"Father, I'll head out now." Lisa screamed, holding baskets of fresh new vegetables, standing in the doorway.
Lisa was already about to go without waiting for her father's reply when Marco emerged from the kitchen in a hurry.
"Wait for a second, Lalisa." Marco uttered, making his daughter look back at him.
Marco enveloped Lisa in a hug as he uttered, "Take care, okay?"
Lisa smiled at her father and hugged him back for a brief moment.
"And so are you, father. Please don't push yourself too hard." Lisa said, then waved her hand at him before she finally went out of their house.
It has been one week already since her father started acting weirdly. As far as she can remember, her father wasn't usually touchy and this sweet, but suddenly, one day when she woke up, her father started acting like that. She isn't complaining though. She was just surprised and felt that his actions were odd.
He was making her feel that he had done something wrong and that he was really grateful to Lisa to be alive. Lisa had never brought that up and just continued shrugging her shoulders.
"H-Hey Lisa. Are you going to the market now?" Lisa glanced at her side and saw the prince, walking closer to her while scratching his cheek shyly and refusing to look Lisa directly in the eyes.
"Your Highness." Lisa called and bowed down before the prince. "Yes, I'll go to the market now, Your Highness."
"Nice timing, I was about to head towards the capital too. Do you mind if I walk with you?"
Lisa gave the prince a bright smile, slightly shaking her head. "It was fine, Your Highness. I don't mind."
"Then let me help you with those baskets." The prince stretched his arms and snatched the baskets from Lisa's hands.
"No, it was fine, Your Highness. Those baskets weren't heavy at all. I can carry them on my own." Lisa attempted to get the baskets back but the prince held them tightly and pulled his hands away from the blonde.
"Oh, come on. At least let me do this and also, didn't I tell you to stop calling me that? You can just call me Jungkook when we're alone."
Lisa shook her head again, but this time more violently. "I can't possibly do that, Your Highness. That would be absurd."
The prince heaved a long sigh and shrug his shoulders, "You sure are persistent. Well, whatever. You can address me however you want and in whatever you are comfortable with."
Lisa just smiled and continued walking beside the prince.
This isn't the first time that the prince appeared before her. This wasn't the first time he offered to help her. For the whole week that passed, he would always just appear out of nowhere and walk toward Lisa as if he'd been waiting for Lisa to walk past.
Sometimes Lisa just wanted to assume that the prince was doing all those things on purpose- that maybe the prince liked her. But of course, Lisa finds it hard to believe.
After all, she knew that the prince was in love with some other girl that had the same name as her. And also, she was convinced that there was no way the prince would ever like a woman like her. She was not just some ordinary girl, but the poorest of the poorest.
Lisa found it weird, though. She found the prince peculiar because, after that encounter in the city of X, where he even hugged her, he was acting all familiar to her. He's acting as if he knew her all along even though Lisa was certain that she had never encountered the prince before they accidentally met in X. It's not like Lisa was grouching about it.
She just really found it weird.
"Anyway Lisa, perhaps, has someone visited you for the past week?" The prince asked, suddenly becoming fidgety.
The blonde frowned, not understanding the prince's question. She also wasn't sure who the prince was referring to when he said the word, someone.
Lisa paused and tried to recall the days that had passed. After two seconds of thinking, Lisa shook her head, staring at the prince.
"No one, Your Highness."
It was now the prince's turn to frown. The someone' that he's referring to was his ultimate rival, his father's younger sister, named Jennie. Lisa didn't just forget him. Both he and Jennie were back to square one, but he found it strange that, up until now, Jennie was still not doing anything to make Lisa remember her or at least win her heart again.
Based on his conversation with Jennie when he visited her, he was sure that Jennie hadn't given up yet. He can tell that based on the Feline beauty's expression.
The prince had prepared for this because he thought that he would have a heated battle with Jennie. It's not like he was worried about her or actually wanted Jennieto make a move, he just found it uncanny, that's all.
He was serious with the words that he said to Jennie. He really is trying to make things right. This time he wanted to go slow and wait patiently. This time he didn't want to rush things to make sure that he would be able to make Lisa fall for him. Then they would get their happy ending.
"Your Highness?"
The prince flinched in surprise, snapping out of his thoughts when he heard Lisa's voice and felt Lisa's hand touch his arm in worry.
"O-Oh, Lisa, is there something wrong?"
Lisa pursed her lips a little bit, "I should be the one asking you that, Your Highness. You suddenly went quiet and scrunched up your brows after I answered your question. Is there any problem? Are those baskets perhaps heavy? I told you, I can carry them on my own, Your Highness."
Lisa tried to take the baskets away from the prince's hands but the prince again resisted and moved his arms away from Lisa's hands.
While shaking his head, he said, "No. It's not like that. I just remembered something and these baskets weren't heavy at all. I was fine, you don't have to worry about me."
Lisa just nodded her head lightly, returning the smile that the prince had given to her after a second. Silence again fell upon them until the prince asked another question.
"Lisa, what would you do if you had forgotten a very important person in your life and you just remembered her existence when you had already fallen in love with someone else?" The prince asked, looking so serious.
"What did you mean when you said a very important person in my life, Your Highness? Are you perhaps referring to an ex-lover, Your Highness?"
The prince eagerly nodded his head.
Lisa saw a glint of sadness and hope in his eyes. She wondered what those were for. She wondered what the prince wanted to hear from her. She wondered what the prince wanted to
accomplish by asking that question.
The teenager looked up, staring at the blue sky as the cool air blew her blonde hair to her back.
Lisa didn't know how she would answer the question. She has never fallen in love yet. She had never seen the beauty of that four-letter word called love. She had never looked into someone with such gentle and lovely eyes before.
Falling in love had never crossed her mind before, or so she thought. She was convinced that her heart had never quickly or loudly pulsated before, but she found it odd. She found it odd that her heart suddenly felt a pang of pain when she heard the question.
It's like it reacted to the question. It's like it knew the answer to the question. It's like it wanted to say something but something or maybe someone had forbidden it to do that.
After thinking about the question for several long seconds while losing herself in the beauty of the blue sky, Lisa finally looked back at the prince, smiling apologetically at him.
"I don't really know how I should answer the question, since I have never been in a relationship, Your Highness. But if I was in a position to choose between my past and my present-"
Lisa looked up at the sky once again as she answered, "I'll probably choose my present because people say that the present is way more important than the past, right?"
The prince's eyes twinkled in happiness and hope.
That means I have a chance, right?
Jungkook was about to say something when Lisa beat him into it.
"Or maybe I'll choose my past. There must be a reason why I forgot her. I don't know, I'm not really sure, but I'm hoping that I will never be in that situation. I hope I will never have to choose between two people."
The prince's lips curved down at Lisa's statement as sadness enveloped his eyes. His mood immediately plummeted as he looked down at his feet.
Lisa didn't answer his question directly. There's no clear answer, but her last statement hit him.
What does Lisa even mean when she said that she was hoping that she wouldn't be in that situation- that she wouldn't need to choose between two people?
Does it mean that Lisa doesn't want to fall in love with someone else aside from Jennie?
Does It mean that I still don't have any chance?