They'd been through so much.
They'd been through so much together, all seven of them, that today felt strange, like a spontaneous, much-needed family vacation.
Shin-ah had spotted the tranquil valley from the mountain pass they'd been crossing, stopping in his tracks with a small intake of breath. Quiet as he was, no one might have noticed had Kija, who'd been walking backwards so as to give the Princess his full attention as she offered up a funny story about Yun from their early days of travel, not run smack-dab into him with an almighty "oof''.
The white dragon immediately spun around with a gasp, eyes perfectly round. "My apologies, seiryuu, are you alright?!"
His words seemed to bounce right off the blue dragon, however. In fact, it seemed he had hardly noticed being run into at all, still rooted in place, fixated on the some faraway view below, hidden to all the poor passersby with mere 20/20 vision.
"Shin-ah…?" Yona brought a cautious hand to his shoulder. "Do you see something?"
Her touch brought him out of his silent reverie. "It's… beautiful…" he turned to her, eyes misty.
Jae-ha popped up behind the blue dragon's shoulder, a sly smile on his face. "What's beautiful? Our darling Yona? I agree, she could stop any man in his tracks." He pushed past Shin-ah and took Yona's hand into his own, raising it to his lips.
Hak appeared between them like a bolt of lightning, expression innocuously deadpan, causing Yona to startle and jump apart from Jae-ha's seductive clutches. The green dragon was less than surprised. He smiled charmingly at the Lightning Beast. "Ah, Hak. Right on time."
Hak ignored him, surveying the forest below with one hand over his brow in a sun-blocking salute. "What were you looking at, Shin-ah? I don't see anything."
xxxx
That was how they'd ended up at the hidden oasis, surrounded by overwhelming beauty and tranquility, so effectively tucked away from the rest of the world and the reality of their worries that it felt as if they were inside of a dream. High, craggy cliffs surrounded them on all sides, branches of gigantic willow trees pouring over them, swaying sensually, ivy crawling through cracks in the cliffside, climbing all the way up the rocky surface as if it were reaching for the sun.
On one side of the valley nestled a small body of water, sunlight glimmering off the gentle ripples, too big to be a pond yet not quite large enough to be considered a lake, stretching from a smooth sand bank to the cliffside. The gang stood on that bank now, Zeno already delightedly splashing his feet around in the water, the other reveling in the feel of the smooth grains of sand between their toes.
To any other travelling group, the valley would be near-impossible to access, much less escape from, unless they had superhuman rockclimbing abilities or maybe a pair of wings. But the Happy Hungry Bunch wasn't any other travelling group. Who needs a pair of wings when you have a Jae-ha?
Panting heavily but only a little worse for the wear, the green dragon sunk onto his rear the second Hak hopped off of his shoulders, groaning with fatigue. "You've gained weight, Lightning Beast…"
Said boy grinned. "It's because the Princess has grown so competent with the bow. We've been well fed lately."
"Well fed indeed!" cried Zeno, kicking a spray of water at a nearby Yun playfully for emphasis. The Beautiful Genius shrieked and scampered a safe distance away from the splash zone, to chortles from Zeno and Kija.
Yona blushed at the praise. "W-well, I've had a good teacher…" she said quietly, too quietly for anyone to catch but herself.
"What was that, Yona Dear?" Jae-ha was now sprawled out in this sand on his back, hands over his eyes, shielding them from the beating-down sun.
"Nothing!" Far too chipper. Inwardly mortified, she spun around and ran towards Yun in a manner that could only be classified as fleeing.
"Yona Dear has been acting quite strange around you lately, hasn't she, Little Brother? All her blushing and stuttering and panicking… peculiar, wouldn't you say?"
Hak watched the Princess as she busied herself helping Yun pitch the tents. She didn't seem to be acting any different around the young boy than usual. "You're tired, Droopy Eyes. Go to sleep."
"Oh, I can't go to sleep now! Maybe I will once you wake up."
"What?"
"Open your eyes, Little Brother. The winds have changed."
Having had enough of Jae-ha's cryptic nonsense for one day (for forever, really), Hak moved down the beach to pester Shin-ah, who was crouched at the edge of the bank, holding Ao carefully in his palms as the little squirrel lapped at the crystal clear water.
He clapped the quietest of the dragons (his favorite, really) on the back. "Shin-ah. No one will bother us here. Surely you can take off that mask, no? You must be hot."
Ao took a break from quenching her thirst to 'pkyuuuuu!' in agreeance.
Before the poor perpetually-peer-pressured boy could respond, Zeno sloshed over, addressing the whole group. "Come on, kiddos! Let's swim!" He threw some water up into the air for emphasis, and it twinkled as it rained down around him, creating a lovely picture of youthful, beachy fun.
"All right!" Kija balled his claw into an invigorated fist, then pulled Jae-ha to his feet a bit too forcefully and accidentally flung him a good twenty feet in the air. Jae-ha, to his credit, stuck the landing, less than an arms' length away from where Yona stood, delighted and awed. .
(Zeno and Kija held up signs rating the spectacle a perfect 10. Hak, ever the tough critic, raised his to reveal a respectable 6.5. A suspiciously chibi Yun looked over, dumbfounded. "Where did those come from?")
The green dragon dusted off his (not particularly dirty) shoulder nonchalantly before extending his arm around the girl. "Come on Yona Dear, let's take a dip." She giggled in excitement and allowed him to lead her to the water's edge, but faltered as they passed by Shin-ah, who had finally caved to Hak's insistent inquiries and was removing his mask.
"Oh… I just realized, I don't have anything to swim in... so I'll just relax here! You guys have fun!"
Everyone froze. They had all forgotten that the Princess had… certain assets that needed to be taken into account. Hak coughed awkwardly. Kija grew redder than his master's hair. Jae-ha seemed positively tickled.
Luckily, Ao, completely misreading the atmosphere, issued a happy "pkyuuuuu!" and bounded over to her favorite female companion, climbing up her cloak to perch happily on her shoulder. The tension was broken.
"The Princess' modesty is of utmost importance! If the Princess will not be partaking in aquatic revelry, then neither shall I!" Kija proclaimed rather dramatically.
Shin-ah, ever the cinnamon roll, nodded complicitly. Hak, too, grunted his assent.
"No!" Yona cried, eyes wide. "Enjoy yourselves, please. Everyone deserves to have some fun. I won't allow anyone to miss out on my account."
Jae-ha, thinking he had the perfect solution to the dilemma, decided to interject, cutting off Kija's loud protests. "You deserve some fun too, Yona Darling. I'm sure none of us would mind if you elected to strip down and hop in the water…"
The spearhead that appeared at Jae-ha's throat was almost as barbed as the boy brandishing it.
"While our backs are turned, naturally."
Judging from the other boys' reddening cheeks, and Kija's brief fainting spell, the other boys would indeed have minded, but Jae-ha pretended not to see.
"That's all right, really- please, I'm serious! This is so rare, an opportunity like this, who knows when we'll get to have another holiday." She smiled sweetly and settled down in the sand. Hak planted his spear in the ground so she could lean against it. "I never get to take watch, so this will be fun for me to keep an eye on you."
There was only the briefest of hesitations as all the men exchanged glances.
"Well if the Little Miss insists…" Without further ado, Zeno stripped down to his underwear in one fluid motion with impressive flare, tossing his overclothes to the side and jumping into the water with a rather remarkable backflip.
(Jae-ha, Hak and Kija held up signs: 8, 7.6, and a generous 9.8, respectively. Chibi Yun once again looked on, deadpan. "Seriously where are you getting these signs.")
Yun shook his head and made to sit next to the red-haired girl. "I'll stay with you, Yona. I much prefer intellectual conversation to… 'aquatic revelry'." This was accompanied by air quotes and a very diva-esque hair flip.
He looked around their newfound hideaway with a happy sort of wonder. "So how do you think a valley like this formed? It's kind of incredible, a sanctuary like this, out here in the middle of nowhere…" When he failed to receive any sort of reply Yun turned to his companion, only to find her staring slack-jawed at a certain raven-haired someone as he shucked his overcoat and robes, revealing him in all his muscle-hardened glory.
"Hello? Earth to Yona?" he waved a hand in front of her face.
"Huh? Oh! Um… what? Yes!" At Yun's are-you-kidding-me look she tried again. "I mean- no…? Er, sorry, could you repeat the question?" She chuckled nervously, turning away abruptly to hide her rapidly coloring cheeks, but not quite far enough to hide from Yun the peeks she continued to surreptitiously take at the Lightning Beast.
The Beautiful Genius lifted his gaze to the heavens.
Intellectual conversation, indeed.
xxxx
The hardest part of all the training he'd endured before taking up the position of the Princess' personal guard full-time was learning to become a light sleeper.
As a boy he'd spent most of his days chasing his next nap, and nothing short of the old man's menacing (read: annoying) threats and prying prods could wake him once he'd nestled into a quiet corner or a shady glen and let his consciousness slip away.
That had all changed that fateful day four years ago, when Hak- naive, noble, helplessly impulsive Hak- had had to go and stick his spear in somebody else's business; he'd traded hours of blissful, easy sleep every day for hours of trying not to fell asleep every day as his china-doll charge rambled on and on about kimono this and Su Won that in one fell swoop. But really, what hadn't changed that day?
Keeping the Princess hostile had been necessary for maintaining top-notch performance in his post (as well as maintaining his sanity). Finding new ways to antagonize her had been the only thing that proved capable of keeping him alert in the (angsty, regret-filled, mindnumbingly dull) early days, and so the dynamic between them had been cemented- dynamic being the most fitting of words, as one immature prod from either of them had the other combusting like an explosive in a rage really not quite appropriate for people of their age and prestige.
When he hadn't been able to distract himself with any silly silver-tongued tangos, he'd kept his eyes open in other, equally unhealthy ways. He'd spent countless hours stewing over the degrading nature of his post, of having to drop everything at a moment's notice to obey the Princess' beck and call.
It had been hard to swallow when he'd realized her beck and call wasn't limited to just office hours, to say the least.
How many times had he been roused from bed to check on the Princess? At first, it had been Mun-Dok popping in every night, shaking him awake none-too-gently at least twice a night to remind his favorite grandson (read: favorite victim) to check on the slumbering girl down the hall, despite the fact that the guards outside her door were more than competent (and, Hak had suspected, somewhat insulted by the young General's nightly drop-ins, incorrectly inferencing they were due to how little faith the Wind Tribe boy had in the Palace's men).
Then, perhaps a week into his sentence (he was also learning not to think of it that way), after Yona had outgrown the restrained, awkward unease that had naturally first accompanied the transition from childhood friends to master and servant, she'd realized that calling upon Hak during the late hours of the night was just another way to torture him, to exact revenge on him for whatever crude comment he'd made in her direction that day.
At least, that's how Hak viewed the unwelcome summons. But maybe she was just that needy.
And then, to his horror, he'd found himself rising on his own in the middle of the night, interrupting his dreams- even the really good ones!- to pad down the hall and peek his head into the Princess' chambers whenever he didn't receive a call. Habit, he told himself each night as he found the Princess unharmed without fail, so small in her King-sized canopy bed, peacefully tucked away under her covers, snoring softly into oblivion. It was habit, that sigh of relief, habit and nothing more.
It was habit doing funny things to his chest.
Nothing but a new habit, that funny feeling, that recent development- nonetheless, one he needed to break.
That was aside the point. For better or worse, he'd learned to worry, and becoming a light-sleeper had been in the fine print when he'd traded his aspirations of becoming a World-Class Warrior for the far more practical, far more all-consuming position of World-Class Worrier.
He would never admit it out loud, never admit it to her, but it had been hard.
He mourned the loss of his ability to roll over upon any rude awakening and bury his face into a pillow with a mumble of "five more minutes". Suddenly even the sound of faint footfalls a hundred feet away was enough to send him scrambling out of the sheets, acutely alert and perfectly poised. And he could all but forget about naptime. Any extra zzzzs he managed to catch outside of the few hours he scrapped together between midnight and dawn were few and far between.
He missed the naps. He missed sleeping through thunderstorms. He missed not having bags under his eyes. He missed not having any worries at all.
But sometimes, when he stuck his head into her room to check up on her just as she snorted a violently adorable snore, or when she called him in around three in the morning to talk, just because she couldn't sleep, he'd find himself thinking that maybe- just maybe- it was all worth it.
He certainly thought so now.
How many times had light-sleeping saved them now? How many midnight escapes had they made when Su Won's soldiers trekked a little too close for comfort?
He thought about the night he'd gone to gather firewood- the one when he'd had that "can I touch you" hallucination. One of the most aggravating nights of his life, with her ridiculous, whiplash behavior, flinching from his touch with her nonplussing protestations over her questionable hygiene. One of the best nights of his life, when she'd finally settled into his arms. When she'd flushed with pleasure at his praise. When she'd held onto his pendant like she never wanted to let go.
He chalked it up to light-sleeping.
And here, under a different midnight sky, being a light-sleeper brought him to her side again.
She hadn't been in the tent. When a cursory scan around their little paradise had not revealed her figure to be anywhere on land, he'd headed down to the beach, knowing the only remaining option was the water. He thanked all the gods that the full moon wasn't bright enough to expose his sudden flush as he nearly tripped over what looked to be her hastily-discarded clothes not five feet from the water's edge, cloaked in darkness.
Ah. Of course. Naturally, since she'd recently revived her interest in hygiene, she was taking advantage of the opportunity the boys' complete exhaustion presented. Hak spun on his heel feeling like his whole body was on fire, the back of his neck and ears no doubt scarlet with embarrassment over what he'd almost intruded upon. But before he could make his hasty exit, her head broke the surface of the water as she gasped desperately for air.
He was by the water's edge in a fraction of a second on instinct alone, thinking she was drowning. But he'd overreacted, he realized as his ratcheted pulse came back down and she slicked back the wet strands of hair that clung to her face, blinking a few times to purge any droplets from her eyes before opening them to the world. She was fine. She was just bathing. She was- she was naked. Not that he could see anything below her collarbone. Still, his eyes roamed her hungrily before his brain could tell them to stop, taking in her slim shoulders, her unblemished, alabaster skin, her whirlpool indigo eyes, the star-filled sky perfectly reflected in them, as if the whole universe swirled in their depths. She was… she was...
She was staring right at him.
He flailed backwards with a shocked outcry and a violent start, his leg accidentally catching on the ball of clothes at his feet and flinging them into the water. They landed near the Princess with a soft plunk, water rippling from their landing point like the rings on a target as they slowly sunk into the murky depths. A panicked cry of surprise escaped from Yona's throat as she dove down after them, surfacing a few moments later with the garments a thorougly doused muddle in her hands.
She looked from them to the boy on the beach with wide eyes, who looked back at her with equally wide eyes. Neither of them moved. Neither of them breathed. Then, with overwhelming force, her face bled from palest of pink to reddest of red in the space of a millisecond. "H-Hak?!" she cried. "What are you doing?!"
He could only stare for a second, all color leeched from his face, helpless. She was still submerged in the water from the neck down, so she wasn't even especially exposed, but he couldn't help but feel paralysed, like he'd been caught in the act of doing something scandalous, naughty, forbidden.
He tried to explain, but couldn't get his tongue to move. Had words forsaken him? A fruitless attempt to clear his throat had him about ready to pass out.
Then words poured out of both of them at once, blind panic making them deaf to the other- to anything but their own little worlds, their own little cocoons of irrevocable embarrassment.
"I- I couldn't sleep, I'm sorry I didn't realize-"
"I thought I might bathe- everyone was sleeping-"
"See if you were alright-"
"Didn't mean to wake you-"
"Tripped on the clothes-"
"Hair doesn't smell so bad-"
"They'll be dry by morning I'm sure-"
"Sorry for startling you-"
"Really am very sorry, Princess, please, carry on-"
"Not to blame yourself of course it was an accident-"
"Just be heading back to my tent now-"
"Just meaning to have a wash- wait! HAK, WAIT!"
He turned, his eyes somehow even wider than before. "Princess?" the rushed word was at once a question and an apology.
"I don't- I don't have any other clothes…"
He gulped, fisting his hands into the pockets of his overcoat to keep the panicked craze from setting in again.
He blinked.
His overcoat.
He quickly shrugged off the garment and held it out towards her with one hand, turning his back so as to, as Kija had so eloquently put it, preserve the Princess' modesty. For a heartbeat, there was silence. Then the slight sloshing of waves as she made her way to shore and plucked the coat from his hand. He heard the rustle of fabric as she tugged it on, waiting at least thirty seconds longer than it had ever taken anyone to put on an overcoat ever before turning around, just to be safe.
He said nothing as he took in the sight of her in front of him, buried in the folds of his coat, sopping wet, the moisture on her skin making the fabric cling to her in ways he tried to ignore. She was holding it closed with one hand, while her other held her own clothing, waterlogged but successfully recovered. Even if he'd known what to say, he wouldn't have trusted himself to say it.
How was he ever going to be able to wear that overcoat again?
"Um," she murmured, gaze turned down, incredibly vulnerable and shy. Hak struggled to keep breathing as he felt his blood boil and thrum. "Do you think you could hold these for a second?" she held out the pile of clothing. "My- my chest bindings, I can tie it shut if I just have-"
He quickly accommodated, laying the remainder of her clothes neatly out to dry on the sand as she wrapped the band of cloth around her waist. She heaved a sigh of relief.
Though sopping, it would suffice.
Another lapse of painfully unsure, excruciatingly uncomfortable silence had Hak turning to retreat once more.
"W- wait…"
He faltered. "Princess?" Inwardly, he flinched. He sounded much too eager.
"Um- what? Oh no, it's nothing, n-nevermind."
"Did you need something?"
"No, nothing. It was just me being selfish again."
He took in her figure, head bent, fingers interlocked in the way that he knew she held them to stop them from twiddling. She was strangely... vulnerable before him. Something in his chest ached at the sight of it.
"Princess… you're soaked. You won't be able to fall asleep like this."
"Oh... I'll be fine, really. It's a nice night to watch the moon."
"I agree. I think I'll stay up to watch it too." He glanced over at her, nonchalant. "At least until the Princess is dry." He crossed to her casually, carefully as a slow, secret smile slid across her face.
He hadn't realized before, but this close he could see the goosebumps on the flesh of her neck as she wrapped the coat tighter around her still.
"Princess… you're shivering…" He raised his arms, stepping closer to her, intending to swaddle her with his own body heat. Yes, the hug would be purely for practical purposes.
"Hak… H- Hak! Don't come any closer!"
This again? Hadn't she just washed her hair? His arms dropped automatically, limp and defeated, as he took two short steps away from her, perturbed. He tried to keep the annoyance from leaking into his tone, but it still came out a rough deadpan. "Is this far enough?"
"I- I'll get you all wet…"
What? That's what she was worried about? His incredulous gaze quickly dissolved into a snort and a playful smirk. "I suppose we would be even then."
He shook out his hair like a wet dog to remind her of the earlier scene, when he'd charged out of the water and towards her as she stood by the fire, roasting a leg of wild boar, standing right next to her as he dried off in vigorous, full-bodied shakeouts, droplets flying everywhere, soaking her and nearly putting out the fire as she shrieked in surprise. He'd cackled at her open-mouthed discomposure, her high-pitched squeal, her rapidly reddening cheeks until she began to laugh too, until they were both rolling around on the ground wrapped up in their own furious fits of what could only be classified as the giggles. Delirious, cathartic giggles.
(Yun looked on from across the fire, his pork leg dangling loosely at his side, doomed to remain woefully undercooked. "Madmen," he muttered to himself as he watched the two figures on the ground with mounting disbelief, as the neverending stream of hiccups and snorts assaulted his eardrums. "They're both madmen."
But he couldn't quite hide the quirks at the corners of his mouth. Not even after spitting out the daring bite he'd taken of his far-too-chewy pork.)
"Even…" she murmured as her eyes glazed over with memory. She huffed a short laugh as she took a step closer to him, flicking her hand at him playfully so that the water droplets rolled off of her fingertips and flew at his face. "Yeah, I suppose we would be."
He gulped involuntarily as she continued to draw near. Thinking back on the earlier event, he shivered now with the sudden realization that the episode may have been crossing some unspoken boundaries. What had possessed him to behave so casually with the Princess? True, it had been nothing more than innocent fun (an infuriatingly smooth, droopy-eyed voice corrected "innocent flirting" in the back of his mind, but he shoved it aside), but... well, he had toed the line, at the very least.
It was this place, he decided. Each lap of the waves siphoned away at his precaution. Each lazy breeze swept a little more of his inhibition away.
And it wasn't just him, he knew. Everyone had felt the effects of the haven today, had felt the knots ease in their shoulders and the laughter bubble up more easily from their chests.
"It was a good day," he said as the Princess stopped just short of touching him, close enough that he could feel the stray drops of water dripping off her chin pitter-patter on to his toes. Just to say something. Just to keep his breathing steady.
"It was a good day," she agreed with a soft smile.
Disconcerted by their unexpected proximity, he took her hand in his, to stop her from stepping any closer and sat down cross-legged in the sand, gently tugging the Princess down next to him. They stared up at the moon together, remembering the events of the day. It was one unlikely to be forgotten anytime soon.
Zeno refereeing the chicken fight tournament the boys had cooked up in the water, Hak emerging victorious with Kija a close second.
Munching on deliciously seasoned meat for lunch as they all sat around the crackling fire, Shin-ah winning every round of "Find the Ao" they played as they ate, spotting the squirrel hiding in the tall grass on even the other side of the valley in a matter of seconds without fail.
The boys gleefully scooping Shin-ah up and dumping him unceremoniously in the water for "cheating". Shin-ah's subsequent cramp. "You shouldn't swim on a full stomach, you know, Mister!" Zeno'd advised, nodding sagely, prompting snickers from Hak and Jae-ha.
Everyone working together to build a mermaid tail of sand around Yun's legs, Kija's claw the perfect tool to carve beautiful, detailed, ridiculous scales.
Jae-ha flying all the boys up to the top of the cliff overhanging the water, everyone taking turns jumping off the edge, whooping and hollering over the pure, simple, uncomplicated thrill as they tumbled down, down, down into the waves with massive splashes (and once or twice, the loud, painful-sounding thunderclap thwack that only a well-executed bellyflop could make), drenching the Princess and Yun even as she cheered and clapped and he shrieked in indignation.
Everyone laying side-by-side on the beach in the content, comfortable silence that signaled the nearing end of a day filled with fun; staring up at the slowly sinking sun, watching it disappear into the horizon, leaving in its trail brilliant, prismatic traces of its glow: amber, topaz, rose, and gold smeared across the sky.
The Princess took a deep breath beside him, a satisfying intake of crisp night air, before wrapping her arms around her legs and nestling her head on her knees as she turned her neck to look over at the boy sitting next to her. "Seeing everyone splashing around today, looking so lively… it made me so happy."
"Ah. I'm glad." He kept his eyes on the moon.
"Hak… are you?"
"Eh?"
"Are you… happy?"
The question brought his gaze slanting down to hers. "Of course," he said, point-blank, no hesitation. "Princess, if you are happy, then I-"
"But Hak-" she cut him off, distressed. "How can you be after- when you're always working, always worrying about me?" She raked an unhappy hand through her hair with a frustrated, unhappy sigh. When she spoke again, her voice was somber, edged with self-loathing.
"You're checking up on me even now, staying up with me when you should be sleeping. It;s selfish of me not to send you back to your tent right now." She smiled softly. "I know how much you like to sleep."
"Selfish? There is nowhere I would rather-"
"And I know you say that- that seeing me happy makes you happy… that you'll stay annoyingly close by my side…" she seemed to steel herself, swiveling her entire body to face him head-on.
"Hak… I just want you to know…" His pulse quickened. "I am so happy, just being with all of you. So I hope that you are happy… and that you know you're free to do other things that make you happy too."
Her voice dropped down to a fraction of a whisper. He leaned in closer just to catch what she said next. "E-even if they don't involve… being b-by my side…"
He couldn't tear his eyes away from hers as her words settled in his stomach like butterflies. In his chest, jumpstarting his heartbeat. In his mind, drifting in like a cloud, fogging up his senses.
Maybe it was the valley. Maybe it was this place and the memory of the near-perfect day they'd shared together here, all seven of them, still rattling through his bones, still warming his heart, easing the weight on his shoulders he had become so accustomed to, just a little.
Maybe he was drunk on the moonlight, the mood.
Maybe it was the primal, entirely male part of him that was roaring in approval at the sight of her in front of him, so serene and solemn and wearing his coat-
Maybe it was Droopy Eyes' annoying, impossible-to-ignore voice in his head.
"The Princess has been acting quite strange around you lately, hasn't she?"
"All the blushing and stuttering and panicking."
"Open your eyes."
What was that guy playing at?
Unbidden, a thousand instances flooded into Hak's mind of the Princess' erratic behavior as of late.
Something had shifted between them. The banter didn't come as easy anymore, their interactions not quite so effortless. Not quite so automatic. The air between them was hung more heady, filled with the weight unsaid words. Unsaid feelings.
Or was it just in his mind?
He was going to kill Droopy Eyes in the morning. He was always doing this to him, messing with his head. Making him do stupid things he'd later regret.
The Honey Incident flashed through his mind right on cue, despite Hak's desperate desire to forget it had ever happened. A thousand other moments when he'd gotten his hopes up, failed to resist, deluded himself into thinking he had even a sliver of a chance...
But… did he regret them all?
Did he regret kissing her on the cheek before charging off into battle in Kin province? Grabbing her hand after she'd given him the pendant? Taking her into his arms and telling her she was the most amazing girl he'd ever met?
The valley had struck him as something out of a dream earlier, when they'd first arrived. Maybe that's what this was, just a dream, just another dream, and he'd wake up soon to find Zeno's snoring face two inches from his rather than the Princess' that blinked up at him now.
Wow… two inches… she really was close. When did she get so close?
Maybe…
Maybe…
Maybe this time was different. It felt different. It felt… expectant. Charged.
It felt right.
Maybe he was tired of maybes.
Whatever it was that sent Hak finally, finally over the edge, there was no maybe about it.
He crossed the distance, the air that hung heavy with so many unsaid things, and closed the space between them.
or maybe she was kissing him back, and maybe this moment, this one moment, obliterated all others, or maybe it made all the others worth it. Everything they'd been through together, maybe it had all been worth it.
Maybe he was wrong for thinking that way. He didn't care. Not now, at least. All he cared about now were her lips moving feverishly against his own and her body as she crawled closer to him, nestled into his lap, and fingers clinging to his undershirt with a tenacity that he'd once been surprised to see from her, but no longer. And maybe he needed to come up for air but maybe he could hold out a little longer, maybe he could prolong this one perfect kiss, this one perfect moment forever, maybe he could-
She broke away, gasping for breath, face heated, the darkest shade of crimson he'd ever seen. Kami, she was adorable. Maybe he wanted to bundle her up and hide her away here in the valley, where he could have her all to himself, where no one else would ever be able to see her again. Or maybe he wanted to show her the entire world, show her to the entire world, show her off to every peasant and farmer and lord and lady and soldier and shopkeeper- show them how amazing she was, show them that she was hers, she was entirely her own, but she was also his-
His. What a dangerous word. Maybe it was a word that changed everything. Undoubtedly it was a word that made him want more. He had to have her again. He leaned in for another kiss-
"Wait! H-Hak wait, stop!"
She looked so conflicted, so confused. She brought a hand up to her lips, feeling them as if to make sure they were real, almost disbelieving when she realized undeniably that yes, they were real, this was real. Maybe he was imagining the faint glimmer of something like hope stirring in the depths of her indigo irises or maybe it was there amidst all her incredulity and was fighting against it, fighting just like he'd been fighting it-
"W- Why did you do that?!"
He just laughed. A laugh that was pure light, bright and soaring and free.
"Why are you laughing?"
"Your face right now… makes me so happy." He brought his forehead to hers, closing his eyes, feeling like everything was right in the world. When was the last time he'd felt like everything was right in the world?
Maybe if his eyes had been open he would've noticed the stormcloud growing in the Princess' eyes, the devastation that she tried urgently to hide as the truth of the situation she had been struggling so dazedly to understand dawned on her with perceived devastating clarity.
"Y-you've gone too far this time!"
What?
She jerked away from him, rising to her feet and staggering back a couple of steps, dodging the hand Hak extended to pull her back to him, the boy failing to comprehend the irrational turn of events. "Princess… what's wrong?"
Tears had welled in her eyes, though she blinked violently in a vain attempt to banish them away.
"Why… why are you cr-"
"I thought you weren't going to play those sort of jokes anymore."
Jokes?
A… joke?
No.
Oh no.
"Princess, wait, you misundersta-"
But she was already gone, halfway to her tent, water droplets dripping angrily from her sodden tresses like the tears that she refused to shed in front of him.
xxxx
A/N: Poor Hak… Just can't seem to catch a break…
XD
Bookgirl18, the first of three kisses-outside-the-castle for you- hope you liked this one. :) HakFAN, hope you found Yona a bit more likeable in this chapter- completely understand your frustration with her (she's so blind, the numbskull, really!), Aki no Ryu, yes! "Wanted is such a great suggestion, can't believe I haven't thought of it before- and I absolutely adore the anime soundtrack! A Place in the Sun for Hak is my second favorite track, after the Melancholy version of the theme (it never fails to hit me right in the feels). Rockin' angels, I had to look up what the suffix -nim meant after your review and the Wikipedia-provided answer had my face splitting into a massive grin. Thank you so much. :)
Might be a bit of a longer wait before the next chapter as I'm still a bit fuzzy on how I want to set it up and I start school in SIX DAYS (gods help me aaaahhh!). Thank you to everyone for reading, favoriting, following, reviewing! Can't express how much each one means to me.
Much love,
Rosie
xxxxxx