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Kiran pulled the fourth note from the tree.  This man was serious.  She hadn’t even written him a reply yet.  Not so much as one word.  Yet.  Here he was writing her a book.  Of poems, it seemed.

She had just today deciphered the first note.  She pulled it from her pocket and read it for the umpteenth time.  It was a poem.  In fact, she was pretty sure they were all poems.

“Lovely as a rainbow,

You do make my heart glow.

My love for you does flow

Wherever you, love, go.”

She sighed.  It was so beautiful.  He’d compared her to a rainbow.  He’d called her lovely.  Had anyone ever called her lovely before?  She shook her head.  She didn’t think so.  

And he had declared his love for her.  Twice.  In one poem.  She was sighing.  But that wasn’t all.  

She pulled another slip of paper from her pocket, and a smile lit up her face as her eyes perused it.

“A beauty so sublime, 

You do make my heart climb.

Every day, all the time.

You even make me rhyme.”

Maybe these reading lessons were worth her time after all.

The third missive was unearthed from her pocket next. 

“Lass, do you love me too?

Whatever shall I do?

Your heart I wish to woo.

Will you look my way too?”

Now she opened the fourth note and began to read.  But she was quickly frustrated.  There were several characters she didn’t recognize.  It was time for another reading lesson with Namjoon.

—

Namjoon stepped into the library.  Kiran was already waiting for him.  She was standing, staring out the window.  At the ornamental tree that grew outside her bedroom window.

Namjoon approached her silently from behind.  His eyes slid over her long, midnight waves.  Her hair cascaded all the way down past her waist.  Briefly, he wondered what it would feel like to bury his hands and face in it.  But he banished the thought as soon as it entered his mind.

When he was standing directly behind her, he bent and whispered into her ear, “What’s so fascinating in the courtyard?”

She jumped a mile.  And spun around to stand face to face with him.

“Namjoon!  You startled me!” Her hand had flown up to cover her heart.  Which felt like it was exploding out of her chest.

He smiled down at her.  “I beg your pardon, your highness.  I did not mean to startle you.”

Her eyes grew wide as she stared up into his mesmerizing chocolate eyes.  She relived the moment that had just terrified her, rewiring her brain to recognize that it was Namjoon whose breath had just slid over her ear.  She closed her eyes and re-enacted the whole scene in her mind’s eye.  She smiled with pleasure as she did so.  She also reacted quite differently in her imagination…

“Why, Joonie, I’m staring at our tree!  The one from which you’ve hung all the beautiful love notes you’ve been sending me.  Can you help me to interpret the latest one?”

Then she wound her arms around his neck and drew his head close to hers.  She lifted her face for his kiss of bliss…

“Princess Kiran,” Namjoon was waving his hand in front of her face.  Attempting to gain her attention once more.

He’d lost her again.  He sighed.  This happened all too frequently.  Some handsome princes really needed to come visit the palace so that this little minx would stop dreaming of him.  She was putting him in danger every time she batted those beautiful eyelashes at him.  Why couldn’t she see it?

She blinked.  “Oh!  I have a list of words I need to learn today!”

He quirked a dark eyebrow.  Apparently, she was taking her reading lessons seriously finally!

“You’ve found some good books to read, eh?” he queried.

Oh!  He was a sly one!  Acting like he knew nothing of his love notes.

“Indeed!” she murmured.  “I need to learn how to write a few sentences too…”

A while later, after he had taught her all the characters that she’d asked him about, she inquired about writing her own sentences.

“How do I say, ‘Your words fill me with bliss?’”

“Princess, what exactly are you reading?”  He was suddenly concerned that she had found a forbidden manuscript somewhere.

“It’s not anything I’ve read.  I am…attempting to write poetry,” she explained, proud of her own brilliance.

It was the truth too.  But a truth that didn’t require an explanation.

“You are trying to write your own poetry?” Namjoon speared her with a quizzical gaze.  “What has gotten into you?”

“What?  I’m a young girl who loves poetry.  What’s wrong with that?”

“Absolutely nothing.  It’s just odd.  You’ve always been, well, a bit of a tomboy.  More interested in playing outside than in reading a book.  I think if you didn’t have that private courtyard to escape to or its trees to climb, you would have been lashed long ago for leaving your quarters to sneak outside to play with your friends on the hillside.”

She gazed up at him.  But she couldn’t argue.  The man spoke the truth.  

“What’s wrong with loving the outdoors?” She turned to gaze out the window.  “Ooh!” She jumped from her chair and ran to the window.  “Joonie!  Did you see it?  The beautiful butterfly that just floated by the window?!  Oh!  Can we please go into the courtyard and see if we can get it to land on one of our fingers?”

He found her irresistible in that moment.  That childlike innocence.  A sweetness her sisters lacked.  An awareness of life beyond these four walls.  He sighed.

“All right, princess, but only if you practice writing your poetry with me while we’re outside.”

“Deal!” she shouted before skipping towards the door that led to the courtyard.

The girl was too bouncy by half, he reflected wryly.