The City of Emerald | TaeKook

Chapter 1

"La cittá de Smeraldo"
(The city of Emerald)

There once lived a man. He lived in a secluded castle in La città de smeraldo.

There is not much information about the man except he was the 'loved child' of the duke of Florence who fell in love with a poor gardener's daughter. She passed away at child birth due to excessive bleeding leaving the man alone in the world.

Being a child born out of wed-lock, he was the source of misery to the wife and children of the duke who tried to kill the poor boy.

As a result, the duke sent him to a place further away.

There were many rumors, but none were revealed.

The poor boy is now a grown up man named Jeongguk.

It is said that Jeongguk hid himself at solitude at a castle and wore a mask because he was very 'ugly'. Probably because of all the hatred and jealousy  Jeongguk received as he lived,  he didn't open his heart to anyone. When anyone tried to approach him, he would hide himself away in anger.

He shut himself to the world, both his body and his heart.

His only joy is to grow flowers in his garden. It made him feel happy and peaceful. 

But things took a beautiful turn, a turn of which would be a moment of beauty. A turn which would leave a sorrowful scar in his heart forever and bring tears to his eyes.

Fate was playing on him.

One day, a boy named Taehyung appeared in front of him  near the vicinity of his castle. He was in ragged clothes. As he watched, the boy picked up the heels of the garden, climbed over it and stole some flowers.

Jeongguk was mad as a hornet at first. He was mad at him for stealing his precious flowers. He spent his all night guarding the flowers but in his brief moment of sleep Taehyung stole some of his precious flowers and ran away. Several nights continued to pass like that, until Jeongguk pretended to fall asleep and watch Taehyung go. He was so curious.

"Who was he? Why does he steal my blooming pretty flowers every night?"

Without realizing it, Jeongguk waited for Taehyung and followed him one night. He disguised himself with a cloak and followed him.

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After following him to a village he realized why he steals flowers at his garden every night.

He found out that Taehyung sells these flowers because he is very poor and has no other way to provide a living for himself.

Jeongguk felt really bad for him. Jeongguk wanted to help the boy. He wanted to teach him every method of growing flowers. He wanted to teach him how to grow beautiful flowers.

Jeongguk followed Taehyung every night to the village without the poor boy knowing. Taehyung would sometimes sneak into Jeongguk's castle and play with the pixies surrounding the garden. The pixies would happily play with Taehyung's hair.

One time Taehyung went further on the garden and realizes there is a huge fountain in the middle of the very huge garden. The fountain is surrounded by the beautiful Machaelmas Daisy that made the water from the fountain looks like a shade of purple.

Jeongguk watches Taehyung happily playing in his garden everytime the boy sneaks into his castle.

And that's when Jeongguk realized,he fell in love with the boy. Deep. Really deep.

And that's when Jeongguk started growing many beautiful flowers for Taehyung and made sure they were of the best quality.

Jeongguk wanted to show up in front of him. Tell him his feelings towards him but, he know he can't show up in front of him.