Time travel || Wonhyuk

5: Short-lived Encounter

It felt uncomfortable, having someone staring at you while you eat. In any case he would've gladly told the person off had it not been the prince himself; Wonho treasured his head. (Perhaps more of his face but nobody needs to know that.)

He had barely eaten a quarter of his lunch before he noticed the prince had his head resting on his palms, lips curved gently upwards in a smile, silently watching him. If that wasn't creepy enough, he didn't want to know what else could be scarier than that. He tried to ignore the persistent staring, but it didn't seem like the other was going to stop anytime soon.

"Uhh Prince Minhyuk, why don't you start eating? The food is going to turn cold soon."

Wonho covered half of his face with the lunch box while gesturing towards the food laid out in front of the prince. At that, the prince snapped out of his dazed state chuckled airily. Wonho raised his eyebrows in confusion. Why was he laughing?

"Please pardon my disrespectful action. I hadn't meant to stare but you looked so much like a little child as you ate. It was cute."

The Prince took his chopsticks and started picking at his food, completely oblivious to the darkening blush on the knight's face. It was good though, he didn't need the prince to know that he absolutely dislikes this sort of compliments. Humming while placing some braised meat in his mouth, the Prince seemed to be slightly unhappy about something. The plate of his was filled with thin cucumber slices and he was still picking out more from the dishes.

"Prince Minhyuk, do you perhaps... hate cucumbers?"

The Prince immediately widened his eyes and nodded, unable to speak due to the piece of meat still in his mouth, while pushing the plate away from him. Wonho could only shake his head and take the plate from him. Meanwhile, the Prince grinned happily.

"In that case, why didn't you just tell the kitchen to prepare your food without cucumbers?"

"U~hm it would trouble them. It's fine though; I can just pick them out."

Oh wow, he's a thoughtful person. But that is to be expected of the heir of the throne. Wonho thought as he popped a slice of that green veggie into his mouth. A gasp sounded from his right. Wonho turned and looked at the Prince, who had by now turned into a gaping fish.

"You're eating that?!"

Wonho shrugged, popping more into his mouth. The other had a look of displeasure on his face, of which Wonho had no idea where it came from. Surely, he can't be upset over the knight eating his cucumbers right? He didn't even want it in the first place. Silence engulfed the two of them again. Both were eating and trying to ignore the other, but neither had failed to notice the not-so-secretive glances they threw at each other. Accompanied by the sounds of birds chirping and the warm spring breeze, it was comfortable, just the two of them.

Wonho decided to break the ice.

"So why were you venturing here, Prince?"

The said man scrunched his nose, a small pout forming on his lips.

"Like I said, just call me Minhyuk. And... I may have gotten a little lost while trying to hide from someone..."

A sneaky smile crept up his face as he placed a hand on the back of his head, something that you would normally see guilty people do in animations.

" Hiding from someone?"

" Yeah, the advisor my father assigned to follow me all around the place... I wanted to drop by the Knight's quarters on my own to look for you, but he wouldn't stop following me."

"And you ran from him? And got lost too? "

"Kind of... But at least I found you! You can bring me back right?"

"Yes of course. He must be worried, that advisor of yours. Shall we go back now?"

"I guess so... but I wanted to spend more time with you."

"Hm...?"

"Nothing! Let me pack up first before we go."

They walked, once again in silence, retracing the path back to the entrance hall. A young man was there, pacing back and forth in front of the large wooden doors. He sported a head of dark brown hair which seemed much lighter under the glinting sun. He was panicking, hands unconsciously gripping onto his robes tightly. The advisor...?

"Jooheon!"

The advisor snapped his head towards the source of the sound and with a cry of happiness lunged over to greet the Prince with a great hug. The man named Jooheon sniffled a little and stared closely at the Prince's face before checking the rest of his body, and breaking into a dimpled smile.

"Your highness! You nearly gave me a heart attack when you disappeared like that!"

The Prince giggled and did a twirl.

"I'm fine, see!  And drop the formalities, you aren't like that when we're alone."

The Prince winked as he said the last sentence. Sheepishly, 'Jooheon' took the Prince's hand into his as he switched his attention over to the knight who had been neglected all the while.

"Thank you young lord. You must be the Knight Hoseok right? Minhyuk talks about you a lot. Sorry for having to trouble you to bring him back. We'll go now so you're free to continue your duty!"

With that, their short little encounter ended. The two figures retreated hand-in-hand, exchanging small talk as they walked away. Wonho knew that that would be the last time they would meet, for he was just a small speck of dust within the galaxy. There wasn't much to remember of him.