The Emperor Is Searching

Ever imagined what the most anticipated new day will feel like?

Nena did, and she can swear that the disturbing stomach and watery eyes wasn't how she pictures this day, but this is how she woke up and found it.

"Argh." She yelled in pain as she got up and then rushed to the bathroom when she realized how late it was. After bathing, if what she did could be counted as one, she rushed to her room to put on her clothes but fell on the bed and began making annoyed noises.

Her stomach hurts and the fact that this is happening makes her angry because she finds the pain as another obstacle, but in as much as she wanted to force herself up and out of her home, she couldn't and so she laid there staring at the wall and making up believable excuse that she will tell her boss tomorrow.

She knows soon her mother will come knocking on her door to find out why she's still at home and she prayed she'd do it because she needs her and just realized that her condition has become serious.

Her stomach hurts so much and her legs feels full, aside from it's obvious hotness.

She began to panic when she saw something coming out of her body, she immediately got up and ran out of the house.

Immediately she came out of her house, she saw her boss entering her compound.

She saw him but she couldn't stop, she wanted to greet him but that will result in her stopping and she doesn't want anyone to see her in this state that she's in and so she kept running.

She began to run faster when she noticed him running after her.

"Please stop following me." She pleaded, but he kept running after her and asking her what's wrong.

"Go away!" She yelled loudly and then she ran faster and faster, and when she finally stopped and looked, she signed in relief at discovering that he stopped following her, but Due-Du only stopped because she outrun him.

She walks absentmindedly to a place she feels no one will look for her, she sits down there, letting the bush hide her away from the rest of the world and then she starts to cry.

She cries more as she pictures her mother's heart broken face and her sister's. Meanwhile, Dae-Du had run back to the Emperor when he realized that he lost her. He told the Emperor what happened and where he stopped seeing her.

The Emperor started panicking. He ordered his men to go and look for her, but called them back when he remembered that Dae-Du said she didn't want him following her.

He knew she wanted to be alone, but Dae-Du also told him that she was crying and she looked to be in pain. 

"What if she hurts herself." The Emperor asked as he left the first place he thought she would be. 

After searching almost everywhere he thought she would be and didn't find her, he decided to go back to his place and order his men to search for her, but then a place which he hadn't been to, came to his mind.

His newly purchased farmland.

"Hmmm." He signed in distress when he couldn't find her there and then he started heading home.

He stopped when he thought he heard something, someone singing in a foreign language. He moved closer to the sound and more closer and found himself heading faster towards the voice.

There, he found her sitting on the ground, her clothes dirty, her back towards him. He knew she doesn't know that she has company for if she does, she would have stopped singing.

As much as he wanted to continue listening to her beautiful voice which made this land language beautiful, he couldn't watch her sitting there in obvious troubled state.

He touched her shoulders and watched her hug herself in fear, but when she looked up and found out that it was him, her fears were replaced with embarrassment, before moving back to hurting.

"Please leave." She said so softly, he barely heard her.

The Emperor moved closer to her and turned her to him. "Why are you like this?"

She looked at him for a while and then placed her head on his c.h.e.s.t. "I think I'm an old woman, an ugly old woman." She whispered so softly but the Emperor heard her.

He patted her, hoping to give her some comfort. "You look young ..so young in fact and beautiful." He replied and this made Nena smile.

"Well.. I guess that's because I'm young in age, Mama said I will be eighteen next two weeks."

"You're still sixteen, you will be seventeen this week." The Emperor said to himself even though he wanted to tell her this, he knows he can't. He doesn't want to give her too much to worry about.

He patted her hair for a little while before lifting her face up, looking her in the eyes. "What's troubling you?."

"I think I'm dying." She replied and then she began to cry all over again.