He went out to the gardens of the castle, giddy. He had a free hour before his next lesson, and he wanted to pick some flowers for his mom, because they were pretty, like her. His big brother was always teasing him about that, saying that picking flowers was for babies.

Jungkook pouted as he stepped in the grass outside. He wasn’t a baby, he was a big boy. He was going to be 5 years old soon. If you counted with your fingers, that was a whole hand. Besides, Yoongi-hyung had told him that giving flowers to ladies was the gesture of a gentleman. He liked being a gentleman.

He started to pick some daisies from one side of the garden when he heard a sniffle behind a bush. Curious as he was, he peeked over the bush, and he saw a girl crying softly, sitting on the soil with her back against the wall of the castle, and hugging her knees close to her chest. She was a big girl. Maybe as big as Yoongi-hyung. Concerned, he approached her. He didn’t know why such a big girl could be sad, but she was a damsel in distress anyway. Like in all the fairy tales that her mother read to him at night. His duty as a prince was to console her and save her.

“Hi,” he said in a soft tone. The girl was startled nevertheless, raising her head and widening her eyes at the sight of him. “Are you okay?”

“Your Highness,” the girl mumbled, wiping her tears with the back of her hand. “I’m sorry. Did I disturb your walk?”

“No, I was picking flowers for my mum,” he said, showing her the daisies he had on his hand.

She gave him a weak smile. “They are pretty.”

“Right?” the little boy beamed.

“I’m sure the queen will love them,” she said, voice wavering.

Jungkook frowned, worried. Suddenly, he had an idea. “Wait!” he exclaimed, running to another side of the garden to pick more flowers, leaving the girl alone and confused for a minute or so. He then came back, and gave her a bunch of poppies. “These are for you.”

The girl stared at the flowers the prince had put on her hands, silent, until she suddenly started crying again, this time in a loud way. Seeing her being so sad in such a desperate way made Jungkook panic. He kneeled in front of her, frantic, without knowing what to do. She was mumbling some incoherent nonsense, and the boy could only catch some words, like ‘innocent’, ‘prince’, ‘deserved’, or ‘Mino’. He didn’t know what she was talking about, but she kept crying, and that was overwhelming him.

“Please, no, I’m sorry,” he said, voice weak as he tried to caress her hand. She still didn’t look up. “You don’t like them? I’m sorry, please don’t cry, noona…” He was going to cry too. He didn’t want to. He was a big boy. Big boys didn’t cry.

In the end, however, he gave up, and the tears started falling while he wailed, disconsolate. He was like that for a while, until the girl realized she wasn’t crying alone anymore and looked up alarmed, eyes glistening with her own tears. She moved to grab his shoulders. “My prince, please don’t cry,” she said as she wiped her face again and then passed her thumb slowly through the boy’s cheek. “I’m okay. See? Noona is okay.” Jungkook hiccuped, and the girl hugged him, threading her fingers through the prince’s hair in a comforting way. “I’m sorry I worried you…”

They stayed like that for a few minutes, until Jungkook’s breathing was regular and he stopped hiccuping. She then took a look at him. “Are you okay now?” she asked, smiling softly.

“Of course I’m okay,” he sniffled.

“Alright,” she sighed, relieved. “It’s distressing to see my prince cry.”

“I wasn’t crying!” the little boy pouted, indignant.

The girl chuckled. “Crying isn’t a bad thing, Your Highness. What you did just showed that you care about your subjects. You are a very good and kind prince.” Jungkook smiled shyly. He was used to compliments, but not the kind that were said heartily, especially coming from a servant. He liked that girl. Maybe she could play with him and be friends. “Thank you for the flowers,” she said in a low voice, looking at them in a melancholic way.

“I can give you more if you want,” Jungkook suddenly spluttered. “And if you want you can play with me, and with Yoongi-hyu—”

He didn’t finish his sentence when he saw how the girl crushed the flowers in her hands, suddenly staring at him, eyes cold as ice.

Ice.

That was the general feeling he had on his skin right now. He jumped in the bed, gasping in shock, wet and cold.

“Goddamnit, hyung!” he yelled, complaining. Why did Yoongi had to wake him like that all the time? He blinked, suddenly realizing that the person in front of him wasn’t Yoongi. It wasn’t his bed, either. Nor his room. He looked around, confused, trembling, until he suddenly remembered. He was in Hunford Academy. In his dorm. And the person in front of him was holding an empty, dripping glass of cold water.

“Oh, thank god,” Hoseok sighed relieved, leaving the glass on the bedside table. “If that hadn’t worked I would’ve needed to try the pinching. That would’ve not been pretty.”

“What!?” Jungkook exclaimed while covering his chest, self-conscious.

“Dude, I’ve been trying to wake you up for twenty minutes! Yoongi was right, man…”

“Wait, when have you talked to...? No, scratch that,” he said when he looked at the bunk bed. “Why are you waking me up when Taehyung is still sleeping?” he asked, pointing an accusatory finger at the second year who was still snoring softly under his blanket.

“Min Yoongi is your friend, not his. If Tae is late for class—” Jungkook frowned at the abreviation of the name, “—that’s not my problem. You, on the other hand…” Hoseok huffed, ruffling his hair and sending Jungkook an apologetic glance. “I don’t want any problems with Yoongi, that’s all. Come on, get dressed. Class is in ten minutes.”

Hoseok took his backpack and got out of the room, leaving Jungkook sitting on his bed, with a wet pajama shirt and a feeling of tiredness and emptiness. The same emptiness he always had after waking up from a dream that felt too real.

Yoongi groaned when he sat in the cafeteria, almost dropping his tray on the table. He was tired. His classes had been . Hunford might be a prestigious academy, but still, its professors couldn’t be compared with the royal tutors he had back in the castle when he was being educated to guide the prince. They didn’t know , compared to them.

Besides, he was grumpy because of his lack of sleep, thanks to Kim ing Namjoon. He almost throttled him when he showed up at half past three in the morning, saying that he should get along with Park Jimin and that he was going to make him go to his room, so he should wait for him. Apparently, after leaving their room, Jimin had gone into Namjoon and Seokjin’s room, breaking the door in a fit of frustration, and he was determined to stay there overnight. Of course, Namjoon didn’t like that at all, and that was why he showed up in Yoongi’s room, knocking unceasingly until the older opened the door with a murderous urge. Yoongi was about to slam the door on his face, but the younger suddenly offered him the room number of Jungkook if he brought Jimin’s luggage back to his room and waited for him and, well. He couldn’t say no to that.

So that’s what he did. And when Jimin came into the room with an upset expression, he just went to his bed, looking all the time at the floor without saying a single word to him. Brat. He didn’t know why he felt so offended just because some kid didn’t want to be near him. He had never had trouble with that before. Maybe it was because, contrary to the others, Jimin was nice to him, and Yoongi could see his genuine interest in spending time with him, even though for some strange reason or internal struggle he also wanted to be away from him. Who knew. That morning, just before going to class, Yoongi could see Jimin curled up under his blanket, softly snoring with a placid expression on his face. Jungkook was right, Yoongi thought. It might be because of his round cheeks, or his plump lips, but the pink haired boy definitely looked like a mochi. If it wasn’t because Namjoon complained so much about his broken door, Yoongi would’ve forgotten that that ‘mochi’ had super strength. It was quite disturbing, if he thought about it.

He munched absentmindedly at his food, when he heard someone sitting to his left. It was Jungkook.

“Hi,” he muttered, rubbing his face before grabbing his chopsticks and starting eating. He didn’t look so good, but Yoongi was too sleep deprived to properly ask him what was up with him. He just hummed as a response. Until he saw his hair. God ing dammit.

“Hello, pinky.” Jungkook flinched. “Could you tell me why the you decided to have your hair dyed with Jung Hoseok? Did you decide to have some kind of ‘friendship matching hair’ bull with him and Park Jimin or what?”

“Please, not now,” the younger begged. “Can we talk about this in another moment?”

Yoongi sighed. “Whatever,” he muttered while paying attention to his food again. He was too sleepy to lecture him about anything.

Jungkook squinted at him. “What’s wrong.”

“Tired,” the older grunted. “You?”

“Oh,” Jungkook whispered. “Nothing.”

Now it was Yoongi’s turn to squint at the younger. “Don’t give me that bull, Jungkook. I know when something’s bothering you.”

Jungkook sighed. “It’s just… I kind of feel, I don’t know… Left out, maybe.”

“Well, well, what happened to your ‘amazing social skills’?” the older responded sardonically. Jungkook glared at him. “Okay, jokes aside. What’s wrong?”

“It’s my roommates. I feel like they’re talking a lot between the two of them and they are ignoring me. I feel invisible, hyung.”

“Really?” Yoongi said, surprised. “What kind of rude- jerks do you have as roommates? How can they just ignore their prince?”

“Uh,” the younger said, biting his lip, “about that.”

Yoongi didn’t like the prince’s expression. “What.”

“I told them I’m a commoner,” Jungkook mumbled.

“You what?” Yoongi almost yelled. The people from the tables closest to them turned around for a second, looking at them. “Why did you do that?” he said in a lower tone. He was shocked. He didn’t even think that Jungkook could even consider doing that. The boy loved the attention he received as a prince, that was for sure.

“I guess I just wanted to know how would it feel being treated as a normal person. I was curious.”

“Hmm,” the older leaned his head against the palm of his hand. “And how has that gone so far?”

“Being a commoner ,” the prince pouted.

Yoongi snorted. “Well, that’s everyone’s life, Jungkook. If you don’t feel good, you can just tell them you’re the prince. I don’t think I like the idea of you being treated badly, anyway.”

Jungkook stared at his tray of food, pensive, until he finally shook his head. “No, it’s okay. They aren’t exactly treating me badly. I think I just need to talk more to them?”

“Well, will you look at this,” the older said, smiling. “You’re being mature! I’m proud of you.”

The younger smiled sheepishly at him. “Thanks, hyung.”

“Well, anyway, I wouldn’t put too much effort in being friends with Hoseok. I don’t like him,” Yoongi added before stuffing his mouth with rice.

“I’m not sure if I lik— Wait, how do you know Hoseok is one of my roommates?”

Yoongi stared at him, wide eyed, gulping his rice. “Uh… Jimin told me.”

Jungkook gasped when he saw the guilty expression on the older’s face. “You talked to Hoseok about the water and the pinching last night!” he said through gritted teeth in an accusatory tone.

“Were you late for class?” he simply asked.

“Well, no—”

“Then I regret nothing.”

“Hyung!” Jungkook whined. “There was no need to do that! You just made me be mad at my roommate when he was just doing what you told him.”

“You don’t get mad at me when I wake you up.”

“That’s different! We know each other, you can bother me because I bother you—”

“At least you’re admitting that.”

“— but I don’t know Hoseok! I don’t want to be in bad terms with him.”

“Well, I’m sorry, I won’t do it again. But just so you know, my prince, you can’t get along with everyone. Not being in good terms with a roommate is more common than you think,” he commented before getting his glass of water to drink from it.

Jungkook suddenly gave him a deadpan stare. “What did you do to Jimin.”

Yoongi spat the water, coughing. “You brat,” he said weakly between cou