Royal Puppet Chooses the Spy

Dulled, yellowed lights cast a soft, amber glow against the dark shadows of the night. A peculiar, heavy blanket of mist crawled across the empty streets, around the little run-down shops littering the valley.

Amidst the mist, a small truck irregularly drove around the quiet, cracked streets. Repeatedly, it encircled around a particular small bar, as if waiting for the right moment to strike.

A particular young woman was absentmindedly sipping on her fifth glass of wine inside the bar, gazing at the drunk youth sitting in front of her. Then, her petal shaped lips opened, stained red like fresh blood: "Did you… ever regret that day?"

The young man before her mumbled some incorrigible words.

The woman's lips curved into a slight frown before reassuming a calm, distant expression in her chocolate brown eyes, which seemed to be fixed on an imperceptible object.

𝘈𝘴 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘥. 𝘐𝘵 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘣𝘦 𝘤𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳.

Li Na maintained the silence between them, as a thread of her supposed conscience held her back from spilling out all the burdens in her heart. But the rest of her muddled soul pushed her thoughts into the tip of her tongue as she gazed at the subtly familiar combination of deep set features, his lowered, long lashes casting graceful shadows under the harsh, yellow light.

She could faintly hear her best friend echoing repeatedly in her mind's ear about how her blind date looked really similar to her first love. But soon, her friend's soft echoes died off, and Li Na fell into a slight trance.

She widened her eyes slightly, struggling to maintain a link with reality. Nonetheless, the young man's face before her steadily seemed to blur and shakily merge with another face that had been imprinted in her mind and heart for over 2 years.

"Song?" Li Na whispered. There was a tremor in her voice, and her heart clenched. The muffled voices surrounding them disappeared, and she could only see the man in front of her.

Song gave no response, and merely shut eyes out of the world completely, lulled by sleep.

Her slender, pale white hands slowly reached out, then fell lightly within a few centimeters from his hand resting on the wooden table.

"You know, I regretted not being able to be there for you that day." She subconsciously let out a bitter smile. It grew slightly wider, as if in self-mockery.

"And, I also regretted not telling you that I liked you."

The drunk young man, if he was in his right mind at that moment, would have been on the seventh heaven if he heard the top beauty of the university professing her attraction to him.

But the one Li Na was opening up her heart to certainly was not him.

"Li Naaaa-" A sweet, loud, but wobbly voice, sounded in Li Na's ear, forcing more of her mind back into reality.

Li Na shook her head to dispel the fog in her mind. Feeling a soft weight, she turned her head and found her drunk best friend resting her small chin on her shoulder. She also glanced at her friend's equally drunk date lying wasted at the corner.

Sighing, Li Na patted her friend's head. "I think it's time for us to go back, Mi Lan."

"Okaaayyy-" Mi Lan clung onto Li Na's arm as she shook their dates awake and payed the bill.

Soon, she was walking out of the bar with three zombies wobbling close behind her.

Li Na tried her best to not turn into a zombie herself, frequently stopping to clear her mind. She was fortunate to be able to hold her alcohol a bit more than her company.

The four of them finally reached the end of the sidewalk to wait for a passing taxi. When they stopped, Li Na couldn't help but let the dense fog resting above the silent street pervade her mind.

She thought of a scene, more than 2 years ago, a bit like this one.

She was sitting inside a restaurant, glancing at the night sky littered with twinkling stars as her heart was beating rapidly with anticipation. But right at the moment she looked down, her heart had stopped, frozen cold as she watched the love of her life shatter under the weight and force of a reckless truck speeding through a red light.

She gazed at a single, twinkling star that strangely shone especially clear through the night's mist, a stubborn lump in her throat.

Ever since then, her heart was in pieces; no one could mend her regret that she deeply felt from that incident.

If only she stayed outside for just a minute longer, could she have prevented his death?

If she was given one more chance to revisit that scene, she would have waited by the side of the street by the stop light, waiting, waiting...

Just when she finished that thought, she heard loud horns tearing away the silence of the night.

Jerking her eyes down from the shining star, she saw her blind date wander into the street as an irregularly fast truck speeded toward him with no signs of stopping.

It was like the scene that formed the broken portions of her heart was replaying again, but this time, Li Na pushed her feet forward with urgency, and it seemed like time was slowing down. The young man wobbling drunkenly on the street merged again with the man who had been long engraved into her mind.

As she pushed him out of the way, numerous scenes of that man replayed in her mind, stopping at an image of him smiling at her with his deep, steady eyes...

Finally, as the truck tore through and shattered her body, Li Na felt the pieces of her heart come closer together.