A Tiger Called Rapunzel ✓ || TaeGyu || HYBEPride 2021

The Fallout

It all happened so quickly that it left Cholong's head spinning.

The guards all jumped on Taehyun, leaving Cholong alone. They carried Taehyun away, through a door that Cholong couldn't see, and he suddenly found himself alone in the room, no Taehyun, no Soobin. Nobody had even bothered to carry him away.

Tears sprung to his eyes. He was confused. What was happening?

"Oh, there's someone still here," a voice wafted out, and there was another castle guard, a younger man with sharp eyes and a handsome smile. "Who are you?"

"I was here with Taehyun. Where did they take him?"

The man's face changed. "Are you a thief as well?"

"What? Thief? No! I'm just a girl in --" And Cholong had to pause. He wasn't a girl anymore. He had never been a girl in the first place. But Taehyun was the only person who knew. Everybody else was going to see him as a girl in men's clothes. "I'm just a girl. He invited me here."

"You poor thing. Let's get you out of here." And the guard, whose name was Jay, helped Cholong grab his knapsack and they exited the castle together. Along the way, Jay explained that both Taehyun and Soobin were among the Naeil Kingdom's most wanted, and nobody knew why they had been in the Prince's bedroom during the festival, but nothing was out of sorts so far. "We will check in the morning to see if anything was stolen, and if it was, our court system will easily sentence them to death by hanging. They have stolen millions of gold coins from the castle and from the royal family. They must pay for their crimes."

Cholong started to panic, but he panicked more when Jay spoke next. "Didn't anybody else come with you? Any other family?" And it was then that Cholong needed a plan. He knew he was going home to his mother, and he was going to get scolded for this, and he would be in trouble. And, as usual, Kai would probably receive the punishment for it. Knowing his mama, she would lock Kai in the trunk for a few days and make Cholong clean the house without him. But how would he get home? He didn't even properly know where he lived or where he could find the tower. And his mother was most definitely not at the Tiger Festival. She'd have to come to pick him up. What would happen until then?

And then he got an idea. "Wait. Do you know Mr. Seokjin? The librarian at the university in Shinkisoku? He knows me. He can get me home."

"Hmm. I bet I know how to find him." So it was that, as the crowds were leaving, each guard posted asked about Seokjin, and eventually he was found. When Seokjin saw Cholong, he stared in wonder, somehow understanding that this girl had been a boy in disguise all along. But Seokjin also knew that Taehyun and Soobin had been captured, scheduled to public execution if all went according to plan. He knew how to keep a secret.

So Seokjin let Cholong stay in the library for a night or two while they waited for Heulin's return. Every morning, the courier would come to Shinkisoku and read the morning's news; for whatever reason, the public executions of Soobin and Taehyun kept being delayed, as a jury was being formed and the jury members had to be impartial. Seokjin helped Cholong dress back in up his dresses and even did his hair in a way that would soften the blow. And when Heulin stopped in Shinkisoku on her way back to the tower, she was surprised to find her 'daughter' there.

"What happened to your hair," was her first question.

Seokjin had a story for this as well. "She tripped over it, and it then got caught in a door. We had to cut it to free her."

"Whatever. What are you doing here?"

"I wanted a book," Cholong said, in his softest, girliest voice.

"She got all the way here by herself but then couldn't know the route home, so I had her stay here with me," Seokjin said. "Other than her hair, no harm has come to her."