Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Once upon a time, in a faraway land,

A young prince lived in a shining castle.

Although he had everything his heart desired,

The prince was closed-off and unkind.

But then, one winter’s night,

The castle staff swarmed the young prince

And forced him to choose a young woman to take as his Queen,

And offered him a single rose for his hardships.

Terrified and ignored by all those around him,

The prince locked himself in the library and desperately tried to cast an enchantment that would free him of the terrible people around him.

Alas, the prince had not before practised magic,

And the spell transformed him into a hideous beast,

And placed a powerful spell on the castle,

And all who lived there,

Whilst removing all of the royals and their activities

From the minds of all who knew of them.

Ashamed of his monstrous form,

The Beast concealed himself inside the castle,

Only leaving the grounds covered up and masked.

The Rose the men had offered,

Had truly become an enchanted one,

Which would bloom for seventy-one years onwards.

If he could learn to love another

And earn their love in return

By the time the last petal fell,

Then the spell would be broken.

If not, he would be doomed to remain a Beast for all time.

As the years passed, he fell into despair, and lost all hope,

For who could ever learn to love… a Beast?

༶•┈┈⛧┈♛ ♛┈⛧┈┈•༶

Han Jisung was decidedly... not your normal teenager.

Nineteen years old, parentless and living in a small, quiet village that lived to make a fool of him? Nope, definitely not the typical teenager to come across.

Whilst in this village the people his age would by now be looking towards finding a suitable spouse to settle down and start a family with, or at least finding a way of stable income, Jisung was contentedly living his life alone, in a minuscule house with minimal belongings, painting original art onto canvas and other materials to sell off to travellers to scrounge up enough money to keep him alive until the next painting could be sold.

And he knew perfectly well; was very much aware of his abnormality compared to everyone else by his town's standards; he didn’t need the villagers to point it out to him daily- and yet here he stood: another day, another dig, as he passed through the crowded centre market hearing whispers and occasional (bold) yells directed at himself.

Jisung paid no attention to them; instead observing everybody going about their routines that were identical and timed from one day to the other; almost scarily so.

There goes the baker with his tray, like always.

Wordlessly, Jisung approached the baker, dropping a coin into his hand before picking up a small loaf of bread and stuffing it into his satchel before walking on, one foot in front of the other, same old, same old.

Every morning is the same.

Hand-made yet sturdy stalls stood on the dusty ground holding sales of hunted meat, chicken eggs, fruit, bottled milk and orange juice; fabrics and sewing supplies; and the occasional trinket. Hollers and shouts of offers for prices and products were projected around the village square as villagers weaved in and around one another in a form of chaotically-organised dance to get to which stalls they needed, but in between each business offer, the chants and comments about Jisung rang unbearably loudly in his ears.

“Eggs for sale! Come and get your fresh eggs!”

“Fish! Freshly caught yesterday!”

“Ten yards! One pound!”

“Good day!”

Walking along the cobbled paths of the village, Jisung tried increasingly hard to block out the snickers and conversations that followed him, but really, who could ever tune out words that feel like a knife to the heart?

“Look, look! There he goes! He’s a strange one, no question,” one person said, eyeing Jisung and not even bothering to quieten their voice.

“I wonder if he’s feeling well. What a dreamy, far-off look he holds in his face! What an utter puzzle to the rest of us.”

Internally, Jisung rolled his eyes so far that, if he had done so physically, they definitely would have stuck in the back of his head at everybody’s shallowness. Couldn’t they just leave him alone? People’s lives must be really, really sad if all they seemed to do in terms of entertainment was make fun of him- but nevertheless, he carried on, running his daily errands and counting the seconds before he could return to his home again, and find peace once more with his art supplies and books. Alone.

“Look, there he goes, he’s very strange, no question about that,” came a hushed whisper from behind Jisung, and he inwardly flinched beginning to feel slightly sick. “So dazed and distracted. Head up in the clouds.”

A head in the clouds has a far better view than any head looking at you vile people, Jisung thought to himself. Do they really have nothing better to do than stand and gossip?

“Come now, it’s no wonder that people talk about him so. His looks have got no parallel,” Jisung heard someone’s grandmother say, and smiled to himself, having had a little faith in his village restored. Thank goodness for kind old ladies... the only form of amicable company he'd ever come across in his entire teen and early adult life.

“But he’s very odd. And nothing like the rest of us,” their grandchild snapped, but Jisung shouldered on, choosing to ignore the negative reply and focusing on the compliment. Don't focus on the negatives. 

As normal, Jisung bought one singular egg and one bottle of milk (his usual daily purchase) before speed-walking out of the village market, away from more prying eyes. Taking this chance to place his food into his satchel, he took out his pouch of coins and looked inside; despairing to find that it was emptier than his hope of finding happiness within this self same village.

Last week’s art trade admittedly hadn’t gotten him much money, so he’d have to make do with nothing to eat for tomorrow, until the next traveller happened upon their village.

Recently, there had been a certain traveller who most certainly did not live nearby, but had kept coming back to Jisung’s village around once a week for the past two months. Every time they would come by horse, and no matter how hot the weather was they would be hidden by a thick cloak, hood to cover their face and leather gloves that hid the appearance of huge hands. They would make a beeline directly for Jisung, before wordlessly purchasing his newest artwork and leaving, only to return on the same day the next week.

Jisung found it inexplicably strange, but knew better than to question it, and found himself being immensely grateful for this faceless traveller, for without them, Jisung was sure he may well have died by now from lack of income for food.

“Ah, Jisung!”

Jisung groaned – inwardly, again- and turned around, not bothering to fake a smile as his eyes met his least favourite person in this small-town village.

Adonis.

“Hey, Adonis,” Jisung didn’t try to mask the disappointment in his voice, knowing that lacing any fake positivity into his voice would only lengthen the harrassment he was about to endure once more.

“Come, now, Jisung, I’m not that bad!”

Oh, but you are.

“What do you say? Fancy finally taking me up on my offer for dinner?” Adonis pressed on, making Jisung cringe.

“No.”

“Oh, come on. Just one dinner! How bad could it possibly be?”

Even just one more minute with you is like going to be hell, never mind a whole meal, Jisung thought, not even bothering to answer as he turned on his heel and walked away, back home.

All through Jisung’s childhood he had been constantly harassed by Adonis: first bullied in his early years of school before hormones had kicked in; Jisung had lost his baby fat, realised he was gay, and suddenly Adonis’ interests had… taken a U-Turn.

Adonis had made it very clear that he was straight, and they lived in a time and place with a lot of homophobic people, but somehow Adonis had picked up on Jisung’s sexuality- although Jisung himself had never spoken a word aloud about it to anybody- and would constantly badger him about it for his own pleasure as well as the laughter of the watching villagers.

“Leave me alone,” Jisung muttered over his shoulder angrily.

“This isn’t over, Jisung! I will court you!” Adonis yelled after him as the distance between the two grew larger, causing Jisung to snort under his breath as the villagers, Adonis included, laughed for an entirely different reason.

And I’ll find out that I’m capable of sorcery. It's never going to happen.

Throwing the door open in his haste to get out of the public sights of the village, Jisung rushed inside his home, the door shutting loudly behind him. Finally, he was alone. Free; in an imprisoned sense.

Breathing a blissful sigh of relief, Jisung leaned against the door, looking around his single-roomed house in satisfaction.

Sure, it was tiny, but it was the only privacy he had, which was more than he needed to simply escape everybody else.

The one room was circular, and full of Jisung’s reasons for happiness.

Shelves lined the pale yellow walls and windows flooded the room with natural light; art supplies were arranged artistically on said shelves and some of the works that Jisung had painted, but not sold yet, were pushed beneath his unmade bed for protection and safekeeping.

A table, also circular and pushed next to a window, was still covered in yesterday’s art supplies: a jar of water that was now coloured from infinite dips of a coloured paintbrush; a couple of tissues that had by now dried wavy and colourful along with a set of paints, brushes and the canvas that Jisung had been working on.

Jisung happily unloaded his satchel into his singular cupboard kept close to the floor for optimum cooler conditions, closing the door on the bread, egg and milk before returning contentedly to his table, where he proceeded to paint his heart out for the rest of the morning, blond hair catching the sun’s rays perfectly and glowing in the morning light.

At noon he decided to actually eat something; eating half of his bread and boiling the one egg for lunch and drinking half of his bottle of milk, saving the rest of the milk and bread for the next day. Once he had eaten his first (and last) meal of the day, the blond-haired beauty stepped out of the safety of his house once more to tend to the wild flowers growing outside of it and make another trip to the local library.

“Ah, my favourite bookworm,” the librarian, Jae Park, greeted Jisung cheerfully as the blond entered the small stone building, eyes automatically grazing over the shelves of books that were lined up invitingly.

“Hello again, Jae-ssi,” Jisung greeted as he entered, fingers slightly brown from the soil he had been tending to minutes beforehand.

“Jisung, Jisung, I’ve told you before, it’s just Jae to you,” the light brunet replied laughingly, and Jisung felt a weight lift from his shoulders. Jae, Jisung could safely say, was the only person in this whole village who didn’t either ridicule Jisung, or pursue him for his looks alone.

“So, how are you finding the books?” Jae carried on as he organised a shelf of them. Jisung looked at the three books he held in his hands from his last time and handed them back to the elder.

“I loved them, thank you. But I’ve finished them now, so... alas, they must be returned for somebody else to enjoy.”

Jae grinned widely. “And which was your favourite?”

“I think I liked Pride and Prejudice the most. Something about the message of people not being what you first judge them to be gave me some hope for certain villagers,” Jisung teased.

“Well, I do happen to be in abundance of Jane Austen, so if you would like to keep that one, then it’s yours, for the small price of a singular flower from your garden,” Jae bargained, knowing that Jisung had no money but would refuse to take things for free.

Jisung’s heart filling with joy, he squealed and hugged the book close to his heart. “Thank you, Jae-ssi! I’ll fetch you the flower now.”

And so he left, practically skipping along the paths of the village until he entered his home once more to pick the most beautiful flower from his recent picks to pay Jae for the book. Deciding that he couldn’t choose between four of them, he shrugged and picked all four of them up before leaving the house again, this time leaving his- HIS!- book on the table beside latest his art piece.

“Here you go, Jae-ssi,” Jisung was breathless as he entered the cosy library once more and handed the flowers to the owner, his eyes having brightened from his brisk exercise that his journey had provided.

“Jae,” the elder corrected, taking the flowers and thanking Jisung for them.

“Jae… hyung,” Jisung refused to drop the honorifics altogether.

“Ok fine, a compromise. Hyung it is,” Jae caved finally, smiling widely. Jisung really was too polite for his own good... secretly, Jae wished the younger would simply tell the other villagers where to go. They'd probably end up leaving him alone much faster if only he'd stand up to them a little.

“Thank you again, Jae-hyung! I’m going to go now and finish my paintings,” Jisung announced, taking his leave with a small finger wave.

“Of course, any time, Jisung. Never stop painting, your talents render me speechless each time.”

---

Jisung had been enjoying a slow walk back home, enjoying the nature of the village- that is, at least, until more familiar jeers stopped him in his tracks. Today really was going to be an eventful one, huh?

“Ah, Jisung, Jisung. Back outside again, I see?”

Jisung gritted his teeth and kept walking, ignoring both the voices sneering at him and his pounding heart.

“Don’t ignore me, Jisung. I know you can hear me.”

Jisung snapped and whirled around, fists clenching by his sides in blatant annoyance.

“I can hear you, I’m just ignoring you. You never say anything new, so why bother?”

“Oh, a feisty one. I like this side of you,” Adonis taunted, much to the snickers of the small crowd that had already formed- ridiculous how fast crowds form here, Jisung thought, people really do have nothing better to do with their lives.

“Leave me alone.”

“I’ll leave you alone only when you agree to court me,” came the same reply as every other reply, every other time this situation arose.

“Never.”

“Your loss,” Adonis inspected his dirty nails. Jisung felt sick just looking at him. “Guess I’ll have to keep trying, then.”

“Adonis. We could never make each other happy! Surely you must realise that.”

Adonis snorted. “If at first you do not succeed, try, try, try again.”

“This isn’t trying at this point, Adonis! This is harassment! You follow me around, constantly asking me to court you when you’ve shown me no good nor likeable quality and when I do reject you, all you retort with are insults!”

Adonis’ eyes narrowed; anger making itself known all over his features.

“We could never make each other happy, Adonis. Surely you must see that,” Jisung repeated for emphasis, “Now leave me alone and court one of the many girls or guys our age who would happily do so, instead of chasing the one person who isn’t interested.” Jisung turned his back on the persistent man and shouldered his way through the crowd, honestly feeling quite scared of the sheer amount of people who had already gathered.

“You can’t avoid me forever, Jisung! One day you’ll accept my wishes to court you!”

Jisung closed his ears on the hoots, jeers and comments that broke free as soon as he was out of the crowd, all of them berating and hating on him for rejecting such a man. Jisung had no idea what anyone saw in the obnoxious being- all of his life Jisung had grown up listening to his endless rants and raves of how all women and also shyer men who happened upon his radar should not learn how to read, or be educated, and should stay at home, housekeeping and taking care of their spouses and family. It was disgusting and Jisung always felt sick to the stomach hearing him speak of it.

As they grew up, Adonis had constantly targeted Jisung, from bullying him as a child; punches here and stepping on feet there; to constantly asking him to court him as teenagers- where the sudden urge came from, Jisung had no idea- and it left Jisung feeling wary about ever leaving his house and feeling very unsafe, never knowing where the slightly elder boy would next show up.

Add that to the constant negativity from every other villager apart from Jae, and Jisung just wanted to leave, honestly. But how could he with no money? He just wanted more than this provincial life he currently lead.

Although…

If he were to leave, tonight, and look around the outsides of the village for someplace to make a new life without telling anybody, then figuratively, his home would be left alone for at least a few days before people noticed his absence, right? Even the smallest chance of finding somewhere else sounded so appealing to the blond; he just wanted to escape this life of repressing, demoralising, patronising people and be happy.

Ok, he thought as he entered the threshold to his home, if I leave when it’s dark, no one will notice me leave and spread the word. I should have a couple of days before anyone notices my absence- mostly because nobody will have laughed at me for that long and will think it’s strange- so if I’ve found no hope at all for a new life by then, I shall return to my home where everything will be just as I’ve left it. If I do find somewhere miraculously, then I can stay there and start afresh.

Plan resolutely set, no matter how spontaneous it was, Jisung fetched his biggest satchel and began to fill it; taking only his Pride and Prejudice paperback, his paints, paintbrushes, smallest piece of artwork to sell if he needed money- which he definitely would- and the small amount of bread he had left. Looking around his home once more, Jisung decided to take the one thin blanket he had on his bed as a last, small insulation layer against the cold nights, and then sat and daydreamed as he awaited nightfall with a new sense of excitement and purpose.

---

As soon as darkness fell, enveloping the small village like a thick blanket of navy, Jisung opened his window and stuck his head out, checking for anyone passing by. Pleasantly surprised to only be greeted with the occasional horse and rabbit, Jisung closed the window, checking that they were all firmly locked before stepping out of his door and tip-toeing down the street, satchel firmly on his shoulder and blanket wrapped safely around himself.

As a last-minute thought, Jisung grabbed one of the fire torches that hung on the outer walls of the village- he wasn’t scared of the dark, per se, but wanted some form of light to help guide him into the unknown in the depths of the night- and, after pulling his blanket closer against his body as a kind of safety shield, stepped into the surrounding forest, where he walked, and walked, and walked.

For hours and hours he did not stop; cowering every so often at loud noises and occasional animal calls that took him by surprise, but overall Jisung had surprised himself with his own bravery. He guessed that it was the adrenaline that both kept him so brave and so awake throughout the whole night, though the same could not be said for his body temperature.

Though the torch was fire, it did not stay lit for the whole night and had extinguished itself a couple of hours into Jisung’s journey, leaving him to walk through the forest blind and alone and wish no source of warmth. The icy cold settled deep into Jisung’s bones; his thin blanket and clothing doing nothing to stop it in its journey, and after five hours of walking, when the sky was just barely lightening, Jisung was shaking so hard he could scarcely walk.

His only solace in keeping going was that there had to be a town or source of warmth somewhere, he was already so far from his village that the walk back would surely kill him from the cold, lack of supplies and energy.

As the sun finally made itself visible on the horizon through the trees and the birdsongs were back at peak performance, Jisung could have cried with relief as he saw a building in the distance.

Towers and peaks were visible through the trees, and Jisung did his best to hurry his frozen feet and legs along to find out if this could be a source of hospitality to him. God, he hoped so.

As he drew closer, Jisung could make out that this was, in fact, a castle, complete with turrets and a drawbridge, and all the fairytale castles Jisung had read about in books paled in comparison to this one. Although it held an icy atmosphere of its own and actually seemed quite threatening, Jisung pushed past the spike of fear it implanted in his heart and entered through the gates upon reaching it, glad out of his mind to finally have found somewhere that might let him stay for a few days or at least provide him with directions to the nearest town.

But alas, Jisung’s freezing and drained state of being had failed him, for he barely made it up the first step towards the great doors before one giant shudder wracked his entire body, his breath hitched, and his body fell, unconscious, heavily upon the stone steps.

And there, Jisung was powerless against the darkness enveloping him and taking him hostage.

Chapter Text

Pain.

Warmth, pain, warmth, pain, pain…

Jisung’s eyes shot open as he sat straight up in terrifyingly unfamiliar surroundings.

He was laying in a king-sized bed adorned with soft, downy sheets of pure white and littered with deep red and grey cushions, in a room that was painted light blue in colour and seemed to be laced and lined with gold leaf. The bed was a four-poster one; the frame also appearing to be gold. Against one wall, a huge wardrobe stood proud whilst an inanimate suit of armour stood next to it; and Jisung didn’t miss the chest of drawers, dressing table and large mirror and small bookcase either.

Soft bed, warm sheets, fully sunlit room full of worried voices yet there were no other people in sight… what is going on?

“Shh, breathe, you’re okay, you’re okay,” a deep voice soothed Jisung, who looked around in a panic. Clearly there were no other people in this room! Who was talking to him?!

“Who’s there?” Jisung yelled, wincing at how his voice trembled in fear.

“Down here,” a different, cheerful voice said, and Jisung felt movement in his lap, looking down onto his covered legs to see that it wasn’t actually a blanket providing his body with warmth, but actually a tapestry. And such a beautiful one it was, too; ivory fabric woven with gold thread illustrating the tragic story of a prince losing his mortality. Jisung stared at it, fingers hesitantly tracing the patterns until the cheerful voice spoke again.

“Like what you see?”

“It’s beautiful,” Jisung whispered, voice not as shaky anymore. This sentiment was short lived.

“Thank you, I know I am,” the voice spoke again, and this time Jisung realised that the voice was, indeed, stemming from his lap.

“What in the-“ Jisung’s voice rose and wavered again as he kicked the tapestry off his lap to find the source of the voice.

“Yah, be gentle!” the tapestry said.

Jisung suddenly felt very sick. “I’m still dreaming. That’s it. I’m still unconscious. This tapestry did not just talk to me.”

“I’m not sorry at all, but I did,” the tapestry said. “Hello. I’m Kim Seungmin! Pleasure to make your acquaintance, good sir.”

Swallowing harshly, Jisung eyed the tapestry- Seungmin, apparently- suspiciously. “This is a joke, right? One of the villagers followed me through the forest and this is some kind of elaborate practical joke, isn’t it?” against his will, Jisung’s eyes filled with tears. “I’ve told you all to leave me alone.”

“Villagers? Who?” the deep voice from before resounded in the room again and a kitten jumped onto the bed, making himself comfy in Jisung’s lap. Jisung sniffled and cradled the kitten in his hands, enjoying the way it immediately snuggled into him in a fluffy ball of orange.

“The villagers where I live. All of them mock me; ridicule me just because I’m different,” Jisung said in a small voice. “This could be a new way of them making my life miserable.”

“No villagers here, sir, I promise,” Seungmin-tapestry reassured him gently. “But you may have a bit of a shock at who we actually are.”

“Oh, why would I be shocked? I’m talking to a tapestry…” Jisung giggled wetly.

“You’ll see…” Seungmin trailed off. “This castle, it’s not… inanimate. Quite the opposite. Quite a lot of us are alive here, you see… Actually, I’ll just show you, and let you ask questions later.”

Not even a second later, as Jisung looked about the room expectantly, one object after another slowly came to life and neared the bed. Jisung’s head spun as soon enough he was surrounded by the tapestry, a suit of armour, a wooden spoon, a fox, the kitten on his lap, a shield and Candelabra.

“You don’t mean that you’re all alive? Apart from the kitten and fox, of course they’re alive…”

“Yes, but we can talk too!” the kitten spoke again in the same deep voice. Jisung almost dropped it out of shock. “I’m Felix and you give amazing ear rubs.”

“Um… I’m Han Jisung,” Jisung introduced himself to the kitten in utter disbelief. “And apparently I’m talking to a cat.”

“Hello, I’m Hyunjin!” the candelabra said, flourishing a lit wick, the flame wobbling around dangerously.

“I’m Chan and I’m here to protect!” announced the shield; a silver one adorned with blue and white embellishments.

“I’m Jamie, you must be hungry,” introduced the wooden spoon.

“Seo Changbin,” the suit of armour waved.

The tiny fox jumped on the bed next to Felix. “I’m Jeongin and I’m a fennec fox!” he butted his head into Jisung’s thigh, practically begging to be petted. Who was Jisung to refuse?

“Ok, ummm… it’s really nice to meet you all but how are you all talking? I’m sure this is some kind of hallucination,” Jisung wondered out loud, one hand running through Jeongin’s fur whilst the other cradled a sleepy Felix close to his chest.

“EXPLANATION TIME!” Seungmin suddenly jumped up, his fabric baring its whole size in victory. “I’m explaining because I have physical imagery to support it, no fighting this,” he announced, before he appeared to stand up on two corners of his fabric and waddled closer to the human.

“SO,” he began, sounding way too excited for a tapestry, “years and years ago, maybe seventy years? We were a fully functioning castle, had a king and queen, a loyal kingdom, everything was good. The king and queen had a son; a prince, who had to take the throne much sooner than expected after their sudden deaths on an overseas travel. The prince, then only nine years old, had to take their place as ruler where he was manipulated by his barons and governors who wanted them to do what they wanted, instead of doing what he wanted to. Upon turning twenty, the prince- now king of eleven years- he became more and more pressured to find a wife.”

“Oh, of course,” Jisung quipped. “cliché but so, so real.”

“The life of a spouseless king is harsh,” Chan chimed in.

“He was introduced to endless eligible princesses and maidens but found interest in none of them, and over the years grew cold and unfeeling through having his own feelings ignored and uncared for by the selfish people around him,” Seungmin carried on until Jeongin interrupted.

“Oh, Minnie, Minnie, can I tell the rest?” the fox said, eyes opening suddenly as he whipped his head around to face the tapestry.

“Oh, fine, go ahead,” Seungmin relented easily.

“Thank you! So one night, Jisung-ssi, there was yet another ball being held, on the evening of the King’s 21 st birthday, again to try and force him to choose a wife. He was out of his mind at this point, desperate for the forces to stop without him having to marry. So much so that before the ball, he fled to the library in a panic, pulling out every book of dark magic he could find and poring over them in desperation. But alas, though capable of the magic, he lacked both practise and expertise, and cast a spell to try to rid everybody of their one-track minds, to leave him alone and let him be without trying to force love onto him.”

“Oh,” Jisung breathed out quietly, feeling his heart sink at the thought of the king’s desperation.

“The spell went wrong and us, his loyal companions, who were in the library with him trying to talk him out of it, had the spell cast most strongly onto us as well as him, whilst the other guests and staff who had treated him so wrongly all escaped.”

“The rest of the castle also gained consciousness, in a sense, but we are mostly the only objects and animals with human consciousness and feelings,” Jamie finished. “And there is your explanation.”

“Wow…” Jisung breathed out. “I’m so sorry. It must be awful for you all.”

“We did nothing to stop him as he descended into his harsh, cold demeanour. We were there for him, supported him, but did nothing to stop him from becoming such a cold-hearted man,” Chan said sadly. “We deserve it just as much as him.”

“It was nobody’s faults but those cruel men who manipulated him,” Jisung butted in angrily. Jeongin’s fox form let out a little breathy laugh.

“You’re awfully protective over somebody you haven’t yet even met.”

“Well, I happen to know how it feels like to be alienated and frowned upon others for being different,” Jisung mumbled.

“Hmm. I’d wait until you meet him…” Chan murmured.

“Ah, speak of the devil and he shall appear-“

“WHO,” a terrifying, ear-splitting growl resounded as the door to the room slammed open to reveal a huge, towering form, “IS THIS?”

Immediately, everything and everyone in the room, and even the room itself, seemed to cower at the presence of this new being.

Inhumanly tall and broad, pointed fangs and claws, black and white fur growing all over their body and reminding Jisung quite well of a werewolf, if werewolves were impossibly overgrown and looked just as human as they did inhuman. It was inexplicably strange, to see such a being; someone who looked so normal yet so terrifying at the same time, and Jisung wouldn’t be surprised if this foreign being were actually vibrating between his kingly form and beast form at an extremely high frequency.

“Um, hi, I’m Jisung-“Jisung began bravely before he was cut off by a loud roar.

“WHAT is he doing here?”

Felix and Jeongin curled into tiny balls on Jisung’s lap, as if on instinct.

“The castle let him in,” Jamie whispered urgently. “It’s never done that before, ever.”

The beast- still nameless- faltered for a second. “I don’t care . He needs to leave. Immediately.”

“He’s sick and had travelled for hours in the freezing cold. At least let us nurse him back to health before sending him on his way, Minho.”

Minho, Jisung thought. A pretty name.

Many moments passed where Minho and Jamie stood staring each other down. If the circumstances had been different, Jisung definitely would have laughed aloud at the sight of a grotesquely tall beast staring down a wooden spoon.

“As long as I don’t see him, do what you like.” Minho relented before he stormed out in anger, slamming the door. Jeongin and Felix flinched and instinctively curled closer into the warmth of Jisung’s tummy.

“Don’t mind him, he’s just sensitive to new people,” Hyunjin quipped, unbothered by the King’s outburst. “He’ll come around eventually.”

“I’m not sick though,” Jisung argued. “I feel fine. I could leave right now.”

“Eh, one white lie to the king to allow you to stay won’t affect anything,” Seungmin waved a corner of his fabric at Jisung in an unbothered flourish.

Now, this had Jisung really confused. “Why are you so adamant that I stay?”

If a tapestry could shift about suspiciously, Jisung was sure that Seungmin would be doing it right now. “No reason… you do seem a little warm, though! We’d better keep you here a few days just to make sure you’re okay.”

Hmph. Jisung sighed internally. There was really no other place he could go, really, and luck really was on his side having the- staff? Objects?- of the castle- take him in like this.

It just seemed a little suspicious.

Chapter Text

“NOW. You must be hungry!”

Jisung blinked at the sudden change of atmosphere in the room. “Huh?”

“Come, come!” Jamie was wriggling out of the room, the wooden spoon looking very comical as she did so, “you were unconscious for hours and were practically frozen solid! You need sustenance.”

“Come! Be our guest,” Felix invited, leaping off the bed and trotting over to the door, tail curling in the air. Jeongin, instead of following, nuzzled back into Jisung’s chest, silently asking to be carried. Jisung was definitely not going to refuse this adorable fennec fox wanting to be held!

Seungmin helpfully slid off the bed, sliding along the floor like a magic carpet to follow Felix and lead the way for the human whilst the rest of the aforementioned humans-turned-objects beckoned as best they could for the human to follow on; Jisung complying as he ran a hand through Jeongin’s fur to distract himself from this foreign feeling of being lost in such different surroundings.

Leaving the bedroom that Jisung had apparently been residing in for a day so far, the blond was led through the castle, marvelling silently in awe and wonder at how even the corridors were furnished and decorated flawlessly with gold, lavish paintings and ornaments.

Jisung was admiring the work of one particular painting when his heart stopped.

“That’s-“ he ran up to it, still cradling Jeongin, who was inevitably shaken up a little bit in Jisung’s hurry- “This painting-“

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Changbin walked back down the corridor to trace the painting with a metal finger. “The artist has true, raw talent to be able to create art like that.”

“Um… thank you,” Jisung smiled bashfully, enjoying the way the helmet that served as Changbin’s head swung around to face him. If the suit of armour had eyes, Jisung would like to think that Changbin would be staring him down right that second.

“You did this?”

“You’re the artist from the village?” Felix squeaked, a stark contrast to his normally deep voice. Even so, this squeak was certainly more characteristic for a kitten.

“Yes, hello,” Jisung confirmed. “I’m the artist from the village, I guess.”

“You HAVE to teach me how to paint,” Jeongin exclaimed, before Chan snorted. “Oh, like you’re any more capable of painting right now, shield boy.”

“YAH! Don’t disrespect me,” Chan clapped back mockingly, “I’m still older than you.”

“I have more legs than you.”

“I can levitate.”

“I have a human to carry me now!”

“Jisung could carry me too if I asked him!”

“Girls, girls, you’re both pretty, let’s goooo,” Jamie interrupted, hopping along the carpeted floor on her handle. Jisung chuckled and picked Chan up by the enarmes using his unoccupied hand as an unspoken compromise, enjoying the way Jeongin lazily snapped his jaws at the shield before pushing his nose back into Jisung’s chest comfortably.

“I’m honoured that you have my artwork displayed in the castle, but… how did you buy it? I’ve only had one buyer for the past months, the same person each time, and that was definitely a recent work…” Jisung trailed off as reality hit him like a brick wall. “Wait. The one buyer… huge, cloaked, never showed any inch of skin or his face- was that Minho all this time?”

Jamie was shifting uncomfortably, which looked rather comical due to the fact that she was a wooden spoon. “That’s… not our place to reveal, I’m afraid.”

“Valid,” Jisung mumbled, and the rest of the journey through the castle was spent in near silence.

---

“Here we are, the dining hall,” Changbin opened the door and bowed as Jisung entered, making the younger giggle.

“No need for formalities, I’m nothing but a common villager.”

Chan tutted as Jisung set him down on the dining room floor. “Don’t say that. You’re our guest! So we shall treat you like royalty nevertheless.”

“Really, I’d rather you just treat me like a friend,” Jisung wavered. “No bowing or things like that… just want to experience friendship.”

“I’m your friend,” Jeongin yawned. “You’re warm and snuggly.”

“Yah, I want snuggles too!” Felix jumped up- impressively high for a kitten, how he managed to land on Jisung’s shoulder no one was ever able to figure out- and wrapped himself around the back of Jisung’s neck like a minuscule, fluffy scarf. Jisung leaned forward slightly to minimise the chances of Felix falling off of him and onto the hard stone floor.

“First course!” Jamie jumped twice on the marbled floor to mimic clapping as best she could as a spoon and a silver trolley wheeled in a similarly silver dish full of steaming food.

Strong arms suddenly guided Jisung towards a throne-like chair situated at the head of a long table and pushed him gently into it; Jisung turning to see that it was Changbin doing so. The dish on said trolley levitated off its platform and onto the pre-set table in front of Jisung, whose eyes widened at the feat.

Seungmin chuckled. “Like we said before, the whole castle is alive.”

Jisung merely nodded as Jeongin and Felix both perked up at the smell of food and jumped onto the table simultaneously to sniff at the dish in front of Jisung, earning them a light scolding from Chan. The two hung their heads but overall didn’t seem too bothered as Jisung dug in to the food, occasionally choosing particularly juicy pieces of meat or vegetables to feed to the two.

“Do the rest of you eat?” Jisung asked through hugely full cheeks of rice and meat, looking around at the objects- he didn’t really know how he could collectively refer to them, really- clustered around him at the table.

“No, we don’t have any internal systems that rely on food, so we physically can’t,” Chan sighed. “I miss eating though. I miss the taste of everything.”

“What I’d give to eat one more meal…” Jamie fantasised, although there was no sadness about either’s words.

“It’s good to feel useful again, though, now that Jisung is here,” Changbin mused. “Life is so… unnerving, for a servant who’s not serving.”

“You’ve certainly been rusting for too long, old man,” Jeongin quipped, earning a mock-angry suit of armour lunging at him from across the table.

“Cheeky fox…” Changbin muttered.

It was then that the door to the previously cosy room flew open, the candles on the table instantly dying out as the room was suddenly drenched in cold and darkness.

“I thought I told you to keep him out of my sight.” The voice matched the new atmosphere of the room; icy and unfeeling.

“We have to feed him! You don’t want him to die, Minho,” Chan argued.

“I couldn’t care less whether he lives or dies,” Minho snarled, and Jisung involuntarily curled in on himself. Felix instantly jumped back into his lap, making Jisung very grateful to finally have some form of comfort when people degraded him like this.

“Now Minho, you’ve overstepped,” Jamie reprimanded the beast. “That’s a horrible thing to say.”

“And who are you to scold me? You’re a mere wooden spoon,” came the snarky reply.

“Spoon or not, I’m still your friend and servant, and very much older than you. Do not speak to Jisung like that, you know nothing about him.”

“It’s okay, Jamie noona, you don’t have to-“Jisung reached out a hesitant arm to stop Jamie from standing up for him but regretted it when Minho turned on his heel to face him in his full glory. The blond felt ever smaller from his seat in the face of the fully grown beast.

“See? The commoner doesn’t want your pity,” Minho spat. “Leave.”

Jisung nodded without a second thought, slid out of his seat and all but ran out of the room, Felix digging his claws into the human’s shoulder to cling on.

“Jisung-“ Changbin called as he watched him leave, desperately wishing he could have a face once more so he could glare at the king. “Thank you, my King, for that.” After that one-time sass, he, too, followed Jisung out of the room, running, his metal form noisily tailing the blond villager.

Running on shaky legs through the castle, Jisung whipped his head from side to side, trying in vain to remember the route they had taken down to the dining room in order to retrace his steps and find the room he had woken up in, just honestly needing somewhere to curl up and hide for a minute while he collected himself.

“Wrong way, Jisung- no!” Felix shouted as Jisung took a completely wrong turn, but Jisung, so panicked that he had unwittingly managed to tune out the rest of the world- still kept running in the same path that his mind had created, breath ragged and brain whining like a fire alarm.

“Jisung!”

Unable to stop his legs from moving, Jisung found himself running up endless flights of stairs even though he knew that this wasn’t the way; yet he kept moving, the distance between him and Minho increasing and increasing and increasing, or so he thought, and finally he found himself with no more steps to climb, utterly winded and crazily out of breath in a room that somehow held both wind and immense rain.

The stone floor, ankle-deep in water, was dark and saturated whilst the walls were battered with an endless surge of stormy weather, clouds forming in the ceiling that must have produced such a storm. Though there was no lightning, thunder rolled almost constantly and Jisung could barely even see the kitten in his arms through the thick sheets of water battering down from the indoor clouds.

“Jisung, we need to leave, now! ” Felix tried to yell over the thunder and rain, but alas, a kitten does not have the biggest set of lungs; he could hardly be heard over anything.

It was then that it caught Jisung’s eye.

A single rose, untouched by the rain as it was covered by a frosty bell jar, stood in the middle of the room, on the floor. The glass of the jar seemed to have melted into the floor in some places, though it had not; and it glowed ever so slightly through the rain that Jisung simply had to get closer to it.

Taking slow, tiny steps through the rain, Jisung edged closer to the jar, fascinated by both the frost that had formed around it that simply did not change though the rain relentlessly hammered down on it, and also by the petals around the base of the flower that had fallen, darkened, but somehow had not completely died. Instead, they had shrivelled, but still held a deep red colour, instead of the usual light brown crispiness that normal flower petals would hold upon falling from their life source.

How is it still alive with no roots or soil? Jisung internally questioned, unable to stop his eyes from repeatedly scanning every aspect of it, committing every detail to memory. His hands subconsciously reached out, craving to touch the jar; almost able to forget about the relentless rain pounding against his skin and soaking straight through his clothes in his wonder…

“OUT! GET OUT! ” Minho screamed as he- for the third time that day- slammed open the door. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING? DID YOU TOUCH IT?”

“N- no,” Jisung gasped.

“DON’T YOU REALISE WHAT YOU COULD HAVE DONE? YOU COULD HAVE DAMNED US ALL!”

Jisung was already scampering away as Minho finished his yelling.

“GET OUT OF HERE! GO !”

Jisung’s heart leapt out of his chest, he was sure of it, as his head snapped up to see Minho sprinting through the door at a speed that he was sure was inhuman.

“GET AWAY!” Minho repeated, reaching the fear-frozen blond and wrenching him away from the bell jar, claws sticking deep into the younger’s arm and drawing a pained gasp from him.

“OUT!” Minho, hand still harshly wrapped around Jisung’s upper arm, pushed him roughly out of the room, leaving Jisung to stumble and flail around frantically trying not to fall down the steps that started forming right outside the door as Felix held on for dear life. Luckily for the two- for they both surely would have died if they had fallen down the entire flight of stairs- Changbin was right outside, catching Jisung by his injured arm and steadying him in his stumbling.

Jisung yelped loudly in pain.

“Come on, we need to go right now ,” Changbin advised, the both of them running back down the steps at a much more controlled pace.

---

Minho slowly approached the jar with the rose, running a gentle claw over the glass surface as he sighed in defeat, closing his eyes for a moment before withdrawing his hand and exiting the tower, where he trudged morosely to his quarters.

---

Sitting down on the bed exhaustedly as the emotions of the past hour finally caught back up to him, Jisung’s eyes filled with tears which at first fell silently, then loudly as he pulled a pillow close to his chest and sobbed.

“I’m sorry,” he cried, “I’m s-so, so sorry. I really had no- no idea at all-“

“Jisung,” Chan jumped onto the bed beside Jisung. “It’s okay. You were panicked, obviously scared out of your mind, so you ran. You had no idea what was in that room. It was an accident. It happened. It’s okay . If I had arms, I’d give you a big hug right now.”

“Tapestry advantages,” Seungmin sung, leaping onto the bed and wrapping himself around Jisung. “Warm hugs!”

“Animal advantages!” Jeongin and Felix joined the three on the duvet. “We can hug too!”

“My arms are metal but I can still hug!” Hyunjin announced, extinguishing his flames before wrapping his small self around Jisung’s leg.

“We’re joining, too,” Jamie and Changbin looked at each other before announcing, Changbin being able to fully embrace the crying blond whereas Jamie more leant onto him, but it meant the world to Jisung.

These people (beings?), embracing him and comforting him like they had known him his whole life? This was more affection in thirty seconds than Jisung had ever recieved in his whole life, and he felt himself crying for a completely different reason this time.

“It’ll all be okay, you’ll see,” Hyunjin whispered softly. “The King isn’t as bad as he seems. He’s just… not very good at adapting to change.”

“There are always second chances,” Jisung mumbled back, cracking a tiny smile at the candelabra. “There’s always another chance.”

Chapter Text

With his arm freshly bandaged by an ever-patient Changbin and his stomach finally full for the first time in years after Jamie had insisted that Jisung eat the rest of the meal that was prepared for him, Jisung lay face-up on the soft bed with his arms spread wide as he stared up at the ceiling.

It was now late at night and the sky outside was dark; stars not visible through the thick clouds that hung over the castle. Everyone except for Jeongin and Felix had left the room; the two animals overjoyed at finally having willing human warmth to snuggle into and seizing every chance to lay on the human, not that Jisung was complaining at all.

“Will you stay here, Jisung?” Felix yawned, small paw moving to rest fluffily on Jisung’s bicep.

“I don’t know, Felix,” Jisung winced. “I have no way of making a life here and the King definitely disapproves of my presence here.”

“At least stay a few days more,” Felix pleaded, eyes growing huge. “I haven’t been properly held in the seventy years that we have been like this for.”

“For my time here you may have all the hugs your heart desires,” Jisung reassured him, lightly tickling the kitten’s orange head with his fingertips. “But does not Changbin hold you? Or Minho?”

“Changbin certainly does, but it’s so cold; his form of armour is always so cold and harsh- not that I don’t appreciate or love it,” Felix admitted bashfully. “And Minho does hold us, too; he has a soft spot for cats and for Jeongin, but for him to properly hold us is rare. Mostly he just sticks to small strokes or tickles.”

“It’s hard for Felix, as he thrives off affection,” Jeongin teased, his long tail flicking back and forth lazily. “Especially Changbin’s affection…~”

“Yah, shut it!” Felix mewled indignantly. Jisung lifted his head off the pillow, intrigued.

“Oh?”

“Oh yes, ” Jeongin carried on, “they had the hugest crushes on each other back when we were all human. And based off how they act now, those feelings still haven’t changed.”

“Of course they haven’t changed, seventy years of being trapped within different forms wouldn’t change anything… it’s just so complicated and hard to act upon them when one of you is a kitten and the other is a suit of armour,” Felix replied casually. “If I were ever turned human again then the first thing I would do would be to confess. I cannot believe we danced around each other for so long before we got Changed; looking back it was very silly of us.”

Jisung sighed, gaze unfocused as he daydreamed. “I will do everything within my power to try and help make you human again, Felix. To make all of you human again.”

As he drifted off to sleep, Jisung missed the looks that the two animals exchanged.

If only he knew the weight of his words and what they truly implied.

---

When Jisung awoke, it was to light flooding in through the window- but not the usual, happy, warm sunlight that usually accompanied the spring weather. No, the clouds still hung thick; heavy and dark in the sky surrounding the immense stone castle and though light was illuminating the room, it held an ominous feeling and felt thick with excitement, like a thunderstorm.

It was only when Jisung was a little more awake that he registered the two balls of warmth nuzzled into his stomach as he lay on his side, curled into the two animals that fed off his warmth as he had slept through the night. Jisung was glad for Felix and Jeongin providing their warmth for his tummy as the rest of him was on the verge of shaking with the cold he had unintentionally subjected himself to after falling asleep before remembering to slip beneath the duvet.

Jisung blinked, rubbing his eyes with tight fists to rid them of any sleep residue before sitting up, being extra careful not to jostle the two sleeping animals in the process. Felix did admittedly let out a discontent sound at the sudden cold, but quickly snuggled into Jeongin instead, so Jisung mentally cheered himself for not waking the sleeping fluff-balls.

What now? Jisung had no idea what he should do with himself. He was, quite frankly, scared stiff of wandering the castle alone for paranoia of bumping into Minho again and being hurt. His injured arm throbbed at the mere notion of it! But at this point, he was starving; his bladder was bursting and Jisung was in need of a fresh change of clothes, or at least somewhere to wash them before putting them back on again.

Nowhere on his original agenda did collapsing onto dusty castle steps before getting drenched in an indoor storm come into play. He was not at all prepared for this whatsoever.

Should I stay or should I go?

Logically, Jisung knew that the option of staying in this bedroom was much safer- but the need for food and persistent need to pee did overpower his logic greatly and, before properly processing what he was doing, Jisung had poked his head out of the door, scanning the corridor for any potential terrifying beast-kings.

Luckily, Jisung could see and hear none, so he tiptoed down the corridor, hoping that somewhere he would find a bathroom to use.

“What? Who goes there?”

Jisung’s heart stopped temporarily in fright before he turned to the source of the words. At this point he was not at all surprised to find that a painting was talking to him.

“Just me,” he whispered, holding his hands up in the air. “I hate to ask, I do apologise- but, could you possibly direct me to a bathroom?”

“Ah, certainly, sir,” the painting said, jaw-length locks of hair falling into her face as soon as she blew them out of it. “See that staircase? Top of the steps on the right.”

“Thank you, thank you,” Jisung bowed politely before hurrying up the steps, heaving a sigh of relief upon finding it unoccupied. Quick as a flash, mostly due to his fear of being walked in on, Jisung went about his morning routine, though he didn’t dare to bathe just yet- he had no permission to do so and would feel rude without it- and could not brush his teeth as he had no toothbrush. Instead, he settled for rinsing his mouth as well as he could before hurrying back to his room, reasonably freshened up for the circumstances given.

“Yah!” the same painting beckoned him as he walked past again. “Are you the guest from yesterday?”

“I am indeed. Han Jisung, pleasure to make your acquaintance,” Jisung introduced himself formally, bowing once more at the painting, who smiled brightly.

“Call me Sori. Unlike the other talking animated things here, I was not human when the castle was turned. I am just a normal painting who gained conscience through the spells. Pleasure to meet you, too. It’s lovely to finally put a face to the name that has been traveling through the castle for the past 36 hours.”

Jisung wasn’t really sure how to reply, so he settled for a nervous laugh and a nod.

“If you’re ever lost and on this corridor, just let me know and I’ll happily help. See you later, kid,” Sori finished, before she bowed to him and stepped out of her frame and into the next one on the wall.

Ok, wow. So she can just travel from painting to painting. Interesting.

“Jisung!” Seungmin was trudging his way up the corridor towards him. “I see you’ve awoken. Are you hungry? Jamie is giving orders for breakfast to be prepared for you right now, if you would step this way with me.”

“Sure, thank you.” Jisung jogged down to the tapestry, only slowing when he was at his point. “Is it tiring, having to drag your whole self up and down the castle all the time?”

“A little, but I got used to it after a few months.”

“Alright.” Jisung gathered the tapestry in his arms and set off walking. “Where to, boss?”

“Jisung- oh, alright. Straight ahead and down that staircase,” Seungmin gave in easily and obliged to being carried this way. After all, it was a lot less tiring for him- no way was he going to refuse this chance when he was offered it.

“Tally ho!” Jisung galloped along the corridor like a horse, jumping down the stairs and leaping into the dining room, a series of delighted screams and laughter from Seungmin accompanying him.

“Jisung- stop! I feel like I’m riding a headless chicken,” Seungmin could barely choke out through his laughter.

“Here we go!” Jisung sang in the deepest voice he could muster as he jumped through the threshold of the dining room, which he had presumed to be empty.

He was wrong.

Instantly, Jisung gasped and stopped his energetic ministrations at the sight of Minho sat at the head of the table, eating breakfast like he hadn’t eaten in weeks. He looked up abruptly as Jisung and Seungmin made their hugely noisy entrance, and glared.

“Can I not eat elsewhere?” Jisung asked timidly and almost silently.

“I’m afraid not… your food has already been served,” Seungmin extended a corner to gesture at the table where, in the seat nearest to Minho, there was another place set with food waiting upon it.

“So close?”

“The master is not as bad as he seems.”

Ok, Jisung. Second chances, second chances. Inhaling deeply, Jisung gathered courage and walked to the table with poise, sitting down silently and setting Seungmin in the chair next to him as he picked up his chopsticks and began to eat, doing his best to ignore the immense presence to his diagonal left that was Minho.

As soon as the first morsel of banchan hit Jisung’s taste buds, he was a complete goner as he (miraculously) almost completely forgot that Minho’s seething presence was right beside him as he stuffed food into his cheeks and wolfed it all down. Seungmin, seeing this, began giggling helplessly, trying to muffle it with a corner of himself as he side-eyed Minho.

Minho, who Seungmin was sure would be annoyed and put-out by Jisung’s fast eating habits, as the king had been brought up with strict rules of slow, steady and tidy.

But to Seungmin’s surprise, Minho was indeed watching Jisung, but his facial expression was far from angry or annoyed.

In fact, the beast was watching the squirrel-cheeked younger with an expression closely resembling fondness and amusement.

Oh, wow.

Jisung, oblivious, kept eating, revelling in the taste of food that was, for once, not merely plain bread and unseasoned eggs, occasionally letting out small moans of appreciation on the rare times that his cheek weren’t stuffed full to bursting.

Minho had set down his own chopsticks and, not quite registering his actions, was resting his chin on one hand while he studied Jisung, a small smile playing on his lips. Interesting.

“Good morning, everybod— oh, my gosh, Jisung, has anybody ever told you that you look like the cutest squirrel while eating?” Chan barged into the room loudly, startling Jisung out of his food reverie as he quickly swallowed what was in his mouth and replied.

Meanwhile, Minho, also startled, jumped slightly and caught Seungmin’s stitched eyes, glaring and drawing two fingers across his neck in threat as the tapestry waggled his eyebrows at the king in a fit of suggestive laughter.

“I will take my leave,” Minho announced to the room as he stood up, “Today I purchase a new artwork.”

“Artwork?” full of confidence from his breakfast energy rush, Jisung felt brave enough to venture into new territory: conversation.

“Your highness, the artist you purchase art from will not be at the village today,” Chan said.

“And why not?”

“I… I think I’m the artist you usually visit,” Jisung said tentatively.

“You are?” Minho asked incredulously.

“I think so? I never saw your face so I couldn’t be sure, but…”

Minho sighed. “I could get an art piece and you can tell me whether you made it.”

As Minho left the room, Jamie entered.

“I told you he’s usually not as bad as he was last night,” Seungmin murmured. “You’re doing amazing, Jisung.”

“Thank you.”

Minho re-entered, carefully holding one of Jisung’s most recent works: a watercolour painting of two children happily splashing about in the river that ran next to his village. Jisung remembered sitting next to the river with his canvas and paint brush whilst the two children, both little girls of around six years old, squealed and laughed in the sun as their mother looked on.

It was a happy day, calm, serene and artful.

“Did you paint this?” Minho asked shortly.

“Yes,” Jisung confirmed. “This one is quite recent.”

“Well,” Minho smoothed down the shirt he was wearing, “then I believe there will be no need for me to leave today if I cannot purchase your art.”

Jisung hesitated. “I… I do have some smaller works in my satchel, that I was planning to sell if ever I got the chance… you may choose one today, if you’d like.”

A quiet “Yes, go Jisung,” echoed around the room from Chan, who hid behind a chair as Minho glared at him.

“I would like that,” Minho said stiffly, avoiding Jisung’s gaze.

“Alright,” came Jisung’s quiet reply, “I shall go and get the paintings.”

The room was filled with silence once more before it was broken by three excitable objects chattering.

“Isn’t he simply adorable, Minho?”

“I saw the way you were looking at him, my King!”

“A civil conversation! So much progress overnight!”

“You can all be quiet this instant,” Minho snapped. Chan, Jamie and Seungmin grinned widely and knowingly before whispering between one another.

This was the closest to happy I’ve seen Minho look in around seventy-eight years and it’s only the beginning, Hyunjin thought excitedly. I do not think he even realised the way he was observing Jisung!

“I have a feeling that this has been the inklings of the beginning of breaking the curse!”

Chapter Text

It was late afternoon exactly four days after Jisung had regained consciousness, the castle was calm, cold and quiet; the staff were going about their daily cleaning routines; Jisung had found a place in the frosted gardens to paint a little, and Minho?

Minho was covered in paint.

“This is deception,” he mumbled angrily to himself as he tried and failed to gain co-ordination of his paintbrush; kindly lent to him by Jisung.

“It’s simple,” Jisung laughed brightly, “Hold it with the tips of your fingers and start with small brushstrokes!”

“I cannot hold it properly,” the beast denounced, frustrated. “Why is it so difficult?”

“With all due respect, your highness, I would say that maybe your claws are of hindrance to the art of holding a brush,” Jisung ventured into risky territory. “But it is nothing that cannot be fixed!”

Even the air seemed to hold its breath in anticipation as Jisung awaited Minho’s reply, hoping that he would not get angry for his direct mention of his claws.

“This is true,” Minho admitted begrudgingly after a few moments. “Practise will better my skills with time.”

“Of course. If you would like to simply observe for a while, and memorise how different strokes work, I would be glad to direct you,” Jisung offered, turning back to his own canvas where he was painting a crumbling stone arch in the middle of the front gardens. The arch was grey, and had brown vines of green ivy twining up it; Jisung was certain that roses would bring some colour to the castle and its grounds, but the thick layers of snow surrounding them said otherwise. Jisung only guessed that maybe the roses could not survive the bitter cold and constant fresh layers of snow freezing the soil.

And so for the next hour Jisung spent doing what he did best: silently observing and painting. Minho observed the whole time, silently concentrating on the way that Jisung’s hands seemed to effortlessly make colour and life bloom on the canvas with expertise.

Slowly and with ease, Jisung painted a perfect replica of the front gardens, seemingly flawless down to the last blade of frosted grass. Upon finishing the painting, he set his brush down on the stone beside him and allowed himself to relax for the first time since he had set brush to canvas, sighing lightly and leaning back.

In his blissful concentration he had quite forgotten about the presence of Minho lingering beside him and he screamed shortly, almost falling off the bench in shock as Minho moved suddenly.

“I- I had quite forgotten about your presence, your highness,” Jisung apologised, hand on his racing heart.

For the first time since Jisung had arrived at the castle, Minho giggled. He actually giggled. Jisung’s heart leapt in a completely different way as Minho brought a furry hand to his mouth to stifle the sound of laughter falling from his lips.

“Worry not, for it is quite alright,” Minho assured Jisung, who was most certainly in some state of shock. “You were surely immersed in your profession.”

“That I was…” Jisung forced the words out.

“I do hope that I shall find myself having learned a great deal from you today, Jisung,” Minho said pleasantly as he stood up to leave. “I leave you now in hopes of giving you alone time to spend at your leisure.” He reached out, tentatively, to place a hesitant pat on Jisung’s upper arm, jumping when Jisung recoiled from his touch, hissing in pain.

“I am sorry, your highness…” Jisung apologised. “I did not mean to react that way- your touch was just unexpected on my… injury.”

Hurt and regret flashed across Minho’s features as he looked at the ground. “I never did apologise for hurting you so…” he murmured, before looking back up at Jisung, holding steady eye contact. “I sincerely apologise for my violent actions those few days ago, Jisung. It will not happen again.”

Jisung could only watch as Minho walked away, his tall, beastly form slinking swiftly between different bushes and benches before he reached the castle and disappeared inside.

When he’s not angry he’s actually… lovely, Jisung thought, mind feeling a little blown. Of course, he had heeded the advice of the staff for forgiving first impressions but he had not at all expected Minho to be so pleasant and amicable!

Nevertheless, Jisung shook his head, trying to metaphorically shake himself out of his shocked trance as he set aside his finished canvas and settled for admiring the wintry beauty of the castle grounds.

“Hello, Jisungie!” Felix mewled as he approached the bench, jumping up onto it and sitting beside Jisung. “That painting is incredible.”

“Why thank you, young Felix,” Jisung teased, tapping Felix’s tiny pink nose.

“Yah! I’m older than you, even if my aging process has been put on hold for the seventy years that we’ve been cursed for. Those years do not count; I am simply nineteen.”

“I’m nineteen too,” Jisung mused, “I may well still be your elder.”

“Try me,” came the challenge from the ginger kitten. “September fifteenth!”

“Oh, YES,” Jisung celebrated. “I was born on the fourteenth.”

Felix let out a defeated screech and threw himself off the bench and into the snow in loss.

Jisung laughed loudly. “Now you are the youngling!”

“By a mere day, ” Felix stuffed his head into the snow in mock despair.

“A kitten is younger than me by a day,” Jisung mused. “What an absurd thing to contemplate!”

---

“Oh, Jisung, you must be freezing, ” Chan fussed, hopping over to the human as he stepped back inside the castle holding his art supplies and completed canvas painting. Jisung was, indeed, frozen: the layers he had on did little to prevent the cold from seeping through to his bones and he was shaking uncontrollably. However, the beauty of the grounds had prevented Jisung from making any move back inside.

“Those clothes are unfit to wear as of now; they’re practically soaked from the snowfall!” Chan carried on, reminding Jisung of a fatherly figure. Of course, being orphaned, Jisung had no firsthand experience of fatherly love until now, and he felt rather warm and fuzzy… loved, even, as a result of it.

“Come, come, we must see you changed at once,” Chan ushered Jisung back into his room, ordering Changbin to run a hot bath for the blond on the way. “You must bathe until you are warm again and then we will give you a comfortable change of clothes.”

Jisung felt strangely teary. “You… really don’t have to do this, you know,” he defended, “I’m just a poor villager who happened upon your castle by mistake. To be the receiver of such loving actions and words… I do not see how I am worthy.”

Chan’s metallic eyes softened. “You coming here was no mistake, I am sure of it. Fate finds strange ways to steer us towards our destiny, and you arriving at this castle was, I’m sure, one of fate’s ways working intricately. And Jisung, never say that you are not worthy of such love, because you are.”

Jisung nodded silently, not knowing how to respond to such emotion when he, himself was too choked up with his own.

“Jisung, I am going to tell you a secret. This castle is enchanted and alive, yes, you know this already; but never before has it allowed an outsider into its grounds. You are the first living being in seventy years that the castle has ever allowed through its gate alone, let alone in the castle itself, and I do not think that it’s a coincidence.”

“Not let anybody in? What do you mean?”

The edges of the shield rose and fell, as if Chan were shrugging. “The gates simply wouldn’t open. And if they were opened by force, the castle would reject the people trying to enter, like it were spitting the out, in a sense.”

“Oh.”

By now, the two had made it to Jisung’s acquired room and Jisung was perched gingerly on the edge of the bed, a dry towel over his shoulders as he tried not to get anything wet from his soaked clothes.

“You know, if I had arms, I’d hug you right now,” Chan confessed. “But alas! I do not. So I shall have to affectionately lean on you instead.” The shield edged closer to Jisung’s leg, where he leaned into the cold skin and wet fabric clinging to it. Jisung shook his head and bent down, picking the shield up and hugging Chan close to his chest for a few moments before Chan spoke again, muffled against Jisung’s wet shirt.

“Now, let’s get you out of these cold-inducing clothes and into a hot bath.”

---

Freshly washed, warmed and clothed, Jisung- currently in the company of Jamie- was free to wander the castle as he pleased, staying well clear of that dreaded room in the highest tower. Jisung shuddered at the thought of going back in there and getting yelled at by Minho again, especially as they had parted on such good terms that morning.

“Jamie,” Jisung stopped in front of a great door, “what’s through there?”

“The library,” Jamie said. “You may enter, if you’d like.”

Pushing open the great, heavy door with the hand that wasn’t holding Jamie, Jisung gasped at the vast amount of books that the intricately designed room held.

Sky blue walls decorated with gold and silver gave way to bookcases that stretched both from the floor to the ceiling and from one wall to another whilst soft armchairs littered the available floor space as well as wooden tables decorated with globes, coasters and lamps.

Fairy lights were strung on each shelf and though it was not yet dark, Jisung could tell that the place would look absolutely ethereal in the evening.

Curled up in the corner of the room in one of the armchairs, reading a thick book with circular glasses resting atop his nose, was Minho, with Jeongin curled up in his lap, asleep.

He looked up as Jisung and Jamie entered the room, and nodded in acknowledgement, but otherwise did nothing else as he went back to reading his book.

Jisung took this silence as a notion of freedom for himself, so he walked in awe to the nearest bookcase, running light fingertips over the shelf nearest to him as he scanned the titles in awe. The library back in the village had barely twenty books; this immensely large library must be holding thousands at the very least!

“Am I… allowed to read any of these books?” Jisung whispered to the wooden spoon in his hand, scared of disrupting the serene silence of the room.

Jamie went to answer, but was interrupted.

“You may read as many as you would like,” Minho said across the library, soft voice cutting through the silence smoothly, like a knife through butter. At Jisung’s look of surprise, the beast shrugged. “I have very perceptible hearing.”

“Thank you,” Jisung murmured, before turning back to the shelves, feeling overwhelmed in the best way with the choices of books. Unable to stop himself, a sound of pure happiness bubbled up within him and escaped through his lips in an excited giggle before he slapped a hand to his mouth to silence himself, though not feeling any less excited.

And if he had not been so set on making sure he didn’t make another similar noise in the following minutes, perhaps he might have turned around to see the fond smile on Minho’s face behind him.

Chapter Text

Soon enough, one week had passed and Jisung had found himself having fallen into a routine at the castle. Surprisingly (to him), no one had vocalised any plans of him leaving yet, and if he was honest, Jisung himself had no immediate plans of leaving anytime soon.

The past seven days for him had been a complete whirlwind for him to say the very least, but he had found himself loving every minute- discounting the initial frostiness and anger of Minho- and had formed solid bonds with everyone in the castle.

His daily routine now consisted of waking up, having a short conversation with Sori on the way to the bathroom before washing up, changing clothes (which had been personally made for him by his wardrobe!) and then having a longer conversation, often up to half an hour long, with Sori on his way back to his room. Upon reaching the door again, he would be greeted by two certain fluffy balls leaping out of the door and onto him before he went downstairs for breakfast with Minho and the rest before he was free to do as he pleased for the day.

Blissfully, Jisung had found numerous things to occupy his time with; spending hours upon hours sitting, observing and painting the castle grounds outside, or raiding the library shelves of book after book to consume and escape to. On sunnier (but no less colder) days, Jisung would stroll about the gardens with either Jamie or Hyunjin, holding them both by the waist as he walked about, talking about everything and nothing.

Chan would always take hours out of his day to make sure Jisung had everything he needed and making sure he was comfortable; and was often Jisung’s accomplice for stargazing out of his bedroom window at night when the two couldn’t sleep.

Felix and Jisung were practically inseparable; the ginger kitten almost always either on Jisung’s lap or sitting on his shoulder as he painted. The two were nearly always laughing about something or other, the self-proclaimed September twins clicking instantly and forming a deeper bond of friendship than most. Jisung had no idea how they had grown so close so quickly; yet he would never ever think to reverse it.

Jeongin was strikingly similar to Felix in the way that he almost never left Jisung’s side. Though the fox constantly blamed his clinginess on the reason that “I finally get the human warmth I’ve been craving”, Felix assured Jisung when Jeongin left that he was secretly very fond of the blond. Nevertheless, Jisung was made up with the animal affection he was receiving and Jeongin acted almost as fond towards Jisung as he did towards Seungmin, when he wasn’t being a little devil.

Speaking of Seungmin, the tapestry would happily provide Jisung with an extra layer of warmth when he deemed Jisung needing of it, which was actually a lot more than necessary. When Jisung jokingly accused the younger of simply wanting his friendship, the tapestry would dramatically deny all claims, but Jisung knew that deep down, Seungmin did care for him. He just chose to show it through smothering him at every chance he got.

Changbin was definitely a funny one; always on hand with a humorous joke or comment to make Jisung laugh loudly (often embarrassing himself in the process). The suit of armour, though he acted tough and resistant, was actually very soft and cute, as Jisung had swiftly come to find after he found the metallic man gently helping an injured squirrel down from a tree with immense care and a very high-pitched coo.

(Felix was, of course, sitting on Jisung’s shoulder as he observed the event and had his fair share of screaming and mewling into Jisung’s ear from his high vantage point about his immense crush on the other.)

((This only strengthened and hardened Jisung’s resolve to find some way to free the castle and its residents of this curse, if only even to just help the two finally be able to admit their affection for each other without the hindrance of their current bodies. And to help the rest, of course. And Minho…))

Minho.

Minho, Minho, Minho.

The beast that had at first seemed so angry and uncontrollable had quickly earned a large proportion of Jisung’s heart.

After the first full day of Jisung residing in the castle, when Minho had watched Jisung paint before giving him permission to read whatever he would like in the library, Jisung had felt an inexplicable urge to know more about the kingly beast. He had never been more glad in his life that he had pushed past first impressions and had stayed long enough to get to know the version of Minho that his friends all talked about; the generous and kind side of the beast that had no place in the castle on the night that Jisung had first arrived.

This was why today, like every day, Jisung was spending his afternoon with Minho once more.

He had done this throughout the week, whether it was reading beside the beast in silence in the library or having him join Jisung and Jamie or Hyunjin in his strolls throughout the grounds as they talked together. Today, though, was a little different: Jisung had no companion with him this day as he walked through the castle grounds with Minho by his side.

Why? He had no idea; both Jamie, Felix and Hyunjin had all given very vague and giggly excuses for not accompanying him today as they side-eyed both Jisung and Minho with mischief, so Jisung had just shrugged it off and didn’t question their antics.

And so currently, the two were bonding further over the craze of marriage that everybody seemed caught up in as soon as they reached their late teenage years. It was absurd to both of them that people seemed to want to marry so early on in life, and the two were crazily happy to have finally found someone who shared their opinions on it being slightly ridiculous that most people nowadays were raised with only settling down and starting a family in mind.

“People’s minds are very rapid; they jump from admiration to love, from love to mat-“

“-matrimony, in an instant,” Minho finished Jisung’s sentence without really thinking about it. He carried on walking until he realised, a few steps forward, that Jisung had stopped in his tracks, mouth hanging wide open. “You’re going to catch flies if your mouth stays open so wide.”

Jisung shook himself. “You know ‘Pride and Prejudice’?”

Minho shrugged noncommittally. “I had an expensive education.”

Jisung was sure there would be genuine stars in his eyes by now. Minho was literally the first being Jisung had ever come across in his whole life that hadn’t: first, tried to court him judging by his looks alone; secondly, ridiculed him for his interest in art and literature; and lastly, had shown a genuine interest in getting to know him for him .

It sounded so cliché, Jisung knew- he had certainly read enough romance novels to see this at least- but it honestly just felt so good to finally have somebody who wasn’t just enamoured with his looks or was hell-bent on scorning him. It felt… refreshing, and so relieving, knowing that within the castle ground, at least, he was surrounded by such genuine, sweet people.

“Which other books have you read?” Jisung asked eagerly, skipping up to keep pace with the beast.

“Most popular literature novels, I suppose. Jane Austen, Shakespeare, Dickens, to name a few,” Minho iterated breezily.

“You know Shakespeare?” Jisung all but gasped, face lighting up. “Well… my favourite play is Romeo and Juliet.”

“Oh, of course,” Minho feigned disgust as he shook snow from his fur.

“And what is that supposed to mean?” Jisung defended himself.

“It just… makes sense, I suppose. All that romance, and pining, and… blegh,” shuddered the beast.

“It’s not all about that! It tells the story of a forbidden romance between two teenagers that ends in tragedy,” Jisung felt strangely defensive over the play.

“I suppose it’s tolerable. I much prefer Macbeth,” Minho mused.

“Macbeth? I suppose that rather suits you, too! The tale of a knight and his wife so overcome with ambition and the supernatural that they commit regicide, murder and then both end up dying anyway. Such a dark play!”

“Dark but intricate, ” Minho corrected. “It’s a very good one to analyse and read into. I find it absolutely fascinating.”

Jisung breathed quietly, a huge smile on his features. He was rather enjoying this debate!

He was about to comment further when sudden movement caught his eye and he gasped aloud.

“ Oh, my , nobody ever told me you keep horses on the grounds!” Jisung ran over to the horse that was stood by one of the immense walls, partly hidden by a flowerless rosebush. The horse was beautiful; white-grey with a blond tail and mane. “Oh, aren’t you a gorgeous horse?”

Minho hung back noticeably, observing.

“Your highness? Aren’t you going to greet your horse?”

Minho blinked rapidly. “I… horses never really… take to me, so to say. Not after the curse changed me into… this form.”

Jisung smiled gummily, keeping one hand on the horse as he stroked it and reaching his other hand out for Minho to take. “Oh come now, horses take to anybody who is gentle!”

Minho gave Jisung a doubtful look but placed his paw into Jisung’s hand anyway, noticing with inward delight that Jisung made no move to shudder at the feeling of his fur. Instead, Jisung gently took Minho’s paw into his hand and guided it to the horse, placing it gently onto its back, where the horse made no negative movement but seemed to rather enjoy the attention Minho was now showing.

It was the first time the two had touched since the event, a few days ago, when Minho had touched Jisung’s injured arm and accidentally hurt it in the process, and Minho’s mind was racing.

“See?” Jisung’s voice was barely a whisper due to their close proximity. “No creature could ever hate you. You just have to let them know that you are gentle.”

Minho’s breathing hitched as he turned his head to look at Jisung and almost bumped into him in the process, eyes locking into a soft kind of stare.

Jisung’s eyes were… beautiful, Minho thought, a deep brown that seemed to liquidise in his irises, like rich coffee. They almost seemed to have stars within them, and Minho? He was transfixed.

Was it just his imagination, or was Jisung looking at him the same way?

… and was he moving closer?

“You know…” Jisung whispered, moving his mouth to say more when the horse next to them jumped suddenly, startled by a crow flying off one of the trees and sending snow cascading to the ground with a hollow sound.

“Woah, woah, it’s okay,” Minho and Jisung instantly jumped apart and Jisung rushed to the horse’s front, stroking its muzzle in an attempt to soothe the easily frightened animal. “There. All is well.” He turned back to Minho with an outstretched hand and bright smile. “Shall we head back to the castle, your highness?”

Minho took his hand with hesitance as they started their walk back. “Please. Call me Minho.”

Jisung’s smile grew and his grip on Minho’s paw tightened for a split second. “Okay. Let us return to the castle… Minho.”

Minho decided that he very much enjoyed hearing his name fall from the younger’s lips.

Chapter Text

“Jamie, Jamie noona, look!” Jeongin’s tail swished back and forth in delight as he ran as fast as his tiny legs could take him to his hyung. “Look, look, look! They’re holding hands!”

“Yes, Jeongin,” Chan chided gently, “that’s what people do when they like each othe-“

He stopped talking abruptly as he cut himself off, Jamie and Jeongin’s heads whipping around to look at him so fast that they both hurt their necks.

“ That’s what people do when they like each other!” Jamie and Chan finished in synchrony, excitement evident in their voices.

“You don’t mean-“Jeongin started.

“It could well be,” Chan near-squealed before composing himself. “Well. We must not get our hopes up. But I’d wager that it is a big possibility!

“Hush, hush, here they come,” Jamie shushed as the two rounded the corner to ascend the immense stone staircase.

The three hid slightly from view as Minho and Jisung walked leisurely past, fingers still comfortably intertwined as they laughed quietly to each other.

“They do appear to be absolutely enamoured with each other, from an outsider’s point of view…” Chan observed.

“HELLO,” Hyunjin yelled from behind the three, making one wooden spoon, one metal shield and one fox jump apart in sheer fright.

“Good GRACIOUS, do not frighten us like that!” Jamie scolded, but Hyunjin took no notice as the light lilt to his voice gave away his true feelings. “I’m sure I almost splintered right this second.”

“Well, you didn’t, old man, so it’s fine,” Hyunjin dismissed. “What did I miss?”

“The King and Jisung holding hands and looking all happy in their own little bubble,” Jeongin gushed to the candelabra. “It was quite adorable!”

Hyunjin lit up- literally; his wicks all lighted in beautiful fire as he beamed.

“Jisung really might be the one! The one who will break the spell!”

“That’s what we’re all hoping, Jinnie,” Chan beamed. “But we’ll have to wait and see a few days more.”

---

“So Minho, I’m curious,” Jisung pondered as the two reached the top of the stairs, paying no attention to Hyunjin’s yelled greeting below them, “what kind of responsibilities await a king such as yourself? I’m afraid I’ve been rather ignorant to the reality of royals my whole life.”

Minho snickered. “I’m afraid the truth may well bore you! It’s rather a dull mess of meetings, banquets, pretending to like other royals so that they favour you and don’t declare war on your country… quite repetitive, you see.”

“Surely there are fun parts!” Jisung argued. “Balls, trips abroad and such?”

Minho’s gaze darkened slightly and he pulled his hand out of Jisung’s grasp. “The only balls I ever attended were suited to me finding a wife.”

Jisung’s heart stopped for a second, scared that he may have angered the king. “Oh, my, yes, I had quite forgotten,” he whispered.

The two carried on in tense silence for a few moments before Minho let out a deep breath.

“I should hope that, if I ever get the chance to attend any further balls in the future then I would be accompanied by a partner that I have chosen myself and for love, rather than the convenience of my kingdom,” he confessed. “The thought of being forced into a loveless marriage, of which the barons and other men tried to do to me so many times before the spell, repulses me.”

Jisung smiled lightly. “I should hope so too, that you will be married for requited love and nothing less.”

Minho sighed again. “Though it is rather foolish of me to assume that a creature like me could ever earn somebody’s affections.”

“I don’t know…” Jisung breathed, heart thudding.

Minho faltered in his tracks. “You really think so?”                                                                                               

“I definitely think so, Minho.”

He couldn’t possibly mean…?

Jisung coughed and stopped walking; they had reached his bedroom door. “I’ll… just fetch my art supplies, your highness. I will be right back out.”

And there he left Minho temporarily, inwardly gasping for breath and with a racing mind.

---

“Ah, hello Jisungie,” Felix greeted smugly as Jisung entered his room in search of his supplies. “Are you fetching your art?” the kitten was laying on Jisung’s pillow extravagantly, basking in the soft feather-filled fabric.

“I am, Lixie. Would you like to join us?”

“Not today, I’ll leave you two to it for this afternoon. - Although this evening I want extra snuggles to make up for my absence!- but… everyone in the castle, myself included, have noticed that when painting you have a tendency to spill droplets of paint on yourself.”

Jisung laughed. “Art is messy, Lixie.”

“We don’t mean anything bad by it! We just thought it was a shame to see such formal dress get paint on it when we could instead fashion you something more artist-style!”

Jisung narrowed his eyes in suspicion as Felix jumped off the bed and trotted towards the wardrobe, tail in the air. He followed, knowing that the kitten would be unable to open the door by himself and gasped upon seeing the contents.

“We all came together in the night while you were sleeping and fashioned you these to wear while painting! We believe they are becoming quite popular in the west,” Felix twinkled. “Put them on, I want to see you wearing them!”

Jisung grinned. “I… turn around, then. I do have some sense of modesty.”

“Of course you do,” Felix teased, but turned his small form to face away from Jisung all the same, smiling to himself when he heard the tell-tale rustling of fabric.

Within minutes, Jisung had been transformed from wearing prince-like attire provided by the castle to wearing something much more comfortable and suited to artistry, and feeling much more like himself altogether.

Jisung now wore a soft blue shirt- that almost covered his hands, the sleeves were so long!- and over it he wore a soft overall with a pocket at the front that tied around his waist and fit his legs’ height perfectly.

It definitely made a stark change from the formal shirt, pants and blazer that he had been wearing before; white with gold embellishments; fit for a prince; and was much looser and more comfortable.

“Felix…” he breathed, “This is… amazing.”

Felix turned around on the bed- looking like a tiny ball of orange fluff in all his glory- and mewled in delight. “Sungie, that looks amazing! You look so soft and huggable. I take it back; I’m afraid I shall be gate-crashing your painting hours this afternoon.”

“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Jisung gushed as he collected his art supplies swiftly; painfully aware of the time he had taken within his room already with the event of his change of clothes. “Come on Felix, we’re leaving now.”

“That’s because it is rarely worn in this part of the world,” Felix reiterated with a small meow as Jisung scooped him up and gently pushed him into his large front pocket. “I say, this pocket was meant for me!”

---

“Ah, there you are, I was beginning to think you’d fallen asle-“ Minho never finished his sentence as he saw Jisung step out of his room clutching his art supplies, dressed like… that … and with Felix in his front pocket.

“You look like a fish,” Felix said bluntly as Minho stood gaping. Jisung shifted nervously.

“I know it’s not as formal as you might like, but… Felix said everybody made it specially for me to wear so I may not get paint on the more formal attire you have provided me with, and, well… I rather love it.”

After a few more seconds of Minho standing and silently staring, Felix snickered loudly.

“Snap out of it, lover boy.”

Minho spluttered, “I am not. Know your place, kitten.”

“Oh, he’s getting all defensive but you adore me, don’t you?”

“I hate that I do. Now let’s go.”

Jisung and Felix chuckled together as they set off back through the castle, followed by a grumpy (and internally very gay) Minho complaining of how the two always acted when together.

(These complaints were only ever combatted with the excuse of it is soulmate culture, your highness, do not question it!)

---

Days later and it was safe to say that Minho was not okay.

Since the castle staff had got together that night to make Jisung his ‘artist attire’, as they had so wittily dubbed it, they had not wasted a single chance to make Jisung wear it before just happening across Minho’s presence in the process.

“Oh, your highness, imagine seeing you here!” they would say as Jisung blushed and greeted him politely.

They knew full well the effect that seeing Jisung, blond locks mussed and untidy, sweater paws and soft outfit, was having on Minho.

How could he resist? Jisung’s chubby cheeks and warm eyes had first invited Minho further into his persona, (and he had to admit that seeing Jisung wearing the slightly too-large prince attire that once belonged to Minho before his kingship made him eligible was a more than pleasant experience), but now? With this added bonus? Minho felt quite helpless in the face of the feelings that came cascading over him like a tonne of bricks.

The one thing that Minho once believed was impossible was finally seeming very much plausible; and perhaps a little too close to happening for comfort.

Love.

The unspoken solution to the spell. Or curse, as Minho liked to call it, though it was frowned upon by everybody else as they thought it sounded too dark and condemning. Each to their own, Minho supposed.

Of course, Minho had spoken nothing of this solution to Jisung, and was sure that nobody else had told him either- for even with Jisung’s determination to help, if one were to tell him that he had to fall in love with Minho, out of all things, it would put too much at risk and the blond could find himself trying to force love, which of course would never work.

It had to happen naturally.

Initially, Minho had been void of all hope of the spell being broken, for even with such a cliché counterpart, who could ever learn to love a beast?

But that was before Jisung had fallen unconscious at the castle steps and had- quite literally- fallen into Minho’s, and everybody else in the castle’s lives.

And Minho wanted so badly to hate it; to hide away from it; to block it and prevent it from happening, but he knew it was now too late… he could never be free from those eyes, as much as he may will it.

“Urgh!” he growled, throwing his hands in the air before burying his face into them, hating the way he felt fur from both body parts instead of the smooth skin he once proudly owned. This is even more cliché than Romeo and Juliet… and is more than likely unrequited, too.

It had been almost two weeks since Jisung arrived, but to Minho it felt like a lifetime, in the best way.

Minho growled once more and stormed to the library, relieved at finding it empty, before he ran to the book that he had hidden on the topmost shelf among books written in various foreign languages to minimise the chance of stumbling upon it by chance.

The book that had got them all into this mess in the first place; the spell book.

Blowing the dust off with fiery vigour, Minho wrenched the thick, heavy book open to the page he needed and pored over the text in anger.

༶•┈┈⛧┈♛ ♛┈⛧┈┈•༶

The rose you see is your mortality’s form;

Which will bloom until the seventy-first year.

If you could learn to love another, by the time the last petal falls,

And earn their love in return,

Then the spell will be broken.

If not, you will be doomed to remain a beast for all time.

༶•┈┈⛧┈♛ ♛┈⛧┈┈•༶

All that show and they could not even be bothered to make it sound poetic in the slightest.

Minho felt tears of frustration build in his eyes as he read over the words repeatedly. When he had cast the spell, the book had said nothing about this; there had been no consequences whatsoever written in the book until he had sealed his fate completely! In his blind panic on that fateful night, he had simply tore through the pages until finding the blissful spell that read:

“ An incantation for true happiness and freedom.”

Minho had jumped at the chance; wanting nothing more than to be free from his kingly responsibilities and all the people around him who were pushing and pushing him to find a Queen. As he had skimmed the words, surrounded by his only friends, there were no gruesome side effects such as the form he was now cursed with, much less about the fact that his friends would be cursed too! He never wanted this to happen to them, too!

And so he had cast the spell, naïve and panicked as the older staff had angrily tried to kick the door in from outside, when all of a sudden a tremendous surge of light had emerged from the palms of Minho’s hands, temporarily blinding everybody in the room. By the time they had gained their wits once more, the castle was eerily empty, save for them, and they were all in the forms they had now.

Not one day went by that Minho didn’t feel absolutely horrible for bringing his dear friends down with him in this curse.

The curse really was nearing its end now; the rose had seven petals left, and Minho would say that giving even a few weeks’ wiggle room was being too optimistic.

And in terms of breaking the curse; if his rapidly developing feelings towards Jisung were anything to go by, he definitely had learned to love… but had he earned Jisung’s love in return?

… And would he ever?

---

“Look at me, I’m getting more and more metallic every day,” Hyunjin complained, holding a lit wick to his legs where he squeakily, rustily moved his knees back and forth, trying to loosen his joints a little.

“Oh, you and me both, Hyunjin,” Chan agreed, illustrating how he could no longer move the top of his shield form like a neck anymore and was now, quite stiff.

Changbin laughed. “You guys think you have a problem? I’m finding it so hard to walk nowadays it genuinely scares me.”

Felix jumped onto Changbin’s metal lap and snuggled close to him, ignoring the cold temperature of the material as he did so. “I keep meowing instead of saying words completely by accident and that scares me too.”

“I’m the same, Lixie,” Jeongin joined in, “sometimes I can barely form sentences anymore.”

“I may as well join the whine train and share my input in the fact that I keep flopping on the ground and losing control of my limbs,” Seungmin whined from where he was spread out on the carpet by the fire, the words coming out slightly muffled from the way he was fully pressed into the carpet; face-down, in a sense. “I used to be able to move about the castle just fine but nowadays Jisung is carrying me everywhere because I keep going limp and flopping.”

“Can everybody please calm down, we still have time!” Jamie chided everybody from where she was propped against an armchair. “I’ve been observing Minho and Jisung for a while now and… well, bless my soul, I really do think they’re making progress, even if Jisung is unaware of his feelings towards Minho just yet.”

“And who’d have thought they’d come together on their own?” Changbin mused happily.

“We’ll have to wait and see,” Felix chimed in.

“We’ll wait and see a few days more,” Hyunjin added. “But I really do think there’s something there that wasn’t there before.”

And that night, everybody in the castle fell asleep with a renewed sense of hope in their hearts.

Chapter Text

Knock, knock, knock.

“Minho?” Seungmin opened the door to the tallest tower a little, before slipping in and closing it, bracing himself against the stormy rain that still continued to fall. “Are you in here?”

Minho nodded from where he was sitting on the floor in the water, drenched by rain.

“Oh, Minho.”

Though the ankle-deep water Seungmin trudged, ignoring how the cold liquid soaked up through his form and utterly saturated him; feeling weighted down and fatigued. Upon reaching the beast who was sat hopelessly through the rain, knees hugged to his chest.

Seungmin made it through the water pooling on the ground and flopped onto Minho, hoping to provide warmth though he was soaked through and frozen.

“What’s wrong, my king?”

Minho scoffed. “I’m hardly a king. Look at me. I’m sat in a tower that always storms, full of water, looking literally like a beast; a supernatural creature; after accidentally cursing myself and my only friends and compromising their fate.”

“Don’t say that, Minho,” Seungmin comforted. “There’s still time left to undo what’s done! We’re in this together.”

“Jisung, too…” Minho whispered, barely audible through the rain. “He’s grown to love you all so. He’s going to be devastated.”

“Minho, we’re certain that you can break the curse before the end draws nigh.”

“And how can you be sure?” Minho cried helplessly. “I have to learn to love while being loved in return. How could one ever learn to love a beast?”

“Minho, you’re being irrational,” Seungmin reminded his friend gently. “You know, more than anyone, how Jisung looks for beauty on the inside. Even when he first saw you, he did not even flinch! After you yelled at him and petrified him, he did not flee the castle in fright but instead stayed and gave you a second chance and now sees the true beauty that lies within you. Are you not going to give him the chance to fall in love with you too and finally see your true appearance when he does?”

Minho blatantly ignored the implication that Seungmin had mentioned of him already being in love with Jisung; for quite frankly these implications were true.

When he spoke again, his voice was small; defeated. “And what if that one chance is destroyed?”

Seungmin smiled softly. “I very much doubt that. But if it is, you will never have given it the chance to be so.”

Minho nodded and Seungmin knew he had won him over.

“Now let’s leave this stormy room and get you warmed up, Min.”

---

“Hey, hey, hey, Jisung,” Hyunjin chanted as Jisung dressed himself after waking, “you and Minho have been looking rather… close lately,” he said, wiggling his metal eyebrows suggestively. “What’s the deal?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Jisung laughed breezily as he pulled a shirt, white with ruffles, over his head. “Oops, I’m stuck.”

Felix jumped onto the bed and threw himself at Jisung, catching his shirt in his claws as he fell to the ground, consequently pulling the shirt down over Jisung’s head with it. An intelligent kitten indeed.

“Thanks, Lixie.”

“I think you do know what I mean,” Hyunjin sang, not letting the topic go. “Spill, spill!”

Jisung sighed as he pulled an elegant, royal blue frock coat laced with gold over his shirt. “I don’t rightly know? He’s so funny and kind…”

“Gracious, could I be seeing something in you that is… more than platonic?”

“Maybe?” Jisung sighed again. “I don’t fully know myself… but… quite possibly. I know in this day and age it’s frowned upon, but I cannot help it!”

Hyunjin had to bite back a giddy squeal. “Oh, my friend, no one in this castle frowns upon that at all! I would say that all of us share in your feelings.”

“Feelings… for Minho?” Jisung questioned, very confused.

Felix snorted loudly and started choking.

“No, no,” Hyunjin snickered. “We just wouldn’t judge you for liking Minho because we’re all very gay ourselves. Just not for him, by any means at all.”

Jisung’s being flooded with realisation and he threw himself onto the bed in embarrassment. “I’m such a FOOL,” he cried aloud, giggling into the soft duvet beneath him.

“A silly fool indeed,” Chan agreed lightly, “but a very loveable one. Your antics never fail to amuse us.”

“And so they shall continue to,” Jisung quipped, snatching up his circular glasses from where they lay on his nightstand and slipping them on, “for as long as I can help it.”

And from there he left the room, leaving the other residents of the room to look at each other with awfully contained excitement and glee.

---

It was currently the late afternoon after that hectic morning (on more than one account) and, due to the weather pouring down with sleet outside and showing no signs of stopping, everybody was cosied up inside the castle, Jisung and Minho included.

Due to the thick clouds weighing in the sky, it was much darker than a late afternoon typically should be, and it felt a lot more like the evening, hence the castle being full of lit candles and fires to fend off the cold and ominous darkness.

The two beings in question were sat in the library, though for once they were not seated in the large armchairs that furnished the place; instead they had (upon Jisung’s excited instructions) dragged every throw and cushion they could find down the cold stone steps of the castle and piled them into the library, scattering them onto the floor and forming a sort of… nest, perhaps one could call it; right in the far corner of the room. And there the two sat, backs against the bookshelves, wrapped up in woollen throws and feather-filled cushions while candles flickered and the fairylights that lined each and every shelf casting a golden glow about the room.

Jisung had done this by himself many a time, back in his home in the village, when it had poured outside, but with only his bed, pillow and thin blanket for warmth, it never worked quite the way he would have liked, especially with the way that the windows did little with keeping the cold outside, and the drafts coming from beneath the door would quickly extinguish the few candles that Jisung owned. Still, it would be his own personal heaven, and he would appreciate every moment of it regardless.

Here, though, the thick stone walls kept the cold out magnificently, and the windows, made of thick glass with no room for allowing winds to enter, kept the room satisfyingly cosy and warm, and the many, many candles that Jisung had found (squealing louder and louder with each new one he found) were burning bright, along with Hyunjin, who stood proudly among them, with his own candles lit.

Giggling aloud with happiness, Jisung’s smile was so wide Minho internally swore that it resembled a heart. “I love times like this. When it is so cold and miserable outside, but inside it’s all warm; cozy; safe. It makes me feel protected and at ease,” Jisung smiled. “While I adore being out in the rain too, when I am safe and dry and warm inside, away from it, it just brings some sense of excitement with it; don’t you agree?”

Minho snapped himself out of his reverie of staring at Jisung’s smile and the way that the stars that had vanished from the sky seemed to have made their home in Jisung’s eyes (although that was most probably just the reflection of the fairylights) and forced himself to respond.

“I do.”

Jisung didn’t pay Minho’s lack of a long response any mind has he continued to babble happily.

“I’ve never had times like this to share with another, though. It feels… so much nicer to not be alone, strangely. I used to think that solitude was the only thing that would bring me happiness, aside from painting, because everybody else in the village was so horrible… but since I have been here, I see that I was very much wrong.”

Minho’s heart warmed at the words, and he secretly hoped that Jisung’s rambling held hidden messages towards himself. Unrealistic? Maybe. But that didn’t stop him from hoping.

“Your village sounds terrible, if you don’t mind me saying,” Minho commented.

Jisung chuckled lightly. “Only if you were different and did not conform to their mindset of what ‘normal’ was.”

Licking his suddenly dry lips, Minho hesitated a little before replying. “I… I rather prefer your quirks to the ways of anybody else I have ever met before.”

Looking down at his lap bashfully, Jisung half-hid his beaming smile from the beast, making Minho wish he could see it again.

So he did what any self-respecting being would do and threw himself from his sitting position onto the floor, laying on his back among the throws so that he might glimpse that beautiful smile.

Jisung giggled again, the sound music to Minho’s ears. “Minho, what are you doing?”

Minho shrugged. “You hid your smile. I wanted to see it.”

Jisung’s cheeks flushed a wonderful rosy colour and he looked away shyly, making Minho whine childishly. “You’re doing it again!”

“Sorry, sorry.” Jisung looked back down at the beast, smile unable to leave his face, and started combing his fingers through Minho’s fur, untangling and knots and feeling the textures beneath his fingertips.

(And if Hyunjin was this close to screaming as he watched them, who was he to talk? He couldn’t wait to relay all of this to Chan, Changbin, Seungmin and Jeongin, who couldn’t find anywhere to hide in the room and so couldn’t be there to spy.)

(Himself, Jamie and Felix, however, were hidden among his fellow candles and candelabras; with Jamie and Felix hiding atop a table full of books.)

And Minho? He had died and gone to heaven, he was sure of it.

Jisung’s fingers carding through his fur felt like bliss, and Minho’s mind was fuzzy with satisfaction as his eyes slipped closed of his own accord.

He didn’t register Jisung’s muffled laughter until it grew steadily harder to contain.

“What’s so funny?”

Jisung felt weak with mirth and overcome with… fondness, not that he would admit it. “You were purring.”

Blinking rapidly in disbelief for a few seconds, Minho could feel his face growing hot. “No, I was not.”

“Sure you weren’t,” Jisung humoured him, resuming his petting. “It was just… thunder, right?”

“Yes,” Minho echoed, “thunder.”

The two stayed in a comfortable silence for a few minutes; their only companion in sound being the sound of the sleet relentlessly pattering against the windows from outside and the occasional flicker of a candlewick (Hyunjin’s, of course, when he moved his arms every so often. It gets tiring staying still for so long!)

“Jisung,” Minho broke the silence out of the blue, “there was always… a reason that I never wanted to find a wife during my days as king.”

Jisung’s hands grew impossibly gentler but did not falter in their motions as he hummed, waiting for the beast to continue.

“I never wanted a wife. I could never have forced myself to love any of the eligible women thrust into my path because I…” Minho swallowed. “I’m gay.”

Jisung hummed again. “Okay, Minho.”

“That’s it? Okay?”

“Okay. It is… not much of a surprise, truth be told.”

Minho snorted. “And why is that?”

“I don’t know… you just give off that energy, I suppose. And I would like to think that I should be able to spot somebody else of my orientation.”

Wait just a second. “Your orientation?”

Jisung beamed again. “Yes! I’m gay too.”

Oh.

Well… maybe his love took a step towards being a little more realistically requited?

“Ah. That is… good.”

“It is good!” Jisung agreed innocently.

“Yes…”

Hyunjin snorted quietly, loving the sight of Minho gay panicking from a distance. Jamie and Felix weren’t any different, trying to muffle their excitement and laughter through the books.

“Top quality entertainment,” Felix whispered to the wooden spoon, tail flicking back and forth behind him.

“It is indeed,” Jamie agreed heartily.

“It’s so beautiful,” Minho whispered suddenly, startling Jisung out of his thoughts.

“Hmm? What is?”

“You,” Minho locked eyes with the blond from the floor, not daring to raise his voice even by an octave. “You are making everything look so beautiful… we should have a dance tonight.”

“A dance?” Jisung questioned. “Like, ballroom?”

“If that is your preference, then yes.”

Jisung was silent for all of one second before agreeing. “Okay! But,” he pouted cutely, “I’m sleepy now. I will fall asleep if I am awake much longer! Could we possibly dance tomorrow evening instead?”

Minho’s mind was racing at hundreds of miles per second, not having expected to even get an ‘okay’ from the younger. “Yes, of course.”

“Thank you, Minho!” Minho was certain he had never seen the blond smile so much as he had smiled tonight. “I am already looking forward to it!”

“Me too,” Minho breathed as he sat back up, dislodging Jisung’s hands from his fur as he did so. “You said you are tired. You should go to bed now.”

Jisung pouted again. “But here is so comfortable and cosy! Just a small nap…” he teased, taking Minho’s place among the throws and cushions and closing his eyes.

Minho rolled his eyes, trying to calm his racing heart. He knew for a fact that Jisung would happily stay there until the morning, but the younger was already gone, small, regular puffs of breath leaving his nose as he dreamt.

How in the world did he fall asleep so fast?

Hyunjin took this opportunity to leap down from his table with a tiny metallic clang. “It’s your time to play knight-in-shining-armour, my king!”

Minho sighed. “But he looks so peaceful.”

“If he sleeps there all night then he will wake up all sore everywhere! You don’t want that, do you?”

“Of course not,” Minho admitted gruffly. “I’ll… wake him in a few moments.”

Felix jumped over the pile of books he and Jamie had been hiding behind deftly. “Cruel man. You don’t really want to wake him, do you? You just said yourself, he looks so peaceful.”

Minho sighed again, but there was no malice. “I hate you all.”

And that is how Minho ended his night gently lifting Jisung from the pile of throws and walking with his sleeping form through the castle to his quarters, where, as he bent down to put him onto his bed, Jisung’s arms tightened around his neck a little, causing Minho to freeze. And no , he absolutely did not revel in the feeling, knowing that it was quite possibly the closest to an embrace he had ever received in eighty years.

Settling for the slow approach, Minho took his time in slipping his arms away from the sleeping boy so as to not disturb him, sitting back in satisfaction when he had completed his task without waking Jisung and watching as both Felix and Jeongin both jumped straight onto the bed and curled into Jisung’s side, causing the sleeping blond to subconsciously turn onto his side and curl around them on instinct.

Even sleeping he is the most beautiful being I have ever laid my eyes on, Minho thought, gaze wandering Jisung’s sleeping face, the way his lips puckered ever so slightly and the way his hair fell softly and messily around his eyes and onto the pillow. Breathtaking.

And NO, Minho CERTAINLY did not tuck Jisung in with his duvet, being mindful of the sleeping animals cuddling into him, and leave the room that night with a dopey smile on his face. No. It did not happen. He vehemently denies it.

Chapter Text

“… So then I said, ‘you’re making everything look so beautiful, we should have a dance tonight’. I never imagined he would actually say yes! What was I thinking? ” Minho groaned into his palms in exasperation.

“At least Jisung actually reset the date for tonight instead of last night, when you asked,” Hyunjin teased. “I’d wager that you would have fainted away on the spot without any time to prepare.”

“ Yes, but now he’s had all day to brood over it and think himself into a spiral of despair,” Chan joined in, cackling at the glare the beast sent his way.

“Besides, now is the perfect time to tell Jisung how you feel! The rose only has three petals left… tonight is perfect timing!” Hyunjin sang, waving his candles around. Minho scoffed.

“And what if he doesn’t feel the same way?”

“Unlikely, but this is a jump you have to take. In the long-run of things, this is literally going to be life or death.”

Minho sighed, knowing that this was true and like it or not, there was no more putting off telling Jisung the truth. This was no ordinary love story, as much as he wished it could be.

“This is your chance, Minho! Woo Jisung with romantic candlelight and beautiful music!” Chan encouraged the beast as he trudged over to the wardrobe and flung it open, peering at the contents.

“And when the moment’s just right…” Hyunjin giggled and wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

Minho groaned. “And how will I know?”

“You will. Trust me,” Chan grinned brightly. “It will feel… right. I speak from experience.”

“From WHO?” Hyunjin screeched, looking betrayed as Chan shrugged.

“Jamie.”

Minho dropped the coathanger in his hand onto the floor, where it fell with a bang into the stunned silence.

“Jamie?” Minho and Hyunjin screamed in unison.

“Yeah?”

“Since when?”

“Oh, since we were both… nineteen?” Chan thought back, metal brow furrowing. “Yes. Nineteen.”

Hyunjin in particular had never felt so betrayed in all his elongated life! How had he never noticed the romance between the two eldest?

“You are telling us now that you and Jamie have been together romantically for SEVENTY-THREE YEARS and told us NOTHING?” Hyunjin roared, flames growing taller as his voice increased in volume.

“Yep,” Chan confirmed, unbothered. “Well, at first we wanted to keep it quiet to keep it special for a while, and then wanted to tell you but we all got turned, so taking care of you guys became the first priority. We figured that once we get turned back, then we can tell everyone else.”

Minho blinked before Hyunjin yelled again.

“YOU WANTED TO KEEP IT SECRET AND SPECIAL FOR THREE YEARS ?”

“Three years, yes.”

Silence.

“ WHAT?”

“Ok, this is all fine and well, but, um,” Minho interrupted, “Seeing as you have… experience… please. I have no idea what I’m doing…”

Chan beamed. “Well, I can’t tell you what to do, but I can give you some tips.”

---

“Jisungieee,” Felix sang, “you look amazing!”

And indeed he did; dressed finely in a light blue gown that fell off his shoulders in soft fabric embroidered with lighter blue floras and swirls that came thick until his waist, where the skirt billowed out elegantly and the embroidery lessened as it travelled further down the skirt. Said skirt was light and chiffon-y, the fabric having an overskirt of thin, clear, white fabric. The same fabric had been used to flow out from the shoulders of the sleeves and there they fell, over Jisung’s arms and met with the skirt, blending perfectly with the fabric.

Collarbones exposed and hair freshly washed and fluffy, everybody in the room agreed that Jisung really did look like a dream.

“Breathtaking. Beautiful. More compliments beginning with B. You are going to blow Minho away!” Felix carried on as Jeongin cooed and sniffed Jisung’s gown appreciatively.

“So, Jisung…” Changbin scooted closer to Jisung comically and started playing with his hair. “A dance night with the King? The start of… courting, perhaps?”

Jisung laughed. “Ah, Changbin…. Oh, you’re not joking?”

“If I could stare at you unamused right now, I would do.”

“Oh. In that case, I should like to think so!”

Silence.

“Well, that was… much easier than I ever anticipated,” Seungmin declared, throwing the corners of his fabric into the air. “I say.”

“The perfect way to start courting…” Jamie sighed dreamily, “romantic dancing in a candlelit ballroom.”

“I would certainly like to think so,” Jisung said with satisfaction, honestly surprising everybody with how calm he was acting.

“How are you so calm as of now?” Jeongin huffed. “This is a date; the beginning of a courtship, you said it yourself… why are you not nervous?”

Jisung chuckled. “I honestly do not know… it just feels right. I can feel no nervousness, so I will take everything as it comes and hope that this is a good sign.”

“Jisung and Minho are going to kiss~~~,” Felix sang childishly, cackling when Jisung threatened to throw him out of the window.

“That is enough, I’m leaving now,” Jisung announced as Felix’s cackling only loudened; mixed in with some triumphant mewls as Jeongin snickered beside him.

“Knock him good and dead, Jisung!”

---

Standing hesitantly at the top of the stone staircase, Jisung took a deep breath and looked up from the floor to meet Minho’s eyes.

He knew that wearing a gown in the first place was a little risky, but knew that Minho would not think badly of him- it was more of an is this evening going to be this formal or am I overdressed? Kind of way. However, Jisung felt pretty, and that was all that mattered.

Minho, who was initially waiting patiently at the bottom of the staircase, felt his breath first catch in his throat, then get robbed from his chest as he took in the sight that was Jisung hesitating at the top of the staircase.

Enchanted, the beast started moving before he even realised his actions, and was stood upon the stop step before Jisung could even blink, wide eyed and enamoured.

“Jisung, you…” Minho’s voice was breathy, “you look incredible.”

Jisung flushed a light pink that reached even the tips of his ears as well as his cheeks and neck as he smiled. “Thank you.”

The suddenly shy blond had not glanced at Minho before now, choosing to instead stare at either his skirt or the flooring, and he, too, suddenly felt breathless at what stood before him.

Dressed in a dress shirt with a ruffled collar and long sleeves that poked out of the royal blue jacket he was wearing, Minho was also clad in matching royal blue pants and waistcoat patterned with gold leaf. Though his fur was not completely hidden by the clothing as usual, Jisung had never cared less for somebody’s appearance as he finally met Minho’s eyes and saw his own feelings reflected back in them.

“You look amazing yourself,” Jisung admitted quietly, looking down with a bashful smile.

Maybe these were the nerves that Felix and the others had teased him so mercilessly about not having.

Minho scoffed. “As well as a beast can look, I am sure.”

Jisung’s gaze, of course, snapped back up to meet Minho’s eyes once more. “Your beauty is not measured by your appearance. True beauty comes from within… and I say that you are the most beautiful being I have ever come across. Regardless of your appearance.”

Minho gaped at him for a second, not knowing what to say through his malfunctioning gay heart.

-

Unsurprisingly, the rest of the castle’s ensemble were hidden behind a corner but were watching, rapt. Chan and Hyunjin were around one corner while everybody else, having come from Jisung’s room, were watching from the opposite corridor, but the two groups could see each other clearly across the hallway and waved merrily.

Hyunjin snickered, basking in delight. “Minho has never been rendered speechless before. This is absolutely magnificent to watch… also, Chan, just you wait until those two lovebirds get into that ballroom. I am willing to SPRINT to beat you to the group and spill your secret relationship.”

Chan tried to shrug and failed, finding Jisung and Minho to be much more entertaining than Hyunjin’s excitement. They were bound to find out sooner or later, so why not watch new romance unfold instead?

-

“Shall we?” Jisung saved Minho from having to reply, offering his hand to the elder, who took it with great care as the two began their descent down the staircase.

Jisung honestly felt like the protagonist of his own romance novel; feeling beautiful in his gown, next to the only person in the world he felt mattered in that moment as they descended the stairs of a beautiful, cursed castle on their way to a ballroom, where they would spend their evening in close proximity and with romantic airs.

As if on cue, the door to the ballroom opened of its own accord and Jisung gasped softly, not having really seen its interior yet due to there being no need to.

Huge, spacious and airy, this room seemed to be made completely of marble and gold; the floor and walls shining proudly whilst the ceiling was painted elaborately with various colours of oil and acrylics. A huge chandelier hung from the patterns and shone a cosy lighting into the room, enough for the two to see each other and their surroundings but not so bright that the light bounced off any surfaces.

The room was hexagonal; and three of the walls made up the outer walls of the tower they were currently in, and so were full of long, wide windows that let them see outside perfectly. The sun was setting directly outside of the windows, and one could see for miles; the villages and hills illuminated in golden, pink light as well as the light flooding into the ballroom as well, bathing everything and everyone in the room in the golden hue too.

Other light fixtures hung in perfectly orderly patterns on each wall of the hexagonal room, holding tiny candles that flickered in the evening light and cast an ethereal glow about the room.

Jisung wished he could quickly run and get his paints to capture the scene, but knew that he could never even begin to portray the beauty that stood before him.

“It’s beautiful,” Jisung whispered.

“It truly is,” Minho whispered back, eyes having never left the younger’s wonder-filled expression.

Quiet music started playing behind them; soft notes of a piano being carefully played, and when the two turned around to look they found Changbin sitting there, metal fingers ghosting over the keys, playing the instrument gently so as to not make any noises when his metal fingers hit the keys.

Jisung cleared his throat nervously and quietly and turned so that he was facing Minho, and dropped into a deep bow, before standing again, his head the last thing to right itself before looking back at the king.

“Shall we?” he murmured softly, a little scared and also feeling quite unprepared, but knowing that with Minho, it would be easy-flowing and freeing.

Minho grinned cheekily, before bowing too, (shocking Jisung) and taking the younger’s hand in both of his. He raised Jisung’s hand to his face, where, holding eye contact, he grazed the younger’s knuckles with his lips before standing properly once more and taking his other hand.

“Han Jisung, may I have this dance?”

Jisung giggled, nerves melting away at Minho’s touch. “I would be honoured.”

As the couple made their way to the middle of the ballroom, Chan slid into the room beside Changbin and stood in front of the piano, and began to sing, feeling quite emotional when Jamie slid in beside him and joined him in song; the two voices rising and harmonising perfectly with the notes from the piano.

Minho was the one to take the first initial leap of faith; guiding Jisung’s figure to the hold of their current dance; Jisung ending up with one hand settled on Minho’s chest, by his shoulder whilst Minho himself held the other hand, and Minho’s spare hand held Jisung’s small waist gently.

“Just follow my lead,” Minho murmured, and before Jisung could panic and protest Minho was leading him in a slow yet professional-feeling dance, gliding on the marbled floor like they had been doing it for years; wrapped up in their own little world of each other as one by one, the rest of the ensemble filtered in and settled against the far wall, by the door, to spectate and quietly scream.

“You’re a natural!” Minho exclaimed quietly. “Are you sure you have never danced before?”

“Quite sure,” Jisung chuckled, “but I must say you are going quite easy on me. For that, I am grateful.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to drag you into complicated footwork when you would have no idea what was happening in the first place, now would I?” Minho’s eyes sparkled and Jisung stared in awe.

Minho let go of Jisung’s waist and held their linked hands in the air- a cue for Jisung to be spun, the blond guessed correctly- as he took small but quick steps around the circumference of the beast, skirt billowing out delicately behind him before he arrived back in front of Minho, who swept him back into hold immediately.

Jisung hoped he wasn’t imagining the beast holding him a little closer this time.

Time passed by quickly- minutes? Hours? Both Minho and Jisung were oblivious to how much time they initially danced for; only of the fact that when they began, the sun had been midway setting in the sky but now, it was nowhere to be seen; the night sky was clear as day for the first time Jisung had ever been at the castle for, and stars were very visible throughout as well as the moon hanging full and bright within them.

Minho dipped Jisung (the younger thanked the stars outside that he did not fall out of Minho’s arms and onto the floor, for that would have ruined the serenity and romantic atmosphere in an instant) and Jisung’s arm slipped around Minho’s neck for stability. (Or, that was what he told himself.) The two stared into each other’s eyes for a moment, caught in a trance, before Minho resumed the waltz and swept Jisung off his feet, lifting him in the air by his waist and spinning gracefully, eyes never leaving one another’s.

“They’re so enchanted with one another that they have not looked away from each other ever since they started their dancing earlier this evening,” Jeongin whispered dreamily, leaning his head on his crossed paws as he watched the two sleepily.

"See, all I want in life is to have someone who looks at me the way those two look at each other," Felix quipped, gaze wandering over to Changbin subconsciously.

Minho set Jisung down with care, the two resuming their hold (although this time Jisung wound his arm around Minho’s neck instead of leaving an open hand on his shoulder) and spinning slowly as the latest song that Chan and Jamie were singing came to an end.

However, this time, as the next song started up again, they did not keep going, but rather stayed where they were; both of Jisung’s hands slipping back down to Minho’s chest, where they stayed, and Minho’s hands staying loosely looped around Jisung’s waist.

They did not move, but stared at each other, as if they were committing each detail of the other’s face to memory.

“…Do you remember when I told you that I hoped to one day attend a ball with a partner… whom I had chosen of my own accord, and for love?” Minho whispered into the air, closing his eyes against the world.

“Yes,” Jisung’s heart sped up. Was Minho….?

“I know that I can now say, with confidence… that tonight was the perfect fit to that description…” Minho held his breath, only being able to hope that he had said the right thing.

His heart stopped when Jisung let out a breathy laugh and rested his forehead against Minho’s.

“I think that I can, too,” Jisung confessed inaudibly.

Minho’s breathing audibly hitched as he opened his eyes to find Jisung closer than ever, staring right back at him.

“You… you really can?” he squeaked, and Jisung laughed again.

“I really can,” he confirmed, slipping one hand behind Minho’s head again, cupping it gently.

Minho let out a laugh happier than he had ever sounded before, teeth suddenly looking a little less sharp around the canines than they had before as he rejoiced in dizzy relief.

Jisung suddenly grew alarmed and the castle seemed to shift beneath his feet- was Minho supposed to be changing form like this so suddenly?- as the beast seemed to suddenly stop his phasing between beast and human form at such a high frequency and it seemed that he was… returning to his human form?

Was the curse being lifted?

“Minho, what- you’re changing-“

Minho pulled one hand up to his face and stared at it incredulously. “Oh my goodness… the curse- Jisung, it’s being lifted.”

Jisung stood back and laughed in pure elation as he watched Minho’s fur seemingly retract slowly back into his body; which was emitting a golden light that was beautiful to look at, and gasped as Minho’s claws shortened to human nails; horns retracted and disappeared.

Every second the king was becoming more human, and their friends watching were also elated, knowing that once Minho was fully human, they too would finally be able to return to how they once were as well.

It only should have taken a moment longer when the process stopped abruptly and out of nowhere, Minho’s fur returned; claws and horns shooting back out of his skin as he howled in agony, the light fading from his eyes, and the king fell to the floor, unconscious.

“Minho!”

Jisung rushed to his side, breathing heavy and panicked as tears clouded his vision. Desperate and already sobbing, he looked to their friends for help, who were already sprinting to their sides as fast as their forms could carry them.

“Please- he was changing, something’s not right- what-“

“The rose,” Hyunjin gasped as he felt something within him freeze, “The rose. Jisung. You have to get to the rose. Now. I am afraid that it is already too late-“

Jeongin let out a sob of pure panic as Seungmin suddenly fell to the floor, lifeless; a mere tapestry. Hyunjin’s panicked jabbering increased in speed, volume and urgency as he yelled at Jisung to get to the rose, now, and so Jisung did, tears blinding him in his daze as he sprinted, up through the castle he now knew so well, up the steps and spiralling staircases and ignoring the burning in his lungs as he raced against time to get to the rose, not daring to think about what would happen if it were too late.

Contrary to any scenario Jisung had already created in his head, this one was worse than any of them.

The door to the tower was open; rain flooding down the steps and making them incredibly slippery to navigate. But Jisung could see inside, and the sight that awaited him made him scream aloud helplessly.

In the tower was Adonis, clutching the now petal-less rose in one hand and the remains of the three remaining petals, now crushed, in the other as triumphant fire blazed in his eyes.

"There's no hope for them now, Jisung," he yelled through the storm, laughing and swaying maniacally from side to side as he opened his fingers and let the crushed three petals fall into the water, limp and lifeless. 

And with them, Jisung fell to his knees, grief consuming him entirely from the inside out. 

It’s too late.

Chapter Text

The sound of Jisung’s footsteps were swiftly swallowed by the castle as he raced away, and the remaining living beings in the ballroom turned to look at each other in bittersweet sadness.

“At least he had finally learned to love,” Jamie said softly, eyes tracing Minho’s lifeless form as he felt himself becoming cold and inanimate himself. “I- I love you all.” And with that, she turned around, locking eyes with Chan and opening her mouth to say more... before everything went black and she fell to the floor with a clatter. Unmoving.

Inanimate.

Lifeless.

“Jamie,” Chan sobbed, voice trembling even just one the one word before the feeling took him over as well. “Everybody… it was an honour,” his mouth was becoming increasingly hard to move, the metal solidifying and cooling around his whole form, “to share in this adventure with you.” The harshly loud sound of motionless steel hitting the marble floor made Jeongin flinch violently as he started crying softly.

Changbin bent down to pick Felix up in his stiff metal hands, nuzzling the ginger kitten with his visor and pressing the mouthpiece to his head once to serve as one singular kiss before he froze in place with a strangled cry, all signs of life draining from him as Felix remained, shaking like a leaf, in the frozen metal hands that would never move again.

“Binnie,” Felix mewled inaudibly, a single tear running down his fluffy features before he jumped from his hands, onto the floor to curl, terrified, into Hyunjin and Jeongin.

“I love you guys so much,” Hyunjin’s voice was choked with emotion and barely coherent, “so, so much. Please, I love-“suddenly he jumped, as if startled, and toppled over onto the floor, face now removed from the candelabra’s intricate metalwork and flames extinguished, along with his life.

Felix let out a howl of despair as he felt his form shaking with grief and his own sobs as he buried his face into Jeongin’s fur in desperation. “Jeongin, please-“

“Felix, I’m so scared,” Jeongin cried, “I’m terrified. Please don’t let it take me, please don’t leave-“ Felix let out a louder sob as the humanity of Jeongin visibly faded within seconds, leaving a confused and very much inhuman fennec fox in his place. A mere animal. Jeongin was gone.

The fox ran away in an instant, leaving Felix to curl up next to the inanimate, lifeless forms of his other friends as he felt himself also dying; his heartbeat becoming fainter within him and his head becoming fuzzy.

“I love you guys,” he whispered before succumbing to the darkest of dark he could ever imagine feeling in his life, tears still falling down his face as the human life left his body, alone and afraid.

---

“Don’t you see what you have done?!” Jisung screamed, voice hoarse with pain as he sunk to his knees , letting the floods of rain soak his dress and skin. “You’ve killed them all. All of them!”

“Oh, I know exactly what I did, Jisung,” Adonis had literal fire in his eyes as he moved closer to Jisung with slow, deliberate steps. “That frightful beast! His fur! His fangs! He did not deserve to live.”

“He’s no beast!” Jisung sobbed. “He was gentle, and kind. He’s not the monster here, Adonis- YOU are!”

Adonis scoffed, and crouched down in front of Jisung, their faces inches apart. “If I didn’t know you better I’d say you even cared for the beast!”

Jisung jerked his face away. “I do!” he wept helplessly, “and now he’s gone. They’re all gone-”

Adonis smirked and grabbed Jisung’s wrist, pulling him up from the stairs he had collapsed onto and dropped the crushed petals and bare stalk into his hand carelessly. “When we get back to the village, you will marry me, and that beast’s head will hang on our wall!”

Though Jisung’s body ached with grief and shook with exhaustion already, he felt fire flare up within and knew he had to put up his best fight if he were to avenge his friends at all.

“Never!” he yelled, grip tightening on the ruined flower parts as he wrenched his wrist out of the taller’s grip and ran back down the steps, praying to every deity out there that he would not slip on the now soaking wet stairs.

I need to lead him away from the ballroom, anywhere but the ballroom- Jisung’s thoughts were frantic as he heard Adonis’ loud footsteps and even louder yells chasing him. He knew that he was not joking in the slightest about hanging Minho’s head on his wall- Jisung needed to lead him as far away as possible.

Knowing that the simplest way was to simply lead Adonis in the opposite direction of the ballroom, Jisung took a sharp left before reaching the last staircase that would lead directly into said room, instead swerving into another hallway that he sprinted down, dress hitched up to his shins to minimise tripping- that would be fatal.

Relieved that Adonis was indeed following him instead of looking himself for the ballroom, Jisung kept running, taking the sharpest turns he could manage to confuse his antagonist. It certainly did help that he had spent the last few weeks getting to know the castle, and now knew it better than ever.

How did Adonis even enter the castle grounds, let alone the castle itself when I was the only living thing allowed in in seventy years? Jisung’s mind screamed at him. It made no sense at all, especially when the castle must have known Adonis’ ill intent!

Although, Jisung had noticed that throughout the weeks he had resided at the castle, more and more wild animals had been able to enter, from small birds with sweet song to even gentle wolves and deer in the past week- maybe the castle had let its guard down slowly? It was the only explanation that made sense.

Anyhow, Jisung had no time to sit down and map out all the possible reasons or ways that Adonis had entered the castle, because he was here now, and had ruined everything within it. And Jisung was determined to avenge his friends and Minho if it were the last thing he ever did. There was no way in hell he was going to leave with that man and return to their village and have anything at all to do with this monster for as long as he was alive.

Too lost in his thoughts, Jisung burst into a room, slamming the door closed behind him in his blind panic- but he realised all too late that he was now trapped in a room with only one door as Adonis threw said door open and barrelled inside furiously.

“Where is the beast?” he asked, voice low and threatening.

“As long as I am alive you will never get to him,” Jisung growled.

“I wouldn’t be so sure.”

Jisung gulped as Adonis came closer.

“I will tear this castle apart brick by brick until I find that beast.”

Jisung’s heart wrenching in terror, he ducked around the much taller man and sprinted for the door, throwing it open and running out of it, hearing the other release a furious growl and follow him-

But the door slammed closed in his face.

Jisung, confused, stopped running and stared at the door for a second. He hadn’t pushed it closed, how had it slammed back so quickly? And how hadn’t Adonis opened the door again? He was certainly trying to if the incessant banging and yelling coming from within the room was anything to go by, but Jisung shook himself out of his internal questioning and started running once more, not wanting to know what would happen if Adonis got out of the room before he could get to Minho himself.

To his immense surprise (and he would have gasped if he weren’t already so breathless), the castle lit up, each candle and light fixture lighting up in his wake as if showing him the way and extinguishing again as he ran past them. Jisung followed the lights, hoping they would direct him to where he needed to go.

The castle’s still alive?

Could this mean there’s still a small chance? There could still be time!

It might not be too late after all…

With that renewed hope in his heart, Jisung stupidly let himself believe that he might re-enter the ballroom to see his friends and Minho with life still in them. As unrealistic as it was, hope was all he had left at this point- he’d literally had everything else close to him ripped away in a matter of minutes.

Finally the ballroom was close again, and Jisung choked out a dry sob as he entered, not slowing down at all as he fell to the floor in the middle of the ballroom next to the still lifeless form of Minho and inanimate forms of his other friends.

Movement.

“Jeongin,” Jisung almost yelled in relief as the fennec fox ran into the ballroom on nimble feet. “Jeongin, you’re still alive, thank-“

The fox merely sniffed Jisung’s outstretched hand and walked away, uninterested and oblivious to the way Jisung’s hope shattered once more.

The ginger kitten stirred, uncurling itself from the ball it had been sleeping in and jumped onto Jisung’s knee, the human almost falling from his crouching position in shock.

He daren’t let himself hope, but the movement was so familiar that his heart leapt with joy regardless…

“Felix?” Jisung’s voice cracked as he ran a hand over the kitten’s orange head.

The kitten hissed and swiped a paw over Jisung’s outer wrist, claws extended protectively. Jisung gasped in shock and drew his wrist back hastily as the kitten jumped off his wrist and wandered away, tail in the air.

Jisung let himself sink onto the floor, completely numb, as he cradled his lightly bleeding wrist (wow, that kitten had really sharp claws) as he felt tears begin their free-flow down his cheeks, doing nothing to stop them.

He heard the door close softly behind him and closed his eyes, leaning forward and placing his head on Minho’s unmoving chest.

“I’m so sorry Minho,” he sobbed, “I’m so so sorry… you were so close to breaking the curse and then Adonis came and ruined the rose-“ he somehow had kept the remains within his left hand, kept in a vice grip that hadn’t loosened for the whole time since Adonis had tossed them at Jisung back up in the tower.

Raising his shaking hand, Jisung set the remains of the flower in the place his head had just occupied, right above Minho’s heart before leaning up and pressing his lips to the beast’s head.

“Please. You can't leave me. You can't,” he sobbed, fingers curling into useless fists resting on Minho's still chest. "Come back... I love you..."

“And that was all I needed to hear,” came a familiar but disembodied voice, and before Jisung could react, the lifeless and crushed rose and petals laying on Minho’s chest had parted into a million pieces of what looked like golden sand and were now levitating in the air in intricate patterns, winding around each other before encasing Minho’s form in an opaque layer of golden fragmented light.

“I- what?” Jisung sniffed, leaning away from it in slight panic and awe, knowing all he could do was watch.

Despite the possibility of Minho somehow being revived, Jisung refused to let any more hope rise within him like he had done, so stupidly, the past times in the last hour.

So he squashed it back down, extinguishing the optimistic flames of hope within him before they could start a fire and destroy him when doused with liquid truth.

Because there was no way Minho could be revived from the dead… right?

“Hey, Jisung,” Sori- now in the flesh- waggled her fingers at Jisung as her other hand was extended towards Minho and the… sand particle thingies.

Jisung squinted. “How-“

“I lied!” Sori was more cheerful than Jisung had ever seen her, which was saying something. “I’m not a painting! I’m a living, breathing being. Surprise!”

Jisung choked a little, he would admit it freely. “Why-“

“Oh, you think just anybody is capable of magic? The King is no mage, I can assure you of that. But to grant his wishes just like that would solve nothing. Minho had to learn the hard way.”

“Wh-“

“So I disguised myself as that lovely animated painting to watch over the castle and control it while he was in beast form!”

Jisung waited before daring to speak again, knowing the- enchantress, apparently- would speak over him.

Sori smirked again, tucking her jaw-length hair behind her ear. “I knew you would come along eventually. It was fate! It all fell into place beautifully when you arrived…”

Jisung blinked, once, twice. Was she just going to stand there having those particles hover around Minho’s body forever?

“It was wonderful witnessing the king finally finding love, and without any of his men breathing down his neck 24/7, too,” the enchantress carried on, white dress rippling as if caught in the wind. “It was truly a beautiful journey to witness. I am so happy for you, Jisung.”

As much as it was lovely to hear all of this, Jisung just wanted to know the truth.

“Do you mean… you can bring him back? You could bring them all back?” Jisung whispered, the words sounding broken even to himself. Sori looked immensely surprised at herself and turned back to Minho.

“Of course, of course, here; I completely forgot.”

Raising both hands, Sori sent the golden particles spiralling into the air as Minho’s body was engulfed and rose into the air too; shifting from horizontal to hanging vertically, suspended mid-air with his head lolling over his chest.

It was exactly the same scenario as before, except now Minho was suspended in the air, engulfed in tiny golden particles.

Fur once again retracting into his skin as his claws lessened and his fangs (though hidden by his closed lips) became smooth, normal canines, Jisung watched in awe and amazement as Minho began to look much more human than he ever had before.

Smooth, unflawed skin made an appearance where before fur covered all, and padded paw-like hands shrunk into delicate, soft, human hands, as did his feet, into their own human anatomy. Minho’s whole body seemed to shrink, lose some of his height and broadness, and within a few minutes Jisung was staring at a completely changed being.

Minho was… petite, really. Still taller than Jisung, but only by mere centimetres, and as the magic wore off, setting him gently down on the floor in his previous position (where he lay, still unconscious and not breathing) Jisung let his eyes wander over the King’s shiny, healthy brown hair, neat eyebrows, long eyelashes and delicate features.

“He’s not breathing,” Jisung rushed to his side, frantic. “Sori, he still isn’t breathing, he-“

Soft coughing jerked him out of his panic as Minho startled on the ground, suddenly drawing in huge gasps of air as he shot upright so fast he almost knocked heads with Jisung.

Jisung stared silently, almost not daring to believe that this was real as Minho, having not yet seen Jisung beside him, opened his eyes to see human hands having been covering his face as he coughed. He jumped, squeaking audibly in shock as he held his hands out, turning them around, bending his fingers; they were his hands, he was human again, oh my goodness,, he was human—wait, WAIT, Jisung, where was Jisung-

Whipping his head around in a frenzy, Minho was almost blind to his surroundings as Jisung’s cool hands landing on his own brought him back to reality.

“Minho,” Jisung whispered, voice hoarse.

“Jisung,” Minho spoke, and oh, his voice was so much smoother as a human; no growl ever prominent in his chest; Jisung’s name sounded like the taste of caramel coming from Minho’s mouth and Jisung felt more tears, this time of relief, rolling down his cheeks as he laughed in blissful ecstasy.

“Oh, Sungie, don’t cry, it’s okay, we’re all okay,” Minho soothed, and gasped as life started to bloom all around them. “Oh, my goodness- Jisung, look-“

Sori was walking in a slow circle around the two, giving individual attention to each lifeless (and alive, counting Felix and Jeongin’s animal forms) object laying useless on the floor as they were all, too, engulfed in the same golden particles and light and they too, were turned human one by one.

Jisung was sure he would never stop crying with relief as one by one, starting with Jamie, then Chan, Changbin, Hyunjin, Felix, Jeongin, and lastly, Seungmin, were turned human again, and the room was suddenly full of laughter and tearful embraces.

“I’ll leave you all to it,” Sori said with a twinkle in her eye as she made her way out of the ballroom. “And don’t worry; I’ll take care of Adonis.” And with that, she was gone.

Jisung, who had been watching in awe, felt arms engulf him from behind and before he knew it he had been dragged into Minho’s lap; the elder’s arms and legs wrapping around him tightly as the king pressed his face into the space between Jisung’s neck and shoulders, eyes squeezed shut against the room for a few moments in relief as their newly-revived friends got used to having their human bodies back.

“Oh, my goodness, I- Chan? Oh my god, Chan,” Jamie cried as she tried to stand on shaky legs, opting for throwing herself into Chan’s arms as their lips crashed together for the first time in seventy years.

“FINALLY,” Hyunjin screamed, not even choosing to express his happiness at having his human body back in favour of dropping Chan and Jamie’s relationship on everybody else. “Did anybody else know that those two have been courting for seventy-three years now?”

But Hyunjin’s words went ignored- though everybody heard him- as everybody else favoured the idea of expressing their relief at being alive.

“Oh my goodness, I’m not a tapestry,” Seungmin said breathily, and ran over to Jeongin to wrap himself around their youngest in happiness. “Innie! You’re a human again! See, I promised you, I promised you’d have your human days back again… Oh, you look so good, look at you, and Hyunjin, oh my god, get over here right now-“

Felix’s hair perfectly matched the shade of ginger that his kitten’s form had been, and he sat on the floor a little way away from everybody else in a daze, almost unable to process what was happening. I watched you all die but we’re back now? What, how-

He was snapped out of his thoughts by a body slamming into his own and the wind was knocked right out of him; wheezing for breath, Felix moved black hair out of his intruder’s face to see that it was Changbin who had launched himself at the younger; the two wheezing slightly in a small pile on the marbled floor.

Finding he couldn’t form words, Felix looked Changbin in the eyes and hoped his face could express everything he was feeling in that moment as he let his hands wander the knight’s face dazedly, feeling fireworks explode within him as Changbin wordlessly surged forward and kissed him deeply.

“Jisungie,” Minho’s words were muffled, “oh my goodness… I thought that was the end…”

“As did I,” Jisung felt like he could cry again as he wiggled free of Minho’s vice grip only to snuggle back into his hold, but this time facing the king, “I really thought I had seen you die and that would be the end forever…”

“Jisung, we never did tell you how to break the curse… the curse could only be broken if Minho learned to love another, and earn their love in return, by the time the last petal fell,” Hyunjin announced from the cuddle pile that had formed of himself, Seungmin, Jeongin, Chan and Jamie next to the couple. Ever the cupid. Jisung’s eyes widened and his cheeks flushed.

“I’ll wager I don’t have to confess to you again, then?” he joked feebly, turning to lock eyes with the king.

Minho laughed, pure and loud; a sound Jisung never wanted to stop hearing.

“I love you, Jisung,” was the last thing Jisung heard before there were soft lips pressed against his, and hands cupping his face, and oh, if not hearing Minho laugh meant he got to experience this then maybe Jisung was okay with not hearing it for a while.

The kiss was short and the two had to pull away much sooner than either wanted to due to the clash of teeth from their beams becoming painful, but needless to say, Minho and Jisung refused to stray from each other’s embrace for a good long while afterwards.

.

.

.

.

.

It was also needless to say, that after mere moments, everybody else joined in and the nine over-the-moon-with-happiness-and-relief friends formed a huge cuddle pile right there on the hard marble flooring.

Chapter Text

Hours later and, of course, with the curse having broken, the memory of the castle and Minho’s kingship had obviously returned to the villagers’ minds. Yes, the vast majority did not even know what Minho looked like- it had been seventy years, after all- but there were the very rare stragglers who had lived to ripe old ages and either hobbled along with the rest of the villagers to enter the castle or were being transported in blankets and wagons.

Minho groaned. “I’ve not even been human for a whole night yet? It’s the middle of the night at this point, why couldn’t the villagers leave us for one night longer?”

“Because they all collectively realised they have a king,” Seungmin reminded him gently. “That’s a huge thing for them.”

“I wanted one night alone with you all before the whole… king… thing started again,” Minho whined, head falling into his hands. “Can we not just… hide?”

“No hiding,” Jisung pulled Minho’s hands away from his face as Hyunjin cooed obnoxiously. “You are their king again. You have to face up to it, I’m afraid.”

“Can I tell them to come back tomorrow?”

“YES,” Hyunjin encouraged gleefully. “Please do.”

“It’s a wonder they can even see, it’s pitch black outside,” Chan quipped. “It would be funny if one of them fell.”

“Chan!” Jamie scolded. “… I hope the whole village falls.”

“I felt that,” Jisung laughed. “All apart from Jae. He owns a bookstore and was the only person who was nice to me there.”

“Then we shall treat Jae with great gratitude,” Changbin announced. “But the rest of them can go straight home as far as I am concerned.”

“You mess with Jisung, you mess with all of us,” Felix cackled evilly.

Jisung rolled his eyes. “They haven’t hurt any of you, so don’t meddle when it could put Minho’s kingship in a bad position.”

“Ugh, you’re no fun, Sungie,” Chan joked. “But good thinking. Fine.”

“Good Channie hyung,” Jisung reached out to pat Chan’s head a couple of times. “I give it thirty minutes before the villagers reach the castle at this rate.”

“I’m not moving until they somehow find a way in,” Minho announced lazily, stretching like a cat and sighing dramatically as he relaxed back into the cuddle puddle.

---

“King Minho!” a deep voice boomed as the door to the ballroom flew open and footsteps came pounding in. Minho groaned quietly into Jisung’s ear in disappointment.

“Here we go,” Changbin groaned loudly, uncaring about the villagers hearing as people piled into the vast room.

“Your highness!” several men dared to walk right up to the pile of hugging bodies in the middle of the floor and fell into a deep bow while the rest of the villagers kept a respectable distance or waited outside the room on their tip-toes to get a glance inside the room.

“My king.”

Five men in total were bent over, bowing, as Minho sat on the floor, not bothering to untangle himself from anybody else as he watched with bored eyes.

“The curse has been lifted. All is well. You may go now,” Minho announced coolly.

“But, my king-“

“Yes?”

“You still need your guidance from your kingsmen,” one man, rather old, pointed out. Minho snickered.

“I am of age, am I not? I need no guidance. My inner circle are right here with me,” Minho said comfortably, gesturing to the eight boys cosily snuggled around him. Jeongin flashed a sleepy grin at the men who stared, sputtering in shock.

“There is still the issue of you finding a wife, my king-“

“ AISH, you have not even been in the castle for two minutes and yet you are already pestering me about marriage! Am I going to have to mimic my good friend Queen Elizabeth and ban the word from court?” Minho snapped. “I do not need a wife. If it is mentioned one more time I am banning the conversation.”

Chan snorted. A wife indeed.

The men in front of the nine each looked close to bursting with the urge to say more.

Minho rolled his eyes and climbed to his feet, holding out a hand to help Jisung into a standing position beside him as their friends mimicked them for support.

“I do not need a Queen, nor will I ever,” Minho announced, voice filling the room with authority and dominance. Jisung shivered a little; he had yet to see Minho’s kingly side, which was now becoming present. It was strange to see the elder acting so distant, cool and professional, when Jisung was so accustomed to the soft, gentle Minho.

But Minho wasn’t done with his announcement yet, it seemed. “-Because,” the king carried on, fingers tangling with Jisung’s, “I have my future spouse right here beside me.”

And with that, Minho turned and took Jisung’s face in his hands, whispering a quick question of consent before Jisung, with wide eyes, granted it and Minho had captured his lips with his own in front of the whole population of the village.

The kiss was short, of course- it must only have lasted two seconds at most- and when Minho pulled away it was with a smirk at the rest of the villagers and a gentle caress to Jisung’s cheek.

“A- another king!” one of the men sputtered, sounding much like a broken engine. “That will never do!”

“Are you forgetting who your king is at present?” Minho challenged. “I rule over you, and there are no rules against having two kings. I wager that my kingdom would much rather see their King happy and in love than in a loveless, unhappy marriage with a queen fated for a miserable life.”

The man stood silent.

“Do not try to interfere in any way, or any means, ever again,” Minho raised his voice again, the sound powerful and echoing. “I trust that you will now all go home safely and when the time is right, a ball will be held in celebration.”

The spectating villagers nodded and started to leave, the process agonisingly slow for the nine who just wanted to sleep and revel in their newly re-gifted human bodies.

Jisung had blocked out every word after his kiss with Minho; his mind and heart both racing at what the elder had just said.

Future spouse.

Jisung beamed to himself, squeezing the hand that Minho was still holding.

Once the last of the men had left the castle and were safely away from the castle grounds (after being kept a close eye on by Changbin and Seungmin), Minho flopped onto the hard floor with a loud ‘oof’.

“That was tiring. Do I have to be king? Really?”

“Yes, there’s no escape,” Seungmin cackled evilly as he re-entered the ballroom. “But at least you are free of your kingsmen and advisors now, and have us instead. It will get much easier now that you are not being constantly manipulated and treated like some form of machinery existing solely to rule.”

“And I have Jisungie, too!” Minho chirped happily, making grabby arms at the younger who happily lay next to him and snuggled into his side despite the cold marble floor not being an ideal place to lay.

“That was scary, seeing you being so powerful and authoritative in front of everyone,” Jisung grumbled, the sound muffled as he buried his face in Minho’s chest (and ignoring the collective coo from everybody else). “I’m not used to seeing you act that way.”

“Sorry Jisungie,” Minho grinned, not sounding sorry in the slightest. “I have to assert authority or else they would walk all over me again. And besides, I would never want anybody but you all seeing my real personality. Those villagers and other staff do not need to know anything else apart from my schedule as King from now on,” he decided. “But I do not want to think about that just yet.”

Jisung giggled. “It is still so strange to see you all in human form,” he confessed. “This will take some getting used to.”

Jeongin, who had looked close to falling asleep for a good half an hour now, suddenly shot wide awake and squeaked.

“Wait, we can all eat food now! We can digest it and need it and- oh my goodness, I refuse to wait one more minute.”

“Jeongin-“ Jamie ran after the excited maknae who was making a beeline for the kitchens. “Good lord, save some for the rest of us!”

Jisung grinned as everybody took off at the prospect of food after seventy years, and suddenly it was just him and Minho again.

Blinking up at Minho, Jisung pouted. “Are you not hungry?”

Minho shrugged. “I have had regular meals for all these seventy years; I think I can allow them to have their fill now.” He pulled Jisung into his embrace again. “Besides. This way I can finally be alone with you for a while.”

Blushing prettily, Jisung buried his face in his hands. “Smooth talker.”

Pressing his lips to the crown of Jisung’s head (for the rest of his face was covered by his fingers), Minho grinned. “I am your smooth talker.”

Jisung was silent for a minute before he pulled his hands away from his face, looking hesitant. “Did you… did you mean what you said to those men?” he murmured, almost inaudibly.

“About what, Jisungie?”

The tip of Jisung’s tongue darted out to wet his lips nervously. “Your… future spouse?” he squeaked out.

“Oh, yes!” face clearing of confusion, Minho nodded brightly. “I mean… I know you are not thinking of getting married early, and you know that I am not, either… but I think that in a few years, when the time is right… I would definitely marry you! I hope you don’t think it is too soon to say that, it just feels right to say so,” Minho’s voice was casual and light, but his eyes looked slightly scared.

“Oh, okay,” Jisung stood up and held his hand out to the elder. “But now, I am completely exhausted… it’s been a long night.”

Minho smiled prettily, and it took all of Jisung’s self-control to not completely melt and cave into the desire to cup Minho’s face and never stop admiring that smile.

“We should leave immediately, then,” Minho beamed, “because rest is important and you, especially, have had a long and traumatic evening.”

Jisung giggled, fatigue hitting him like a brick wall. “I think all of us have.”

Adoring of the younger’s sleepy state, Minho acted on spur-of-the-moment adrenaline and scooped the blond up, holding him bridal style in his arms as he walked slowly out of the room. Surprisingly, Jisung had no bashful objections to this and instead wrapped his arms around Minho’s neck, nuzzling his nose into the soft skin there and giggling again, a sleepy habit.

Beginning a slow but steady ascent up the staircase, careful not to jostle the sleepy Jisung in his arms, Minho had to turn around once to hiss at his noisy friends in the castle kitchen, who all shut up straight away with wide, teasing eyes and smothered coos and giggles as the delicious smell of food made its way towards the couple on the stairs.

“Minho, ‘m sleepy,” Jisung mumbled, pressing his nose further into the King’s neck. “Food’s waking me up…”

“Ok, off to bed,” Minho announced. “If you go into that kitchen I can guarantee that this noisy lot will not let you sleep at all.”

“He’s not wrong there,” Felix hooted.

Minho shushed him and continued his slow journey up the stairs, enjoying the way that the younger’s breath hit his neck in small, warm, even puffs punctuated by the occasional snuffle.

Reaching the (admittedly very cold after having nobody to tend to it all evening) bedroom that Jisung had taken residence in for the past few weeks, Minho put all of his strength into pushing the heavy door open with his foot, not wanting to disturb the sleeping beauty in his arms. Grunting slightly, Minho almost fell backwards with the effort of kicking the door open and came alarmingly close to dropping Jisung as, for a split second, he almost lost his balance and slipped backwards.

Having luckily avoided accident, Minho grimaced at the low temperature of the room, making a mental note to cover Jisung with the thickest blanket he could find before leaving him for slumber. However, this mental note died in his mind’s eye as he set Jisung’s half-asleep form onto the soft mattress and set about manoeuvring the duvet from beneath him to covering him.

Sleep-heavy arms made a clumsy grab for Minho’s own occupied ones, and Jisung’s eyes squinted open as he registered the warmth from Minho’s body leaving him.

“Stay…” Jisung mumbled, the word slurred slightly from fatigue. Minho chuckled as he arranged the duvet to cover his lover more.

“I cannot stay, Jisungie. It would be quite improper,” he explained, deciding that he was quite happy with the duvet arrangement and settling for caressing Jisung’s face instead.

“Don’t care,” Jisung argued, though the words came out feeble and weak in his haze. “…’s cold. You’re warm…”

“You know I am a weak man, Jisung, and that I shall cave if you argue any longer,” Minho warned, tossing all logic and thoughts of prim rules out of his head as Jisung smiled.

“Just for tonight… don’ wanna leave you. I lost you once today already.”

And just like that, Minho caved- who was he to leave Jisung when the younger had literally watched him die just hours prior?

“Just for tonight,” the elder whispered, throwing aside the duvet and climbing in beside him. “Come here.”

Jisung gladly slid closer, his body having quickly become cold in the goose-bump-inducing temperature of the bedroom. Sighing happily, he curled into Minho’s side, the elder welcoming him gladly with warm arms and soft lips pressed against his own before Jisung pulled away, making a contented sleepy noise before his head found a home in the crook of Minho’s neck again, mirroring his position from earlier, before his breathing quickly evened out and, sooner than he thought possible, he found himself asleep.

Minho smiled to himself in the candlelit darkness of the room, knowing how inappropriate this would seem to an outsider- sharing a bed before marriage as king? He knew some would scoff at the mere notion- but in reality it was innocent; a display of comfort and affection between two lovers; no ulterior motives there, no matter what others outside the castle may think if they gained knowledge of the event.

The sheer innocence and purity of the embrace made Minho smile quietly to himself in the dim light, staring down at Jisung’s blond locks as he slept peacefully with Minho laying with him. The trust and vulnerability that Jisung had displayed to Minho just by allowing him to be there spoke volumes, and Minho found himself wishing they could maybe sleep like this every night… warm, wrapped up in each other’s embrace, innocent and trusting.

It was with that thought on his mind, a smile on his lips and his love in his arms that Minho fell asleep with that night.

It may not have been a perfect journey, but Minho would never have changed it for anything.

(And if the next morning Jisung woke up to a sleepy, mussed-up, dazed Minho sleeping next to him while their bodies tangled comfortably to the point where neither could tell where one ended and the other began, and resolved to make it his mission to wake up to his lover's sleepy butterfly kisses every morning, well... Minho wouldn't deny going out of his way to make sure his Sungie got exactly what he wanted.)