At that time and age no one knew what the prince was cursed with except those in unrequited love. Hyunjin let the physician check everything in order to make his parents understand why he felt so weak. Was Minho in love with someone else? Wasn't Hyunjin obvious enough of his emotions that hang raw around his very being. He zones out every concerned call, as he lies in bed until everyone leaves him be. Though he knows far too well that Minho would guard his door tonight.

Rising from bed he makes his way towards the door, a pale arm feels the oak of the barrier separating them both. Minho's warmth penetrates through as Hyunjin smiles with a sting to his already failing heart. Sitting at his usual window he pulls out his sketch book but his shaking arms make him a messy fluttering of papers as he flips through the book.

"Ouch!!" Hyunjin hisses at a sharp paper cut that glides past his thumb. He coughs just with the voice that came out, dark petals of velvety roses shower in hundreds. Red velvet roses which were seldom found in this part of his kingdom. Infact never.

Love certainly had come to be related as the most beautiful of all emotions but non mentioned how it traps you, lures you into its dark trenches. Of how thorny steans grow and how the flowers blooming clog your breathing. If only Minho would love him back, if only it were so easy to confess but rejection would be worser. Once again the wind carries petals of unrequited love to places he'll never know.

Morning dawn's once again and Hyunjin wretches more pretty flowers, now falling in tiny buds as he prepares for the day. Minho never left his side, his forever cautious eyes keen. But Hyunjin wanted him to falter, he selfishly yearned for Minho to loose his knightship and look at him as a man and not a prince but alas no if that shall come to happen. Days would go by and Hyunjin only grew worser with undying love for a man who felt nothing but gratitude and loyalty towards him.

"Have you been in love Minho?" Hyunjin asked him one afternoon as he took a stroll in the palace gardens.

"I have duties to fulfill sire. I'm a knight." Minho replied as coldly as possible which only hurt Hyunjin further. He flinches when his finger bruises against a thorn but he gives it no heed.

"But you are still human. Have you set your eyes on anyone? Perhaps considered courting?" Hyunjin is nervous but he's trying, he has not much time left does he? Fables say Hanahaki lasts for only seven months. And it's already his third.

"I don't know. I'm too busy with training and-" Minho bumps onto Hyunjin making the prince collapse, as cue he wraps an arm around the waist of the beauty to hold him in place.

"Oh loosen up would you?" Hyunjin but his lips and he sore Minho lost his eyes in his own until Changbin broke them apart with a loud laugh.

"Haven't you heard Hyunjin? Our arrogant prideful Minho is betrothed to the ministers son Han Jisung. The alliance has been fixed since infancy they say." Hyunjin's whole existence stopped as Minho pushed himself away from the boy, a faint blush adorning his feline features. It marks as though the first time when Hyunjin feels the growth of something far more harder like a seedling sprouting into a thorny stem.

"Will you shut up?" Minho snaps as Changbin does a silly face at his senior.

"He's to arrive this week from England. Chan says he's a beaute." Put in Jeongin with a giggle. Non of them actually noticed how Hyunjin clutched his chest and scrambled off to the farthest part of his palace gardens, where a chapel stood siding with a river.

This time sadly he throws up bloody roses both red and black. Nothing so viciously pretty yet so wickedly captivating. He breaks down for the first time in months, weeping to God. He wretched pulling out rapidly growing stems as he wipes his tears aggressively. Hoping no one would find him so pathetic so in love with a man who never was his.

"Changbin why did you do that?" Minho looks around cautiously.

"Do what? Disclosing the truth about your betrothal? You'll be married by autumn and Hyunjin deserves to know. We are friends after all." Changbin shrugged.

Minho didn't understand why he felt bad about Hyunjin looking very upset at his alliance been fixed. It clawed at his mind yet he brushed it off trying not to dwell on little demons who seemed to distract him from his duties. As Hyunjin shut himself into isolation inside his room with tiny shoots growing on his fresh bruises. He hurriedly fished out bandages to wrap around those budding plants on his pretty long arms.

"It's getting worse........." Hyunjin drew in a heavy unsteady breath as he wiped the blood off his nose. "Only love can hurt like this......right?" He whispers.

It was one morning when Hyunjin sat at his window letting his roses glide through whooshes of morning breeze when he sees Minho make his way inside those massive gates and a boy gets off a carriage just then. He's small made, a brunette as he runs with joy towards the knight.

"Baby!!!" Though it was certainly not the perfect term to use in public everyone seem to know they were to be married soon. What made Hyunjin choke was when the man he loved jumped off the carriage to rush towards the brunette only to sweep him off his feet and swirl him in sheer delight with a smile Hyunjin had never seen. Minho was beautiful when he smiles, so beautiful Hyunjin wanted to have the memory painted on his heart with petals he shed for love. His paint brush rolls off his arm as he looses his consciousness.