Under the Water | VMIN

Prologue

The boy in front of Taehyung bows down. His blue eyes look directly into Taehyung's and search for something he cannot find, causing a frown to appear on his forehead.

A teardrop, as blue as sodalite, escapes the corner of the boy's eye and runs over his cheek down to his beautiful jawline, before it joins the pool of darkness around him.

The boy smiles at Taehyung. A smile where his face matches every motion his features should make: lips slightly parted, showing a little bit of teeth, chubby cheeks of flawless skin and wrinkles around his scrunched up nose. However, something about the way he smiles is off. It is not the tears, even though the seem to be multiplying every second – it is the eyes that don't fit in. Those alien eyes, too blue to even be real, don't match the smile.

The darkness around the boy ripples as more droplets of tear-shaped gemstones fall into it.

The boy's eyes were off, but why doesn't he look ugly when he cries? Everyone is supposed to look ugly when they cry. Reddish skin, swollen eyelids and snot should be all over a human face – but that doesn't count for princes. Royals don't have flaws. Right?

When Taehyung looks closely at the darkness, it isn't black as the night – it actually is as blue as the depths of the ocean. He reaches towards the boy to wipe his tears away. But instead his hand touches ice cold water. The cold touch awakes him and the tears stop falling. Ripples start to disappear as the water uses his hand as a stabilizer and the image of the boy returns. He is beautiful – known for it as well, across the entire kingdom – but Taehyung hates him. And he hates the darkness as well, for matching so perfectly with his eyes. Taehyung's hands ball into fists and he forcefully slams the surface of the water, as if to break it into a million pieces. Nonetheless, the image reappears.

He backs away from the pool and puts his head in his hands as he cries an ocean himself. It could've been minutes, hours or even days that he has been away, but Taehyung lost track of time. In the dark there is no up and down, left or right; there is no time. All there is, is darkness.

Suddenly he seems to have a clear moment. His tears dry and he pushes himself back up. One foot after the other, he slowly walks towards the edge of the lake. No more tears, no more feelings — and he lets himself tumble forwards. Taehyung's beautiful coat spreads out in the water and even in that moment, he is elegant.

A splash and then silence.

Taehyung realizes, all you can do is dream of a beam of moonlight. A beam of moonlight that breaks through the surface to teach you how to swim upwards, to guide you back towards the land of the living. But, he knows, all you can do is dream...

To be continued...