Prologue

“How long have I been asleep?”

“You slept for a little over half a day.

Marmel sighed and touched his throbbing forehead. His low, cracked voice was still thick with sleep.

‘Even though I sleep all the time, I can’t fall asleep deeply, so my body continues to crave sleep. I’m so tired. Is it because I had a terrible dream?‘

He covered his eyes with the palms of his hands for a moment, trying to remember the dream he just had.

‘At this point, it’s safe to say that everyday life is impossible.‘

He lowered his head, and his hair, as white as snow, slid over his face.

“Is it night?,” he asked.

“It is dawn, Your Highness.”

In a world of black and white, the twilight of dawn resembled the night.

Marmel answered dully, “ls that so?” and slowly raised his head. Outside the window, the sky was filled with a moving, milky-coloured mist.

‘That’s why it was so dark,’ he thought. His inability to see colours made it difficult to distinguish between day and night. There were now only two colours his vision projected – black or white.

Now, with only the fog permeating the outside sky, his world was tinged with darkness.

Marmel laughed self-deprecatingly at that fact.

The congressman opened his mouth several times as if hesitating, then spoke.

“You should get examined right now, your Highness.”

“Don’t you know it’s useless?”

“How can Your Highness say that! Besides, even if it’s useless, you’ll have to do whatever it takes to make it work! Even if you scour the entire empire and turn it upside down-“

“Shh.”

Marmel cut off the screaming member of the council in the middle of his tirade. He put his pale index finger over his red lips that draw into an arc.

He blinked languidly and opened his mouth slowly,

“Don’t tell anyone.”

Between his long, transparent eyelashes, Marmel’s eyes resembling roses gradually appeared and then disappeared repeatedly as he blinked. An overwhelming sense of murder hidden behind his angelic smile slipped out, as if it would choke the councillor’s breath at any moment.

“l know my illness well.” 

And his illness was one that no one could cure, and no one could tell anyone about.

Marmel smiled and said, “This is just insomnia, you know?”

Then, the murderous aura that surrounded his whole body dispersed and disappeared in an instant.

The councillor let out a breath that had stuck in this throat, and glanced at the crown prince, who was smiling innocently. He didn’t dare to say any more and just stared hard at him. 

It was difficult to say that the only symptom of the illness that befell the crown prince was insomnia. No, now that the councillor thought about it, he wasn’t even sure if it was insomnia from the beginning. What is it? What had hit him?

After an incident five years ago, Marmel, who had been unable to fall asleep and depended on sleeping pills, could not wake up well once he fell asleep. The amount of time he slept only increased day by day. It didn’t seem like insomnia in the first place – it would’ve been more accurate to call it narcolepsy.

The councillor feared that. He feared that Marmel would fall asleep one day and never wake up.

“I like it the way it is,” Marmel murmured.

After that day five years ago, he always thought about his body as his health slowly collapsed. He said to himself his body was preparing to die slowly. To die, or go crazy. Of the two, he chose the latter. He would rather fall asleep and die before he goes completely mad like this, being unable to sleep properly. Death in his sleep was rather like a blessing to him. It was the only way for him to remain human forever [t/n: meaning, he’d rather die in his sleep and be remembered as who he was, than die after slowly going crazy and being remembered as crazy.].

The senator was silent for a moment, then opened his mouth as if he couldn’t help it.

“How about basking in the sun? It will help change your sleeping hours.”

“It’s dark because of the fog.” Marmel replied flatly.

“The morning fog will dissipate in the morning. When the sun rises.”

“Is it.”

Marmel looked out the window again with nonchalant eyes. He could only vaguely guess at the birdsong that signalled the dawn, but he still couldn’t figure it out with his achromatic eyes-

Is it dusk that’s setting, or dawn rising? 

Is the sun rising or setting?