섬 참고 / First Act

The waves of the ocean are heavy upon your shoulders, adding to the weight of the cement blocks in the backpack slung on them. Your tongue occasionally catches the jittery taste of saltwater everytime you take another step to wade across it.

Your throat is too dry that even saltwater is a welcome beverage.

So you swallow. The salt pricks your throat like the thorns of the rose you secretly picked from the royal garden.

The sun high above you tans your skin. Your wounds and previous sunburns are forced to suffer the harsh stinging salt of the ocean. But even as your chin struggles to even lift itself above the surface, you repeat over and over in your head: “ This is the final challenge. All that you have to do is complete it, and you’ll be a Guardian at last.”

Training to become a Guardian for the royals is the most difficult job of all, but the most important. Every one of the six princesses who rule the land need around-the-clock protection from the terrors that ranged from light to borderline dangerous in the life of a privileged woman: paparazzi, stalkers, assasination attempts, and more. And to fulfill those needs, men and women from all over the land such as yourself are subjected to heavy, and often brutal training.

It’s been years of practice, and this can be the last day you have to endure any more of it. But the end to the training can only happen if you complete the test of the ocean in under five minutes.

That very test involves a backpack filled with bricks, tight camouflage, and a heart threatening to stop any second now.

Every one of your bones ache like hell. But you swear you’re almost there; your blurry vision can detect the promise of a shore. So you lift your feet beneath the waves and take big strides with the remaining strength left in your body.

One. Two. Three. F-Four? And fiiiiiii —

The counting of the steps you take messes up the remaining seconds you’ve listed in your head. But by what you can comprehend, you only have over a minute left.

The waves colored with your own blood refuse to allow you to cross them without a challenge. And unfortunately, that challenge they poise can make you lose everything you’ve worked for.

How do you defeat the ocean, with its dangerous current threatening to bring you down to its sunken ships and corals?

You have to become one with it.

That reminder lights up a bulb above your head. As the splashes of sea water from the struggles of your classmates taking the challenge with you slap against your skin, you take in a deep breath from your nose. You imagine it entering your nostrils and giving life to the blood flowing inside you, energizing your system.

You close your eyes.

섬 참고…

DIVE.

The backpack floats above you like a rubber ducky. Now, with the loss of its weight on your back, you place your hands on the wet fabric. Then, you start to blow bubbles in the water as you use the backpack to get yourself across the water. You kick your aching legs up and down while you push the backpack with all your might.

You start to count.

One.

Your head knocks badly against the bricks inside the backpack. You try to ignore it, but with your other injuries already being painful enough, this one feels like a bad concussion.

Two.

The nothingness beneath your legs makes you nervous. Although you know how to swim (it’s impossible not to know how to, given your years of training), the doom just one wrong move could bring you to makes your anxiety reach its peak.

But you just keep swimming. You’ll get there eventually. You’ll get there. You’ll get there, you’ll get there, you’ll get there—

And threeeeeeeeeeee—

Instead of a brick, your head meets higher sand.

Yes! Rise from the water like a dolphin, although you can’t be one because of how you are gasping for breath. Applause is the first thing that meets your ears that are blocked by sand and water.

“Trainee 092402 has passed the test!” the general announces loudly. “On this day of the Lord, approved by myself, Trainee 092402 has moved up to the position of official royal Guardian of Her Majesty Princess Gaeul!”

You did it. You actually did it. You’re finally a Guardian! After all those months of torture, you’ve gotten to your goal.

And even when you’re as limp as a piece of seaweed on the wet shore, you cannot help but smile.

—-

New uniform, new bandages, new wounds.

Adapting to change is one of the things the palace trained you to do, but it still feels odd when you gaze at yourself in the mirror after a quick shower and first aid. Especially in the dorm room you’ve slept and cried in in the last few years, knowing that you’ll soon have to leave it behind.

Your reflection isn’t the one that makes this whole thing feel strange. You expected your skin to have gashes from training; there’s one long wound on your palm and a slightly bleeding scratch at your cheek that has been bandaged. There’s even a scar from the time a stray bullet from the other group of trainees found its home in your thigh.

Your eyes meet your reflection, studying it closely. You look… older. Not in the sense that would have you worrying about wrinkles and age but in the way that you look grown up. Mature, even. The fat in your cheeks are gone, and the unsure look in your eyes has dissolved.

You wonder if looking older means that, perhaps, the training has made you older too and transformed you into a stronger man that is a far cry from the anxious boy of a yesterday that’s difficult to remember.

A brief knock on your door breaks the trance. In the mirror, a reflection of a young man in the same uniform as you appears behind the door. From the slight smirkish smile he wears, it’s easy to recognize him as Kim Youngjae, a fellow Guardian.

“Are you done? The princess is waiting for you,” he is quick to inform, although he fails to acknowledge the fact that he did not wait for your permission to enter.

You don’t mind though. You’re used to his antics by now. “Yes, I’ll be sure to thank her for her patience.”

“You’re lucky, man. Princess Gaeul is the most forgiving of them all. Princess Yujin is too, but she’s the one with a slightly more iron fist.”

“My dear Youngjae,” you say, cracking a slight smile, “wouldn’t it be treason to say such a thing?”

“Not at all, is it treason to state the truth? I mean it quite literally; Yujin is not afraid to throw a punch.” He points to the stitches on his cheek.

You don’t doubt Youngjae’s words. He might be a joker, but he’d know Yujin well because he’s one of her Guardians. He’s been in this job for eight years, and you’ve only been a Guardian for three hours. The first hour was one you spent showering and fixing yourself up. The second and third weren’t easy to remember because you were asleep and resting.

He leads you out of your room and down the corridor. Fine minimalist colors make up most of the walls and floors. They’re made that way so that the shimmering gold frames of portraits stand out even more. They stand out kind of like a sore thumb if a sore thumb was more glamorous.

A family portrait of the six princesses catches your eye as you walk. Cleverly photographed so that the aesthetics of the background royal garden and beauties of the girls are fully captured, the roses complement their uniforms like a sword to a shield.

The favorite of the populace for her kindness and elegance, Jang Wonyoung stands in the center with her hands poised on her hips. A crown rests on her head that matches the structure of the others as well: gray, yet sure to catch the eye because of its glimmer. Beside her is Rei, the only one of the princesses to clearly show Japanese descent. Sitting at her feet with a rose in between her fingers is the blonde-haired Jiwon along with the second eldest, Yujin.

And there, at the corner, is Kim Gaeul.

You never fully understood why Gaeul is always ushered to the corner or the back in paintings and photographs. To you, she is the most beautiful of the princesses. Her ears are her most endearing features, ones that hold back her long locks of black hair.

You almost bump into the palace guards protecting Gaeul’s chambers because of how long you gawk at her in the portrait. That’s one trait you’ll have to improve in the future; a Guardian must never let himself get swayed easily by distractions, no matter how big or small.

After you salute the twin guards, you and Youngjae pause at the door.