sandbox | dotae

XI

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The week went by quickly, constant packing, planning, and meetings. Everything was going at the speed of light and everyone was beyond tired. If they weren’t thorough enough, they were going to for sure get caught by the palace guards. They had to find ways to get in contact with Johnny to make sure that they don’t cross paths; thankfully Johnny did send a map showing where they were planning to go ahead of time. 

While running around and going back and forth with their planning, everyone is finally finding hope as the week goes on. Although the pace that everything was going at was stressful, everyone had so much hope for the future and a good gut feeling that made everything a little less stressful. The thing that made the prince not stressed, however, was not the same as everyone else. 

Yes, it is true that the prince felt hope with finding a new home. He would obviously miss the little fairy-tale of a home they are living in now, but he wanted to be able to go out and enjoy the village and the people within the village. The thing, or someone for that matter, that was keeping his nerves down the past week was Doyoung. He has an unexplainable amount of comfort that he gets from the male. 

The late night talks were more heart-to-heart. Taeyong got to hear of Doyoung’s mom passing away at the age of seven, when the sandbox incident happened, and Doyoung heard of Taeyong’s fun aunt whom he hasn’t seen since the day he was sent to the castle. They would face each other as they laid in bed and talked. They would look at each other's eyes and smile. Every moment would make their hearts beat and feel as if they would pop out of their chest, but neither talked of their feelings with the other. Even so, they are happy with the relationship they have now. 

Today is the day that they will be leaving for the new house. It may be a far trip, but nobody minds. Getting to safety is the most important thing for all of them right now. Doyoung and Taeyong are more in like with each other than ever before, so the trip will be an interesting one. It showed, and everyone knew it, but no one knew why they weren’t pursuing it.

After gathering all of their bags—which is like one each, since they haven’t gone to the village they also haven’t collected more clothes or belongings—Jisung, Chenle, Jeno, Jaemin, Doyoung, and Taeyong head out of their fairy-tale garden and into the cottage where they see Renjun and Yangyang happily waiting for the four of them. As they walk into the living room, they see the others and exchange smiles before going through the plan one more time. 

“So,” Yuta finishes going through the plans one more time. “Remember, even if someone sees us, they cannot know we are traveling with Taeyong. You see someone, you hide Taeyong. Does everyone remember whose job it is?” They all nod and turn to Jaemin.

“I run and hide Taeyong,” Jaemin says, pronouncing every word in slight aegyo for some odd reason that Jeno just happens to think is adorable. “I swiftly tell Doyoung where he is, I then distract the guard whose eyes are going to be glued on Doyoung and he then runs to Taeyong. Me and Jeno continue to distract and Chenle and Jisung pretend like they don’t see the guard and say something about the cottage we were at and dumping Taeyong in the river. If they explore the river, they will find Taeyong’s clothes and head to the village. The only thing we need to worry about is the guards who are going to try to imprison us.”

Everyone nods at Jaemin’s long explanation. The plan was made and contributed by everyone, but Taeyong still didn’t like the thought of the youngest of them all being in the most danger. When the idea was first brought up by the group of the youngest seven, the prince refused profusely. Jaemin and Jeno were the ones who talked to Taeyong about them being good at deception and escaping, which really didn’t make the prince feel any better about their situation, but they insisted. Jeno and Jaemin both were very good at getting away with certain things, even when it came to Jeno’s dad. Do you really think that they would’ve just got away as they did without talking to Doyoung’s father? Jeno led that man in so many directions and lost him in so much misinformation, he is trying to get help from the palace to find his lost sons. In the end, Taeyong did end up agreeing to the plan. 

When they left the cottage, they were instantly met with many eyes as they walked through the village. Everyone had their faces covered except for Yangyang and Renjun who were walking down a different street looking like the happy newlyweds the village sees them as. People would obviously go up to the happy couple and ask what they were buying food for and why they had bags, the two just said that they were finally going on their long awaited honeymoon. The village people believed them; because why wouldn’t they? They were known in the village and nothing suspicious ever came of them. 

The others walked like it was a normal day, even with their faces hidden. Jaemin and Jeno, on the other hand, didn’t cover their faces either. It was part of the plan. Taeyong was wearing one of Doyoung’s jacket and his face was covered with a mask, the last thing anyone would think is that he is the prince, he looked like one of them. Overall, the plan was that if they were to run into a palace guard, when they arrived in the village the guards would ask if they had seen Jeno or Jaemin, either by showing them a drawn picture or describing them. Obviously, the village people would say yes. 

It doesn’t matter if the villagers saw where they went, because the guards saw them too, did they not? The villagers don’t technically know where the group came from, they entered the village from different directions and only Yangyang and Renjun entered from the way of their cute little cottage. The guards will probably ask and maybe even raid Yangyang and Renjun’s home, but they are heading to a new one, so nothing at that point will matter. Yes, they thought all of this through. The deceptions they will be making, the faces that will be showing, the suspicious behavior they will specifically show in specific places compared to other ones. They want every inconvenience they run into to have a plan. 

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𝕒𝕠𝟛:
ℕ𝕔𝕥𝕫𝕖𝕟𝔾𝕣𝕒𝕤𝕤