“We have to leave, Yangyang,” Chen Le said in their native tongue, pulling his friend’s arm away from the alley where they usually slept. “People are going to find out about us soon.”

“But-but I like it here,” Yangyang argued, trying to get out of Chen Le’s grasp. “I don’t want to leave.”

“If we stay, we are most likely going to be beheaded,” Chen Le harshly whispered to him. “They’re going to blame us, this is why I told you we shouldn’t have gone inside the palace.”

“But Prince Jisung, though.” Yangyang let go of Chen Le and crossed his arms. “You don’t even care about the royal family and you got to talk to him.”

“Only because you fainted, idiot!” Chen Le shouted. He pointed across the bustling road, where there were masses of people. “Do you see that cart there? We should get on it.”

“Why that one, though?” Yangyang asked, nervous. “I don’t want to leave-”

“I heard people saying that one is going to the countryside, now let’s go.” Chen Le grabbed Yangyang’s arm again and pulled him forward, thankful that no one paying attention to them as they were merely two more peasants.

When they reached the cart, there was a young teen sitting at the front wrapped in a blanket turned away from them. They didn’t see anyone else nearby. “Okay, you go in first,” Chen Le said, lifting up the tarp and pushing Yangyang. “Go.”

“What if we get caught?” Yangyang asked. “I don’t want-”

“Why didn’t you ask yourself that when we trespassed you-know-what, now get in!!”

***

“I hope you guys stay safe,” Doyoung told Johnny, handing him a sack of flour for the Seo brothers to take on their trip. “I’m going to miss seeing Donghyuck-”

“Yeah, we’re gonna go by different names there, so…” Johnny made the zipping up his lips motion. “I’m Youngho from now on.”

“Well, that’s stupid, but okay I guess. Tell your brother Haechan that I’m going to miss him.” Doyoung pointed at Donghyuck, who was sitting at the front of the cart, wrapped in a blanket. “He owes me aegyo.”

“Of course he does, yo, Haechan!” Johnny yelled. Donghyuck didn’t pay him any attention though. “He’s not used to it, never mind.”

“Youngho is a stupid fake name to go by, but go off I guess.” Doyoung walked to the front of the cart, waving his hand in front of Donghyuck. “Hey, you still owe me my aegyo.”

Donghyuck rolled his eyes. “I don’t like aegyo.”

Johnny lifted the tarp and put the sack of flour near the ending, not even looking underneath it. It was getting bumpy, not to mention they had a dead body in there. “We’ll be back as soon as possible.”

“Yeah, yeah, just don’t die,” Doyoung reminded him. It was disappointing that Johnny still needed reminders like this. “I’ll let your “friend” Ten know where you’re going-”

“Why is he emphasizing the friend part?” Donghyuck asked Johnny, who pulled himself up to sit next to Donghyuck.

“At least I’m not in love with some bakery boy,” Johnny said, rolling his eyes while grabbing the reins from the horse. 

Doyoung’s face turned red. “I’m not in love with him.”

“Sure you aren’t.” Johnny gave Doyoung a farewell salute. “See you later bud.”
 

***

The trip to the countryside was a pretty exhausting one.

Xiaojun lived near the borders between the Kingdom of Korea and the Kingdom of China, which was a good four hour trip from Neo City. A lot of Koreans and Chinese citizens mingled with each other there, so Johnny would have no problem giving them fake identities in order to not track him and Donghyuck down. 

Donghyuck fell asleep merely around twenty minutes into the trip, his head lying on Johnny’s shoulder while snoring softly. They had exhausted themselves packing as much stuff as they could, even though this was supposed to be a temporary visit. At least Johnny’s boss didn’t care, claiming they were too worried with the state of the royal family to care about their workers. Rude, but what could you do?

At least he wasn’t getting fired. He did feel bad for the people who passed away, and got tense at the thought that Donghyuck could have easily been the sixth person. 

Not to mention they had a dead body in the back of the cart, but anyways! No time to worry about that now.

To be honest, Johnny had no idea what he was supposed to do with the body. His plan was to ask Xiaojun questions about the corpse, but after that, how was he supposed to get rid of it? Surely Xiaojun wasn’t going to be fond of the idea of Johnny, an old classmate, showing up with the body of someone who tried to kill his younger brother. Anyone who was half-sane would think that. 

The trip was long, but thankful it was coming to an end, as Johnny saw the sign signalling the entrance to the small town. Donghyuck was still fast asleep, not waking up once during the trip, despite all the bumpy roads. Usually he was a light sleeper, so this was amazing Johnny. 

Johnny reigned their horse to take them in front of the building that looked like the main town hall, so he now had to wake Donghyuck up to make sure no one stole from them. “Haechan,” he said, using their fake names for the trip. “Haechan, wake up.”

He shook his brother’s shoulder softly, not wanting to startle the younger awake. Finally, though, Donghyuck yawned, stretching his arms as he accidentally elbowed Johnny in the face, causing him to fall off the cart. 

Donghyuck was still half asleep, so he didn’t see Johnny fall as his eyes were still closed. When he finally opened them, he looked around, confused as to where Johnny could have been. “Jo-I mean, Youngho?”

“Here.” He heard a faint voice come from the ground. “I was waking you up to let you know we’re here.”

“Already?” Donghyuck took off his blanket and stood up, stretching his legs. “That was quick.”

Johnny got up from the ground slowly, hand on his hip as he heard a joint crack. “Damn, I really am old.”

“You’re like, two years older.” Donghyuck jumped off the cart onto the ground, admiring the town. It was really small, with all the buildings spread out, definitely not like Neo City. Lots of grass and trees everywhere. “This place looks really funky.”

“Well, you like exploring, so it’s a plus for you- ay!” He pointed at Donghyuck, who was moving away from the cart. “You stay here. I have to find out where Xiaojun is, plus where we can a room.”

“Roger that,” Donghyuck said, making the hand gesture. “I’ll take care of… uh, Jo- I mean Youngho, he needs a name.”

“Call him Mark or whatever, I don’t care.” Johnny grabbed his bag filled with some documents and walked towards the entrance of the town hall. “I’ll be back, don’t let go of the knife.

Donghyuck climbed back onto the cart, pouting even though he knew Johnny couldn’t see him anymore. Blame it on Johnny to always do the fun stuff. 

There weren’t a lot of people on the street, but they were all giving Donghyuck a dirty look. Was it because he and Johnny spoke in Korean? His older brother said something about a lot of Chinese living here. Maybe they just acted like this with newcomers? Hopefully this wasn’t a town where everyone knew each other. 

He turned around to stare at the back of the cart, hoping no one would come by and steal anything, when to his surprise, the tarp started moving. 

Oh god, did… did that assassin come back alive?? Is it going to try to kill him again?? Why did it choose the exact moment when Johnny was gone to wake up??

Donghyuck grabbed the knife that Johnny had left on the seat and got off the cart, gripping it tightly. Who cares if the townspeople were now looking at him as if he were mad, he wasn’t going to risk his life to look good if front of these boomers. 

On the count of three, he lifted the tarp and his eyes widened when he saw two completely unfamiliar boys lying down in silence, eyes opened as they stared at him. 

He screamed, dropping the knife as he fell back on the ground. Did the assassin just- just clone himself?!?! Into copies that didn’t look like him?!

“YOUNGHO!!!” Donghyuck shrieked, crawling away from the two intruders. “PEOPLE ARE TRYING TO KILL ME AGAIN!!”

“Woah woah woah, we’re not killing you, I swear!” The taller one jumped up, waving his hands frantically. “Please, we just needed to get out of the city- Chen Le, I told you this was a bad idea.”

“Well, excuse me from wanting to leave Neo City when we were in danger!!” The one named Chen Le shouted back at his friend. “I told you to stay still!”

Johnny came back outside and ran towards Donghyuck when he found him on the ground. “Are you okay-”

“There’s two random guys next to Mark!” Donghyuck shrieked, which is when Johnny took notice of the two new guys.

“Oh, we wouldn’t hurt your friend here-”

“Yangyang, please don’t,” Chen Le said. 

“But it’s true!! Your friend has been asleep here the whole time!” Yangyang lifted the tarp completely off, where the two Seo brothers could see “Mark”. It looked like he was breathing. “I swear we didn’t hurt him.”

Johnny picked the knife off from the ground and pointed it at Yangyang and Chen Le, the two raising their hands in defeat. “You have five seconds to tell me what you’re doing.”

“We needed to escape the city,” Chen Le explained, his hands trembling. “I swear, we were in the palace when the assassination attempt took place and we don’t want to be wrongfully accused.”

Donghyuck suddenly remembered when Johnny took him to the kitchen the other day in the palace. “You two were the boys in the kitchen hiding,” he whispered to himself. 

Johnny stared at him, confused. “Wait, what are you talking about?”

“When you took me to meet Taeil, the two were in the kitchen, they snuck in,” Donghyuck explained. “I didn’t say anything because, well-”

“We didn’t do anything bad, we swear!” Yangyang screamed. “Please don’t kill me, I want to meet Prince Hendery before I die-”

“Can you not talk about that right now?” Chen Le yelled at him. “Don’t you see we’re about to be thrown into jail?!”

“Johnny?” The four of them turned around to see a short male walk up to them, a taller man walking behind him. “Johnny, is that you?"

There went their cover. “Uh- holy , Xiaojun!”

Xiaojun walked closer to the group, smiling. “Wow, it really is you! It’s been a long time since we were classmates, right?"

Yangyang started speaking in Mandarin to Xiaojun and Donghyuck had no idea what was going on, so he dug through Johnny’s bag and pulled out a wedge of cheese and munched on it, watching the commotion. 

Xiaojun spoke back to Yangyang in Mandarin, and then to Johnny in Korean said, “they’re immigrants, it’s why they thought it was unsafe. You haven’t heard of Prince Hendery’s visit to the palace, right?”

“Yeah, no, I don’t really follow news that much,” Johnny admitted. “But no, I don’t particularly care about the royal family, I’m more worried about Haechan here getting hurt- hey why are you eating my brie cheese?!” he yelled at Donghyuck when he saw what he was doing.

Donghyuck shrugged, taking another bite. “I’m hungry.”

“Oh, you guys can come over and stay at my place, it’s just me and- oh, I haven’t introduced you!” Xiaojun grabbed the arm of the guy who was standing behind him, silent the entire time. “This is Kun, he’s staying with me.”

“Uh… hey…” Kun said, eyes darting back and forth from Xiaojun and the others. 

“We don’t want to overstay our welcome,” Johnny tried to deny their offer. “Really, we only came to stay for a few days and to ask you some questions-”

“I really don’t mind, there’s a lot of empty room in my house, come on, I insist.”

“Johnny, just accept the offer, please, I want to take a nap,” Donghyuck said, taking the last bite of the cheese. “Sorry, Xiaojun, my brother is just a dimwit-”

“I am not a dimwit-”
 

“Man, my head hurts.” They all looked back on the cart where Yangyang and Chen Le were still standing, where the assassin had sat up, rubbing the back of his head. “How long have I been out-”

Without hesitation, Johnny grabbed the frying pan on the cart and slammed the assassin’s head again.