mea rosa aurea || seongjoong || ATEEZ

Chapter 2 : Jealousy of the Moon

The night held more magic than the day. The darkness that enveloped the whole sky was like a comforting blanket of wonder. In the hidden veil of dark, one would be able to imagine anything they wanted. That's why the darkness was said to be so scary, because they couldn't see what was really there and the mind always had a way of wandering.

An active mind can be a scary one, especially as a young child where the dark presents more nightmares than dreams. Maybe at one time, the dark looming presence in the corner was seen as a monster, a rogue and bloodthirsty creature that had every intent to kill until the dawn came and it was clear that the vengeful creature was only a coat rack. But as that child grew older, perhaps the dark and looming presence would be seen not as a monster but as an object of the unknown.

The night was never supposed to be scary. Darkness was never supposed to be a symbol of evil, especially not when the darkness was the most comforting part of the daily cycle. Sure the daytime lit up the earth in warmth and light, highlighting the flowers in gold and made the ocean appear gentler than it really was. There was a certain level of comfort that day brought but left no room for imagination.

The big tree that stood alone out in the middle of the rolling hills, away from all the groves of apple trees was only just that... just a tree in the day. But during the night, that big tree could be anything, there was no light proving what it was exactly. It could be a dark cloud, one so full of rain that the weight dragged it down to kiss the earth much like they did to the tall mountains in a faraway land. There were so many options for things in the night, under the shadow of imagination, and it left the young prince wide awake in search of a mental escape.

On a night where the stars were bright and the moon laid low on the horizon, there wasn't as much darkness as the prince would've liked, though the view was nice. When the moon switched places with the sun, nearly dipping itself into the water below, was when Seonghwa figured the moon was the most beautiful.

Sure the large object floating around somewhere in space took away his abilities to imagine that the seagulls still flying around in the dead of night were actually dragons, but he didn't mind when the moon looked so majestic.

He thought it was odd how he grew jealous of the moon. Such an odd thing to grow jealous of- the prince figured most would be jealous of the sun if anything because it was warm and bright, people would wake up just to see it and greet it just like its warm rays on the land.

But no, Seonghwa was jealous of the moon.

The moon was bright and occasionally looked even bigger than the sun. The object he could look at without his eyes burning and caused him pain. The one that brought out the beauty of the stars instead of hiding them as the sun did. The prince was vaguely aware that the moon was only seen because of the sun's light, some sort of reflection, so maybe he should be more thankful to the sun for casting light upon some lowly rock drifting in space.

Seonghwa had always known he was drawn to the moon more than the sun. When he was young he attributed it to the fact that he could never sleep, the energy in his body was always too grand for him to relax and let his body succumb to a dreamland. He would squirm around in bed until he could no longer stand it, rolling the sheets into a near ball before climbing out of bed and running out onto his own balcony with his bare little feet hitting the cold ground. Perhaps he had lost count on how many times he had been scolded for being found asleep on the ground against the railing after a full night of stargazing, but the young prince couldn't deny the desire to reach up into the sky and pull the moon down into his hands.