"Here you are!" Professor Evans exclaimed visibly upset. "At least, for once, you got up early. I'll wait for you at the shooting range in five minutes.

   He glanced at Asmodeus and left, slamming the door.

   Tthor took a deep breath and with a deep sigh, he said:

   "We returned to real life..."

   Lee-Won looked at him smiling. Tthor took a step towards the door but Lee-Won stopped him.

   "Look for me later! I have something to show you…"

   Tthor was distracted all morning, thinking about the things he had experienced the night before with Lee-Won. And as he drew the bow, for the umpteenth time, before the icy gaze of Professor Evans, he wondered what it was that Lee-won wanted to show him.

   When noon arrived and Tthor unsuccessfully shot his last arrow, Professor Evans seemed to give up and said, visibly upset:

   " Lunch time!"

   Tthor began to gather the arrows scattered near him.

   "And I don't want to see you all afternoon! "I've had enough of your clumsiness for today," Evans bellowed, disappearing into the stables.

   Tthor was frustrated. He arranged the arrows in the quiver and put away the bows, stacking them in a large wooden chest.

   Lee-Won, crouched in a nearby tree, watched him silently, with a slight smile on his lips and a bright, excited look. He had been much of the morning, like Tthor, with his mind lost and distracted. He constantly relived the words that Thor had said to him in the tunnel.

   “…If something bad happened to you…, I couldn't bear it. Without you…I am not interested in being King…”

   And he couldn't stop his heart from racing every time he remembered the boy's closeness either. He was visibly nervous and bit his lip constantly.

   When he saw that Tthor had already finished organizing everything, he ran to him.

   "Tthor!" Lee-Won called him, with a wide smile.

   "Hello!" Tthor said, giving a frustrated sigh.

   "What's happening? Any problem?"

   Tthor looked at him, narrowing his eyes.

   " No, no problem, except that I haven't managed to hit the target even once. I don't even approach trees with my arrows. Professor Evans doesn't know what to do with me anymore."

   " It's because of the sunlight... You can't see the white," Lee-Won encouraged him. "You'll do better on a cloudy day."

   "The problem is not just the sun. The problem is Professor Evans..."

   Lee-Won looked at him curiously. Tthor approached him and said, almost in a whisper:

   " It makes me nervous. I get terrified when I have him around. I paralyze…"

   Lee-Won couldn't believe what his friend told him.

   "Tthor, you face fenrir wolves and baldanders and you fly with griffins..."

   "None of them scare me...," Tthor confessed, shrugging his shoulders. "They do make me nervous and I feel my adrenaline rise when I face them but... with Professor Evans it is different. I feel his hatred and that hatred somehow paralyzes me. And I can't get over that..."

   Lee-Won listened to him carefully. He looked at it for a few moments and then walked towards the chest, silently. He again stood near Tthor with a bow and arrow. He handed it to her and said:

   "Can we try...just once...?"

   Tthor stared at him and nodded. He took the bow, nocked the arrow and drew it.

   "Close your eyes..." Lee-Won whispered, standing behind him.

   Tthor closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

   "Forget the target..., forget the bow and arrow you are holding, forget that you are here. Just think about...the person you love most in the world. Imagine them close to you, imagine that person is standing next to you. This person is here with you, accompanying you. That person is the only important thing in your life. That person is with you and always will be..."

   Tthor breathed slowly and his face seemed to light up. His lips smiled faintly and his chest moved calmly.

   " …That happiness you feel when knowing that that person is here with you will be what guides you to the target…"

   Tthor opened his eyes, raised the bow to eye level, drew it and fired, feeling strong and powerful, but at the same time free and light, as if he had lifted a weight off his shoulders.

   The arrow shot out at full speed and hit the target of the farthest tree.

   Tthor, in a second in which the sun was obscured by clouds, managed to see the rigid arrow, stuck right in the center of a circle of red paint.

   He looked at Lee-Won with a beaming face, throwing the bow to the side. He grabbed the boy with both arms and lifted him into the air.

   "Did you see it?... Did you see it?!" Tthor said, without stopping hugging him.

   Lee-Won laughed happily.

   "Of course I saw it!" he exclaimed.

   Tthor released him and locked his eyes on his friend's.

   "Thank you!" He whispered to him.

   " You're...well...welcome," Lee-Won could barely speak.

   " Hey! Don't imitate me!" Tthor joked. "I'm the one who stutters here."

   "If I give you a present...," said Lee-Won, trying to recover. "would you give me another hug like the one you just gave me?"

   Tthor looked at him surprised.

   "It's true!" He said. "You had something to show me!"

   Lee-Won looked at him mischievously. He lifted his shirt and revealed something that he was wearing attached to the waistband of his pants. Tthor looked at him curiously. He threatened to take it off but Lee-Won took a step back and lowered his shirt again.

   "First... the hug..." he joked.

   But a melodious and happy voice came to them from the side road:

   " Tthor! Lee-Won!"

    "Hello, Noel!" the two greeted her, looking at each other out of the corner of their eye.

   "Are you not angry anymore?" Tthor wanted to know.

   " When was I angry with you?" Noel answered, frowning.

   Lee-Won snickered.

   "What were you doing? You already had lunch?"

   "No and we didn't have breakfast either...," Tthor said rubbing his stomach.

   "Why didn't you have breakfast?" Asked the young girl. "Did you get up late, sleepyheads?"

   Tthor glanced at Lee-Won and laughed.

   Noel looked at them with a frown.

   "What time did they go to bed?"

   "We haven't gone to bed...yet," Lee- Won answered-We're sleepless...

   "...And without eating...," Tthor noted, looking out of the corner of his eye at a basket that the young girl was carrying with both hands.

   "Come on! He brought them some freshly baked breads."

   " You are the best friend in the world!" Tthor exclaimed. "Did we tell you that?"

   Noel couldn't help but laugh.

   "Look over there!" Lee-Won said to Noel, pointing to one of the trees.

   The young girl looked curiously towards where Lee-Won was pointing.

   "I don't believe it!" She said. "Tthor! You did!"

   Tthor blushed at Noel's warm embrace.

   "I wouldn't have made it if it had been for Lee-Won!" He said, looking at him intently.

   "I want to know everything!" Noel asked. "And while we have lunch."

   Without wasting time, the three of them headed towards the kitchen. Noel, ahead carrying his basket and the boys carrying the chest with the bows and quivers.

   When they reached the kitchen door, which was emptying as lunchtime was ending, Lee-won's mother called him to the stables to give him some errands.

   "I'll be back in ten minutes. Are you waiting for me?" Said the young man, motioning to Tthor and Noel.

   "We'll be here," Tthor answered, smiling at him.

   Lee-Won disappeared through a side door, while Tthor took a large portion of garlic bread that Noel offered him.

   "Tell me...!" The young girl asked.

   And Tthor told him, first, everything that had happened the night before, with all the details that he could remember.

   "They were very lucky," an ecstatic Noel told him. "I don't have to tell you that it was quite dangerous..."

   Tthor looked at her out of the corner of his eye, waiting for the young girl to start a long, boring speech about being more careful and not getting into so much trouble. But Noel looked at him smiling and said:

   "I would have really liked to be there, with you."

   Tthor took a bite of bread and drank a mouthful of fresh milk.

   "And how was the arrow thing...?"

   Tthor smiled again as he remembered the episode.

   "I just did what Lee-Won told me. I thought of the person I love most in the world, by my side...And, when I opened my eyes, I felt powerful. It was as if the bow were an extension of my arms. I didn't hesitate...I knew I could do it. And I did it…"

   Noel looked at him intoxicated. She looked over Tthor's shoulder and saw Lee-Won standing in the doorway, listening to him, his eyes bright and wet.

   "And...if it may be known..., who did you think of?" Noel asked him, in a soft voice.

   " I thought...of Wilgenyna. She is the person I adore most in the world. And if one day I become King, she will be my Queen," Said Tthor, dreamily.

   Noel instinctively looked at Lee-Won, who remained standing on the lintel, now with his gaze lowered, somewhat pale, and biting his lip a little violently.

   Tthor was curious about the expression Noel had on his face and looked where she was looking.

   "Lee-Won! Come..., we save a whole loaf for you...," Tthor told him.

   The young man took a deep breath and made an effort to appear natural and carefree. Without moving from the spot, he announced:

   " I must…run some errands with my mother. I won't be back until tonight. So...see you later..."

   "I'll accompany you!" said Tthor, jumping to his feet and grabbing another piece of bread from the basket.

   Lee-Won looked at Noel expectantly. He was getting paler and paler.

   The young woman looked at Tthor and said:

   "My uncle...sent me...to look for you, Tthor. It's just that he... wants to talk to you. And it seems to me that it is urgent. Could you accompany me to the shoe store now?"

   Tthor looked at Lee-Won for an answer.

   "I do what I have to do... and I catch up with them there," Lee-Won was quick to say.

   Tthor seemed satisfied.

   " I'll change my clothes."

   "I'll wait for you at the entrance to the abbey," Noel told him with a slightly hoarse voice.

   When Tthor had disappeared down the hallway, the young woman approached Lee-Won at a slow pace, without taking her eyes off of her. She stood near him and waited for him to speak first.

   "Thank you…," Lee-Won stammered.

   Noel noticed that his eyes were wet.

   "You have to tell him..."

   "So that? You already heard it. He already has the Queen of him. And I'm just his friend."

   "He has to know..."

   "I won't tell him!" Lee-Won burst into tears.

   Noel looked at him moved.

   " I told you... I told you that you were rushing..."

   Lee-Won wiped his face and looked at her.

   "Yes, you told me. But... you don't choose to feel what you feel... It just happens to you... and that's it," Lee-Won said, shedding tears again. "You know better than me..."

  Noel started to cry too.

   "Spike Shannut was always an impossible love for me, because he looks for me but he doesn't take me seriously. But Tthor seemed different... Because of the way he treats you, because of how he looks at you... I thought he did have feelings for you. And yet, I warned you to be careful, not to get your hopes up. I'm sorry, Lee-Won," the young woman whispered, hugging him sweetly.

   The young man returned the hug with a sob. When they separated, Noel saw that

   Lee-Won had a pained expression that crossed his entire face.

   "What are you going to do now?" Noel said, in a low voice.

   "What I should have done from the beginning... see him with the eyes of a servant who sees his future King... I will try to spend less time with him..."

   "He is going to realize that something is happening to you."

   "I'll invent something for him, if he asks me. But he will never know. He will never know the truth. And you promised me to keep the secret," Lee-Won said, choked.

   "... And I will do it...," Noel stated in a sob, completely moved by the pain of her friend. "I will do it... Tthor will never know, from me, that you are in love with him..."