43: Thorns

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Reina

"Can you please teach me archery, sister Reina?", Ray looked up at me, his eyes glowing with hope. In a matter of days, he had warmed up to me but still, he didn't like being in front of other people because of his anxiety. Out of everyone, he was comfortable only with me and I had grown more protective over this brother of mine.

"Why do you want to learn it?", I asked, smiling.

"Because I want to protect you.", He replied in a heartbeat. "You protected me at the banquet. And I want to protect you in the future."

My heart warmed.

"You are still young, Ray."

"No, please."

"Alright.", I agreed. Truthfully speaking, I also wanted him to learn some self-defence skills because I wouldn't always be there to protect him.

We headed to the training grounds inside the estate.

My thoughts unwillingly went to the man who had been hunting my dreams since that. . .Kiss. He was nowhere to be found, though. The next morning, I got to know that he had been called to the palace for some important task. Then, from there, he was sent to a border village of Busan where some problem had sprung up. It has been two days since I last saw him and I was missing that face, those lips....

Shaking myself out of my thoughts, I followed Ray who was bubbling with excitement over the fact that he was going to learn archery.

There was an archery board in the training ground. Ray picked up one bow and arrow. I helped him to get into his stance. I gave my instructions to him. He released the arrow. But it fell down after crossing a small distance. He pouted, looking unhappy.

"It's alright, Ray. That's good for the first time. You make mistakes and you learn from it. Remember that practice makes perfect. Concentrate, once again."

Ray practised for some more times. The arrows hit the outermost circles first but he immediately got a hang of it. Ray was an intelligent boy. He learnt things very fast. Soon, his arrows were hitting the inner circles. Though, his skills weren't that sharpened to hit the center point, he was still doing a good job.

"Ok fine. That's it for today.", I told him, after several hours had passed.

"But it's too soon.", He muttered.

"Ray, you need to take a bath and have lunch as well."

"Okay, we will go once you try.", He said. "I want to see you do it once again. You were amazing that day!"

I chuckled and took the arrows and bow from him. I walked to the shooting spot and aimed the arrows towards the target.

Just as I was about to release the arrows, my eyes suddenly landed on the pavilion in front of the trainung grounds. My heart stopped when I saw Jungkook there. Am I hallucinating? Or had he arrived?

Our eyes locked. Heat pooled in my stomach, remembering that night of two days ago.

He was watching the whole scene from the pavillion in front of the training grounds.

In that moment of distraction, the arrows were released and they failed to hit the target.

"What happened?", Ray asked in disappointment.

I again took the arrows and aimed at the target. But unwillingly, my eyes were again drawn to Jungkook, a smile growing on his lips by the minutes. It had been two days of not seeing that gorgeous face. I hadn't realized how much I was missing him till now.

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