Chapter 19 - Trust and Gamble.

"As for the seen documents… Uhm… How should I explain it? It's the texture, I guess. It's like a feeling that this stack of paper had been flipped more times than other stacks or something like that."

As for this, Rei can't really explain it properly. But for those who had been doing lots of paperwork all day for years, they should know what Rei was talking about… or maybe not.

Hearing the explanation from Rei, the King laughed out a bit.

"Haha… Believe it or not, I actually understand what you were trying to say. About the texture of a piece of paper." said the King, rather impressed by Rei's explanations.

"However, I might make some mistakes sometimes, so you might still need to double-check it a bit, Your Majesty," said Rei who suddenly realised that she had passed the line.

"Don't worry about that. I appreciate your effort, I am glad to have someone to properly sort out things for me, it's always better than wasting my time to do it by myself." said the King, with a smile

"But… Pardon me, Your Majesty. Are you planning to continue working on all these documents? You look quite uncomfortable just now, and even now, you still don't look quite well, are you sure you don't want to get Dr Ben here to do some check-up? Or for the very least, take a break for today?" said Rei, who sounds concerned.

"Hmm… Are you worried about me?" said the King, who surprisingly sounds happy.

"Huh?... Of course I am worried, Your Majesty. Aside from my maids and Dr Ben, you are the only person I can trust in this palace… Ah… My deepest apologies for my rudeness." Rei apologise as she suddenly realised she had once again passed the borderline.

"Hmm? Ben? Since when you got this close with Ben?" the King asked, a bit surprised and somehow focused on the wrong point.

"Eh?" And with no doubt, Rei was confused by that question.

"Ah… Hold on, you did stay at his house for a whole week after all... Never mind, just pretend that I never asked that question. How about Satoshi? I thought he should be the person you interacted with the most. Don't you actually… trust him for a bit?" the King asked, who sounds like a teenage boy with trust issues.

"Well… I can't really say if I trusted him or not. Or rather, I don't really know him much as a person. My interaction with him is merely limited to official matters, so, he's an exception, I guess." said Rei, who actually has nothing to talk about Satoshi, since his attitude isn't as friendly as the others.

"I see. Well, it's not a bad thing to not easily trust a person. After all, trusting another person is like a gamble, just that instead of money, you gambled your own life to actually trust a person." said the King.

Rei remained silent and does not know how she should respond to it.

"Anyway, do you play board games, like chess?" the King asked, out of the blue.

"Yes, but I can only play gobang. Your Majesty, why would you want to know about that?" Rei asked.

"Well, you said that I should take a rest from my work, but I don't feel like doing nothing for the rest of the day... Gobang huh? I played it quite often, the board and the chess pieces are in the rack next to the tea rack, can you get it for me?" the King asked.

Rei sheepishly nodded…

***

Rei played about five rounds of the board game with the King and only win in the first round, and that win was not even a good win, the King purposely let her win that round.

After continue winning the board game for four rounds, the King looked at Rei with a satisfied teasing smile.

"Another round?" said the King with that slightly wicked smile.

Rei stared at the chess board, without saying anything, but it was very obvious that she got a bit upset with the continuous loss.

"I guess, that's all for today, you may return to your place and call it a day. I will be having an important meeting tomorrow, and it will probably last until evening, thus, you don't need to come over tomorrow. If you want to have a walk in the town tomorrow, I can get someone to escort you to prevent any unpleasant incident like before." said the King.

"Eh? But… Your Majesty…"

"If you are still worrying about me, Ben will be here for my daily body checkup in less than an hour. Don't worry." said the King with a reassuring smile.

Hearing this, Rei sheepishly nodded and bowed to the King before leaving the reading room…

***

Shortly after Rei left the King's reading room, Ben came. After doing his daily routine body check-up for the King, they had some small talks.

"You what? You visited her every evening? And even gave her daily body checkups? Why am I not informed about this?" the King asked, rather surprised.

"Well, you didn't even ask me anything about that. Furthermore, I thought you supposed to know that since you were the one that told me to pay attention to her health after knowing that she had been unknowingly consuming that chronic poison for years," said Ben, who is even more surprised by the King's behaviour.

"Yes, I did tell you to pay attention to her health, but I thought you were going to send someone else from the medical department for her instead of doing it by yourself… Just be honest, are you interested in her?" said the King.

"Hmm… That's an interesting question. From several different aspects, I do have a special interest in her." said Ben, without having any intention of hiding.

"Ah… I see. Now I finally understand why you would even get yourself injured just to save her." said the King, in a teasing tone.

"Shut up."

Yes, Ben is one of the very few individuals who dare to tell the King to shut up.