P R O L O G U E

ONCE UPON A TIME, a king had a beautiful daughter who was sick.

Qing, the princess, was taken to countless doctors, yet none came up with a helpful diagnosis. Finally, she was taken to a witch, in hopes of magic miraculously curing her.

“Magic can find a way, but it will not cure your daughter, King Baekhyun,” said the witch. “You must also do your part.”

“So can you cure my daughter or not?” King Baekhyun said, getting impatient.

“I will give you this remedy: the three finest May peaches will save her,” the witch declared, ignoring him, “but she will have to marry within a week, or else she will fall sick again and die.”

The king was not ready to give his daughter away, but he had no choice. An announcement was made in the kingdom, and soon many men came with peaches, but none saved the princess.

Meanwhile, a woman had three sons, and the oldest set out with the finest peaches from their orchard. He met an old woman who asked what he had; he claimed rabbit dung, she said that so it was, and when he got the castle, that was what he carried. His next brother set out next, told the old woman he carried horse dung, and again found that was what he carried.

The youngest, Wei, who was short and often taken for a fool, persuaded his mother to let him try as well. Unlike his older brothers, he told the old woman that he carried peaches that would cure the princess, and she said so it was. As a blessing, the old woman also gave him a silver whistle, so he then ventured to the king’s castle carrying his peaches and a silver whistle.

“Father, I am getting quite tired of peaches,” Qing told her father weakly.

“As am I,” replied King Baekhyun, who forced the peaches even closer to his daughter’s mouth.

In a short time, Wei’s peaches ultimately cured the Princess, earning him the maiden’s hand as promised. However, the king did not want such a puny little son-in-law.

“Wei Ling, in order to secure your— er, position, herd a hundred rabbits and try not to lose one for four days,” King Baekhyun said, smiling cruelly at the poor boy. Baekhyun was a Villain, and this was how to do it right.

The first day, the rabbits scattered, but the boy used the whistle to bring them back. On the second, the king sent the princess to get one. Wei would only trade one for a kiss, and when the princess had it and had reached the gates of the castle, he used the whistle, and the rabbit came back. The next day, the king sent the queen to get one, but the boy would only trade one if the queen turned three somersaults. When she did, the king locked the rabbit in a room but the boy used his whistle and it came back through a window.

“This is ridiculous,” Baekhyun muttered. The rabbits kept coming back, no matter what. At this rate, his daughter will be married to a stupid-looking man, and they will have their stupid little Happily Ever After.

The fourth day, King Baekhyun went himself. However, the boy was being difficult.

“What must I do for you to give me a rabbit?” Baekhyun said.

And Wei, that smart boy, tapped his donkey’s behind and said, “Kiss this .”

Are you ing kidding me? Baekhyun mused.

When the king had gotten the rabbit, he had it ruthlessly killed and skinned and put on to casserole, but the Wei used his whistle and it jumped out of the dish, back into its skin, and back to the boy.

The last day, King Baekhyun found out that Wei still had all of the rabbits. Infuriated, the king gave Wei another seemingly impossible task. In the royal courtroom, he presented Wei three sacks. “You must fill these sacks with three truths, and only then you may marry my daughter Qing.”

Wei looked at his audience: all the royal family, the judges, and the townsfolk. “And if I put in a lie?”

“The sacks are magical and will not accept false statements. Make one mistake and you lose all chance for a marriage,” King Baekhyun said.

Finding the challenge easy, Wei approached the first sack. “The princess kissed me for a rabbit.”

The sack accepted the statement. King Baekhyun looked at his daughter in sheer betrayal.

“The queen turned somersaults for a rabbit,” Wei continued, and the sack accepted it as well. The audience started whispering amongst themselves.

Wei approached the third sack.

Wait a minute.

“THAT’S ENOUGH,” King Baekhyun bellowed, just as Wei was about to speak. The courtroom turned deathly silent. Looking at Wei defeatedly, he declared, “I, King Baekhyun, give you permission to marry my daughter, Qing.”

This is the worst fairy tale I’ve ever been in, Baekhyun thought as the crowd erupted into cheers.

Princess Qing ran to hug her betrothed in the midst of the chaos, proving that they were indeed in love the whole time. Love is blind, thought Baekhyun as he stepped down from the throne as well. He was not about to stay for the wedding.

At the end of the main hallway where no one else goes were two creatures with whom Baekhyun was all too familiar. One had a violet, glittering snake-like skin barely hidden by a trench coat tuxedo suit, cat-like pupils, and yet an otherwise perfectly human body. The other was relatively normal, except for the striking white wings that was hard to ignore.

“Ready to leave, Your Highness?” Yixing, the one with snake-like skin, teased. He was a warlock.

“I can’t wait for this to be written in the storybooks,” said the angel, who was not at all kind.

“Shut up, Jae. Just get me out of here,” said Baekhyun, who turned beet red.

Yixing opened his hands and muttered a Latin mantra, one Baekhyun has heard a hundred times before, until a burst of light erupted from his palms and slowly evolved to form a small portal. And then, he said, “Resigno Talaius.”

Resigno, he thought, to open. And indeed, a door leading to a different dimension was opened before his very eyes, reminding him that the world he was currently in was not real. The castle walls, the lavish clothes, the people—except for Wei and Qing, who were destined to live an eternal Happy Ending in an imaginary world—was not real. 

And as Baekhyun entered the portal, he could almost hear the storybook closing, the Pen writing the last two words of all fairy tales in a typical fairy tale font, the phrase that comes after every Happily Ever After.

The End.

Author’s note:

Heya! It’s me, Aria. 

This fic took a while to rewrite. But then again, something is better than nothing.

Before anything else, I want to say thank you to my readers who have been here from the start and is still here now. And to my new readers, hello. You all have my heart.

You might have noticed that my writing style is a little bit different. I swear I tried to write like I used to. The original chapters had been deleted, so I had to rewrite it from memory. To be honest, I had already forgotten most of what I wanted to do with this fic. The last time I tried to write was more than three months ago—with a fic I never got to finish. I didn’t touch my 100k draft of A Villain’s Fairytale for nearly a year until it got deleted. 

When my fic got deleted, it actually gave me a chance to rethink. As I was rewriting, I realized I didn't like where the story was going to. It didn't feel like a comprehensible story, it was more like babbling with a bit of comedy and romance. And so, I decided to redo it from scratch. My writing style has changed over the years. I REALLY can’t stand my previous writing--I literally can't even reread the first chapters without wincing--but I can’t just shift from one style to another. It had gotten to the point where I started to hate this fic, but you guys kept encouraging me and somehow convinced me that my writing is at least okay-ish. 

(If you guys don't like this version, I can still repost the original chapters. I added a poll below, but I'm going to post the old version separately from this one. However, the old version is discontinued and I will only repost it if you guys still want it.)

TL;DR: I want to let go, but to do that, I have to finish this fic first.

Don’t worry, I want to witness ChanBaek’s love story here just as much as you do.

I hope this note leaves some comfort to you as a reader.

Kisses and hugs,

Aria, awesome

P.S. Let’s be friends on twitter! My AO3 is @xantoki. 

CHAPTER: UNBETA-ED