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You know, when they allowed you to take on the role of any kind of person you wanted in this reality, they really should have thrown in the fine print before you hit the “ACCEPT” button. If Minjae had known that choosing to be a prince was going to land him in the castle and pretty much never allow him out unless he managed to sneak out of the place, then he never would have chosen to become royalty in the first place.
It’s not an awful life, but he hates the fact that he has to be cooped up inside of the castle so often. He’s allowed out when his parents—the King and Queen—allow him to go out, but even then, it’s never anywhere fun. He’s surrounded by guards and knights every single time he goes out, making sure that he can never do anything truly fun. That’s really the most annoying thing. Minjae had figured that he’d just get to have a cute little crown or tiara, and be able to wear a silly little cape.
Instead, he’s living the real life of some fantasy prince.
It’s honestly lame.
At least he’s got a couple of his friends to accompany him, though. When Jinsik and Sumin had heard Minjae’s decision to be a prince, they’d decided to join the castle, as well. Jinsik is one of the castle’s doctors, an absolute wizz when it comes to medicines and creating potions. Meanwhile, Sumin is Minjae’s personal guard. He originally had just been an apprentice knight, but over time, he’d become a knight—and Minjae had managed to convince his parents to let Sumin be his personal guard instead of putting him in the main vanguard.
Minjae groans into his pillow, scrunching up his nose when he hears Sumin laughing at him. The nerve of the guy. “This is so boring. I wish they had told me about this before I agreed to being a prince…”
“You say that almost every day,” Sumin says, watching from where he stands at the corner of Minjae’s bed.
“I’ll start saying it every hour,” Minjae threatens, lifting his head up and turning it to look at Sumin with a playful glare. “Can’t we do something today, Sumin-ah?”
“Ah,” Sumin shifts slightly in place, before shaking his head. “Your mother and father are leaving for some politics in a neighboring kingdom. They’ve told us to not let you go out—even with guards. They don’t want the castle to be left unattended by any of the royal family.”
Minjae groans immediately, throwing himself back into his pillow. “I’m going to throw a tantrum.”
“Please don’t,” Sumin sighs quietly. “I really don’t want to have to bring Jinsik-ah up here to wrangle you into being good. You’re the prince, Minjae-hyung. You should really act like one.”
Minjae has plenty of retorts to send right back at Sumin, but there’s a sudden commotion coming from outside of his room. It gets Sumin’s attention first—the knight immediately reaches for his sword as he rushes over to the doorway, peering halfway through it. Minjae sits up, shoulders rigid now and tension rising inside of him. Sumin turns back to look at him with a serious expression, hand still curled around the hilt of his sword.
“Stay here,” Sumin’s voice is a bit harsh, sharp. “Something’s going on. I’m going to go find out what it is.”
His friend leaves without saying anything more, and Minjae actually listens to Sumin’s warning, watching the door shut quietly behind the knight. He slips off from the bed and slowly pads over to the door, turning the knob and carefully peeking his head out of the crack of the door. None of the guards are around—all of them seem to have just disappeared, and if Sumin’s gone after them, then there must be something wrong. Minjae gets a sudden, deep feeling of anxiety in his gut—a worry that perhaps something has happened to his parents. (They might not be his real parents, but they certainly feel just like it.)
As he waits, Minjae paces back and forth behind the door. He keeps waiting for Sumin to show up and tell him that everything is fine, but his friend is nowhere to be found, and Jinsik has yet to come and find him, as well—because if something terrible has happened, then surely his friends would have sent for him by now.
The door to his room suddenly bursts open and startles Minjae into jumping, twirling around until he can face the person who’s just burst into his room—only to be met with someone that he’s never seen in his life. The stranger is kind of handsome, though: his hair is longer than average (even longer than Sumin’s small mullet), rather nice eyebrows, a sharp jawline, and his eyes—they might be wide with surprise and a bit of fear, but they’re very pretty.
“Who are you?” They both ask at the same time.
Minjae shifts back slightly, taken aback, eyes widening some. The stranger does the same, before he quickly looks over both of his shoulders and around the doorway back into the hall. He leans back in then, one arm gripping at the door frame. “Um,” He says, blinking towards Minjae again. “Name’s Myungho. And—you?”
The prince studies the stranger for a moment, eyes squinting and nose scrunching up slightly. He seems impatient and antsy, and his other hand seems to be gripping at something inside of his coat. Minjae can hear the tell-tale signs of the guards headed towards his room, their armour and swords clanging together and causing a ruckus. It hits Minjae then that this man must be a thief. And he’s just stolen something from the palace.
A lightbulb slowly goes off above Minjae’s head, quite literally. This man, Myungho, jumps when it happens and stares up at it with his mouth hanging open slightly. He yelps in surprise as Minjae grabs his wrist and pulls him into his room, eyes going even wider.
Minjae grins at him, eyes sparkling. “Hey, want to kidnap a prince?”
“Minjae-yah!” Junmin gasps when he sees the prince, eyes going wide.
“You know him?” Myungho looks between the two of them, eyes going wide, before he turns to look at Jaeyun—who merely shrugs his shoulders, gesturing with his hand towards his partner.
“Don’t look at me,” Jaeyun says, jutting his thumb towards Junmin. “I had as little of a clue about this as you did.”
Minjae laughs loudly as the two of them hug, ignoring the other two men beside them. Sumin and Jinsik are a little further behind, since Minjae and Myungho had been the ones to take the lead in their haste to escape from the castle. “It’s been so long, wow! I nearly thought you hadn’t actually come in.”
“I guess we just took very different routes,” Junmin says, laughing softly.
When they part, Junmin immediately slips back into standing next to Jaeyun, who appears to be more amused. Myungho, on the other hand, still appears to be utterly confused, looking between them again. “We were friends in the world out there,” Junmin starts, pointing up towards the sky. “There was a whole group of us, you know, like how you and Jaeyun-ah have your friends. Most of us just got separated because of what we wanted to be, so it’s been a while.”
“I see.” That seems to appease Myungho’s curiosity for the most part, but it’s Jaeyun who is giving Minjae a bit of an odd look now.
“Why did you bring back the prince?” Jaeyun asks, turning to look at him. “You were only supposed to steal like three bags of gold.”
“He stole himself,” Myungho mumbles, somewhat exasperated. “I was running away from the guards, and I accidentally went into his room instead of an empty one, and the guy straight up told me to kidnap him!”
Minjae smiles from ear-to-ear, standing up a bit straighter. He’s pretty proud of that, mind you. “Jinsik-ah and Sumin-ah aren’t far behind. I told them what I was doing, but they had to pretend like they didn’t know where I was going first.”
Junmin lights up, eyes going wide. “They went there, too?!”
Minjae realizes then that they will have a lot to catch up on.
And catch up they do. It’s only a couple of hours before they’re joined by Jinsik and Sumin, who greet Junmin with even more enthusiasm and excitement than Minjae had before. Myungho and Jaeyun watch them all from the sidelines, though they seem rather content there. Minjae’s attention drifts to the two of them occasionally, but neither of them appear annoyed or upset over being second to Junmin at the moment. If anything, Jaeyun appears to be rather happy, and Myungho seems to be rather neutral about the whole ordeal. It’s a bit relieving.
“We should probably go soon,” Junmin says, after one of the stories that Sumin’s been telling. “I’m sure your entire palace is trying to look for you right now—and if you really want to go out and experience a lot of fun things, we’ll have to make sure you don’t get caught, Minjae-yah.”
“Junminnie’s right,” Jaeyun nods as he finally speaks up to the trio of them. Junmin smiles at him before going over and pressing a kiss right against his cheek—it doesn’t shock Minjae, but both Jinsik and Sumin gap at the action. “We’re pretty good at hiding. We’re not rogues and thieves for nothing, you know.”
Minjae pats the knight and medic on the back, grinning up at Jaeyun with his eyes twinkling. “Lead the way then, Jaeyun-hyung!”
“You know, when I told you that you needed to look more inconspicuous, I didn’t mean for you to look homeless.” Myungho lets out a soft, exasperated sigh.
Minjae scrunches his nose as he looks down at him, tilting his head some—he doesn’t think that his outfit looks that bad, but maybe his sense of fashion has dwindled since being forced to wear so many fancy get-ups and a million capes all the time. Being able to freely choose what he wants to wear is honestly amazing—so maybe that’s why he went as minimalistic with it as he could.
“I don’t look that bad,” Minjae mutters, half to himself and half to Myungho. He looks up and sees the man peering at him, gaze flicking up and down, before he looks into Minjae’s eyes.
“It’s fine. At least get a jacket, though—don’t need you freezing out there, princess.” Myungho runs a hand through his hair as he turns around, using it to gesture for Minjae to follow him.
Having Myungho call him princess makes Minjae’s brain stutter and pause. He sputters in actuality, just as the steam starts rolling off of his head—he quickly grabs one of the nearest things resembling a jacket and follows Myungho to the front of the store. They exist just as Myungho sets several small coins on the clerk table, and doesn’t even bother waiting for any change to be given back to him. (Because Minjae knows he overpaid for the simple clothing that he’s currently wearing.) As they’re walking back to their camp, Minjae keeps glancing up at him, and Myungho notices.
“Just because we steal from royalty doesn’t mean we steal from every place we visit,” Myungho says. His tone is more amused and light-hearted than it is offended.
Minjae swallows slightly before he shakes his head, turning his attention forward. “I wasn’t thinking that.”
“You were,” Myungo drawls. “But it’s alright. A lot of people think that at the start.”
They lapse into silence as their walk continues. It’s rather chilly out today, and, admittedly, Minjae is glad that Myungho had suggested picking out a jacket. Had he not, he certainly would be freezing at this very moment. When they return to their camp, Junmin and Sumin are gone, leaving both Jinsik and Jaeyun to guard the rest of their things. Myungho doesn’t question it as he flops down on the ground in front of the firepit, immediately reaching into his pouch to pull something out.
“Where are Junmin-ah and Sumin-ah?” Minjae asks, carefully sitting down on the small bench beside Jinsik.
“Went to go get food,” Jinsik says. He smiles towards Minjae, before inclining his head a bit in Myungho’s direction. “You got new clothes. Did you sell off your royal ones?”
“Ah,” Minjae shakes his head, glancing towards Myungho, before looking back at Jinsik. “No, Myungho said that it might be too… obvious if we tried selling them. So we just stashed them away somewhere.”
Jinsik scrunches his face up slightly, confusion written on it. “Will you be able to retrieve them later on?”
“As long as no one else finds them again before we do,” Minjae says, nodding his head some. He reaches into his shirt and pulls out a rolled piece of paper—when he unfurls it, it appears blank, but a few moments later, there’s a map that appears, projected in the air. There’s a bright red ‘X’ that stands out amongst the various other details of the map. “Got the location mapped out and everything, so it’ll be fine. But, honestly, even then, who cares? I have hundreds of outfits still back at the castle. Losing one of them won’t be the end of the world.”
“It’s good that you’re learning to live pretty minimally,” Jaeyun says, leaning in closer to the both of them. “We don’t really keep most of the stuff we steal, honestly. We pawn it off and distribute everything out to other people who need it.”
Jinsik laughs softly at Jaeyun’s explanation, a bright smile on his face. “So you guys are basically just Robin Hoods, huh?”
“Eh,” Jaeyun laughs as well, shrugging as he waves one of his hands a bit flippantly. “I guess so, huh? I like to think we’re cool enough to compare ourselves to Robin Hood.”
Both Jaeyun and Jinsik fall into a conversation together, while Minjae merely listens. Junmin and Sumin come back a bit later, carrying some baskets. When they’re set down and opened, there’s nearly a whole feast inside of them—it’s like the food is almost endless, and it’s so surprising to Minjae. There had always been lots of food back at the palace, but most of it definitely went to waste because of how little he and his parents really ate. He had no idea if the rest of the good stuff went to the rest of the staff or palace residents or not.
There are some things Minjae misses about the princely life, but there are also a lot of things that he’s starting to like about life outside.
He finds himself beside Myungho as the evening turns to night. The two couples put themselves to rest for the night in their tents, leaving him and Myungho alone in the night air. It’s only slightly awkward—Minjae doesn’t know what he should do, or if there’s anything he should do in the first place. Myungho’s not paying a lot of attention to him—instead, he’s focused on tinkering with something in his hands. Minjae isn’t too sure what it is, though.
“Thank you, by the way.” Minjae says, voice soft and low.
His words apparently startle Myungho, who nearly drops what he’s been toying with all day. He turns to look at Minjae head on, blinking owlishly. He’s cute when he’s confused, honestly—though Minjae’s thought that he’s cute from the very start.
“For what?” Myungho mumbles, eyes studying him. Minjae feels somewhat vulnerable under his gaze.
“For going along with my ridiculous, shitty plan,” Minjae chuckles at his own words, looking away from Myungho then. He tilts his head back some and looks up at the sky. For being absolutely fake, it’s fairly realistic. He wonders if these stars are in the same formations as the ones back home or not. “I basically forced your hand with it. I’m sorry.”
Myungho is quiet for a few moments after he’s done talking, before he speaks. “I mean, yeah, sort of. But if I had really wanted, I could have just turned you right into the people who are looking for you. You know that, right?”
“How do I know you aren’t just going to turn around and do that anyway?” Minjae returns, body shifting until he’s better facing the other man. “You’re rogues and thieves, after all.”
Myungho’s lips twitch before he gives a half smirk, eyes sparkling with amusement. “You learn pretty fast for royalty, princess.”
Minjae feels his ears go warm, before he shakes his head slightly. “I was a prince, you know. Like, as in a male heir. Not a princess.”
The thief lets out a low hum, turning his attention away from Minjae. “You should go and rest, princess. We’ve got plans for tomorrow.”
He wants to protest Myungho’s words, but Minjae already knows that he likely won’t win. He merely purses his lips and lets out a soft huff, before he slowly and carefully removes himself from Myungho’s side. He heads to the third tent, the one that’s just for him—he’d sleep with Jinsik and Sumin, but he doesn’t want to force them to give up their only privacy, and Myungho doesn’t sleep with him. He sleeps outside, either on their cart or on the ground. It annoys Minjae a lot, really, but there’s nothing that he can do about it for now.
Minjae throws the blanket over himself as he curls up. He’s not tired, but he knows he needs to at least try. He stares at the way the fire dances against the tent’s walls from the outside, until they’re slowly dying down and nothing else illuminates the inside of his tent. He manages to fall asleep, a low curl of excitement in his gut about what adventure they’ll be going on tomorrow.