A while after becoming Captain
He watches in amusement as the new recruit—Lee Jihye, he believes her name was—walks up boldly to an unassuming Yoo Joonghyuk. He gets why that brat likes her. Poor Yoo Joonghyuk.
Said brat watches from his side with no lack of interest. It’s so different from his usual expression, Kim Dokja wants to puke. He slaps his head.
“What?!” the brat’s expression turns annoyed, glaring at his brother.
Kim Dokja smiles. Now, that’s better.
“Why are you smiling? Masochist.” He returns to looking at the pair in the centre of the mess hall.
Sighing, Kim Dokja follows suit.
It appears Jihye had lost confidence after walking up to him. Kim Dokja knows Joonghyuk probably noted her presence—that guy has crazy awareness—but he also knew that as long as she was not a threat, Joonghyuk would not bother addressing her.
Feeling mischievous, he mildly considered the effects of his intervention.
Yeah, he didn’t care.
“OI, NEW RECRUIT!” He shouts. Half the cafeteria turns to look at him as well as Jihye and Joonghyuk. The knight’s face of pure exasperation does nothing to deter the prince. The attention felt mildly nice. “Yeah, you, Lee Jihye, right?”
It’s been a few weeks since that girl with the ponytail asked him to take her in as his apprentice. He left her there, obviously. Why does she want to be his apprentice, anyway? Hasn’t she heard of how cruel he is?
Unfortunately, she started following him around after that.
He speeds up. She follows.
He already knows from the prince that he has an ‘annoyingly’ quick gait, which is only ‘worsened’ by his long legs. But the girl manages to keep up. She’s got strong willpower, he’ll give her that. What’s up with him attracting all these uselessly stubborn people?
On the training field, Yoo Joonghyuk glances to the side to see the ponytail girl trying to copy him from a distance. He grunts in frustration. She’s not even doing it right.
He looks on for a bit longer, then gives in to the strange feeling in his heart. The girl reminds him of his younger self, trying to copy Teacher. Sighing, he gets closer to her. She barely notices, focused on perfecting the move he’d used a while ago. Unfortunately, he knows she won’t be able to, because her base stance is already all wrong.