Chapter Text
Akk was staring at the mirror, which was still wrong.
What Akk was seeing in the reflection was his face. It looked exactly like him – his lips were pursed, the frown between his eyebrows getting deeper and deeper. It showed that he was clearly irritated as hell. So, the face staring back at him in the mirror was definitely his.
But, everything else was a lie.
Everything else that he was seeing in the mirror was wrong. So very, very wrong.
The expensive and uncomfortable clothes weren't his.
The room behind him wasn’t his apartment, no. The furniture in his room was over the top, bathing in goldens and reds, clashing with Akk’s personal tastes because it was just so poorly decorated and so clearly over the top.
The furniture wasn’t his and it was expensive. There were intricate patterns carved onto every surface in the room. There was nothing untouched, no. There were large windows in the room, the curtains red and heavy, silky. There were golden, floral patterns woven into the heavy silk. It felt like a cage, really. All of it looked fake and staged, it left Akk wanting to run away, but there was nowhere for him to run.
The scent in the room was also different.
It was suffocating, floral and rich.
Akk missed the smell of his shampoo and detergent. He never thought he would miss something so mundane, but there he was, now staring outside of the window and he shuddered. What he should be seeing was a busy street and cars, but no. What he was seeing was a large garden.
Flowers.
Grass.
Trees.
All of it neatly cut, clearly taken care of, but it all just looked plastic. Too fake, too… Akk didn’t even know the word for it. But, he just missed his home.
Akk missed his old room, he missed his books and what he missed the most was Wi-fi. How the hell was he supposed to survive without all of those things? Akk gulped and took a deep breath in, running his fingers through his hair and he whined when the pants cut into his skin.
So uncomfortable.
Akk was living a life that wasn’t his.
Akk swallowed thickly and he slowly walked over to the vanity, placing his hands on top of it and he took a few deep breaths in, his fingers clutching onto the edge of the polished surface, squeezing it. His knuckles went white to the bone as he slowly looked up again, glancing at himself in the smaller mirror and yet he was seeing the same thing.
“This is fucking ridiculous,” whispered Akk.
The voice that came out was also his.
That was why none of this made sense to Akk.
If he was wearing someone else’s face, then maybe he would have it easier, but the thing was, it was still him. Akk. But, not really. Right now, he wasn’t a broke university student, but a prince. Akk gritted his teeth, shaking his head as he tried to tell himself that this was maybe a prank, but it didn’t make sense as who would go into such scale to prank him like this?
They would have to hire many actors and the set? No, it was something else.
Akk tried telling himself that his mind was playing tricks on him, but days have passed by now. Days. And no matter how much he tried to explain this to himself rationally, he just couldn’t. All of it was too ridiculous.
He was still Akk, all of his memories intact, but he was stuck somewhere that he shouldn’t be and even after days of thinking, he had no idea how to get back to his old life.
Akk spent days trying to run away, but all that he was met were endless hallways, he couldn’t really get too far as he was always stopped by guards or maids. After all, he was a prince now. Akk was done with all the pretending and answering to a name that wasn’t his. He was done with talking to people with respect that he didn’t really know. It was driving him insane, but he didn’t know what else to do, but to just go along with it while he tried to figure out how to escape this… Akk didn’t even know how to name it.
Akk was barely able to pretend. He didn’t understand any of it and used all of those fancy words when talking to people – he wasn’t really good at it, so he would spend most of the time inside, trying to avoid the others as much as he possibly could.
Akk wanted to understand how the hell this happened and why.
Because as the days passed on, Akk had an idea where he was stuck in, but he wouldn’t want to believe it because it would be his personal hell. Akk rubbed his forehead and plopped down onto the uncomfortable chair and leaned over the wooden surface.
The last thing that Akk remembered was walking to university. He was late for his classes and he remembered getting a notification on his phone. He didn’t really think of it too much, but it was a notification from the app where he usually read novels. It was a notification for a romance novel he had read recently and hated every single thing about it.
Akk wanted to delete the notification, but he pressed onto it by accident and somehow he found himself here.
In the novel, that he personally hated with passion. Akk didn’t want to believe it to be true, but everything that had happened lately, fit the novel. The names, the characters, the places – all of it. All of it had happened in chapter 2 of the story and he wished that it wasn’t true, but it was.
It was Akk’s hell.
Akk had nothing against romance novels. They could be good, if they were written well, which wasn’t the case for this one. Akk had too many questions for the author of the book – it made no sense half of the time and he grumbled as he kept staring around the room, trapped and miserable as hell, rubbing the back of his neck as he whined, slowly sliding down the chair.
His shirt was also uncomfortable.
Akk groaned and quickly unbuttoned the first few buttons as it was buttoned all the way up to his throat and then he crossed his arms.
Getting stuck in his least favourite novel sounded like a joke and this was why he hoped it would be a joke, but no matter how much Akk tried to humour himself, it just didn’t work. He tried to find some cracks in the whole thing, but nothing cracked. The places and people seemed real and solid.
Just his luck, huh?
Akk dragged a hand down his face and he pressed his lips together. He had read so many wonderful stories, which were interesting and fun, yet he just had to go ahead and get himself stuck in a story that lacked logic and had exaggerated emotions?! Too dramatic, people didn’t behave realistically, all of it was just so fake and badly written.
“God,” whined Akk and shook his head.
It really was such a shallow story with so much nonsense. Too many dramatic moments. The plot barely made any sense and the characters acted like headless chickens, but they had to act like fools to make a stupid plot like that work. If someone could call that a plot.
Akk just hated stories that put drama into it just for the sake of it. The characters were stupid, the reader had to have everything spelled out for them. Emotional conversations felt like too shallow and the conflicts that would appear were so stupid. They would drag on for pages, sometimes even chapters, when it could all be solved in just one conversation, within seconds! Characters behaved like children, they weren’t emotionally mature at all!
Akk could go on and on why he hated this story, but he had to stop somewhere.
It really had irritated him to no end when he was reading it, but he still chose to finish it. It was somehow one of the most popular novels and he wanted to understand why that was the case. Even if the book ended up to not be his cup of tea, Akk could usually understand the general idea why some people liked it, but for this one… Who was it written for?!
Akk knew he wasn’t the target audience, but still!
Maybe this was why he got here – because he hated the story so much. It was his punishment.
And the most ridiculous part of it all, he got stuck as a prince that he despised the most in the story. Well, he was stuck as his second least favourite character, but he just couldn’t understand why the author chose to write the main character like this.
A prince with a cold exterior, who acted like an insolent child.
To others, he acted cold and distant. Akk thought that there would be some grand reveal at the end of the story why the character was like this, he was written to be misunderstood, no? But, there was nothing. Nothing that would clarify why the prince acted like this.
Spoiled.
Annoying.
Cold.
Ugh.
Akk then glanced at his own clothes again and felt the fabric because it was itchy and he decided that he really needed to dress into something else because it was driving him crazy. Maybe this was why the prince was so annoying, maybe he hated this place so much that he just wanted to be left alone.
One question remained – how to return back home?
Maybe if he got to the end of the story, he would be transported back home. All Akk could do was wait and see. He was in for a long wait because this was only chapter 2 and there were still 30 more chapters to go.
Akk groaned, but then there was a knock on the door and he stiffened.
Now, what?
“My Lord,” came a careful voice. Soft and polite – it was his maid. Akk gritted his teeth and he waited for her to continue. “He’s here.”
Akk frowned.
“Who?”
The maid sounded a bit confused, but she carried on.
“Your fiance, my Lord.”
Akk rolled his eyes and he pressed his lips together as his mind wandered over to him.
HIs fiance.
Akk’s stomach twisted immediately and his whole body rejected the idea of that man being his actual fiance. Because out of all of the characters in the novel, he was the one that Akk hated the most.
A disaster.
A walking and talking red flag.
His fiance was also a prince, from another wealthy family.
Akk shuddered and he already felt how he had a headache coming on, trying not to throw up when he remembered the way that this so-called prince spoke. Every word that he said was forced. It was dripping in poetic and meaningful phrases.
It didn’t make any sense.
It was difficult to read.
It was an arranged marriage, what else. Because it was a popular trope in novels like this, that Akk didn’t dislike. Two people are bound to be together out of political duties between two families. The two characters didn’t like each other, but eventually they fell in love.
If someone could call it love.
It was so… over the top.
What did he say again? Something along the lines that even if everything else disappeared, that his heart will remain to be bound to Akk for eternity. Akk shuddered because who fucking said that?!
None of it felt meaningful. They barely knew each other, but they were already confessing their love to each other. And they were confessing their eternal loyalty to each other after just hanging out a few times. It really didn't make sense and the book treated it as real and romantic.
Real romance didn’t feel like that. Maybe Akk was too jaded, but it made no sense to him. The prince that he was engaged to was supposed to be handsome, romantic, but instead…
Everything about him screamed too much, he was sleazy. He was the type of person that would corner you emotionally with pretty words, but then act like an insolent brat when you wouldn’t respond right away, the way that he wanted it to happen.
And now he was waiting for him.
Oh, Akk remembered what was supposed to happen. They were supposed to have a walk in the garden together. The other one was supposed to find the prettiest flower and give it to Akk… Akk felt his stomach turning.
Akk really wasn’t going to be dealing with all of that. He loved himself way too much to put himself through all of those forced and dramatic speeches.
“No thank you,” said Akk loudly. Absolutely not.“
“I… beg you a pardon?”
“I don’t wanna go, tell him I’m not interested!” snapped Akk.
“My Lord?”
The maid sounded alarmed. That was no way for a man of his stature to talk, right?
“He should keep that flower and shove it up his…” started Akk and then he looked through the window and narrowed his eyes as he watched the perfectly trimmed flowers and he sighed.
Akk was just… so over this.
“I’m not going,” was all that Akk said.
“Do you feel unwell?”
Akk perked up.
“Yeah, let’s go with that,” said Akk. “I feel unwell,” he said and fake coughed, the maid sounding worried now.
“I will call for a doctor-”
“No need! Just some tea, I will be fine!” he said and then he clicked with his tongue.
Akk already knew how all of this would end, anyway. And he didn’t know if this was a good or bad thing, because…
Akk knew how the story would end and it wasn’t really good because it really didn’t make much sense. He sighed and he chewed on his lower lip. Truly, if he stayed in his room, then he wouldn’t have to relive all of those terrible misunderstandings. There were so many misunderstandings that didn’t make any sense. So many plot twists that came out of nowhere and he groaned.
Akk’s character didn’t really get a happy ending.
It should have been happily ever after, but it wasn’t.
Somehow, out of nowhere, his fiance got assassinated.
By a former lover.
It truly was one of the most unneeded things. The former lover suddenly came out of nowhere in the middle of chapter 19 and proceeded by assassinating his fiance out of pure jealousy? Assasination happened around chapter 27 and it truly was such a lame climax that Akk didn’t even bother getting upset over it.
What he felt was a second hand embarrassment with how much it didn’t make any sense, but he dismissed it completely. Akk didn’t get attached to any characters, so it didn’t make much impact on him.
Akk’s character mourned for about half a chapter.
It really was bizarre.
The writer threw in a few words every now and then how much his character was supposed to suffer, but… Apart from that, the prince moved on easily. So much about them being the loves of each other’s lives, as they claimed just a chapter before the assasination happened.
Akk was so done with it.
“Then, I will prepare some tea for you, my Lord,” said the maid, Akk realising that she was still there. “I will inform his Highness that you are unwell for a walk.”
Akk huffed.
Yeah, but it was better if he avoided everything. Perhaps the plot would realise something was wrong and reject him from this hell!
“Yeah… you do that,” sighed Akk and then he closed his eyes, slowly walking over to the bookcase that he had in there. The funny part about it – there were books there for sure, but if he opened them it was all written in gibberish. Akk tried to keep himself company with reading the books, but all that the books were just props.
Not real ones.
It really was… Akk was trapped in hell!
There was another pause.
“My Lord, anything else?”
“No, that will be it… thanks,” huffed Akk and finally settled down when the maid walked away, the footsteps getting more and more distant, which made Akk calm down.
Silence was back.
Perfect!
Akk was just going to be there – in his room, avoiding everything and everyone. Perhaps he would get home faster like this as being struck in a novel that he hated with passion truly sounded like a bad joke.
Akk would laugh if it wasn’t his reality.
“I’m not getting involved,” grumbled Akk as he remembered how annoying his fiance was.
Akk nodded to himself.
All that he needed to do was to wait it out. And avoid everyone, especially his fiance.
That was the plan!