Chapter I

When The Queen Had an Almost Expired Coupon

The Jong Kingdom was a large kingdom located on the Exoticum highland. It had many valleys, hills, lakes and forests that brought prosperity to its people; not to mention their gold and crystal mines which were spread all over the kingdom. The citizens lived so well that they refused to wear their embroidered with the finest gold threads tunics, if they found even a bit stain tarnishing their attire. The Jong's people were very proud of the gracefulness of their language, which was self-declared as the most well-mannered and elegant language in the entire kingdoms, human wise (because no race could ever beat the fairies in term of language, self-declared or not).

The kingdom was ruled by King Kim Jonghyun, and his wife, Queen Kim Kibum. They had a son, Prince Kim Jongin, who by their norm had reached the age to be married yet refused all the candidates thrown at him, males or females. Queen Kim Kibum nagged his only son all the time, using his well-mannered fairy tone like voice,

“My dear son whom I conceived for the whole nine months without any magical help --bless your fairy godmother Therese for her anti stretch mark balm-- when will you start your new life, my son, to build a perfect foundation of a marriage with beautiful children running around to fill my empty life?”

“I’m not getting younger, you see.” Queen Kim Kibum sighed in sadness. He took out his expensive silk handkerchief and dabbed the corner of his dry and prettily eye lined feline eyes to wipe his crystalline tears, which probably would fall one or two drops if he squished his hardest.

“I don't want a wife who only cares about how to bow beautifully, mother. The one who's making a fuss about how low her neckline is royally allowed yet still can show her white and milky skin for people to adore,

“And those were pretty much all the princesses you have been shoving me these past two years. Don't make me start with the princes.” Prince Jongin grimaced as he remembered all the said potential candidates.

“I don't think you cherish children that much anyway, mother. I remember you referring King Kangin and Queen Heechul's son as 'a twisted evil gnome',” Prince Jongin spoke lazily. "Plus, you are getting younger; you got 'Ten Years Miracle of Rebirth for Skin' potion from aunty Maybelline for your birthday present, right?”

"Wait till I send you to babysit that Kyuhyun brat, it’s not a human okay!" Queen Kibum retorted his son, completely forgetting to speak in fairy-like voice. "He swallowed all my expensive ambrosia and threw them up, mocking my precious afternoon tea snack as 'grandmas’ yucky jelly', that evil troll!” the queen hissed.

 "And what I meant is not getting younger soul-wise, my skin is as glowing and youthful as a seventeen years old maiden can be." Queen Kibum scowled, and as if he just remembered that he had to avoid creasing his wrinkle-free forehead, the queen un-creased the deep furrows  between his eyebrows instantly, massaging his forehead gently with his perfectly manicured fingers.

“Your Majesty, Your Royal Highness, I am truly sorry to interrupt, but I just received an urgent message from the royal administrator.” Byun Baekhyun, the Jong Kingdom's Royal Advisor, bowed his head.

“What could possibly be such an important matter, dear my beloved Royal Advisor?” Queen Kibum smiled so gracefully, looking at the man with graciousness, just the right amount as the Royal Personality Development advisor had suggested.

“Do you remember the prize you won being a Beauty Queen last year, your Majesty?”

“Ha! Of course I remember! Eat that Queen Sungjong, I beat you sweet and nice! It's preposterous to even dream about beating my beauty, both inner and outer. Just go stare at your only pathetic trophy forever; the one that you won when I could not attend the pageant, which mind you, I still could beat you fair and round if they allowed a preggy beauty in the contest!”

“Ahem. Your Majesty, I am afraid that you might be missing my point here. And with all due respect the corteous term for 'preggy' is 'anticipating a blessing,'” Byun Baekhyun reminded him politely.

Prince Jongin, the said blessing, snorted, hiding it fast with short coughs.

Queen Kibum's face turned bright red. He glanced a murderous glare at his son before hurriedly changing the topic,

“Ah. Yes, I remember the prize. It's a coupon of something." Queen Kibum frowned, enough to show that he was in deep thought without forming any crease between his eyebrows.

“You indeed have a sharp memory, your Majesty," Baekhyun the Royal Advisor praised his queen before continuing, "It is indeed a coupon from the Sorcerers Worldwide Association, to provide you with a sorcerer help in any kind of task. It is a very valuable prize, worth a small country, as a matter of fact.

"Kings, Queens, and Honourables usually ask the sorcerers to help with giant's infestation, or maybe to make their princess' long hair strong enough to allow the knights or princes climbing their hair to free them from the tower that imprisoned them,” he explained.

“But we haven't got any giant problem for a century, my faithful Royal Advisor.” Queen Kim Kibum tapped his bow shaped lips.

“Do you wish your hair strong enough to be climbed, dear my beloved son?” He tilted his head gracefully toward Prince Jongin.

“No. Thank you for the offer though, mother,” Prince Jongin quickly responded.

“Ahem. Again, you're missing my humble point, Your Majesty. I only gave you a few examples of what we might do with the coupon. The problem is that it will expire soon, and it would be such a waste if we do not use it well.”

Finally, the Royal Advisor could say his true point. He was on the verge of crying at that point, but unfortunately he couldn't afford to spill any drop of tear, as he was not wearing his waterproof eyeliner.

“Hmm.. What do you have in mind then, dear my beloved Royal Advisor?” Queen Kibum asked Byun Baekhyun elegantly.

“How about asking the sorcerer to create the rainfall more periodically over our farmland in north, your Majesty? The unpredictable rain makes your favorite red cherries tasted less sweet and watery this year.

"Of course, we could make a better infrastructure to solve the problem, but if we can have a magical help, why bother he he he.” Royal Advisor Byun Baekhyun lost his calm attitude shortly, granting him a disapproval elegant glance from his queen.

“Ah. So that's why my cherry pie became less delicious lately. I have to send my deepest apologies to our royal patissier then. And let's do as you say, we could not let this urgent matter unsolved for too long.”

“I understand, your Majesty. I will send Sorcerers Worldwide Association a letter to provide us an almighty sorcerer as soon as possible.” Byun Baekhyun bowed his head to Queen Kibum and Prince Jongin before politely asking for the permission to leave.

And that was the beginning of Sorcerer's Do misfortune.

***

Prince Jongin was in the practice field, mastering his sword ability with his sword trainer, Sir Ben Ben. He swung his sword and jabbed it all over his surrounding in fervor, pretending that he was surrounded by enemies. Sir Ben Ben shouted at him from the side of the practice field,

“My Prince! Please maintain your gracefulness, you are not a cave troll swinging a club for god's sake..!” the honorable knight screamed in desperation.

“But no enemies will be defeated by gracefulness!” Prince Jongin shouted back, bending his upper body suddenly as if someone was aiming to attack his head. He rolled his body dramatically and stood up fast to fight his imaginary enemies.

“There is no enemy to be defeated in the first place anyway, my Prince!” the Honorable Knight retorted back.

“We haven't got any significant threat this past millennium since they decided to close the Crack of Doom and turn it into tourist attraction. I heard they have the best spring water spa, maybe I should have my holiday there, mineral spring water is good for your skin.” Sir Ben Ben smiled dreamily, thinking about being pampered in a hot spring water spa. His glowing and luminous skin did not come with his birth package; he had to earn it. If there's one thing he had ever beat in a battle, it was his puberty.

He shook his head fast to erase the hot spring spa out of his system and went on,

“But that is not the main point here, let us be more focus, shall we? You are going to need your sword ability for the Princes Convention next month, and being graceful will give you the highest score. Please don't embarrass me further, my Prince,” Sir Ben Ben pleaded Prince Jongin, almost bursting into tears.

“Queen Key could not stare at Queen Jaejoong in the eye for months after you knocked out his son in the last convention.”

"Prince Changmin is just a wimp! You should hear him screaming!" Prince Jongin countered back.

"And I don't remember saying that I will attend the lame convention this year, anyway. It was filled with princes boasting their shiny, well polished armors like a peacock!" Prince Jongin rolled on his back and jumped like a dragon in the sky, swinging his wrist holding the sword up and down.

"The bottom line is that I don't get the Grand Master rank out of the nonexistence war!" the Knight shouted. "And THAT, my Prince, is EXACTLY how I got my Grand Master rank. Sweet..!" Sir Ben Ben shouted in excitement, referring to 'Dragon in the Sky' move.

Prince Jongin rolled his eyes and continued his sword movements; he's slashing, scraping, snapping, chopping, piercing, and stabbing. He threw his sword high in the sky, catching it with his left hand expertly and playing with his sword skillfully as if it was the extention of his hand. He swung the sword, whipping and penetrating like bees.

***

The sky was getting darker when they finished their practice. Well, it was more like Sir Ben Ben's going to have an appointment with his dermatologist in an hour so he decided to call it a day.

Prince Jongin walked calmly at the Royal Park, planning to go back to his residence. When he was about to pass the gate he saw something that caught his attention; Royal Advisor Byun Baekhyun was chatting with someone he hadn't seen before.

Prince Jongin squinted his eyes, trying to see the guest Byun Baek was talking to more clearly, but he could not decide their race as they covered their body with black robe from head to toe. He approached closer and paid more attention toward Byun Baek's guest.

“Couldn't be a dwarf, too tall and petite,” he murmured to himself.

“Must be a hobbit.” He nodded.

Prince Jongin couldn’t help but to admire Byun Baek's linguistics skill. Judging from what he saw, seemingly Byun Baek was so fluent speaking in the language, as if he was speaking in his mother language. Apparently there's more in him other than those glittery eyeliners, Prince Jongin thought.

 The Prince came closer and gallantly stood beside the Royal Advisor. Before Byun Baekhyun could say a word, Prince Jongin had given the guest his royal formal greeting,

“Hullo! Quel Andune, hobbit!” He smiled, hoping he had greeted the guest using the right words instead of telling the hobbit to pick their nose. I should have paid more attention to my foreign languages lesson.

Prince Jongin shrugged his shoulders. What's done cannot be undone.

The prince got a feeling he had wrongly said his greeting; Byun Baek's misterious guest kind of glared at him with their exceptionally round eyes. The stranger uncovered the black hood covering their face and scolded Prince Jongin, “Do I look like a hobbit to you!” he growled, pointing at his round edged -cute- ears instead of the pointy ones hobbits have.

Apparently Sorcerer Do, to avoid people's curiousity, had changed his outfit into a simple black robe when he entered the Jong Kingdom (It was also because his pointy sorcerer hat kind of stucked on the branches all the time, causing him to play tug-of-war with the branches during the entire journey.)

Prince Jongin just stood there, mouth agape.

He could not get enough of the beauty in front of him. The beautiful creature's huge round eyes sparkled like a million stars. His cute eyebrows, black and so similar one to another, lined up in a symmetrical line, just like the fluffiest caterpillars. The precious creature had such a cute, cute button nose. And his lips, oh gods the lips. THE lips. Plump and as red as the cherries his mother cherished the most. All were framed within the most beautiful small face.

And he looked so squishy. And soft like cotton candy. As white as the whitest snow. Everything in this cute person screamed adorable, oh he could kiss each of the squishy one's tiny fingers all day. All twenty of them. His voice chimed like the purest sound of bell, chirping so beautifully like newborn baby birds. Prince Jongin wanted him. He had to have this enchanting little creature, or else he would go crazy (in love).

Byun Baek coughed, breaking Prince Jongin's thoughts.

“Ahem. Prince Jongin, this is Sorcerer Do Kyungsoo, the one who is assigned to help us with our big problem. And of course he is not a hobbit, he has a, err, an appropriate height to be a human. If he was a hobbit he would be the tallest one, ever.” The Royal Advisor laughed in awkwardness. His awkward laugh stopped completely when he received a murderous glint from the sorcerer.

The sorcerer glared at the jaw-dropping prince who was still staring at him, not even blinking. He decided that the Jong's prince was an idiot who didn't worth his time.

“What is the problem, dear Royal Advisor?

"I want to decide how long I should stay here before finishing the task."

Again, before Byun Baek could answer the question given to him, Prince Jongin cut him and replied immediately, “Forever!”

“I'm sorry, what?” Sorcerer Do frowned distastefully, his round eyes staring at whom he deemed as an idiot. Prince Jongin was in awe. He thought he could make the most beautiful poetry and rhyme with an infinite length to worship the little one's beautifulness. Forever.

The prince dropped on his knees all of a sudden and proposed to Sorcerer Do, “Stay by my side forever, dear precious gorgeous creature. Marry me.” He stared at the sorcerer longingly and lovingly.

“What??? No...!!!” Sorcerer Do screamed. He stepped back from the mental person (Prince Jongin) to make sure there was sufficient distance between them.

“Is he the problem?” The sorcerer tilted his head toward the Royal Advisor.

“If he's your problem, I suggest you to contact the wizards instead, they understand potions better than I do. I bet they have the right potion to cure any kind of madness,” he advised the royal advisor, nudging his head at the still kneeling prince.

“Huh? What? No!” The Royal Advisor replied fast. “Our Prince is relatively normal.”

“Err, well, usually he is.” He added, taking a quick glance at his supposedly relatively normal prince.

“We have a problem with the uncoordinated rainfalls on our farmland in north, do you think you could make them, err, be more coordinated?”

“Of course, it's so easy, why even bother asking a sorcerer to do that.” Sorcerer Do walked further away from the prince as he spoke. Byun Baek chanced a glance toward his prince before hurriedly matching his pace. “Anyway, where are your things? Did you magically shrink your things so they can fit into your pocket, or maybe they can be summoned anytime you need?”

“Well, duh, no. I sent them by post, they should arrive in a day or two,” Sorcerer Do answered him, staring at the royal advisor as if he was a lunatic. “Can you show me where I'm going to stay? I would like to wash myself first, I got dirt all over me,” he spread his arms wide, showcasing his attire to emphasize his point.

“Certainly. Let me accompany you to your place, you can take a look on the farmland tomorrow, it is not too far from the palace...” Their voices started to fade away as they walked further, leaving the gawky prince behind.

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