In the Middle of the Night [BANG CHAN FF] ✔️

37. Start of a journey

The group on their horses stopped when they officially exited the capital.

"Alright, what now?" Han asked, looking up at the clear sky, "It's going to be hot today after yesterday's storm, so we need a plan."

A few moments of silence were up before Changbin spoke up first, "I know!" and everyone turned to him, "Let's go visit our families, stock up on food and water, and continue to the west shore where Chan is. That's the only place he'll be, waiting for the ship to the jail island."

Everyone silenced again, thinking about his idea.

"That seems nice," Minho said, "But, we'll lose a lot of time..."

"No, we won't," Jeongin added, "The ship that transports prisoners sails only once a week - on Saturdays - and we still have four days left."

"And the best way to speed things up is catching a train," Seungmin said, nodding, "We can store our horses in the cart that transports animals and travel from place to place, informing our families about the situation as well."

They all dismounted their horses, letting them eat grass on the field as they went over the plan, calculating the time they had with the distance of each of their hometowns. Minho drew a rough map on a piece of paper as others gave ideas.

"Okay, so this is the plan..." Hyunjin took the paper, reviewing the route, "Since it only takes us an hour by horse, we'll go to Han and Minho's hometown first. We'll take the necessities and move right away to Changbin's home. It'll take us another two hours on the road to get there. From there, we'll catch a night train and arrive at Seungmin's town in the morning. Again, we won't stay long and we'll take another train to Jeongin's and my hometown, as it's the furthest. We then need to board another train that will get us straight to the west coast where Chan is. It's better like that than riding horses straight to the coast," he talked and everyone nodded, listening closely, "If everything goes smooth by this plan, we'll rescue Chan in less than three days."

"But, we have to be prepared if it doesn't go by the plan..." Felix said. His home was overseas, just like Chan's, so they didn't have to stop by his house, but he still had to consider the "what if" situations, "The king wasn't happy about this and he'll surely do anything to stop us."

"Even after receiving a backlash from the commander?" Changbin asked.

"Even after that..." Felix answered, "Yona, your father won't give up easily, right?" he asked the girl, everyone looking up at her.

Yona nodded, "You're right..." and continued telling the seven young men about everything that happened, on the vacation and once they arrived at the castle, as well as the event in her room from that morning. The boys were shocked and angered, getting furious at the number of times the king slapped his own daughter, as well as how strong he punched Chan.

"If only I knew what he did... I'd kill him right there in front of the dorm!" Changbin raged, hitting the tree trunk under which they stood.

"But the fact that he wanted you to marry the king who commanded his soldiers to kill us... Does he even have an idea how hard it was on the battlefield?!" Hyunjin was beyond angry.

"Alright, what happened has happened," Minho clapped, trying to calm everyone, "We have to be cautious, that's for sure. And we can't disobey the commander's order - we have to protect the princess at all cost," he looked at his friends and they all nodded, agreeing to his words.

"Let's see how much money we have," Felix suggested, "We have to be careful of the robbers, as well."

They all gathered their coins and agreed that Minho, the oldest in the group, carries it all with him as it was a better option than scattering the money among themselves. After a short break and Changbin sharing the bagels he took from the dorm kitchen, the group started moving again and towards their first destination - Han and Minho's hometown.