Steps light and silent, a young man hid within the shadows of the walls. Even his breaths were silent, body at ease as he waited for the house servant to pass by. In his hand was a hairpiece — a simple hairpiece that most would have ignored, and he would have too, if they hadn't revealed the truth behind it. Having been passed from generation to generation, several queens and princesses had used it, thus making its value rise up to more than a billion, though he personally had no use for the money.

His family needed the money. There were others who needed it more than he did. What else could he do but offer his asisstance to those who were unable to fend off for themselves?

Once the footsteps of the house servant had disappeared, and the door to the end of the corridor had closed, the thief stepped out of the shadows, ran straight toward the open window near his spot. Another servant had just turned the corner, but all the servant would have seen by then was a glimpse of the man's shadow sinking beneath the window.

A chime rang through the empty atmosphere, and the clock hit midnight. A scream followed after, "where is it? Where is it!"

With his feet landing softly upon the grassy ground, the young man couldn't help the wide smirk that spread over his lips, and he threw the hairpiece briefly up in the air as he stood, catching it as soon as it fell to his chest level. "Bingo," he whispered to himself, and he slid the heirloom into the pocket inside his jacket, before he ran along the trees, using their shadows as a way to hide him from plain sight.

The night was his territory. With the moon sitting in its throne above the sky, there was nothing that could stop him.

Yet little did he know, that was the night that would have changed his life forever.

[ tw: violence, death. ]

Once, there was a young boy who lived at a small, rundown orphanage by the outskirts of Aerok. It was led by a few voluntary nuns, and they took care of the children who were led astray or abandoned in the slums. The nuns, despite their poor circumstances were kind and caring, and because of that, the young boy managed to find a family despite the harsh environment they were all subtmitted to. He was seven years old when his biological family had died by the hands of starvation and diseases that they simply had no money to pay for.

Hanbyeol was his name. Hanbyeol — it was a name that not many would know as he grew up. He was eleven years old when he had gotten adopted by a rather well-off couple who couldn't conceive a child no matter how much they tried. He was reluctant — he didn't want to leave the home he'd come to love — the only family he had left. But realizing that this could be a chance for him to make his life turn for the better, he went with the couple.

Perhaps he was lucky; his life was rather decent after being adopted. His living circumstances became better than the last, despite the dangers surrounding the lives of his adopted parents. His father was a former mercenary for hire, and his mother was an infamous assassin for the House of Gaya.

It was because of the background of his parents that he became familiar with the way of the underground — the do or die part of society; the society where he would live in for more years in the future.

For his safety, they trained him, taught him everything they knew. But there was one thing they had made him promise.

"Never kill, my dear Hanbyeol. We don't want you to burn with the same fire of our sins."

However, his luck seemed to have run out when he was fourteen, one stormy evening. Due to his parents' reputation, becoming a target of assassinations was something he'd had to get used to even when he was younger. It was what honed his sense of danger, and improved his stealth. Yet on one fateful night, several assassins had been hired to end the Yoon famiy.

His parents had been able to eliminate the most of them, except for one who had managed to poison them. His father was the first one to go down having taken a gun that was aimed at Hanbyeol, and his mother was next when she sacrificed her body to ensure that Hanbyeol would be able to escape. Traumatized and having nowhere else to run to, he lived and interacted with the people in the slums.

There, it felt as though he was slapped once again by the life he'd tried to escape from.

It was where he was able to make use of the skills he learned from his adopted parents. He became a notorious thief after some time — he could steal anything from anywhere without getting caught, and not even the authoroities could get a hand of him. he held the grandest of all robberies, stole the ones that were deemed almost impossible to pull off.

He was then hailed as Ciaran, named after another mythical thief of the same name. The prince of thieves, they call him.

He was eighteen when he decided to return to his orphanage. However, when he'd arrived at the place, he immediately discovered that the orphanage had been burnt down and destroyed, due to the owners being unable to pay their debts.

In shock and heartbreak, Hanbyeol had gained another goal in life, and that was to help other kids as much as he could, as to not let them experience being homeless and hungry.

It was around this time that he had begun stealing from the rich just to give them to the poor.

However, come age twenty-three — Hanbyeol's life changed completely when he had decided to rob the house of the leading son of the Gaya family. He found a truth that he shouldn't have found; a mere case of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. He regretted admiring the portrait of the prince who looked so much like him.

Young Master Jeonghan was dead — and the killer was nowhere to be found. Hanbyeol was caught by the guards, and yet one of the royal advisors had come to him and offered him a bargain.

If he took on the role of the prince, replaced the dead prince, he wouldn't be sentenced to execution. Out of desperation and fear for his life, Hanbyeol had accepted the contract, and now here he was, living the life of another man. From a thief, he became a prince. Hanbyeol was of no more — he was now the eldest Gaya Prince, Jeonghan.

To those who do not know, the prince simply had an accident and as a result, temporarily lost his memories two years ago. However, as time moved on, it is becoming more and more evident that Hanbyeol — or Jeonghan is becoming more confident and natural at his act, that he doesn't need the pretense of amnesia anymore. Despite this supposed accident, to many, Jeonghan is still the favored child of the head of the Gaya family, but to those who know, Jeonghan's existence is simply a ploy to find out who they're truly battling against.

[ tw: isolation, murder, death. ]

Jeonghan had always known he was different.

When he was born, he didn’t cry. A year or so after, he had learned how to read — almost too quickly, almost too perfectly. He had found it easy to learn things that even adults would have had a hard time with. At five years old, he was able to speak languages that his parents hadn’t even taught him. At eight years old, he became a master of chess, unbeatable even by the most experienced. It was because of this that had set his distance from children his age. It was because of this that he had received much envy and jealousy, scorn and prejudice from the people around him.

He was gifted (or cursed?) with an intelligence that far surpassed the majority.

Confusion had colored his childhood, the only reaction that he had held toward the world. Was he truly so different that he couldn’t receive the compassion that he would see with anyone else? He pondered, and pondered, and pondered — until he came to a certain conclusion: what humans could not understand, they condemned. What humans could not possess, they got rid of.

Even his own parents hadn’t known how to connect with him. They didn’t even try. To his father’s eyes, Jeonghan was simply the oldest son, his greatest heir that he had ever conceived. His pride in Jeonghan stemmed fully from the fact that he had something of an advantage over the other families. To his eyes, Jeonghan was nothing more than a political tool — a son that he could use to put the house of Gaya on the throne.

To his mother’s eyes, Jeonghan was something to be feared of. He was simply too strange, too peculiar. He was too logical, too cold, too empty. There was not a single emotion that could be found in the child, and not even pain could get a reaction out of him. Jeonghan could not feel pain, nor could he feel anything else. Even his own siblings had distanced themselves from him, though there were efforts. There were efforts to try and understand their oldest brother, and yet it was Jeonghan that could not reciprocate their feelings, their emotions.

Jeonghan often wondered how things would have been had he been born different; had he been born someone who was more emotional, less logical.

But he had long accepted that he would always be different. There was no one quite on his level of genius, and that was what had set him apart from the rest. That was fine, he thought. He could not change what he was born into, and his fate would not change even if he tried to do so. Instead, he came to understand humans — or at least, humanity had become too easy for him to read; too easy for him to predict.

Life then, became even duller, even more boring. What joy was there in watching people commit the same mistakes they promised not to make again? What joy was there in watching people ruin themselves and blame others for it? What joy was there left for him to try and feel, when everything had become so pointless?

Years and years passed by, life had simply become meaningless to him. Not even the throne was enough to give him a raison d’etre. There was no meaning to life, for it was a simple cycle, full of even meaningless routines. Why should he even bother?

There was a little light that flickered in Jeonghan’s younger days, when he had met that boy from Goguryeo for the first time. At first, it was curiosity that had drawn him to the lad — the crowned heir to the throne, the ever so admired Jaehyun of the House of Goguryeo. To Jeonghan, Jaehyun was an unstoppable fire whose flames danced so brightly Jeonghan burned.

Like a moth to a flame, Jaehyun felt like gravity as Jeonghan couldn’t find it himself to pull away.

The two had grown up together, with their families working together despite the evident rivalry between the houses. And this was also the first time Jeonghan had begun to feel something other than mere curiosity; something that made him feel a little bit more human. This was the first time that Jeonghan had genuinely felt interested in a human that wasn’t himself — and he savored it.

He believed Jaehyun was his first friend, and Jaehyun made him feel more.

When the Goguryeo King had expressed favor toward the eldest son of Gaya, Jeonghan supposed that was when his entire life had begun to change.

Jeonghan and Jaehyun were forced to grow apart, not only by their responsibilities and duty to the kingdom — but the comparison between the two. Jeonghan becoming the Goguryeo King’s favorite was not exactly a secret that he had tried to keep, and yet Jeonghan could care less. He did not want the crown. He did not want the crown. He did not want power.

He only wanted to feel human, but why did the world keep on chipping away his sanity bit by bit?

It did not take him long to revert back to his old self — the unfeeling, emotionless prince of Gaya, who only smiled for the public and wore a facade too well that even his siblings were fooled.

It did not matter, did it? It had been his fault to hope even for the slightest bit of feeling humane, but that did not matter.

What mattered then, was to give honor and glory to his family. But even that did not fuel the flames within his heart that had long been extinguished.

Perhaps it came too early. Perhaps his life was never meant to bloom at its fullest from the moment he was born. But his heart stopped beating the night Jaehyun came back home from war — only to hit Jeonghan's head with a phoenix decoration, hitting until the light in his eyes disappeared completely.

Yet even as he lost his life, he did not feel anger. Even as his blood tainted his white sheets with crimson, he did not feel anything — except for sadness and disappointment, but beyond that, he still hoped. He hoped that with his death, the crowned heir of Goguryeo would feel better.

•.*★ before you approach me。

important。 Try to have something in mind and read my profile before actually talking to me about roleplaying. I am open to brainstorming, but please do not come to me completely empty-handed. Reading my profile is important.

•.*★ writing and plotting style。

writing style。 3rd pov only. My length ranges from a single paragraph to a whole novella, depending on how high my muse is for the thread. I do get carried away often times, but it doesn't have to be mirrored.

plotting style。 I prefer plotting over winging, even if it's just a small backbone of what we're supposed to be doing. This is why you should read my profile first and come to me with an idea in mind. I often do the same.

Starters are based on who seems to make the most sense to start. If it makes more sense for my character to start, then I will write the starter, and vice versa.

•.*★ activity and reply speed。

important。 I rarely ever poke people, and do not like being poked. 10 days. Please only poke me after 10 days. I usually know who I'm writing with, and if I haven't replied to you yet, that means either of the two things: a. I don't have enough muse for it yet, and; b. I'm busy. Often times, it's a mixture of both. Please don't use my replying to other threads faster than yours against me. It's a simple matter of which of the threads I have more muse with.

I'm usually fast with my replies, sometimes with regardless of the length. But again, it depends on the muse. We can always drop/pick up our thread(s), but make sure you communicate with me. Also know that I might be active in the chat infrequently or a lot. I'm not a very consistent person when it comes to this.

•.*★ location preferences。 I definitely prefer the rooms to keep the rp active! If it's not possible to get a room for it, then walls we go! My PMs are only for OOC business. Please don't post on my walls unless I allow you to.

Lies may color the beginning of our romance, but please believe me when I say I've never spoken a truth much realer than when I say I love you, because I do. I love you with all my heart and soul. Our love started with a lie, and love may be nothing but a mere shout to the void, a word used to give a name to what I feel for you, but love doesn't seem to justify the intensity of these emotions that I have never felt before. Forever may be something we cannot have, but I will keep you in my heart for the rest of my days and even after that.