Ishihara // ATEEZ ✔

45 |2| Delivery

1 year later

Her hands fly across the shelves, tracing her hands on the spine of the books as she reads the titles, pulling them out a little every time to make sure that she hasn't read the particular one. When she realizes that she has read every single one on the uppermost shelf, she descends the ladder before scanning the titles on the shelf below it, stopping at a book in the middle when she notices that it's a book she hasn't dived into. She pulls it out, feeling the dusty hard cover and looking at the yellowed pages as she reads the synopsis.

"A normal girl who was kidnapped by a gang and accidentally gets involved with the turf war of two notorious gangs in the city." She taps her lips. "Interesting." She weighs the book with her hands and she estimates the time she would need to read the book from cover to cover, and as she decides that it would take her a maximum of six hours uninterrupted, she then picks up the book to be read.

"Food delivery!" She looks down to see a beaming Yunho, holding up a metal delivery container before sliding it open. "Today we're having mixed fried rice." He takes out two plastic-wrapped plates and another two small ones. "With pickled radish on the side. How does that sound?"

"Sounds delicious. Aren't you going to get scolded by your boss for spending so much time coming here?" she asks as she gets down from the last step.

"He never scolds me because I always deliver everything to the other customers first. I'm just taking a break from work." He unwraps the dish before putting it on the nearest table. "Let's eat before it gets cold."

She obliges and takes a seat in front of him, already salivating at the sight of the dish. Her stomach grumbles incessantly as she puts aside the book on the table and returns her focus on the plate. He gives a fork and spoon to her and she dives in without any second thought. She sighs when she takes the first bite, glad that she finally gets to eat.

"There's this puppy that keeps trying to follow me everywhere when I make deliveries," he says through a mouthful of rice. "I tried to trick it into thinking that I'm going to take a right turn when I'm actually going for left, but it always manages to find me somehow. It's waiting for me outside right now; I think even my horse has became friends with it."

"Maybe it thinks that you're his friend," she replies as she swallows her chewed food.

"Are you saying I look like a puppy?"

She lifts her left eyebrow. "In case you don't see it, well let me break it to you; you do. Does it have an owner?"

He shrugs. "I don't think so; I think it doesn't even have a family. I just see it hanging outside the restaurant and my boss would feed him every day. When he sees me already getting out to make the deliveries, he immediately goes over to sit beside my horse."

"Maybe you can adopt it and bring it everywhere. It's nice to have a little friend following you around so you won't feel too lonely."

"Aww, is Akira feeling lonely in this huge library by herself?" he pouts.

She points the fork at him. "Stop it. I love being surrounded by books sometimes I lose track of time. So no, I'm not feeling lonely. At times I don't even remember you exist until you bring me food."

"Hey, that hurts," he says, but he chuckles anyway. "Is Madam Eurielle not here?"

She shakes her head. "Since I'm here to keep things in order she rarely comes down, but she does bring me some food and necessities sometimes."

"That's nice of her."

"She is, up until now I'm still grateful that I met her on that day."

On the day they left the palace a year ago, they went searching for a place to stay and a job to keep them surviving day to day. They went to town but Akira refused to look for a job there because she knew the chances of them bumping into the palace occupants would be very high, so they dragged their belongings to the residential area and looked around the shophouses. Yunho had managed to land a job at a restaurant that does deliveries after a few days they slept on the streets, and he was given a place to stay by the owner. Unfortunately, the owner only wanted one male worker, so Akira had to wander around alone to look for a job that can at least sustain her for the time being. Yunho had wanted to help her out, but he was too busy doing deliveries because apparently their sales immediately shot up after Yunho was assigned to be the delivery boy.