the lacuna games | lee minho

eight

TIME runs faster than Hanmi imagined it would go. It was as if it was only yesterday that Hanmi had been racking her brain, trying to find out what in Heaven's name the Great Lacuna Games was and now she is getting ready for one of the big highlights of the competition – the Drawing Day.

This, coincidentally, is also the day where her parents find out that she is participating in the race. Hopefully, they let her go without much hassle. A twisting feeling erupts in her guts – in this moment, which was what was worrying her the most.

She had confided with Hyunjin a couple of nights before the Drawing Day. Hanmi was making her usual visit to the kingdom and landed herself in the middle of coronation preparations. Of course, Hyunjin will always make time for her and that explains why he was willing to spend time with her in the palace gardens even if he looked a little more exhausted than usual.

They sat on a bench, overlooking the flowerbeds though not seeing much due to the darkness.

"You haven't told them?"

The surprised pause Hyunjin expressed was clear to everyone who could see it and Hanmi didn't expect a reaction much less than that. It was a reasonable way to take in information as such, if she had been in Hyunjin's shoes, she would act more or less the same way.

"What's holding you back?" he asked after Hanmi had given him a confirming nod.

"Frankly, I have no idea," she admitted, "and maybe because I wanted to surprise them?"

Hyunjin scoffed in response. "You don't sound so sure."

Hanmi had stood up then, walking in distressed circles in front of the future king and fiddling with the tips of her fingers nervously. Sure, it was to surprise them, but that was barely half of it.

"What if they don't take it as well as I thought they would? What then?"

"What nonsense!" Hyunjin exclaimed.

"Were you not the one who told me your parents were past participants of the tournament? I don't see why they wouldn't let you go."

"You see, our cases are different."

"How so?"

Hanmi faced away from Hyunjin and squinted her eyes at the bushes in front of her. "Well, for once, if you were to take twenty years off today, they would have been older in age than I am now."

"Furthermore, wouldn't it be considered strange if someone like me were to join?"

Hyunjin had frowned hearing that statement come out of his friend's mouth. "Someone like you?"

"You know..." Hanmi kicked pebbles with the tip of her toes, "the firstborn daughter, a girl, an Heiress? When there are better things for me to do instead of playing chase for a whole month; such as catching up with my studying, serving my people... upholding my responsibilities as their Princess."

"What's the matter with you?"

"Pardon?"

"You – you..." Hyunjin sighed, "I don't know how you could so easily drop your name into the drawing box and yet you put your worries into breaking the news to your parents, instead of the competition itself."

"Yes, well... I clearly must have hit my head on a rock. I thought, if Father forbade me from aiding him in preparations... and maybe if I was older and if I were a boy—"

Hanmi was caught in surprise when Hyunjin turned her around, engulfing her in one of the warmest reassuring hugs she'd felt lately. Her fists curled against his back, a deep breath sharp in her lungs.