A Tale About A: Forgotten Princess [Part 2]

Chapter 16: A New Side

"What? Marriage? Stop kidding me! I just entered the palace not long ago and they say what? I'm going to get married? Seriously..." I rolled my eyes and complained as I stood on the bridge in the garden. 

I had not had a wink of sleep last night because I kept thinking about those ridiculous words. I mean, there's still a lot to explore in the palace. And how am I supposed to get married when all I knew was hunting? 

"A-Yeon ah!" I turned to see Prince Baek Ah waving towards me. 

What's that guy doing here?

"Hey what are you looking at?" He grinned as he looked towards the pond. There were a few water lilies and lotus blooming beautifully in the pond.

"Nothing." I said and started to walk away from the bridge. 

"Hey, are you still going to treat me like a stranger? What's with that cold treatment?" Prince Baek Ah followed after me and continued to question me like a buzzing bee. 

"Could you just, give me a moment of silence in the morning? I already had enough of nagging." I stopped in my tracks and folded my arms at him.

"What? Who nagged at you so much until you became grumpy?" Prince Baek Ah asked.

Finally at my limit, I stomped my feet as I complained to him about the King wanting to send me off to Gaeju to become someone else's bride. 

"And also Prince Wang Eun...he...!" 

Damn it, I nearly spilt our secret out!

"Hyung...why?" He gave me a puzzled look. 

"Nevermind me. Are you going to follow me all day?" I changed the topic instantly, not wanting myself to recklessly say unnecessary things again. 

"Well actually, I wanted to ask if you would like to visit the town with me? It's been a while since you're out of the palace right?" He offered and I looked at him. 

It's true I've not been out of town since entering the palace...maybe I could use this chance to escape?!

"But I doubt I'm allowed to go out of the palace though. There's so many guards around here." I voiced out my concern.

"Don't worry. I'll just tell them the King allowed me to bring you out for some drawings." He casually said and leaned closer to my face. "That is, if you allowed me to draw your portrait." 

I lifted my eyebrows in suspicion. "Will that actually work?" 

"Trust me. If anything happens, just push the blame to me alright?" He gave me a smile and dragged me towards a place to change in to commoner clothes. 

True enough, the guards accepted Prince Baek Ah's explanation and easily let me out to town. Once outside, I realised that the town was still the same as before. The trade store was still at the same corner. I stopped in front of it as I reminisced the good old days before I was entitled to the Princess status.

I miss trading dead animals there for gold coins. Shall I visit the store owner and say hi?

"Ah! This is the first place we met! I remembered you were quite rough then. With those...bloody animals..." Prince Baek Ah made a gesture with his hands as he looked disgusted. 

"And you drew a picture of me secretly without my consent. What a stalker!" I stuck my tongue out at him and looked away. I heard him chuckling to himself and I turned to look at him with a grin. Both of us bursted out laughing when we saw each other. 

That was definitely some good memories...

"Let's go over there." Prince Baek Ah suddenly grabbed my wrist and pulled me along with him towards a candy store. I was judging him as I wondered why he would visit a candy store? It's not like he's Prince Wang Eun, who's a child prince. But then again, he's younger than Prince Wang Eun so I can't doubt that either...