I do not own Skip Beat! Or, Sleeping Beauty or, any variation thereof, but I do thank their wonderful creators for their inspiration.
Chapter One
Sleeping Princess, Broken Prince
No matter how long you sleep, the pain will never go away unless you face it. This is what the faery queen told her, her godmother? It didn't really matter, because the only thing that would wake her would be true love's kiss and that didn't exist. That's what she thought anyway. She would sleep and dream and avoid the pain. The pain of her tattered heart. She could control her dreams, at least she could for 600 years. At least until he was born. The sweet little boy that imagined himself a faery prince when he was 3 years old and invaded her solitude, the same little boy she had watched over in his dreams from infancy. She was drawn to him, he was special. She watched as the blond haired, green-eyed little boy grew into a teen. One day he no longer came to her. All she could feel was a deep dark sadness. It was stifling. How could she help him in her condition? She called out to him in the haze of dream sleep. Kuon! Where are you Kuon?! How could she find him? For three years she searched dreams, searched for him. He would be 18 now wouldn't he? She sighed, she was 16 when she cursed herself because of that insolent, arrogant boy. How old am I now? Do I still look 16 or, am I now a crone? No I cannot think of that now! I want to help him. I want to hold him. I want to love again. She cried out and continued her search.
"Kuon! Where are you Kuon?! Help me find you. Please!..." She begged with tears falling from her beautiful molten gold eyes. She felt it, the sadness. It was stronger here in this room. His hair no longer as diamonds and his eyes sad and dull, no longer the brilliant green with brown. She sat next to him and placed her hand on his arm. It felt like him.
"Are you an Angel?" He asked.
"No Kuon." She answered as her other hand gently wiped the tears from his cheek.
"Why Kuon? What distresses you so?" She asked as she caressed his arm.
"I'm a horrible person, princess." He confessed. "Someone died because of me."
"Never! I cannot believe that. You haven't the soul of someone such as that. You are kind and still pure. I can see it." She exclaimed.
"I fought and he died protecting me. I'm a murderer!" He cried out.
"Did you run him through?" She asked not understanding.
"What?"
"Did you run him through with your blade?" She asked in the only way she understood.
"No. He was hit by a car as he was following me." He explained.
"I don't understand. If he followed, you did nothing to him. Was this animal or, thing that killed him trained by you or, sent by you?" She asked.
"No..."
"There, you see you did not cause your friends death." She told him as she took his large hand in her small delicate hands and kissed the back of it. "You are not guilty of such a crime my sweet Kuon."
He looked into her gold eyes as if she had handed the world to him on a silver platter.
"Find me Kuon." She told him in a panic as she listened to something. "Find me." Tears flowed from her eyes at the knowledge she had to leave now that she had finally found him.
"How princess? I don't even know if you're real." He called to her with anxiety in his voice.
"Remember where we played when you were a child?" He nodded as he gently wiped the tears from her delicate skin. "I will wait for you here." She promised as she evaporated into the ether of the dream.
"Don't go!" He called out reaching for her as tears came to his own eyes.
"Damn-it!" Were the words that escaped from his lips as he was pulled from his dream by the cursed alarm clock. "Who is she and why am I dreaming about her again?" He groaned as he slammed his hand on the off button. 8:00 am. "I guess I better get ready to pick up Yashiro-san." He sighed, made his bed and headed for the bathroom to prepare for his day. His day would begin now not as Hizuri Kuon, but as Tsuruga Ren.
"Ren, have you been having trouble sleeping again?" Yashiro asked with concern.
"Hmm?" His mind wandered to the the beautiful girl that invaded his dream. Her porcelain white skin, ruby red lips, silken ebony floor-length hair and her molten gold eyes that peered into his soul. The white and silver gossamer dress that flowed around her like a mist, she had to be a product of a child's imagination. She couldn't be real. Could she? Should he look for her or, would it be a waste of time? If she was real, where should he start? He sighed again.
"Ren?" Yashiro asked again.
"Oh, sorry Yashiro-san. I just haven't been sleeping well." He partially lied.
"Well.. I'm going to stop scheduling you on weekends until you're feeling better and remedy this problem of yours." Yashiro announced in a scolding tone.
"Maybe that would be a good idea." He agreed. Maybe I should look for her. It couldn't hurt. It's not like I have anything else to do in my spare time. "What have we got scheduled for today?"
"First we have breakfast.. Then you have a photo shoot until noon and then your drama until 5pm." He informed him while thumbing through the black day planner. I swear, he is not an 18 year old boy. Yashiro shook his head and continued to look for gaps in the schedule that would allow him to give the boy weekends to do things normal 18 year olds did. Maybe that will help.
Beyond the tall stone ivy laden doors, down the marble halls decorated with carved stone pillars with jeweled inlays, walls decorated with age worn tapestries and paintings lay a 614 year old princess that didn't look a day over 16 waiting for that one kiss that would break her self-inflicted faery curse. The curse that she had begged the faery queen for to escape a hateful, arrogant, abusive prince. Would Kuon find her? Did her castle still stand or, had her own mother moved her to the crypt thinking she was dead? She could only hope that the faery had told her mother.
In the first few moments of her new reality she had realized her grave error. If one sincerely didn't believe in true love she would never awaken. She would never see mother again or, her godmother and godfather. Surely she would never again see Prince Shotaro, but was that worth the cost? What she truly didn't know is for many hundreds of years princes from all over the world had tried to claim her as their prize and failed miserably, her faery godparents had seen to that. They wanted nothing more than to find true love for Princess Kyoko and if the young man was not willing to go through the trials to find her or, at least get to know her through the gift that they had granted her, those young men were not worthy. So, for 600 years they would wait, they would wait for the one that would find her in her dreams and in her flesh. He would be broken from the trials, but they would repair each other. For the next two years 18 year old Hizuri Kuon would search for the princess that would visit him in his dreams. The same princess he had know from his very first memories. He would search in every way he knew how, through travels, through texts and through legends.
