"𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐂𝐄𝐒𝐒! 𝐃𝐈𝐃 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐒𝐋𝐄𝐄𝐏 𝐖𝐄𝐋𝐋?"

And the headache starts up once again. It's only been a week since Mirio was assigned to guard the princess and there hasn't been a day that's gone by where she was actually happy with the arrangement. The first two days she would just insult him until he got the hint and left her alone, then for the rest of the time she just started to blatantly ignore him.

Time and time again she would ask her father to change everything back to normal to where she didn't have this radiant ball of sunshine right behind her. She even went as far as to show him her progression with her quirk. He would tell her she wasn't ready to take care of herself which would lead into a discussion of getting trained by him. He would reject her and the conversation would be over, only for it to start again the next day.

The princess once again ignored his attempt in trying to engage in light conversation. She moved out of her room to start her day with some fresh air. Her first stop for the day would be the castle's garden. She always found peace within it and she was hoping that maybe she could get lost within the many plants and get some time away from Mirio.

Nejire was right behind her. She was the opposite of the princess. She was actually kind to Mirio knowing that there was no way around this arrangement. She waved at him with a nervous smile. She never liked it when the princess was in a bad mood because it affected how she did everything.

Like this morning for example, Nejire came in ready to wake the princess up and go about her job, but instead the princess was already up and ready. Her room was clean and the bed was made. Her hair was brushed and clean, her outfit was surprisingly well put together, but was also simple. Just a long brown skirt that reached her ankles, along with a black long-sleeved shirt with her green corset over the top of it. The bottom of the corset was tucked into her skirt.

Nejire prayed that this didn't keep up because she had to keep this job and she was hoping that the princess would drop her superiority complex soon.

Mirio raced forward to catch up with the princess, his smile never fading, "Hey so I've noticed that you've been struggling with your quirk and I've been there before so if you'd like I'd be glad to help you!"

The princess stopped in her tracks. When she talked to her father about her dislike for Mirio she always did it when they were alone so that way no one could hear her talk about her problems out loud. Although it was a nice gesture, she felt embarrassed by the fact that he was aware of it now. Had he told the other knights? Were they laughing about her behind her back?

Her head whipped around with a hateful stare right into his pretty, blue eyes, "Aren't you supposed to be guarding me?"

Mirio's back straightened out of fear, "Yes ma'am."

"I don't think that means being involved with my business, now does it?"

"No ma'am."

"Good. Now stay out of it."

Nejire backed away from the awkward situation, not wanting to be a part of it at all. Luckily it didn't escalate any further than that as they continued to walk towards wherever the princess wanted to go.

The princess was right about the garden. She was able to lose Mirio within the bunches of plants that were around. Nejire was off somewhere else leaving the princess completely alone. Now for the first time in a week she could relax with her own thoughts and not have anyone intrude.

She was walking around a more private part of the garden with the morning sun beating down against her skin and the flowers. She smiled at the succulents thinking that they were cute with how small they were.

The calm air and quietness of the garden relaxed her. She had heard somewhere that positive energy helped plants grow so she tried her best to keep any negative thoughts away from her and tried to keep her smile high enough for the plants to feel that energy.

But someone just had to ruin her smile with their powerful radiant smile, "Princess!"

A tired sigh always came from her whenever Mirio was around. Her smile faded back into an irritated frown as she turned to face him, but instead of being angry with him interrupting her peace, she was actually surprised.

Mirio held out in front of him one of her favorite flowers. Seeing this made her cheeks flush with color instantly as her eyes widened. No one had ever given her a flower before even after she's been so mean to him.

"I saw this out in the garden and was reminded of you, so I picked it as a way to ask for a truce?" His hand found the back of his head while it was slightly tilted.

It took her a moment to realize that he had broken through the mean barrier she had built up even if it was for a short moment. It wouldn't happen again. She snatched the flower from his hand and pulled it back towards her, but who's to say she couldn't keep the flower? The gesture was cute after all.

"You're not supposed to pull the plants out, you half wit! Shiozaki was nice enough to let us into this area of the garden and you're going to tear it apart!" She huffed with anger before stomping off to get lost in the garden.

Mirio wasn't hurt by her anger though. He saw that the flower was kept tightly within her fingers and deep down he knew he was going to get through to her. No matter how long it took.

King Nighteye saw it coming. The conversation happened every night. Something minor that Mirio had done to her would always set the conversation in motion.

"Father," It always started with an innocent tone to the princess's voice.

"Hm?" Just for one night he would like to enjoy his dinner. Just one night, please.

"Have you thought about getting rid of Togata yet?"

His yellow eyes rolled back as he sighed. He set his silverware down getting ready to hear her handful of excuses on why not to like Mirio, "I'm not going to get rid of Togata."

"I know that, he seems like a good knight, but I mean getting him away from me. I don't like him, father."

"I'm very aware."

"He pulled a flower today from the garden and tried to sugarcoat it by giving it to me!" She sounded desperate to gain a reaction from her father, but he wasn't going to give her the one she wanted. "You can't pull the flowers father! And...and shouldn't you be concerned? He might be trying to flirt with your daughter. Doesn't seem very professional if you ask me."

Nighteye tried his best when trying to hide his laugh, but he failed and it only came out in chuckles. This was just another poor attempt to paint Mirio as this villain and it wasn't going to work.

"You crack me up, dear," He took a deep breath while leaning back in his chair. "Why do you want to get rid of Togata so bad?"

"Because father! He seems like an idiot and I don't believe he'll be able to protect me from all these threats against the castle. If you would just let me𑁋"

"No! I'm not going to let you take care of yourself! That's final!"

"I'm not my mother!" She knew she shouldn't have gone there, but she wanted to show him that she was serious.

"Don't you dare bring her into this𑁋"

"I can take care of myself! I'm doing well with my quirk! I just want you to believe in me!"

"I do believe in you," He took a hold of her hands. "But you're still too weak to handle these threats. That's why I assigned Togata to you. I know he can protect you."

His words stung. Calling her weak came out so easily for him as if he had said it a lot. That humiliation came crawling back to bite her in the leg. Her bottom lip quivered as tears came up into her eyes. She snatched her hands away from Nighteye while rising from her seat.

"You would know that because you were so busy training him instead of your own weak daughter!"

She stormed out of the room just like she had done at the beginning of the week. Nighteye called out after her, but the door was already slammed before he could get to her. When the princess left the dining hall, Mirio caught the sight of her tears falling down her face and took note of the hurt in her eyes that she was trying to hide with her arm.

He knew that if he were to go after her right now, she would yell at him for the 100th time today so he thought it would be best to give her some space before trying to bring her back in for the night.

The princess wasn't sure how long she had been out there crying, but the sun was already half way down. A golden glow cascaded against the earth. The light also made her tears seem like golden waterfalls going down her face.

Her heart hurt as the scene kept replaying in her head. She knew he would get mad if she brought her mother into the conversation, but she wasn't expecting for him to call her weak. Is that really how he saw her? Is that how everyone saw her?

"You kept the flower I gave you!" Mirio's voice was excited as always.

He was right though, in her fingers the princess played around with what was left of the flower that Mirio gave her. Her head turned towards the bright boy who was carrying the plate of food that she had left behind in the dining hall.

She thought that she would be angry with seeing him, but surprisingly she felt at peace with seeing his smile. She was starting to believe that he was some kind of sun god himself.

"Yeah... it's actually my favorite flower," Her gaze was averted from him so she was able to hide the growing blush on her features.

"Oh, I had no idea! Lucky guess right?" He laughed while walking closer to her. He stopped just a few inches from her, still worried she might bite his leg off. "Can I sit?" She softly nodded her head. She had run back to the garden to hide underneath a tree knowing that not many would be coming to the garden so late in the afternoon. Mirio placed her plate between them as he sat down a little ways from her. "I brought you your dinner that you left. It looked so good that I didn't want it to go to waste."

She slid the plate towards him, "I'm not hungry."

Mirio pulled the plate over his way and started to mess with the silverware. Her eyes still stayed on the flower. The petals were worn down because after she had taken it from him, she shoved it into her corset. The heat and tight enclosement made it's life shorten, but she wasn't ready for it to die yet. She didn't want to lose her first flower so soon.

"Let's eat together," Before she could question him, a piece of steak was placed against her lips. A shiver went down her spine that went unnoticed by him. His smile widened when she accepted the piece of steak by pulling it off the fork. As she chewed, he laughed. "I'm surprised!"

She hovered a hand in front of her mouth to hide the food still being chewed, "What do you mean?"

"Well this is the longest time you've gone without being mean to me and you're even letting me feed you!"

While he went to cut more steak, her eyes went back to the flower, "Togata..." This was going to take her swallowing a lot of pride to do, but she thought it would be best for now. She couldn't expect her father to see her as a strong person while also complaining about having a guard follow her everywhere. "I'm sorry...I'm never like that but I let my jealousy get the better of me and I took out all this repressed anger on you. You don't deserve that when you're only trying to do your job. I just want my father to take me seriously and to believe in me. I know I'm not the best with my quirk, but I'm trying. I really am."

"I know," He had already eaten half the steak by the time she was done apologizing. He cut the rest up for her. "I can see the determination in your eyes when you talk about your quirk and I believe that makes you the strongest out of all of us."

Now the princess felt really bad for how she had treated Mirio previously. His words seemed truly genuine and it didn't seem like he was making stuff up just to make her feel better. She was shocked, "Really?"

"Yeah! If you'd like I can take you to the training grounds tomorrow and I can teach some techniques that help me when using my quirk! You can even meet some of my friends."

Her lips curved up slightly as the pain she felt earlier started to slowly wash off, "I'd like that." But instead of getting another smile from Mirio, she just got a shocked expression. This made her panic as she quickly looked around for any kind of danger. "What is it?"

"You smiled!" Finally his smile returned as her blush made its comeback as well.

She pushed him away, "Shut up!"

"What?" Mirio laughed. "It's cute!"