“If you were hungry, you could have told me and I would have packed us an afternoon snack,” D.O. grumbled, crossing his arms indignantly as the other three munched on grease and fat.

“Aw, don’t be like that,” Kai cooed, grinning as he leaned over D.O. to wave his burger in his face. “We didn’t want to burden you.”

“So you insult me instead?” D.O. snapped, glaring at him.

Kai frowned, sinking back in his seat.

“I didn’t think you guys would have McDonalds here,” Tao admitted, popping a fry into his mouth.

“Of course we do. McDonalds are everywhere,” Kris deadpanned, and Tao stuck his tongue out at him when the other wasn’t looking.

“So I was thinking we could take a shortcut,” Kai started with a mouth full of fries. D.O. smacked his back in annoyance – admittedly probably harder than the situation called for – causing Kai to cough out the fries.

“Ew,” Tao said, scrunching his nose. “I think I just lost my appetite.”

Kris continued chewing. “I’ve seen worse.”

“Anyway, as I was saying,” Kai continued, wiping his mouth. Tao expect him to be angry at D.O., but Kai acted completely nonchalant about the entire thing. “I was talking to Grandfather Suho, who told me he knows a friend, who has an uncle, who has a nephew, who –”

“Wait, if he had an uncle who had a nephew, wouldn’t that just be the friend’s cousin?” Tao interrupted.

Kai sent a glare at him, and continued as if Tao never interrupted. “Who knew a bookkeeper, who is distantly related to Lay, who has a friend who went on an adventure –”

“And you could’ve totally shortened that to just saying ‘Lay’s friend.’”

“I swear if you interrupt me one more time, I’m going to –”

“He has a point, Jongin,” D.O. commented, and that shut Kai up.

“Wait, your name is Jongin?” Tao asked, confused.

“It’s his birth given name,” D.O. replied, ignoring the flush across the tan boy’s face.

“Why don’t we call him that then?”

“If you haven’t noticed,” Kris replied, finally taking part in this conversation (he seemed to be out of food at that moment), “None of us go by our real names except the King and Queen. We typically get new names when we start school to go by.”

Tao blinked. “You mean your name isn’t really Kris?”

“Nope.”

“Then what is it?”

Kris just stared blankly at him before reaching over and grabbing his cup. “I’m getting a refill,” he muttered, standing up.

Tao huffed, watching as he left. “What is it?” Tao asked again, turning to D.O.

“We don’t know,” D.O. admitted. “Birth given names aren’t shared too often.”

“Then how do you know Kai’s?”

“We grew up together. I knew him before he was even called Kai,” D.O. replied, and Tao noticed that fond smile growing on his lips. Kai glanced over shyly from the side.

“So why do you guys have fake names?”

“The King thinks it’s fun,” Kai answered this time with a snort. “Kind of like playing pretend but forever. The only reason he and Baek– the Queen don’t have them is because they’re technically already called King and Queen as if that’s their nicknames.”

“You mean they’ve been together for that long?” Tao asked, so wide-eyed it almost rivaled D.O.’s classic look.

Kai bust up laughing while D.O. snickered behind his hand. Tao felt like his question must have been really stupid when Kai sobered up and replied, straight-faced. “Yes.”

“But how?”

“Well, Chanyeol became King really young, and he knew he’d need a Queen. So he went out on a quest for one –”

“Didn’t make it past the palace walls so I don’t know if that can still count as a quest,” D.O. added.

“And he met Baekhyun during it. He’s a son of one of the nobles, so he was playing in the garden with a couple of the girls. They were playing dress-up, and Baekhyun...” Kai and D.O. shared a look. “Baekhyun’s pretty, I guess.”

“And a cross-dresser,” Kris commented as he returned, sipping on his soda.

“What.”

“Yep,” Kai affirmed. “He wore dresses and everything.”

“I guess, in his defense, all the other nobles’ children his age were females,” D.O. offered.

“And so Chanyeol fell in love with him, found out he’s a guy, married him anyway,” Kris finished.

“How old were they again?”

“I don’t know, twelve?”

Tao’s eyes bulged.

“They didn’t really get married,” D.O. admitted. “But they had candy rings and they made it known that they planned to when they were older.”

“Oh.” It was still pretty weird to Tao, though – but then again, wasn’t everything in this world?

“Now that story time is over, can we get going? We were supposed to reach the Fields of Candy Corn by nightfall, but I don’t think that’ll happen anymore,” he said, glancing at his watch.

“Well that’s what I was trying to say before I got interrupted!” Kai exclaimed a little too loudly than necessary, causing D.O. to send him a chastising look. “There’s a shortcut that will speed up today by 47%.”

“Why forty-seven?”

“Why are you so annoying?” Kai snapped.

Kris narrowed his eyebrows at him. “Don’t snap at Tao. He’s a human, he doesn’t know better.”

“Hey!”

“Anyway, go on,” Kris said.

“Right, so there’s a shortcut that’ll get us past the Field of Candy Corn by nightfall today.”

“Is this because you’re afraid of candy corn –”

“I’m not afraid of candy corn!” Kai growled, then sunk back a little at the look D.O. gave him. “I’m not,” he repeated with a small pout on his lips. “I just think they’re unnatural.”

Tao wanted to say, And the palace isn’t? but refrained because Kai seemed to be a bit crazy at the moment; he was almost at Chanyeol’s level actually, which was pretty crazy.

“Okay, so what’s this shortcut?” Kris asked impatiently.

Kai hesitated before slowly replying, “We go through the Forest of Koalas.”

: :

“I hate the Forest of Koalas,” Kris growled under his breath as they entered. Kai was riding in the back now, hiding behind D.O. in case Kris snapped.

“What’s so bad about this place?” Tao asked, looking around. It looked pretty normal. Well, as normal as this world could be.

“You’ll see,” Kris muttered. “Let’s just fly over this place as fast as we can before –”

Tao waited for Kris to continue, but when he didn’t, Tao glanced over and realized Kris was nowhere in sight. He looked behind and saw that Kai and D.O. were both gone too. Frantic, he began calling for them, and his questions were answered when he heard yelling from below.

“Tao!” Kris boomed. And there he was, on the floor, being attacked.

Wait, being attacked?!

Tao immediately swooped in without thinking twice. Upon closer look, he saw what was attacking them. Was that...

“STAY BACK YOU HIDEOUS CREATURE,” Kai yelled, brandishing his sword (which was much bigger than should have been actually useful) as he stood bravely in front of a cowering D.O.

The bear-slash-goat-slash-horse-slash-falcon-slash-thing screeched at Kai, and Tao couldn’t help it – he screamed. Which was beyond stupid, because whatever that was – let’s just call it a ‘hideous creature’ for now like Kai did – turned its complete attention to Tao now.

And started to charge.

Tao only registered Kris yelling, “RUN!”, before he out.

ainy: feel free to hate me because I was responsible for this chapter ;_; sorry, so very sorry! we're going to try be more speedier with things now :D