Preparation (1/2)

In the end, they’d gone with Minho, Yuri and Taemin’s idea. They’d made a small model of their idea which was very interesting and detailed. Minho had told them of the large and beautiful pension house he’d seen up on the mountain in a clearing in the woods when he’d gone to chop wood for the fireplace in Yuri’s room. The three had the idea that technically, it was still part of royal land since it was on the smallest mountain in the mountain ranges that the Lee family owned. Okay, technically the whole kingdom belonged to the Lee family but the royal grounds that they had not sold to citizens so they could have their own houses were the only parts of the kingdom the King felt would be safe for his daughters. Minho pointed out that the King could not object this idea since they were pretty much in the middle of the royal grounds, and it would be hard for anyone planning on hurting the princesses to get pass the guards that surround the entrance to the royal grounds which where acres away from where they would be staying. The King could station extra guards around the bottom of the mountain to protect the princesses but would still be far away as to not interrupt their small holiday. There were lots to do and Minho had already planned three escape plans and the cook could send food to the mountain during meal times.Yuri and Taemin had sold the idea when they spoke of the games they could play in the crystal clear river and building their own campfire. They used dolls that they’d gotten from the girls’ toy box to demonstrate the things they could do. Unfortunately for Eunhyuk- because by the time they’d started the demonstration, Eunhyuk and Hyoyeon were back from their walk- they’d run out of normal dolls and Taemin had to use a stuffed monkey to represent him. The pension house was large with a lounge room that had three hallways leading away from it. The one at the back led to the kitchen, dining room and the forest behind the pension house. The other two led to five rooms each.Taemin showed Key that the pension house was as comfortable and clean as the palace so he didn’t need to worry about his hygiene. Minho explained how they’d be food stocked there and that the cook would send lots of food at meal times to Sooyoung. Everyone else didn’t have a problem with the idea and didn’t need any more explaining. They immediately went to see King Soo Man afterwards. He’s been in a meeting with all the other kings but they managed to get 5 minutes of his time. They convinced him rather quickly and King Soo Man figured out a few safety precautions before giving them the okay to move into the pension the next morning while he prepared guards and other things overnight. ‘I’m so excited about going on a mini-holiday!!’ Sooyoung bounced on the bed while Key packed his suitcase.

‘If only your father wasn’t so overprotective, then we could’ve gone somewhere better, like the hot springs,’ Key whined.

‘Well you remember what happened when we went to the village, I think he has every right to be overprotective…’ Sooyoung pouted.

‘I guess. Oh, yah! Have you seen my hairbrush?!’ Key asked when he realised he was missing something in his toiletries bag.

‘No…’ Sooyoung kicked his hairbrush that she’d borrowed further under the doona. He’d find it… eventually.

Key sighed, ‘I’ll have to find it later, or borrow yours. Are you going to pack or what?’

Sooyoung flopped forward on her stomach so she was closer to where Key was.

‘Uhh… I was wondering if you could do it…’ she smiled sweetly.

‘…’ Key turned to look at her but was frozen when he saw her aegyo eye-smile, ‘uhh… I guess I could. I am more organised than you. But you’d have to pack your own… umm…’ he blushed and looked away from her, ‘undergarments and such…’

Sooyoung burst out laughing, ‘what an old lady word to use… undergarments!! You could’ve just said underwear!!’ and she began to roll around on the bed holding her stomach while Key covered his blushing face with his hands.‘Ohh… and we have to pack these cards!!’ Nichkhun exclaimed.

‘Oh yeah! How could I forget?! And the beach ball!’ Yoona ran across the room to grab it.

‘Well if we’re bringing the beach balls, we should bring the volleyball, and the soccer ball!’ Nichkhun said.

‘Should we bring Go Stop?’ Yoona asked.

‘… we might get scolded by Taeyeon so maybe just keep that in our room and we’ll play alone,’ Nichkhun answered while trying to stuff the soccer ball in their forth suitcase.

‘Ah! I need to go get it from the drawing room! Hyoyeon unnie and I were playing the other night!’ Yoona said and jumped up, leaving Nichkhun to struggle with their luggage.As Yoona left the drawing room and skipped towards her room, she bumped into Taecyeon.

‘Oh! Princess Yoona!’ he exclaimed and held her shoulders to stop her from running into him.

‘Annyong! You’re still here to help? Well, I guesses you would since the Yearly Royal Meeting hasn’t concluded yet,’ Yoona said happily.

‘Yes. It has been hard work but rewarding and fun,’ he smiled at her, ‘so I heard you and your sisters will be going on a mini-holiday.’

‘Yup! It’s going to be fun!!!’ Yoona squealed.

Taecyeon looked around and saw that they were alone, ‘well, I hope you have fun and return safely and soon. Hopefully we can spend some time together when you get back,’ he said and pecked her lightly on the cheek before walking away, leaving the stunned and blushing Yoona frozen in the corridor.The silence in the room was unbearable. They’d spoken about just about everything and packed for the trip and they were now silent. While on the walk, Hyoyeon and Eunhyuk got along really well but when they got back and Sooyoung and Yoona started teasing them about having alone time, things began to become awkward and they now didn’t have anything to say to each other.

‘So… are you excited?’ Eunhyuk asked.

‘For the holiday? Yeah… I am,’ Hyoyeon said.

‘…’

‘Is that, uhh… a picture of you and an elephant?’ Eunhyuk asked.

‘Yes… we went to visit our cousins one summer and their kingdom had elephants everywhere!’ Hyoyeon said.

‘It must’ve smelt funny…’

After another five minutes of awkward silence, Eunhyuk cracked.

‘I can’t stand it! We were fine when we went on the walk and all, but then when we came back and your sisters were teasing us, everything went weird!’ he jumped up, ‘I really enjoyed talking to you freely but now I feel awkward!’

‘I’m sorry… same here but now I don’t know what to say. I should tell Sooyoung and Yoona off next time,’ Hyoyeon looked up at Eunhyuk jumping around.

‘Should we make things… un-awkward?’ Eunhyuk asked.

‘I don’t think un-awkward is a word but… what were you going to suggest?’ Hyoyeon asked.

‘This,’ and he leaned over and pressed his lips to hers.

‘That… I… uhh!!’ Hyoyeon was flustered when he pulled away.

‘I don’t know if you remember but when we were little, I did that once to you too…’ he said.‘Wow… you have a lot of pink things… first your whole room is pink and so is your furniture… then your clothes and suitcase…’ Wooyoung said when he walked into Tiffany’s room while she was in the middle of packing.

‘Oh! You surprised me!’ Tiffany jumped up and grabbed her teddy bear so she could hide it.

‘I’ve already seen it, no need to hide it,’ Wooyoung said coolly and dropped down onto the bed.

‘Have you already packed?’ Tiffany asked.

‘I didn’t really unpack when I moved into your room to be honest so there is no packing to be done.’

‘And why is that?’

‘Because I heard that the Jewel Palace has almost been refurnished and renovated and any signs of the fire has disappeared so we’ll be able to move into your actual room. Lucky it wasn’t damaged in the fire so now I can see how a princess really keeps her room,’ Wooyoung said.

Tiffany shook her head, ‘anniyo. I shared my old room with Sica so unless you want to share a bedroom with both Sica and Jonghyun, I don’t think we’ll be staying there. My mother was telling us that when they redid part of the Jewel Palace that was burnt down, they extended it and made it bigger so we’ve got an extra wing with our new bedrooms.’