV:

The first day of my third year in college here at the National Academy of Performing Arts. I parked my car, closed the windows, and stepped out already with my bag. I brushed my hair with my free hand just to fix it before heading to the main building. The distance from the parking lot to the building is quite great, but I don't really mind since the view of the lowlands from the hilltop is beautiful. With the camera that hung from my neck, I took a picture of the view so that I have a new image to paint.

As I walked and stared at the image simultaneously, a car suddenly honked at me. I admit, I was stunned, and it was a pretty good wake-up call. I walked over to the side so the car may park and walked slower than my usual pace, hoping to get a glance at whoever owned to car. I slyly hid behind one of the trees at the parking lot and patiently waited for someone to come out from the car. I first saw a tall man in a black suit followed by a girl. I couldn't identify who she was since her back was turned to me.

The man in the suit kept giving her reminders for safety, and all she did was nod. After about a minute or two, he said his goodbye with a bow which was reciprocated immediately by the girl. I sat down slowly and quietly by the tree, so as not to seem like a stalker. I pretended to view the pictures on my camera. "Hey, were you --" she was saying before she recognized who I was. I knew her as well. SHE WAS THE GIRL WHO SPILLED MY COFFEE! "It's you! What a small world," she cheered. I stood up and replied, "Apparently." "Look, I'm sorry about the car beeping at you thing. They seriously have a thing about being THE AUTHORITY," she told me, adding quotation marks to 'the authority' part.

"Sure," I said and started to walk away. "H-hey!" she called out. I turned again to face her and she jogged towards me. "Can we walk to the building together?" she asked. I just nodded and she flashed a bright smile and said, "Thanks! I didn't really want to walk alone since I don't know this place well. Transferee issues." I nodded in response. We continued walking until we reached the path bordered with trees that led directly to the main building. It was a chilly morning. The breeze blew lightly, gently brushing against her hair and mine.

While we walked side by side, I observed her. She was... beautiful. Light brown, straight hair, dark brown yet bright and happy eyes, small lips, a cute nose, and a semi-elongated face. She was just slightly smaller than I and her clothes weren't too girly. She wore a loose gray top, knee-high black shorts, and a pair of red keds. She had a black hat, and a white string bag.

"Uhh... j-just out of curiosity," I started, "do you always have one with you?" "One what?" "Guard." "Oh... yeah pretty much. Although one is a bit of an understatement," she told me. I only looked at her. "I have four. One of them was the driver, the other was the one you saw, and the other two were simply inside the car." I couldn't believe what she had just said. I always thought that people such as this only existed in movies.

"F-four?" I stuttered and continued, "Are you some kind of royalty whatsoever?" "What?" she replied with a chuckle. "A princess o-or the daughter of the --" "Before you say something funnier," she interrupted, "I'll tell you now that I'm neither of those two that you think I am." "Then why --" "That's quite a long story. Anyway! Tell me something about you!" "Me?" "No, the tree!" she sarcastically replied. "Yeah, you." "Alright... where do I start?" "Name." "Okay... Ni hao ma? I am Wu Dan Yi (Hello, how are you? I'm Wu Dan Yi)." And that's where our friendship pretty much started.

We entered the building and discovered we belonged to the same class. We were the first ones there and surprisingly, for an awkward and silent person like me, there was not a moment when we felt awkward in each other's company! It seems that this girl always has a story to tell. I was still so curious however, as to why she had so many guards. So I asked her again. "I'm sorry but I really am just so curious. Why do you have bodyguards? Are you an only child?" "Nope. I have a younger brother."

"So you mean that your parents are just really over-protective?" "Not... not my parents. My uncle." "You live with your uncle?" "Mhm." "Why? Where are your parents at?" She looked down at her desk for a brief second then looked at me again with a pained smile and said, "Well... long story. Anyway, change topic. Are you excited to start school?" I could tell that she was hiding something. But since it seems to kill her every time she remembers, I just opted to go with the flow and keep her happy.

=============================================================================