Chapter One

Jongwoon was sunbathing on the edge of a stage that was placed onto the plaza merely for the upcoming celebration of their city’s 1000th year of existence. Jongwoon wondered how someone could possibly know for sure that in 3 days it was exactly 1000 years ago that the city was formed, but apparently, some scrolls in the library claimed it to be true, and so everyone was supposed to assume that it was.

Like writing something like that down is the first thing you’ll do after forming a small town with probably just 3 houses in it to start with.

Jongwoon was supposed to arrange all the decorations for the main plaza of the city, which was located exactly in the middle of Osis, but so far, he had only arranged for the stage to be built. Arranging the setting-up of the stage was the only thing he really felt like doing because he ended up telling people what to do while he could just sit on the side watching others work themselves till the point of sweating.

The rest of the decorating he couldn’t really be bothered with. It’s not like he hadn’t bothered himself about it, but after what had happened yesterday he had lost all of his motivation.

A sudden pat on his shoulder, his very painful shoulder, made him sit up instantly. He opened his eyes slowly and noticed Hyukjae staring at him, looking rather shocked and apologetic. Jongwoon inwardly laughed at Hyukjae’s expression, wondering if Hyukjae had really thought that he had hurt Jongwoon badly with just one rather soft pat, but didn’t tell Hyukjae that he hadn’t. No one was supposed to know what really was going on anyway.

“I’m so sorry, hyung!” Hyukjae apologized, rubbing Jongwoon’s painful shoulder, thinking that it would make the pain go away, while the result was the complete opposite. Jongwoon irritatingly pushed Hyukjae’s hand away, and the latter muttered yet another apology and looked down to the ground sadly before looking up with the biggest grin on his face possible. “I heard you made a big fool out of our King again yesterday?”

Jongwoon smirked in reply, thinking back about what he had done yet again yesterday, temporarily forgetting what the consequences of his actions had been afterward.

“What did you do? A lot of rumors are being told, but I want to hear the right version from you,” Hyukjae continued, lifting himself onto the stage as well and seated himself next to Jongwoon.

“Nothing big, really,” Jongwoon replied, to which Hyukjae shook his head in response.

“Don’t be so modest,” the latter said.

“Well, I just changed the red wine with water from the Red River. It looked exactly alike; my father didn’t notice a thing. So he took a gulp, spat it all over the table and some important guests seated across from him. Funniest thing I have ever seen,” Jongwoon explained, laughing genuinely at the memory replaying itself clearly in his head.

Hyukjae joined in on the laughter, his highly imaginative brain being able to form the images in his head as well.

“It’s not funny,” someone said from behind them, and they turned around, seeing no other than Ryeowook, Jongwoon’s best friend, walking towards them on the stage. Ryeowook soon reached them and seated himself on the other still empty side of Jongwoon.

“Hyukjae, the main guard was looking for you 5 minutes ago. He told me to tell you that you have taken a way too long break once again and that you are in big trouble,” Ryeowook continued, and Hyukjae instantly sprung up, bade a fast goodbye, and ran off. Jongwoon stared at Hyukjae’s retreating figure before turning to look at Ryeowook.

“A too long break? He just got here,” he asked, confused, and Ryeowook giggled softly.

“I just made it up,” he said, still giggling to himself, and Jongwoon remained to stare at Ryeowook utterly confused, as Ryeowook wasn’t someone to lie that easily. “Stop staring at me like that, we need to talk in private and you know that.”

“I didn’t know that,” Jongwoon replied dryly, before averting his gaze to some of the people walking across the plaza, minding their own respective businesses.

“The rumors even made it to the farm-grounds, you can’t keep things like this a secret from me, you know that,” Ryeowook scolded, as he stood up and pulled Jongwoon along with him to the back of the stage, out of view from anyone else. “Did he punish you? Where?”

Ryeowook pulled up Jongwoon’s shirt slightly, but found nothing, and continued pulling up his sleeves, which also seemed to be hiding nothing. When he was about to Jongwoon’s pants and pull them down, Jongwoon stopped him in utter surprise and re-buttoned his pants.

“Private area, Ryeowook. Stop undressing me in public,” Jongwoon mumbled, and Ryeowook sighed in annoyance.

“Just show me,” he said, annoyed, and Jongwoon reluctantly took off his shirt. A rather large bruise was located on the front of his shoulder, and Ryeowook gasped at the sight of it. “In the name of Aellon, Jongwoon, you have to stop doing your stupid pranks. It does you no good.”

“For the umpteenth time, Ryeowook, they aren’t pranks. Pranks are for babies.”

“Then what are they?”

“They are—They—It doesn’t matter!” Jongwoon stuttered in defense, cantankerously putting his shirt back on and hiding the painful bruise from an overly worried Ryeowook.

Ryeowook disappointingly shook his head and turned around in an attempt to return to his duties, as he still had a lot to do, but Jongwoon stopped him from walking away by standing in front of him.

“Ryeowook, I’m 23 years old, I can take care of myself. Please stop worrying?” he asked, looking at Ryeowook gratefully, as he did feel thankful for Ryeowook to care that much about his health. It was just not needed; he was a big boy now.

“It’s hard to not worry if your best friend gets beaten up by his father all the time,” Ryeowook mumbled lamentably in return, and Jongwoon smiled genuinely.

“I’m really fine, it’s just a bruise,” he replied, and Ryeowook sighed disapprovingly; Jongwoon’s habit of making things seem less bad than they actually were was kicking in again.

“Just put some ice on it, okay? I’m going back to work, see you tonight.”

Ryeowook walked past Jongwoon and returned to the farm within 20 minutes. Jongwoon returned to his place on the stage and laid down again, never putting some ice on his shoulder as Ryeowook ordered him to do. Ice would not ease the everlasting pain in his heart anyway.

‘Hyung, are we really doing the right thing?’

Sungmin was just doing his rounds of feeding the prisoners in the prison of Osis when Kyuhyun’s voice suddenly boomed up in his head. He got rather startled, as Kyuhyun never contacted him out of the blue before, and nearly locked himself in one of the prisons by falling into an empty cell out of surprise and clinging onto the door which nearly closed and locked due to the action.

Sungmin sighed in relief as he managed to keep the door slightly ajar and stumbled back out, hoping that no prisoner had seen what just happened. Luckily, not feeding prisoners for days and keeping them in the burning sun makes them less aware of their surroundings, so Sungmin was pretty safe.

‘Of course. Isn’t this what we have been working forward to for the past 5 years?’ Sungmin replied, and for a short while, Kyuhyun remained silent.

It had been a little over 5 years since their parents had left them near the wall of Osis. They had entered Osis with the help of a guard, telling the story they were supposed to tell. Their parents had abandoned them in the Forest of Blackbush, left there to be murdered by the creatures of that forest, but they had managed to escape and flee to Osis. The King of Osis instantly believed their story and had welcomed them into Osis with no second thoughts.

None of the Osis inhabitants knew that they were actually placed in Osis to keep an eye on the King and his actions. Every day, Kyuhyun contacted his father the same way he had just contacted Sungmin and informed his father, who was the Lord of Ordova –enemy of Osis--, about everything that happened in Osis. It was a way of contacting that no one other than the people of Ordova knew about, and it was