Kintsugi // ATEEZ [Ishihara Sequel] ✔

49 Servant

They hold their breaths as they see the person casually walking into the dining room, her pink hair a point of attraction as it bobs up and down with her every move. Their eyes trail her again as she plops onto the seat, bowing slightly to the rulers before she pushes back the sleeves of her oversized cotton shirt, reaching out for the ladle to get some soup for herself.

"I thought that you planned to go back after lunch," Wooyoung speaks up first, breaking the silence as he eyes Sara. "But you're joining us for dinner, looking more than comfortable."

"I was," Sara shrugs, "but I figured why not stay a little longer." A mischievous twinkle in her eyes appears as she continues, "I get to eat more delicious food, enjoy some company and annoy you more." She clicks her tongue as she lifts up her eyebrows.

"Ugh," Wooyoung grumbles. "How amazing," but as his eyes flick to Seonghwa, who's looking mighty and healthy, he relents. "But at least you did keep your promise to cure my brother."

"It's my pleasure."

Sara wiggles her eyebrows as she slurps on the soup, humming in satisfaction as it's rare for her to taste someone else's cooking. All the time, it has always been her own cooking and even then, she wouldn't call herself a master chef. At least what she cooks is edible for herself and so far, she has never gotten any food poisoning. So that's an achievement.

"Treat yourself at home," Akira says, smiling as she sees Seonghwa taking some potatoes from her plate before he cuts them up for her, sliding them back to her plate. He squeezes her thigh, tilting his head towards the cut-up potatoes. She lightly chuckles.

Yeosang, Hongjoong and Mingi look at each other as they lift up their eyebrows, secret smiles on their faces as they see how happy Akira and Seonghwa look together. Now that he's finally released from the curse, it seems like she's trying to make up all the time they lost together without minding the public display of affection her husband is showing.

"Trust me," Sara laughs, "I will. I was thinking of visiting the winter festival in town. It seemed fun."

"Ooh, can we come along?" Wooyoung utters. "We didn't get to see what it was about that day."

"Not you," Sara says, to which the others laugh.

Yunho looks across the long table, heart at ease looking at their smiling faces, knowing that even though three more days their palace is about to be under attack, it's nice to see them act normally. If before this they're only serious in making sure that everyone is orderly, acting like this helps him to take his mind off anything worrying, even more so as he looks at the ones from Nyla caught up in their banter with Sara.

"Now that Akira's pregnant," Seonghwa speaks up, leaning his head on her shoulder as he grins, "I'm going to have to take care of her more."

There's a long pause as the five young masters, including Jongho, look at the couple with jaws dropped and eyes bulged, before they look at each other. Wooyoung reacts the most as his utensils clang on the plate when he drops them.

"Akira!" Wooyoung screeches. "You're pregnant?!"

"You didn't tell us you're pregnant," Mingi says through a pout. "We could've prepared ourselves earlier to become uncles."

Yeosang, Jongho and Hongjoong remain speechless, even though their expressions show that they're beyond happy to hear about the news.

Akira chuckles awkwardly, glaring at Seonghwa, who realizes that he has made a mistake.

"Well," Akira utters, realizing that there's no turning back. "It's been a few weeks, almost a month, I guess." She glances at Wooyoung, "I guess that's why my body wasn't that great when we went to Ileara. I fell sick on the way back, remember?"