Becoming the king of Red was one of the many things Kyungsoo did not expect.

There was no way that out of all his gifted, charming, pure-blooded royal siblings, he would be the one chosen to succeed the previous king, but after an ‘accidental’ fire burnt his father, brothers, and sisters to ashes, there was no choice but for the council to name him the new king.

His coronation ceremony was set to take place on the 61st of Autumn, at the sunset, yet on the eve of his coronation, a mysterious package was delivered to him. The contents of the package were, truthfully speaking, as disturbing as the remains of his burnt siblings that the workers dug out from the rubble after the fire. There was nothing much attached to the box to indicate who or what the sender was except for a few encouraging words etched onto the contents of the package.

“Wishing you a successful ceremony, my little king.”

It wasn’t hard for him to decipher who the sender was from the hints in the package. After all, who else would there be to send him such a wonderful gift besides the queen of the neighboring kingdom, White?

 —author's note— 
I'm writing this story for a contest even though I have to take care of 21081920812 other fics. Because priorities, right? :D  Technically, I'm only supposed to write less than 3000 word chapters and 15 chapters max for this story bc of contest rules... and I'm the worst at writing short chapters and short stories// plus I have no idea what direction this story is taking on// so let's see how this goes haha. used to write this for a contest but then I figured out I wrote too much so I wasn't eligible. rip.
also kyungsoo fic bc I love my penguin and I surprisingly don't write about him much

a list of aesthetics this story is inspired by...
playing cards, alice in wonderland, kyungsoo's red hair, flowers, fire/ice concept, white queen/looking glass, not romance but romance stories, baekhyun being gorgeous that he kills me, kyungsoo being just as gorgeous especially when he smirks, all the YA romance books, cool googled photos of crowns.

—credits to—
Can You Feel It? Writing Contest for hosting the contest that I'm entering this in.
The prompt is #22 if you want to check out which prompt I used!