A Trainee (2) - 6

"H-hello?" I softly called out to her broken figure.

*sob*

*sniff*

"H-huh?"

It took her a while to register my voice calling out to her, and when she did, she immediately tried to wipe away her tears and looked up at me with a fake smile on her face.

"I-I was just practicing my acting..."

"Sigh..."

I sighed, as I now knew for a fact that she had been self conscious since two years before I had become a trainee last time around.

"Please don't tell anyone... I'll do anything..."

Hearing this, I looked back up, angrily shocked for a second, as I realized that she had misunderstood my sigh, and the fact that she had said those words so easily whilst looking at me with a sultry gaze on her face...

"..."

Hearing the uncomfortable silence, we both just stood there, frozen, contemplating what to do.

Once again, I sighed, but inwardly this time, as I took the initiative to take off my shoes and sat down on the grass next to her.

Seeing my actions, an expression of hate flashed briefly in her eyes, before she regained that sultry look.

Then, she started taking the first actions, as she reached her hands towards my chest.

"What are you doing?" I asked, gruffly.

Then, acting fool, I continued.

"My name is Kim Ha-neul and this is my first day here. What's yours?"

I introduced myself with a bright smile on my face as I looked at the stars from our spot on the grassy clearing in the forest, seemingly in wonder of them.

Suddenly realizing that I had no unsavory intentions towards her, she retracted her hands before studying me closely.

"My name is... Kim So-ra..."

Once again, she talked to me timidly, even though I had literally just told her that I was her junior.

"Kim So-ra... What a beautiful name." I muttered, continuing to look wanderlust at the stars.

"I-I didn't mean t-to..." She suddenly stuttered out.

Interrupting her, I said,

"It's fine, don't worry about your future. If you continue to do good, if you continue to try your hardest, everything will work out in the end."

Hearing myself, I couldn't help but laugh inwardly at the irony in my statement, as my life was the entire disproof of this, but still, for her, a heroine in this world, this would always be true.

"How do you know?" She asked me, suddenly curious as to why her junior was being so mysterious, like an elderly person.

"Let's just call it... a feeling."

Hearing this, she nodded and turned her head up to study the stars with me.

And, as she stared at the stars with her eyes, I sneaked some glances at her, as I fell into a daze at how beautiful the starlight reflecting off her eyes was.

So, as all the other trainees started shuffling to bed after their long, exhausting day, we continued to sit there, just admiring the beauty of the environment all around us.

After a while, I decided that it wasn't beneficial for us to stay here any longer.

"Do you think we should head back?" I asked her.

"S-sure..." She said, snapping out of her daze, before looking at her cut up feet, there being blisters from the training along with the cuts that she obtained from running through the forest.

"Do you need help?"

"Y-yeah..."

So, I did the only thing that made sense and got in front of her whilst crouching down.

I mean, I had considered the princess carry, but I thought that that was way too intimate for the current level of our relationship, so I opted for the piggyback instead.

"U-uhm..."

Smacking my forehead in my mind, I then squatted down even further as I picked her up from her seated position after realizing that she couldn't even stand up.

"T-thank you..."

"Don't thank me yet, I'm sleepy right now."

Hearing this, she knew the implications behind it, but didn't say anything and let me bring her towards the girl's dorm.

On the way, I had asked her for directions, as I obviously didn't want to reveal myself, and she happily complied, knowing that I probably wasn't a guy that couldn't control my urges from what had happened back atop that little hill.

"This building."

This time, with no stutter, she told me how to get into her dorm building without disturbing her dorm-mates, as they were all already sleeping.

And from the way that none of them had stayed up or worried about her, I knew.

'She's already being alienated? But she hasn't even gained that much weight yet!'

Silently cursing them in my mind, I then shook my head to get those useless thoughts out, and then brought So-ra to her room.

"Are there any medical supplies around?"

"Downstairs, in the living room area, there should be a red box there."

Nodding, as this was the same in the men's dorm, I quickly found it and hurried back, before starting to disinfect her cuts using a cotton ball and some alcohol.

She winced a little every time I applied some pressure, so I tried to keep my movements as gentle as possible, until all the cuts had been bandaged and she was good to go.

I knew that this wasn't enough to get her cuts to heal by tomorrow, but it would definitely speed up the healing process even with the intense training we would be doing.

Afterwards, I told her what she needed to do every day to keep her cuts from worsening, and then finally left, as I needed my sleep too.

Sneaking back into my own dorm, I cleaned myself up quietly before falling asleep as soon as I hit the sack.

...

I stared at the ceiling of my room, as I wondered why he had done it.

Feeling the soft touch of the gauze wrapped around my feet, I could only smile, as I remembered the amount of care that he had put into taking care of my feet.

'Maybe there is some hope in this world after all.'

With this one thought repeating in my mind, I kept imagining his handsome face, his quick glances at me as he tried to hide his fascination, and eventually, I fell asleep to it.