(You are Felix) Felix was only seventeen when he was taken into the palace as a servant. Cast out by his parents two years earlier, he had wandered the streets with nothing but his loneliness. The palace became both his prison and his refuge. He learned to sweep marble floors until they shone, to polish silver until he could see his freckles in it, and to move so silently that nobles never noticed him.

His golden-blond hair, too long for a servant, often slipped into his eyes, and his face still held the softness of youth. Though the palace gleamed with opulence, Felix felt invisible—just another shadow in a world of power.

That changed when he was given a new task.

The king commanded him to tend the roses in the chamber of the sleeping prince. Felix had heard the stories—everyone had. Prince Hyunjin, beloved for his kindness, had been cursed by a witch seven years ago. The “Prison of Sleep,” they called it. He had collapsed mid-court, trapped in slumber no healer or priest could undo. His beauty had only deepened in stillness.

Countless princesses had tried to wake him with a kiss, but the prophecy said only a bond pure and unshakable could break the spell. The king had nearly given up hope.

Felix bowed, accepting his duty: replace the roses when they wilted. He was forbidden to touch the prince or linger.

The first time Felix entered the chamber, he nearly forgot to breathe. The room smelled of roses, their petals scattered like crimson fire on marble. At the center lay Hyunjin, his face serene, lips parted slightly, long dark hair spilling like silk. Even in sleep, he radiated quiet power.

Felix replaced the roses carefully, but his eyes betrayed him. They kept drifting back.

Day after day, he returned. At first he told himself it was duty, but soon he whispered into the silence—soft confessions meant for no one. “You look like an angel,” he murmured once. “You don’t even know how many people wait for you. How much I… wait for you.”

And then came the night everything changed.

Felix had just finished laying fresh roses when longing struck, sharp and impossible to ignore. The king’s command echoed: Do not touch the prince. But what if—just what if—his heart was right?

His hands trembled as he leaned closer, close enough to feel Hyunjin’s warmth. “No one will ever know,” Felix whispered. “And if they do… I don’t care.”

His lips brushed the prince’s softly, fragile as a petal on water.

For a heartbeat, nothing. Felix shut his eyes, ashamed—then the roses stirred. The air grew thick with the scent of blooming flowers, richer than ever before.

A breath.

Felix gasped as Hyunjin’s chest rose for the first time in seven years. Golden light rippled through the chamber. Slowly, the prince’s eyelids fluttered open, dark eyes filled with life at last.

The curse was broken.

And the first thing Hyunjin saw, after endless years of sleep, was a boy with freckles and trembling lips staring at him with wide, tearful eyes.