Land of Aka. Rich with food and entertainment. Here lives a young prince, in the middle by age from the other five princes, Park Jimin leads a good life. 

Jimin was not always a prince with an easy life, in the beginning he was orphan and later in life a traveling entertainer. Poor bard you could say, but talented and happy nonetheless, because for Jimin if he could dance life was easy. 

Jimin loved art too, he liked creating it, it was his passion and dream. But being on a poor entertainer’s caravan not always provided conditions for creating. Often having to work as a cleaner, server or much more just to eat. 

Soon enough, however he met his saviour. 

King of the land of Aka fell in love with Jimin. The king saw Jimin dance, sing and he was struck. Jimin was immediately offered a place in the royal court and of course he accepted, without  much thought because life in luxury where he could create was not a bad idea. 

The king was not married and had no children and all the princes were his brothers, so the king was still young. Jimin liked the king, more than he would let on, but shyness took over him whenever King tried courting him. 

However, the king was happy just with seeing Jimin smile, so he opened the door to a whole new world for him. Jimin was finally able to study art, he lead a theatre, created music and danced without limits.  

Soon rumours of the king being in love with a court boy spread throughout the lands. Other kingdoms taking this as a sign of weakness started planning, conspiring. And so, the king needed to think of something fast. 

Jimin thought this was the end, he thought he was going to be thrown out. But surprisingly the King just went ‘meh’ and made Jimin prince. 

And as easy as that Jimin became a prince. 

Now Jimin was focusing on a play, alone in his huge dark room illuminated only by candle light. This time he wrote a sad and tragic play, where all hope dies. 

Jimin was sometimes overcome with creativity, he would be sitting sipping tea and suddenly images, sentences were swirling in his mind, a story was forming. He would always try to write it as fast as he could before he lost the touch, the spark of the story and these attempts to write everything down almost always resulted in lack of sleep, food and every basic need. 

There was a soft knock on the door and Jimin turned his head, waiting for the person behind the door to announce themselves. But as soon as door started opening Jimin knew it was the king. 

No one could enter his room without announcing themselves except for him. 

“I heard you haven’t been eating” a deep and strong voice vibrated in the air “New play, huh?” 

Jimin smiled sheepishly “I’m almost finished, I’ll eat later” he bowed a little “Thank you for worrying.”  

King approached Jimin carefully, holding his eyes on the piles of papers on the table “Join me for dinner today, I’ll be waiting”. The king left the room soon after that. 

Jimin sighed. The King never blocked his creating process, because he knew it was everything to Jimin and so he was granted total freedom on a condition that Jimin takes care of himself. 

Clearly that often wasn’t the case and the  king would have no choice but to interrupt because of that. 

Jimin gathered himself, he washed up and changed his clothes, inspecting his blue velvet doublet one last time before leaving. 

The halls of the palace were empty and Jimin realised that it’s probably night time right now. Soon Jimin reached the outside of his quarters and the dark sky confirmed his suspicions. He entered the main hall. 

The King was sitting casually in front of the main table reading documents. As Jimin came closer he saw food piling on the table nearby and he felt salvia gathering in his mouth. 

The King laughed at Jimin’s hungry look and gestured to the table “Help yourself.” 

Jimin grabbed an empty plate and started piling food on it. A few moments later he was already sitting in front of the king. Jimin shifted uncomfortably. 

King noticed and looked at him with raised eyebrow “Not eating?” 

“No, it’s just that… Um Yoongi you won’t eat?” 

“No, I already did, but thank you” King Yoongi smiled. 

Jimin ate quietly, stealing glances from the focused Yoongi. Soon Jimin was finished and now plainly staring at the black-haired king. 

“Jimin, it is rude to stare especially at your ruler”, he chuckled. 

Jimin blushed and put his eyes down “I-I am sorry.” 

“No need to apologize, I have a gift for you actually”, Yoongi put down his papers, “Remember how in the garden we talked about strangely coloured hair at the Uma tribe?” 

Jimin nodded. 
“I did some research and I acquired a color I think would suit you well, would you like to try it?”  

Jimin jumped in his seat, “YES, PLEASE!” he was as excited as a child getting a lollypop and that made Yoongi grin. 

Soon the main hall of the palace was made into a barber shop. Jimin sat on a chair while Yoongi fiddled with his hair. 

It made quite a picture, the king applying strange dyes on the prince’s head. Jimin was quietly singing his favourite song when Yoongi asked him about the new play, since the dyeing process was going to take a while. 

“It’s a play about all hope disappearing. There will be a person who represents hope and that’s all I’ll tell. No spoilers”, Jimin explained. 

“And the person will be played by Hoseok, right?” Yoongi started washing Jimin’s hair. 

“Yes.” 
“And he will die, because he was the hope, right?” 

“How did you…” Jimin looked at the king. 

Yoongi sighed, “Jimin you always kill Hoseok in your stories, even in the happy ones, what is the problem? He’s a talented actor, do you not like him?” 

“It’s just that…” Jimin didn’t know what to say, “It feels like Hoseok is not supposed to be there, if that even make sense?” 

“It’s okay if it doesn’t make sense, I was just wondering anyway and your stories are all amazing so it’s fine with me” Yoongi smiled at Jimin softly “Your hair is done and I am quite proud.” 

Jimin took a small hand mirror that was lying face down on the table. He looked at himself and made a sound of amazement, his hair was flame orange and surprisingly he looked so good with it. 

“I-I… thank you” Jimin smiled the most genuine smile he could come up. 

“If you are happy, so am I” Yoongi patted Jimin’s head. 

Jimin blushed, he was a happy prince.  

Jimin was getting ready for his play. The decorations were almost done; the music was selected and the orchestra hired. Now he had to deal with the actors and rehearsals. 

Jimin never had any trouble choosing the actors. Firstly, Hoseok was always chosen, the most popular, talented and famous actor of Jimin’s theatre academy. There was also the main troupe of actors who finished the academy and now worked for him, and of course there were countless young souls who wanted to be in one of Jimin’s famous plays. But this time Jimin had trouble. 

Originally, Jimin was given the academy and his own theatre as coronation and birthday gift from the king. It was hard to accept this expensive gift, but worth it in the end. Jimin made a special program for those who were passionate about arts but had no money to get into academies or such, just like himself in the past. 

But that meant that children of counts and barons, who paid for the academy, had someone to bully. Making it hard to recruit young peasant children. So, the academy was overfilled with obnoxious, full of themselves and snobbish lords. 

Jimin wanted something new this time, he wanted fresh blood, someone innocent and beautiful to portray the role he created for a character.  

After expressing his doubts to Yoongi, Jimin was just told to act out the role himself, since he was beautiful and pure. Jimin just rolled his eyes and then made a plan: go to the village and search. 

How was he going to find someone who could act Just by looking at them? Intuition of course.   

Jimin walked into the city through the main gates. He was wearing casual villager clothes; it was easier to get by like that. Jimin became prince just recently so not many knew his face, but royal clothes would attract unwanted attention. 

Full of motivation Jimin walked down the road to the market. Everything brought back memories, the dirty streets, the loud market, tons of people. 

The day passed by quickly and the sun was already painting the sky red, making the streets less and less crowded. It was dangerous after the sunset after all. 

With all of his motivation gone and becoming more depressed by the second, Jimin 

decided to stay at an inn. Finding an actor was not as easy as he thought it would be. No one caught his eye, or impressed him. 

Jimin paid the person at the bar, told him that he will be eating in his room and was showed to the best room in tavern. The girl leading Jimin to his room observed him carefully, he was paying good money to stay in the best room. 

Jimin entered the room, the girl told that the dinner will be here shortly and left. Jimin plopped onto his bed, taking off the hat which was on his head, orange hair attracted a lot of attention. 

After eating Jimin passed out on his bed. He dreamt a strange dream of a place he didn’t know, but he was surrounded by mirrors, dancing to music he never heard before. It wasn’t a bad dream. 

Morning came and Jimin woke up early. He looked through the window, the sun was already shining but there were very few people on the street. Jimin gathered his stuff and crept down to the first floor. 

There was no one at the bar, but an old lady was shuffling in the kitchen so he left some money with her for the hospitality and left. 

The weather was still cold, but refreshing. After few deep breaths Jimin looked towards the castle in the distance, then to his side to the forest. He stood there for a few moments reflecting on whether he should go home or take a look at the forest. 

Before he knew it Jimin was walking towards the forest. He always thought it looked the best in the morning, and maybe he would get inspired. Jimin just couldn’t resist the temptation. 

The forest was huge, old and strong trees created a mysterious atmosphere. Jimin felt as if he was able to breathe differently here. He walked into the forest, looking around he thought about many different things. The silence, dancing, his play and Yoongi. 

Jimin rubbed his hands together to fend of the cold and suddenly stopped in his tracks. There was a boy not far from him, it looked like he didn’t notice Jimin and just kept on doing on what he was doing. 

Jimin would have ignored the guy, but he was…unusual to say the least. He had a strange hair colour, he was  to his waist, red tattoos covering his body. "Uma tribe?" Jimin thought "But they lived in an island far away from kingdom of Aka" 

His moves were as odd as the boy himself, but Jimin was pretty sure he was dancing. The boy moved fast, but kept his body low, like it was heavy, almost like he was dragging it. 

Jimin was amazed, everything about this handsome boy was weird, but Jimin was immersed he felt as if he was watching something from a different world. 

The boy looked towards Jimin, stopped for a second and then started sprinting away from Jimin. 

Jimin let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding and before he realized he was already chasing the boy. He tripped many times, over himself, over the roots of the trees, but kept his eyes on the boy. 

"W-wa-wait!" 

Suddenly Jimin was falling, everything around him went dark and he was just… falling. He panicked, was he dying, was he…already dead? 

Jimin closed his eyes and a few moments later he felt solid ground under his feet. Jimin opened his eyes slowly and his jaw dropped. 

There were buildings taller than any castle all around him. Strange metallic things were moving on the road.  And the people, there were so many of them wearing the strangest clothes, but all of them were ignoring the distressed boy who was clearly having a hard time. 

Jimin’s lip quivered, he was scared, where was he? 

Jimin made himself move, standing in one place wasn’t going to solve anything. He moved aimlessly through the street, observing the buildings and what seemed like markets.  

Jimin jumped out of fear when he saw something flying in the sky, but soon calmed himself. He felt a strange sensation. 

It was his first time in a place like this, he had no idea where he was and yet, Jimin felt that it was familiar, like he knew this place. Maybe dreamt it? 

“Yes! That’s it” Jimin exclaimed, “This is a dream; I shouldn’t be afraid” he told himself. 

Jimin looked up and again, during the same day he stopped in his tracks for the same reason. The boy he saw in the forest was here. He was standing in front of a crosswalk 10 metres away from Jimin.  

Jimin engrossed himself in the boy's features, he looked…perfect. He started moving towards the boy, he didn’t know what he will do after walking up to him, but he needed to meet him. He just had to. 

After just two steps Jimin was stopped by a hand. He let out a whine, as he was roughly pulled and turned around to face another boy. 

Heavy breathing, dishevelled black hair and frantic look in the boy’s eyes scared Jimin a little. 

The boy took a deep breath “I… found you.”