"Hot and bothered," San tutted, repeating my words yet again as I squirmed underneath his gaze.
"Well we can't have that, can we?" he said, and I shivered again as he stepped even closer to me.
His body felt warm against mine, which was new, but that could also just have been my own body temperature going haywire as my mind began to swirl with thoughts about the ice elemental.
He was standing so close, his body pressing against mine, that I felt like I almost couldn't breathe as I stared into his beautiful grey eyes.
I had to look away.
He moved his head to my side, whispering in my ear which only made me shiver again.
"I had no idea you felt that way," he said, his voice so low that it was barely anything but a breath that ghosted over the skin on my neck, leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake.
"I'll keep that in mind, then," he said, and a moment of silence passed between us before he continued.
The only sounds in the quiet forest were our soft breathing and the sound of my irregular heartbeat.
"Goodnight, princess," San finally whispered, pushing himself off the tree as he walked back out of the forest and into the clearing where the others were heading off to sleep.
Leaving me behind, completely breathless and all alone
My heart hammering, my mind blank, and worst of all, flustered.
When morning finally came, I was awoken by the crescent sun's rays' blinding light hitting my face, warming my cheeks, and probably turning them rosy.
I rubbed my eyes, yawning and stretching my arms above my head as I curled up closer to Seongwha who I had fallen asleep with last night.
I didn't want to be alone with my thought.
I couldn't be alone with my thoughts.
And because I didn't want to cry over my mother's death, or think about San's words from last night, I had snuggled up close to the darkness elemental as he had always made me feel safe and content.
"Yeosang, Wooyoung, and Jongho have gone out to look for more food. They thought it was better to save the rest of our provisions for the trip and eat something else in the meantime."
Seongwha's voice was nothing more than a whisper.
He sounded tired, and I completely understood him, simply nodding my head and yawning again.
I turned my back to the ravenette, and he followed my movements, laying on his side as well as he hugged me from the back.
The way he pressed against me made me feel small and safe in his embrace.
I couldn't help but crack a smile as a series of images and memories popped into my head.
"This reminds me of the sleepovers that we used to have," I mumbled.
"Except for the lack of comfortable mattresses and pillows, and the overwhelming smell of grass and dirt here."
Seongwha laughed, though the sound was muffled by my hair as he pulled me even closer and planted a small kiss on the top of my head.
I opened my eyes and took a moment to admire the clearing in front of us, watching how the morning sun's rays covered everything in a warm golden light.
Without realizing it, my gaze flickered to San who was sitting a little further away from Seonghwa and me, locking eyes with San's grey ones as they flashed with an emotion I couldn't quite place.
I immediately felt annoyed again, wanting to piss of San and rip down that cool facade he had been trying so hard to uphold.
Seongwha wrapped his arm around me, pressing me closer as he snuggled his face into the crook of my neck.
San's eyes glinted with rage, and I immediately felt a sense of achievement wash over me.
I smirked at the ice elemental, shuffling closer to Seongwha who hummed contently at the action, mumbling something into my ear that I didn't quite catch.
I stuck my tongue out at San, and he turned away with a huff as he crossed his arms over his chest.
I stayed with Seonghwa for a couple more minutes before finally deciding to get up, much to the darkness elemental's dismay, and pulled my bag into my lap.
I pulled out the crown that I had been trying so hard to hide and forget about since my coronation and took a moment to study it.
It made me feel weird, holding it, watching the way the gold glinted in the sunlight.
The red gemstone in the middle shone almost blindingly as I turned the crown in my hands, reminding me of the task at hand.
Now we just needed one more, I told myself.
It didn't take long for the others to return.
Mingi was pushed toward the sad excuse of the bonfire by Hongjoong who looked almost unnaturally awake in the sunlight, practically glowing.
Yunho carried a handful of flasks and bottles with him, dripping water on the grass as he went.
I put the crown back into the bag, deciding to save the admiring for another time, and joined the others by the fire which was barely anything but embers by now.
We ate more fruit and enjoyed the nice weather.
There wasn't as much as a single cloud in the purple sky, luckily, I thought.
"District 1 is pretty far away," Yeosang said, chewing on half an apple that Jongho had broken off for him.
"How long will it take us to reach it? We only have four days left now."
"It's not much further than the distance between District 4 and District 8," Wooyoung said, his mouth also stuffed to the brim with food.
"And we made that journey in a day or so. This should be somewhat the same if nothing goes wrong along the way."
"A day or so," I mumbled, peeling away at yet another orange.
I had taken a strong liking to the fruit and its sweet flavour as it reminded me of the beautiful jungle that we had left behind not too long ago.
"Well considering how far we came yesterday, does that mean late afternoon or something, then?" Yunho asked, turning his attention to Seongwha who nodded.
"I feel a lot better as well, less exhausted, so maybe we can shadow travel some of the way as well."
The others nodded in agreement, and I couldn't deny the fact that it sounded like a solid plan if we were to cover as much distance today as possible.
But I couldn't help but shiver as I reminded myself of the eerie voice that always seemed to echo at the back of my head each time we shadow traveled.
Daios' voice, I had realized, when he came to deliver the message through the thunderstorm in the jungle.
"Well, since everyone is well-rested and has finished eating, should we get going then?" Hoongjoong suggested, making a move to get off the ground.
Everyone turned their attention to me, all eyes resting on my face as I hesitated, my mouth completely stuffed with orange.
"I-" I stammered, swallowing the fruit as I felt my heartbeat pick up, furrowing my eyebrows in confusion.
"What are you looking at me for?"
"Well, it's your call." Jongho said as if he was simply stating the obvious,
"Should we get going then?"
"Why is it my-" I began, and then it dawned on me.
"Oh, well, yea." I cleared my throat.
"Let's go then."
I felt flustered again, both because of the attention and because of the responsibility that had been put on my shoulders.
The others still saw me as their leader.
As someone who was in charge, and someone who was trustworthy and brave enough to make the decisions regarding the quest.
They were putting an awful lot of trust in me considering how small and incapable I felt compared to all of them.
Mingi stood up from the ground and made his way over to me, ruffling my hair with a warm smile.
"Your greatest weakness," he said, repeating his words from last night.
"Always so straightforward," I mumbled, but I returned his smile.
We continued to walk together, Mingi and I, as the landscape changed from billowing fields of wheat into vast grasslands and hills covered in flowers.
I could almost imagine Agora in the distance, and I felt a pang of sadness hit my heart at the thought of how bad of state the capital would probably be in.
Especially considering how dreadful the situation had already been when I ran away from my coronation.
"What are you thinking about, y/n?"
"Hm?" I asked, turning my head back to face the redhead again.
"It looked like you were lost in thought," Mingi said, ruffling my hair with a warm smile on his lips.
"So what were you thinking about?"
"Lots of things, actually," I sighed, closing my eyes for a second as I tried to make my thoughts and worries stop spinning around in my head.
"But they all eventually melt into more or less the same thing," I admitted.
"Which is what?" Mingi asked, his striking purple eyes staring at me with expectation and that sort of kindness that they always seemed to give off.
I felt like telling him everything when he looked at me like that.
"The capital, my family, my people, and how the hell I'm going to save Avalon from that freak," I told him, feeling how, as the words slipped past my lips, it felt like a weight had been taken off my shoulders.
It definitely helped to badmouth Daios as well.
"It's all going to work out somehow," Mingi said, the words also made me anxious.
"You always say that, though," I mumbled, "all of you."
"You always say that I'm strong enough, or that, because you have my back, I'll be able to take him down. But how do you really know that?"
"Well," Mingi huffed, hesitating for a moment.
"We don't, but we want to, and I think that's enough. No one knows what the future holds, all we can do is fight with everything we have to shape it into what we want it to be."
I looked back up at those purple eyes of his, admiring the way they glinted in the sunlight.
"You really are something, Mingi," I told him.
The look in his eyes immediately changed, but I realized too late that his signature mischievous smile was beginning to show as well.
With a quick move of his hand, the ground beneath me disappeared.
I let out a squeak of surprise as I was thrown across the field, huffing as I felt a pair of strong arms wrap their way around me.
Hongjoong looked down at me with surprise, his head of white hair shielding me from the sun and making it seem like he was glowing.
"Where did you come from?" he asked, smiling at me though still looking more surprised than anything else.
"Mingi!" I yelled, ignoring the light elemental's question as I glared daggers at the redhead who was now standing maybe a hundred meters away.
I knew that he would never hurt me, but the man was still something of a trickster, and he simply laughed at me as he sent another gust of wind in my direction with a snap of his fingers.
Hongjoong lost his balance, and the two of us tumbled to the ground, disappearing beneath the tall grass.
Completely out of sight.
Hongjoong was holding himself up with his arms on either side of my head, staring down at me with wide eyes as he covered my body with his own.
A strange sort of silence fell over us.
"You know, y/n, I'm-" Hongjoong began, but before he got the chance to finish his sentence, he let out a hiss of pain as he jerked his hand back from the ground, looking at it in horror.
I shivered as I realized that it was covered in a thin layer of ice and snow crystals, making the entire palm of his hand glitter in the light from the crescent sun.
He furrowed his brows in confusion.
I felt my heartbeat pick up, suddenly feeling more nervous than anything else.
We both knew exactly who was behind this.
A/N:
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