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After Jung Sook realized that Soo Ho was the man whom she’d run into out on the street, she gasped, “You!”

“Me?” he queried, startled.

She shook her head and pulled away from him.  Disgusted that he was touching her.  Just how many girls had those hands touched?

Soo Ho was clearly a womanizer.  She wondered how many girls he’d mistreated.  As far as she could tell, he’d merely kissed the girls in her class.  But what of the others?  The older girls whom she’d seen him pursuing.  She’d even witnessed a couple of them slapping him.  Out on the street.  In full view of the townspeople.  Just what exactly had the boy done to earn such treatment?

Kissed one of their friends?  Or had he trespassed far beyond a simple buss on the lips?

She didn’t really want to find out.  Not firsthand anyway.  But she knew that it couldn’t have been anything good.

So she’d steered clear of him.  As much as was possible. 

But she and Soo Ho seemed to have this uncanny habit of being in the same place at the same time.

Now as she stared up at him, she had to wonder…

Was every man after what he could get from a girl?

“I’m not the one who ran into you!” he ejaculated.  “It was quite the other way around.”

As she gazed up at him, she suddenly noticed how pinched his face appeared.  And his eyes looked puffy too.

Frowning, she queried abruptly, “Have you been crying?”

“The queen is dead,” he announced just as curtly.

She gasped.  “What?”  Her eyes searched his face.  “She’s dead?  What happened?”

“She was poisoned,” he answered bitterly.

“Poisoned?  By whom?”  

Her heart had just shot out of her chest.  As a chill had crawled up her spine.  She didn’t like contemplating death by poison.  Nor did she care to be so close to someone delivering such evil news.

He shook his head.  “I shouldn’t have said anything.  That was privileged information.  I – I’ve already said too much.”

“But…how do you know this?” her inquisitive mind asked him.

“I was her bodyguard for the last few days,” he admitted grudgingly.

“You were?”  She was genuinely surprised. 

Why would anyone ask this…child…to guard the queen dowager?

“Why do you sound so shocked?  I am a hwarang of the first caliber.”  He drew himself up to his full height while puffing out his chest.

“Are you really?” she questioned him doubtfully.

Offended, he simply stared at her with his mouth hanging open.

“You’re going to catch flies,” she murmured.

His brow furrowed in confusion.  “What?”

“If you continue to stand there gaping at me, a fly is going to find its way into your mouth,” she enunciated very clearly for the poor boy.  He was obviously missing a few essential brain cells.

His mouth snapped shut as he glared at her.  Then he spun away from her and continued on his way.  She turned to watch him go.  He was stomping down the road with his head held high.  But after his ire at her burned away, she noticed that his head sagged once more.  He was casting his gaze at the ground again.  Was he truly upset about the queen’s death?

Jung Sook considered him for a few moments.  If he had been the queen’s bodyguard, then he must have gotten very close to her over the past few days – physically if not also emotionally.  Was he as devastated by her death as his posture seemed to indicate?

Now Jung Sook felt bad.  She hadn’t treated him very kindly.  And if he had somehow befriended the queen – even in the smallest way possible – then he must be very sad indeed.

Jung Sook sighed.  She should have been kinder to the silly boy.  She shrugged her shoulders.  It was too late now.  He was halfway down the road.

She doubted that she’d see him again anyway….