Chapter Text
Taeyang, much like any other day, sits in the tower, keeping himself entertained. He hums softly along with his beat up guitar. One or two of the strings have snapped, and he doesn’t have the means to correct that. The melody is off, and it’s bothersome, but there’s nothing else to do. It’s early in the morning, so the sun has begun to rise, and it peaks through the tower’s entrance. Taeyang shifts out of the rays of sunlight, sliding himself a bit to the left. After accidentally sitting on his own hair, he quickly sits up to brush it out of his way, then bends back down with his guitar. Unsatisfied time and time again, Taeyang sets the instrument aside, sighing to himself.
The sun intrudes on his vision again, forcing him to slide over to the right, though this time he’s careful not to sit on his hair. The sun casts itself to illuminate the old acoustic guitar, and Taeyang locks eyes with the floating lantern etched onto his guitar’s surface. He had carved it years ago, back when the damn thing was playable. A voice calls from outside, “Taeyang, Taeyang.” He is quick to rise. Taeyang approaches the tower’s entrance, and his gaze drops to the ground, where Mother stands. “Let down your hair,” she requests, as she always had.
Taeyang begins to hoist his golden hair into his hands, collecting it off the ground, then throwing it out like a rope towards Mother. She takes hold of it fast, and Taeyang pulls her up carefully. She enters happily, “I’ve brought you your birthday gift,” she says. Noticing the guitar on the ground, she adds, “Were you singing? Oh, I wish I had been here to hear your beautiful voice.”
“I was just tuning,” Taeyang says.
Mother nods, revealing a bouquet of flowers, “I’ve brought you the flowers best for creating dye,” she smiles,” briefly she pauses, “though I need to make another trip for cloth,” she informs. Taeyang looks down at his current clothes, not seeing an issue with them. This was his nicest hanbok, with the matching pink jeogori and baji he wore for every special occasion. He had gone out of his way to create two different dyes out of crushed flowers, one pink, one purple, using the purple one for his kweja. The process of hand sewing wasn’t easy either; he was quite proud of himself for the result, making sure to only wear his creation on especially significant days, keeping it stored away otherwise. Wanting to cherish his efforts the most, he wore it the day before, the day of, and the day after his birthday.
“Thank you,” Taeyang simply accepts the bouquet into his hands, without argument. One thing he had learned, no matter how many times he had asked, he would never get what he truly wanted for his birthday. There was a tension that lingered in the air, both of them aware of but not speaking.
Mother seems to pick up on the slight apprehension, commenting, “Let’s not have any repeated arguments, right? You won’t bring up those lights again, will you?” Taeyang just nods. “Ah, that’s a relief, I’m feeling exhausted. Will you sing for me, sunflower?” Mother asks. Taeyang simply nods in agreement, quickly pulling a chair for her to sit on, as well as one for himself. Taeyang searched the nearby storage for a hairbrush, then took his seat, handing it over to Mother.
He begins to sing slowly, “Flower, gleam and glow, let your power shine, make the clock reverse, bring back what once was mine. Heal what has been hurt, change the fates’ design, save what has been lost, bring back what once was mine,” he sighs quietly, “What once was mine,” he finishes.
Mother hums contentedly, hopping out of the seat. “Thank you, dear, I feel much better. I will go find some nice fabric for you now, alright?” Taeyang then stands, following her towards the exit, slowly dropping her off back to the ground with his hair. He stares at the ground for a moment from the top of the tower, watching as Mother leaves.
Taeyang closes the window, sighing to himself. He turns around, leans his head against the wall, then slowly glides down it, eventually plopping onto the floor. Without much else to do, he sits idly for a bit, staring ahead at nothing in particular. His hair is slightly tugged at by the brick wall, and he groans in annoyance before swooping it out of the way.
He can feel a slight vibration against his back, and there’s a sound that draws closer, of which he can’t describe. Starting from what must be the bottom of the tower quickly becomes louder, and Taeyang jumps up from the ground at the realization. He hides himself away from the view of the entrance, staring at the closed window for several moments before it opens slightly.
Animals and things of that sort have gotten in before, so he grabs onto his guitar in hopes of being able to shoo whatever was intruding away. A real man enters, and Taeyang is quick to swing the guitar at the stranger's head, the old piece of wood finally splitting upon impact. Both the intruder and the fragments of the instrument fell to the ground. Taeyang huffs, both shocked and relieved.
Taeyang’s never seen another person before other than Mother; more than that, another man. Taeyang picks up the guitar's broken neck piece, using it as a sort of tool for inspection of the invader. His hair is short and brown, cut choppily in a mullet sort of fashion. Taeyang pokes at his face with the guitar, flipping it towards him. He’s got sharp features and a faint scar on his cheek. He's wearing a simple, non-colored set of jeogori and baji, most likely a commoner like himself.
Taeyang notices some sort of bag with him, and immediately grabs hold of it. Inside of the bag is something he had never seen before, a hat of some kind, he decides. There are several beads hanging from it. The beads are strung in the colors black, red, white, and yellow. They looked like they must have some value to them, so Taeyang quickly finds a place to hide the item nearby. Perhaps less than a commoner, a thief.
Taeyang returns to the man’s body on the ground, propping him into a chair and circling around him a few times, constraining him down with his own hair. It’s only a few more seconds before the man’s eyes begin to flutter open. His eyes darted around the room and his own positioning until ultimately settling on Taeyang. “Who are you?” Taeyang demands.
“Your hair is so… long,” he mutters.
“Yours is so short. You dishonor your parents, and you are a thief,” Taeyang replies.
“A thief?" He repeats dumbly. After glancing at himself, he panickally returns to Taeyang’s gaze. “Where is it?”
“Let me ask you again, who are you?” Taeyang reiterates, pointing at the man accusably with the broken guitar, “I don’t know what you were hoping to find here, but there’s nothing worth stealing here, I can tell you that,” he adds.
The man sighs, “Listen, blondie–"
“Taeyang,” he interrupts.
The stranger shrugs, “Whatever situation you have going on up here, I don’t care about it. So I would appreciate it if you could let me go.” he smiles, then shakes his head, “I’m not here to steal anything from you. I was just on the run from some people, ok? This tower looked abandoned from the outside. How was I supposed to know you would be in here, huh?”
“You aren’t here for my hair?” Taeyang's questions are still highly suspicious.
The man is entirely unenthused, “No,” he answers. Taeyang doesn’t seem convinced. “My name is Lim Dae-Joon, are you happy?”
“My mother will be back here soon, and she will turn you into the royal guards, or whoever is searching for you,” Taeyang states.
Dae-Joon scoffs, “What do you want? Seriously? I would have left already if you didn’t have me tied up,” Dae-Joon looks down at himself, “...in your hair,” he cringes, looking back up, he states, “this is kind of gross.”
“I want you to get me out of this tower, take me with you on your escape. Then, I will return your satchel to you,” Taeyang proposes.
“What? Why?” He asks, his eyebrows furrowed.
“Tomorrow is my birthday, and I want you to take me to the floating lights. I’ve only ever seen them from here,” Taeyang explains.
“The lanterns for the lost prince?” Dae-Joon questions, pausing briefly, “That’s what you want?”
“I can’t get there by myself. I don’t know how,” Taeyang informs.
Dae-Joon’s face twists further with confusion, “You look my age, but you need me to take you around the kingdom?”
“Do you want your stolen object back?” Taeyang retorts.
Dae-Joon sighs, then looks to his side, staring off for a moment, seemingly considering his next words. “Alright, I’ll do it,” he agrees, looking back at Taeyang.
“You will?” Taeyang checks, because it seems almost too good to be true. Dae-Joon rolls his eyes and nods. Taeyang beams, “We should leave as soon as we can, then.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” Dae-Joon says, shimmying around in his chair, still constricted by the hair around him.