Hwarang and The Jewel.

Chapter 7

I waited until all of the Hwarang-Do had left the room before I stood and made my way outside. I was just thinking about where I could get some food from when I spotted Sun-Woo standing just outside the door.

"Come and eat." He said. Feeling like a weight had been lifted off of my shoulders I sped up to walk beside him.

"Thank you" I quietly said to him. Sun-Woo nodded but didn't make any other response.

We walked down the stairs and passed a couple of different buildings before he led me inside what looked like a cafeteria. He brought me to the line at the back of the room and handed me a tray before taking one for himself. Watching him place several different bowls on his tray I did the same. 

I followed him as he walked to a table at the other end of the room and sat down beside him. The Hwarang-Do at the table stopped talking when I took a seat and looked at Sun-Woo in confusion. Sun-Woo ignored them and used his soup spoon to point out their names.

"Su-ho, Yeo-wool, Ban-ryu, Ji-dwi - who you've already met, and Hansung who doesn't need to sit here but does so anyway." Hansung didn't even look offended at Sun-Woo's comment, instead choosing to beam a smile directly at him with a mouth full of food.

I still wasn't very good at using chopsticks so to save myself from any incoming embarrassment I used my soup spoon to eat everything. On one particularly  large mouthful of rice soaked in broth I happened to glance up and catch Yeo-wool watching me in amusement. I ducked my head and tried my best to stop the blush that was working its way from my cheeks to my neck. Yeo-wool was the most beautiful human I had ever seen. With his high cheekbones, angular jaw, bow-shaped lips and starry eyes I knew that if was in the twenty-first century he would be a world class model. If I could chose one word to describe his looks it would be ethereal.

"How old are you Miss Alice? You certainly don't look old enough to be out of your mothers care." Yeo-wool's voice was calm and airy, but it held an accusation-like tone if I listened closer to it.

"I am fifteen." I replied simply. I didn't know how to reply to his second statement so I chose to ignore it. Thankfully Yeo-wool let me get away with it, only raising his eyebrow as if he knew I was holding in a great secret. Which, I guess I kind of was. I'll have to watch what I say around him. I thought to myself. 

"I thought you would be younger than that." Su-ho said almost to himself, and he wouldn't be the first person to think so. While most of my peers at school had already gotten their growth spurts and had started to look more like young ladies, I was still stuck in the 'not a child but not a teenager yet' body. I still had baby fat in my cheeks, and I hadn't grown much more than an inch from when I was twelve. Everyone here towered over my laughable height of four-foot eleven-inches. To them, I probably still looked like a little girl.

Shrugging my thoughts away I went to spoon some more rice into the broth when Hansung suddenly pointed to my neck.

"What's that?" he asked. Confused, I wiped at my neck but he shook his head, "the chain, what hangs from it?" Finally understanding I pulled at my necklace chain to tug my locket from underneath my collar. Su-ho went to reach for it when he saw the odd design on the front face of the locket but retreated when he caught the look Sun-Woo shot him.

Realising that all of them were looking at it in interest I unclasped it from my neck and placed it on the table in the middle.

"May I?" Hansung asked with his hand hovering over the locket. I nodded in consent and he wasted no time gently scooping the locket up and inspecting it up close. He ran his thumb over the inner and outer borders of flowers and vines and hummed in thought over the lines etched between them. Turning it over in his hands he made a quizzical noise at the gap in the side.