I eyed the shadows wearily, the light of dawn making me all the more nervous. Soon it would be daylight, and if we didn’t get to Kris’s house soon, we would be found quicker than Xiumin could say ‘food’.

“Luhan,” Tao’s voice whispered to him.  I jumped and glared at Tao.

“Sorry” Tao apologise, “It’s just, we need to go quicker. Light’s already breaking the sky.”

   “Yeah” I sighed. “Kris’s house isn’t far now.”

   Yanking the reins, Tao and I sped up, sighing in relief when a familiar house came into view.

As we approached Kris’s house we saw a person step out of the shadows. We gripped the reins tighter and pulled back to slow the horses down; we looked at the figure with cautious eyes.

 It was Kris.

I jumped off my horse and ran to Kris, embracing him in a hug. Tao was left to deal with the horses.

“Calm down, Luhan,” Kris said even though he hugged me back.

I let go and Kris gave me a warm smile.

“You must be tired. You look like it,” Kris said as we started towards his house.

“Hello? What about me!” Tao yelled from behind us.

“I’ll be there with you in a second,” Kris said over his shoulder.

Kris led me inside his house where Lay, Chanyeol and Suho were waiting. Suho stood up when he saw me and welcomed me with a warm smile. “Heard you’ve been getting popular lately, everyone wants a piece of you,”

I went up to him and gave him a hug before sitting down along with Kris.

“Yeah, I barely made it out alive. But on a different note, what does it take to get some food around here?” As soon as I said it my stomach started growling.

Lay stood up and limped to the kitchen. “Coming right up,” His voice was tired and hoarse. I looked to Chanyeol hoping for an explanation.

“He twisted his hip pretty badly and the medicine to numb the pain makes his voice sound like a dying goat,” Chanyeol answered. “You came by yourself?”

“,” Kris suddenly cursed, remembering he promised he would help Tao with the horses. “Go to go,”

As he made his way back outside we heard a series of cursing thrown at him.

“I came with Tao,” I answered unnecessarily.

Later on when Tao and Kris had handled the horses and Lay had served us his delicious chicken fried rice and spring rolls, I told them of my encounters with the assassin and two soldiers.

“How the hell did you even get yourself into this mess?” Chanyeol’s booming voice demanded.

“Well, you know how I went to the execution, three, four days ago?” I sighed. “Well, I got lost and I was searching somewhere on the upper floors. I heard shouts and screams below. As I went down, the guards were talking about all the execution viewers.”

  Suho nodded, coming to terms to what happened.

“As you weren’t there, you were a prime suspect.” Suho said. “Luhan, do you remember who else wasn’t on the list?”

I strained my memory, remembering two names-people that I know.

“You know the butcher store down from where I live?” I said, trying to remember his face. “The grumpy guy in his mid-thirties? He was one of the people not present”

“Who else?” Kris asks.

“Um, the guy who is always at the bar.” I said.

    D.O, who had just woken up and come into the room, made a face when he understood who I meant while everyone else sniggered.

“The one who gave D.O a kiss?” Lay asked, his voice still croaky.

   D.O glared at Lay. “Dude, he was drunk! And at the time, I couldn’t even function properly!”

   I told everyone to shut up.

“Anyway, they’re all the names I can remember. The other two were too complicated.” I said, and Suho gave a frustrated sigh.

“Well, there are four suspects in total.” Suho said. “And I guess we should start on those we know.”

  Tao nodded. “One of them is the real murderer of the King and Queen. But the real question is, why?”

 

 

A few hours later, night had fallen. Everyone apart from Lay and I were going to head to the pub to look for information.

      “Be careful, okay?” I said, worry in my voice.

“Don’t worry,” Kris said nonchalantly, but then his face turned serious. “It’s you that should be careful Luhan, you’re the one people are after. We’ll be back before dawn.”

  I nodded, a lump in my throat. If any of my friends die because they tried to help me, I would never forgive myself.

   Lay yawned, having fallen asleep earlier and only just woken up.

“You guys leaving?” Lay asked. “We’ll prepare dinner, won’t we Luhan?”

I groaned, but nodded. “But I’m not washing the dishes!”

   With that, Tao, Kris, Suho, Chanyeol and D.O walked out the house.

I looked towards Lay. “So… what we have to cook now?”

Lay yawned, obviously still sleepy. “They won’t be back for a while so there’s no need to rush,” He walked over and plonked down on the couch. I smiled; relieved I wouldn’t be cooking yet, and joined Lay.

We talked about random things that didn’t matter and it felt good. With all the seriousness that was taking place it was nice to make small talk.

“I feel like I haven’t heard your laughter in ages,” Lay commented.

“Yeah… it weird to thing that in less than a week I’ve somehow managed to become so targeted,”

Silence followed but it was comfortable silence. So comfortable I almost started to sleep but then I felt a hand on my face.

“Luhan… Luhan… LUHAN! Wake up!” Lay pushed my shoulders.

“Oww… why did you do that?” I asked irritated.

“We have to cook,” he reminded me. I groaned.

“But I’m not good at cooking,” I whined.

“We promised,”

“But-“

“Luhan.” With the way he said my name I knew there was no point arguing. So I got up and trenched over to the kitchen.

Lay sighed “Okay, how about I make it easy on you? You’ll make the rice and I’ll prepare everything else. That way you can go back to sleep sooner,”

“No!” I said automatically. “You’re hurt, I might not like cooking but doesn’t mean I’ll just leave you with all the hard work,”

Lay stared at me, deciding if he should believe me or not. Finally he smiled. “Okay, thanks Luhan. I knew I could count on you. But I still need you to do the rice, it’s in the shed outside on the ground if I were to bend down it might make my hip worse,” Lay explained.

“No worries, I’ll go get it. I’ll be back, okay?” I said as I moved out of the kitchen and down the hallway towards the back door. The shed was off to the left of the house so I turned that way. The bag of rice was easy to spot, I quickly grabbed it and I had just taken a step out of the shed when a kunai landed before my feet.

 

A/N: I just want to say sorry for not updating. It's not because I've forgotten about it but I've been busy with preparing for my exams.