you're so golden! || minsung ||

2♕

 

Minho definitely shouldn't have stayed up so late last night editing on his laptop the last pictures he took. Not that he thinks he would be better because of the extreme anxiety and nervousness that vibrated throughout his body and stopped him from sleep, but maybe his dark circles wouldn’t be so visible and marked at this point.

His three maids seem to be having an easy job hiding his lack of sleep with makeup though, but they don't say anything about the reason. Honestly, Minho doesn't even understand what all the fuss is about, not least because he won't even appear on television.

Raised in the royal palace and taught all the etiquettes that require it, Minho knows that a Prince must always be properly presentable and dressed elegantly, but even so, he can't understand why they're putting so much make-up on and styling his hair when his duties for today refer simply to spending the entire day in the king’s office with his parents and some of his father’s representatives. Hopefully, he'll even be able to get everything done by lunch time. It will certainly depend on his father's cooperation, mostly.

Today is the day to look for the first time at the submissions received to participate in the Selection, and from what Minho's father has previously informed him, he has a good couple of applications to see.

The king, Kim Bon-hwa, also told him in advance some advice for choosing his selected, such as, for example, opting for candidates from families with some renown in the case of the higher castes, for clearly obvious reasons, and as for the ones from the lower castes, choose participants with more touching life stories, so to speak. Something like making viewers identify with what they're seeing, his father had told him at the time.

However, Minho had other plans in his mind. Since the Selection was an iconic and long-awaited event for the country and well, practically mandatory for the crown Princes, Minho wanted to do things his way, at least.

He would choose his selected ones according to his preferences and common interests, not to get approval from his parents or because the people who will be watching the contest will like them. It was embarrassing enough to have the entire country experience his love life firsthand.

Not that Minho genuinely believed that he would actually live a true love story, out of a fairy tale, during this contest. The chances are very low and Minho is no naive idiot. Let's face it, the vast majority of participants are more interested in marrying the crown and all that it symbolizes than Minho itself. But either way, at the end of the contest, he has to make a choice.

So, he has little option but to cling to the hope that, perhaps, from the wide range of candidatures, he will be able to pick someone who might genuinely like him and vice versa. Judge him what you want but Minho was romantic enough to want to spend the rest of his life with someone who truly likes and cares about him and not just for politically and economically strategic reasons.

When No-eul, Sae-byok, and Hyun-jae, Minho's maids, finish putting the make-up on him and combing his hair, he waits for them to leave his huge bedroom so he can take off his bathrobe and put on his chosen outfit for the day. Although they usually help him dress, Minho prefers to do it himself. Having some time alone is also something he enjoys and rarely has. He picks up the decided set of perfectly stretched and starched clothes lying on top of his bed and begins to dress.

As today is a calm day regarding his daily duties, his outfit is composed merely of a white, dress shirt and classic black pants, combined with perfectly shined shoes, equally dark, the cufflinks with the symbol of the country, and one of his crowns.

Although the accessory is a great honor, Minho confesses that he doesn't actually love to spend the whole day wearing the metallic silver or gold ornament with embedded gemstones, not only because of the weight, but also because of the impediment of most of his movements. However, his father likes to complain when Minho doesn't decorate his wave of almond hair with the symbol of royalty, so if Minho can avoid a conflict, he will. It’s better to wear the crown for a good couple of hours than listen to a lecture from his father. Now that Minho thinks about it, what was a few hours with the weight under his head compared to the king's endless speeches?