Ha-joon's cheeks flared a deep, undeniable pink under the weight of my lingering gaze. "Impertinent woman," he grumbled, as the heat crawled up his neck.
I couldn't help it. I laughed, loud enough to turn a few heads.
"Oh, come on now." I teased, leaning in just a little too close. "You're not that irresistible."
"That's a small mercy," he deadpanned, taking a careful step to the side.
I matched his gait, easily closing the distance while grinning. "But, I can always flirt with you a little if you like."
His expression twisted belief and barely veiled horror.
"Relax, Ha-joon. I'm just a bystander today." I gave his shoulder a hearty slap, relishing the startled jolt that shot through his rigid frame. The coarse silk of his garment felt rough and strangely satisfying to wrinkle. "No one expects you to stay in character every second."
Ha-joon shot me a look that could have stripped paint. "Unlike you, I take my role seriously."
"Oh, I can tell." I openly mocked his stern look, wiggling my fingers at him, already walking backward. "That scowl's practically an heirloom at this point. Do you polish it nightly?" I asked sweetly.
He crossed his arms, his gaze flickering anywhere but me. "Your interest in making a spectacle is childish."
"Says the guy playing dress up with his friends-" I tossed over my shoulder as I turned away, satisfied with his simmering discomfort. There was something endlessly fun about teasing someone so wound up over make believe.
I set off in the opposite direction, the synchronized shuffle of feet echoed behind me in a disciplined rhythm of movement. I slowed, curiosity piqued.
Ha-joon's voice floated toward me, low and wry. "Maybe you'd like to meet my childish friends. Maybe you can flirt with one of them."
I spun, ready with a witty retort. The six men garbed in soldier's gear, with the charm of stone statues quelled my tart tongue. Even I had my limits.
"You there. Get over here." One of the guards barked. "How dare you accost the Crown Prince."
Dodachae mwoya? "That peony sniffer was the Crown Prince!?"
Lunatic larpers or not. I'd seen enough dramas to know that when a guy in leather tells you to get over here, it's time to make yourself scarce. I did the only sensible thing a girl could do in such a situation. I hoisted my skirts and ran.
Dodging through the archways I stumbled through the last gate, leading to a prison. Hoping to give the guards a slip, I slid in and lay next to the bloodiest man I could find. He seemed unconscious and unlikely to mind if I borrowed some of his rags.
I held the fabric up and took a curious sniff … eww..
Judging by their varying degrees of torture, several men seemed to be in the throes of some serious role-playing. I didn't want to know.
I buried myself in straw, feeling the coarse fibres bite my skin as I smeared dirt across my face with trembling hands. If they'd whacked these guys, I couldn't imagine what they'd do to me.
The world around me blurred as I fought to control my shaky breath, desperately trying to match the man beside me, but his gasps were weak and shallow—like the last flicker of a dying flame.
My fingers slid urgently to his neck, probing for the familiar pulse of his carotid artery, praying for the reassuring throb that might tell me he was still alive.
By the emperor's pointy little beard, had they actually beaten him? What kind of twisted larp cult was this?
A skirmish at the entrance caused me to be still. The men spoke an Asian dialect that sounded like what my friends spoke, but the pronunciation was even more garbled.
The men hurried past, and I seized the opportunity to free myself from my self-imposed prison. Just as I was about to leave, my gaze fell on the injured man.
Who knows how long it would be before someone checked on him? I grabbed his forearms, dragged him to the side, propped him up, and then lifted him onto my back.
I slid out of the way I came into the prison toward the palace's entrance with the man haphazardly flung on my back. His incoherent grunt let me know I was doing the right thing.
How my mother would howl if she could see me now. She took great pleasure in beating my backside for lacking the finer points of feminity and grace. I'd no doubt earn a trip to boarding school if she saw me now. My brother wouldn't have let me live it down, either. He'd say the only way I would ever snag a husband was by kidnapping him. I chuckled deeply. To the outside observer - this whole scene was hilarious, which made it all the more important that I not be discovered.
Pulling the outer cloak over the man on my back and me, I shuffled forward like some stopping just inside the city gates, searching for the familiar outlines of a medical tent. From the looks of things, they even extended the scene outside the palace walls.
Noticing a stocky horse tied to a makeshift hitching post, I decided I could transfer the man I carried onto this larger beast of burden. With considerable effort and some awkward pulling, I managed to get his dead weight onto my new transportation.
Surely, they would have emergency tents in the shady glen.
I envisioned a small glade just a few blocks away and set my newly acquired horse into a steady trot.
The horse swayed back and forth rhythmically as I bounced on the seat like a country bumpkin. I peered at every rock and tree, amazed by the actors' attention to detail. A stream lazily trickled past us, moving quickly enough not to be stagnant yet slow enough to feel believable.
I tilted my face to the sky, basking in the sun. These woods are truly lovely. My mind flitted to a poem about lovely, dark, and deep woods until a quiet moan sounded from the man who lay in front of my saddle.
I grabbed the water skin from the horse and brought it to his lips. "Save your strength."
He swatted it away with a desperate hand, causing the already uneven saddle to shift precariously. If I had bothered to inspect it more carefully, I would have seen the leather was worn, and the girth was loosely fastened, causing the saddle to wobble.
We had gone a few meters, but it had already tilted, making it uncomfortable for the rider and the horse. I hadn't bothered to try to fit my feet into the stirrups. They swung erratically, slapping against the horse's underside with each step.
To make matters worse, I had never been so close to a man or held one tightly to keep him from falling.
He motioned to the bushes, and another copse of trees appeared from nowhere. I followed his lead, expecting to see members of the medical team. If I had looked at the man again, I would have grasped the true extent of the danger lurking before me.