Taemin watched as his boys pulled off their biggest heist yet. He never considered the fact that he was the youngest and he was the one leading the crew, but he was their leader because he brought them together. He stood atop the buildings watching as they grabbed the diamonds from the antique shop. He loved watching his crew work, and nothing they ever did got them caught. Until now.

    They had the diamonds and they were making their escape, but Jonghyun, Taemin’s right hand man, tripped the silent alarm. Within minutes the police surrounded Taemin’s boys and arrested them. He could do nothing but watch as they were loaded into the police cars. On the rooftops he was useless. Or was he?

    It only took him a couple of seconds to formulate a plan to get the boys out of custody. He raced across the tiled rooftops as he pulled out his phone to hack into the traffic lights. He turned the stoplights to red as the police cars approached a fourway. He slid down a pipe and ran to the car. In the cover of night, it was easy to slip up to the car undetected. He opened the door to find two of his boys in the backseat. He unlocked Jonghyun’s cuffs and sent him to help the other boy  in the rear car. He unlocked Onew’s cuffs and quietly got him out of the car. The four of them scampered to a nearby alley and watched as the police drove away unaware that they had just lost their catch.

    “Dammit!” Jonghyun exclaimed. “If I hadn’t tripped the silent alarm we would have gotten away with ten million dollars in uncut diamonds. I’m sorry guys.”

    Taemin chuckled, “Don’t be sorry,” he said holding up a black bag. The black against his face made his angular and elvin-like features stand out.

    Jonghyun’s eyes widened, “How did you--?”

    Taemin smiled, “I snatched it from the trunk right before I picked your cuffs.”

    Jonghyun’s smile grew as he listened, “Taemin, you cheeky little .”

    The taller boy laughed, but stopped quickly when he heard sirens, “They figured out that you’re gone. We need to go.” He led them to a pipe that led up to a roof. The other three followed as he led them back to their hideout in a nearby warehouse.

    “Good job gents!” he exclaimed setting the bag down on the unstable counter. The uneven legs wobbled with even the slightest touch. The small lamp on the far table cast a dim glow on the sparsely decorated room. “Once I find us a fence to sell these diamonds, we can buy ourselves a mansion!” He seemed to be the only one that was ecstatic about their feat. Even though he was a teenager, he still had the heart of a child. He noticed their long faces and asked why they weren’t more excited.

    Jonghyun, who was a few years older than Taemin, rested a hand on his shoulder, “Taemin, we can’t do this anymore.”

    The boy’s face fell.

    Jonghyun continued, “Onew and I are old enough to be tried as adults, and Minho isn’t far behind. We can do hard time now. We don’t want to go to prison for the rest of our lives, Taemin.”

    The boy put on another innocent smile, “It’s okay we won’t get caught.”

    “But we did Taemin, we got caught tonight. Sure, we got away this time, but next time we may not be so lucky.”

    He looked around to the rest of his friends, “Do you all feel this way?”

    Minho and Onew nodded sheepishly.

    Taemin felt tears prick his eyes, “Fine then!” he shouted. “You guys will just be fine without me. I’ll do the jobs on my own!” He ran out of the warehouse and down the street, much to the protests of his crew.

    He ran for what felt like hours before he finally gathered himself. He saw that he was standing in a small alley off of one of the less traveled streets. He wasn’t sure how he would get back so he climbed up onto the nearest roof and looked for the church spire that sat next to the warehouse.

    He had spotted it and began walking toward the warehouse, but he didn’t get far before he saw a sparkling light to his right. Curious, he approached it.

    As he neared the light, it began to take shape. “No way!” he exclaimed as the light’s shape became more definite. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing, but here it was. Before him was no other than a fairy.

    When he got closer to the fairy, he noticed that her wings gave off a slight tinkling sound as they beat back and forth. “Hey little tinkling fairy. You sound like a tiny bell.”  He reached out to touch the fairy, but she skirted him, her wings sounding louder. He moved to touch her again, and he succeeded, but as soon as he drew his hand away, his fingertips became numb. He felt the numbness grow and grow until it covered his whole body. Unable to feel himself standing, he fell.

He felt himself fall and he waited for the impact, but it never came. He looked down at his torso to see that the fairy had caught him. She had hold of his shirt, and though she had managed to slow his fall, she wasn’t strong enough to keep him in the air. Taemin’s head hit the ground with enough force to knock him unconscious.

~

When he awoke, it was dark. He felt a soft warmth surrounding him. He opened his eyes wider and found the faintest of glows coming from a dark corner. He sat up and realized that he was draped in furs. He threw them off and stood, only to sway as dizziness overcame him. He looked around and found himself in a conical tent. “If I didn’t know any better, I would say that this was a teepee,” he said to himself. He paused as the events of the past night came back to him. He began to look around for the fairy that had obviously been the one to bring him here, but she was nowhere to be found. He exited the tent carefully, but he did not expect to be met with an entire native american tribe staring at him.

They appeared to be normal, but after looking into the eyes of the children he knew that this was no ordinary tribe. He approached them carefully making sure not to move suddenly, “Where am I?”

A younger boy, about Taemin’s age, moved to the front of the group, “You were knocked unconscious, and the tree spirit that found you, brought you here. Since the fairies can’t speak, we don’t know why she brought you, only that you’re from the other world.”

“Other world?” he asked. He ran his fingers through his brown hair in disbelief. He looked into the trees noticing that the tribe had set up on the edge of a cliff. He took a deep breath, “So what world is this?”

    The boy walked up beside him, “This?” he asked, stretching his hand out toward the ocean, “This is Neverland.”