Prompt: Sleeping Beauty, JongYu

Till eternity you shall sleep,

Absorbed in a trance deep.

Far from escape, far from solace,

You shall live, but without a trace.

Jonghyun watched himself breathe, lost in a trance, exactly in the position his father had left him lain in his grand chamber, adorned in opulency. He watched and watched, feeling desolate at the quiescence that surrounded him, only his calm breaths breaking it periodically.

He began to feel dizzy and glanced towards the mirror instead, finding his lain figure right where it was supposed to be...but finding nothing look back at him from where he truly stood at.

He looked below at his translucent palms, sighing deeply, before laying back in air beside his solid, his real self, closing his eyes to sleep.

But he opened them a moment right after, giving a dejected look to his solid self at the side.

Asleep, he already was.

Jonghyun found out he could move through the walls.

He had grown tired of watching himself sleep and had wandered in the halls of the abandoned castle. Determined to find a way to wake, he approached the gates, ready to walk through them, but he collided into them instead.

He tried jumping the walls and climbing the trees, tried exploring the tunnels and jumping off from the terrace into the streams...but no matter what he did, there was something he collided into, something which sent him back into the castle, disabling him from leaving.

It were the barriers of his cursed trance, barriers that kept his partial self asleep, barriers that kept his other partial self from trying to do anything to break the other’s sleep.

He returned to his grand chamber, settling beside himself, staring at the furnishings that had begin to collect dust, wishing for his translucent self to be trapped in a mystic slumber as well.

He had lost count of the days he wandered, questioning his fragmentary existence, trying to solve the path that led to his wake. He had lost track of his thoughts, track of his own tracks, which had finally faded along with many other memories he held.

He was now inured to being partially awake, partially alive; inured to hearing nothing but the chirping of the birds, the rustling of the leaves and the rush of the streams.

He liked it on the terrace, watching the mild breeze affect everything but himself, the slight movement of nature consoling him from the stillness that he had become.

He used to wish to be able to feel the breeze again; but now all he wished for was to be freed of his solitude.

And for that, he did not care anymore if he woke or not.

His days passed in mindless staring and humming in a voice only he could hear. He sang too, sometimes softly, sometimes loud and painfully, his desire of escape finding words in his tunes.

His tune finally broke one day and Jonghyun rushed to the find the source of interruption. It were a group of horsemen, who got off their stallions and tried to push open the rusted gates of the castle.

Jonghyun watched eagerly from his balcony, finding the men enter the castle, led by a fairly young man, a thin band of royalty adorning his dark hair.

Jonghyun watched the men hoist a flag with a symbol foreign, watched them settle in the hall and light the fireplace, watched them celebrate and watched them drift into slumber.

Jonghyun watched and watched, all through the night, anticipating what would come after the men’s slumber.

He grew angry when each of them woke the next morning and returned to his chamber, glancing at his solid self to console himself that maybe, just like those men, he would some day wake as well.

They found out that the castle was under a cursed trance.

The townsfolk had refused to assist the men tidy their fortress, in fear of being affected by the curse under which their previous prince slept.

The men began to empty the hall in fearful hurry, not bothering to explore their new conquest.

Jonghyun watched them leave, finding the nascent hope he had begun to hold, leave as well.

He returned to his chamber and settled beside his other self.

He stared at the dusty furnishings, stared and stared.

He eyes never strained no matter how much he stared.

He had been exempted from every pain.

Except the pain of his heart.

The pain of solitude, the pain of being helplessly trapped.

Jonghyun lost count of the days, lost count of the melodies, lost count of everything he did.

He cared no more of his solitude, cared no more of being cursed, cared no more of wanting to escape.

Watch, wander and wonder was all he did, all he could do, all he knew he was sentenced to do for eternity.

But came one day when his cycle became awry, because came that day the same young man, adorned in simpler robes, but the golden band around his head being as grand as ever.

Jonghyun watched him with wide eyes, watched him enter, watched him ascend the staircase, watched him search all the chambers until he reached the one where his partial self laid.

Jonghyun followed the man’s prudent steps with his confounded ones, halting only when he did.

The man stared at Jonghyun’s asleep self, stared and stared, and Jonghyun stared at the man, stared and stared.

The man finally tore his gaze away and began wandering, Jonghyun close at his heels.

And from then on, Jonghyun was back to his cycle, but this time having someone sharing it with him.

All the man did was watch Jonghyun sleep and when he didn’t, he wandered around the castle. Jonghyun was confounded why the man would choose to live the life he was so desperate to escape. But as he kept on following the man, kept on watching him take his every step, Jonghyun realised that though it seemed like he was living the life Jonghyun had been, it still was very different.

The man could feel the breeze, he could feed the birds, he could smell the flowers and he could read from the library.

Jonghyun raised his translucent palms to meet his gaze and sighed in misery, deciding to not follow the man.

After all, he reminded him of his cursed trance, reminded him of his incompleteness, reminded him that he had no escape.

But he was impossible not to watch.

He was the model of what Jonghyun wanted to be and more.

And despite his jealousy, despite the ache he felt, he watched the man, watched and watched...to test the limits of his aching, jealous heart.

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