itbomm

prologue

He finds himself standing at the top of the building as the sky begins to set. It's difficult for him to breathe, but then again, that's a simple problem to have with a broken nose. The dull ache is a reminder, as he climbs over the fence, his hands holding the railing behind him as he thinks about his life, about the bandages on his arm and the stinging pain in his heart.

"I'm sorry I wasn't strong enough," he whispers, as the stars begin to shine as the orange sky fades into purples, as time passes and the sun rests into the slumber of night. "Maybe next time."

As the wind rushes through his long hair, his eyes begin to shut.

He jumps.

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His heart slams wildly in his chest as his eyes snap open. An abrupt cry escapes from him, high-pitched and whiny — like a baby's — and his eyes tear up, staring wide-eyed in what appeared to be a large fancy room.

'Whoa...!' he hears a startled voice. 'What's wrong with him?'

'Who...?' he blinked away his watery eyes to see a blurry baby laying beside him in what seemed to be a... crib? 'What the fuck?!' he looked down, feeling his chubby cheeks touch the soft fabric on his chest. 'Oh my god, I'm a child... I hope I'm cute at least.'

'We're twins, so I'd assume that we look alike,' says the other voice. 'Good to know I'm not alone in all of this, at least.'

He glances back at the baby dressed in a pink onesie with a floral headband. 'Okay, okay... first thing's first — I transmigrated into a baby like one of my manhwas.'

'You trans-what now?'

'Assuming that I haven't lost my marbles — which is debatable, really — I'm basically living as Arjen and Arien from The Twin Siblings New Life because I can read the mind of my self-proclaimed twin sibling. Again, assuming that the voice in my head isn't a figment of my imagination.'

'You haven't gone crazy,' the voice in his head confirmed. 'And I'm literally right next to you.'

'And let me guess, we're hated royals with a good for nothing dad?'

'Pretty much. I'm Athanasia and you're Athanasios.'

'Couldn't they have given me a better name? Is it a twin thing to just get similar sounding names? I guess it's kinda cute, but still...'

'Our name literally means immortal,' the voice flatly stated.

'I know, I read The Lovely Princess, too, and I remember all of that. I'm just saying that it sounds like a shitty premise for a Lovely Princess fanfic on FFN. Well, fuck it! Call me Athanase instead — I refuse to follow a storyline written by a person who doesn't have anything better to do with their time! It's a shortened version of Athanasios, and I'm not gonna lie, I really don't want to constantly use Athanasios if I ever introduce myself. Besides, it's too similar to Athanasius, isn't it? God, if I transmigrated into Starshine-Dreaming's fanfic, then I'm screwed.'

'Uh, Athan... what's a fanfic?'

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There were a lot of things that Athanase remembered.

(No, that didn't apply to fanfiction, mind you. He remembers more than a college drop-out hyped up on caffeine working on a fanfic at the ass crack of dawn.)

For starters, he was more of an anti-fan of The Lovely Princess in his previous life and often preferred reading fanfics and fix-it AUs that he managed to find online. He was an Athanasia stan, and he was fairly confident that he's in one of those AUs — the one where Athanasia has a younger twin sibling. Unfortunately, in almost all the fanfics that he used to read, nearly every single one of them all had bad endings for Athanasia and her twin — something about how the fandom collectively agreed that it was poetic for the twins to die together and have each other and not be alone (cue sad face emoticons here).

That always raised his blood pressure, that's for sure. He's surprised that he didn't die from all his undying salt towards the fix-it writers that seemed to make Athanasia into the bitchy older step-sister trope of Jennette's Cinderella-type of story. Only a few people criticized the writing, but due to the book's immense popularity, those voices more or less went unheard.

According to his newly acquired sister, the novel's timeline was essentially like this: Athanasia's younger twin brother escorted her for her débutante, and was the only one who danced with her. The Athanasios from the novel was one of the few who openly loathed Jennette who seemed to have taken everything that his beloved older sister deserved — the Emerald Palace, the spotlight among nobles, and their father's love. Therefore, he had to disappear like many of Ezekiel's admirers for being the "Villain" of Jennette's story. However, despite being in an unfavourable position in life, he was still a prince, so he wouldn't be an easy person to get rid of. He didn't live past their sixteenth birthday, and instead died two years earlier than Athanasia due to being poisoned by Jennette's relatives.

Apparently, Athanasia also took the blame for his death when she turned eighteen and was killed for supposedly poisoning Jennette, only to have her aunt be revealed as the true mastermind. The mystery behind his death was never really solved, but the nobles spread rumours that questioned Athanasia's credibility. If she was known to have brought the death of her precious younger brother, nobody would doubt that she was behind Jennette's assassination attempt.

Which didn't make much sense to Athanase. Was the online version of the novel drastically different from the published copy? There wouldn't be any point in changing the storyline, right? It's not like film or comic adaptions, either.

It was interesting to find out that their recollection of the story was drastically different from each other.

At least there were a couple of things that seemed to be fairly consistent: they both lived in the Ruby Palace, a place meant for the Emperor's concubines and lovers — the Empress excluded. Which sucks, because it's no place to raise kids. Their dad was pretty much a deadbeat asshole — I mean, seriously! Why have kids if you're not going to be a part of their life?

And then there was another issue...

There were a couple of blanks in his memory. It's strange how he's able to vividly remember a lot of details of his life, and yet he can't even remember anything about his death. At least Athanasia had a vague idea of how she died — a mix of a sleeping pill and sleeping without a heater in the middle of winter — and she definitely remembered more about her past life than he did.

All he can think about is that sunset sky and a starry night on a roof, late autumn or early winter's cold caress against his cheek, the wind running through his long hair.

His previous life seemed nice, at least.

(But, deep down inside, he wonders if he died because he was born in the wrong body.)