Tyranny

Chapter-5: Truce

Seungmin was rethinking all of his life choices he'd made up until then, when during his misery a voice inside his head made him realise, no, made him put blame to I.N.

The reason they were searched for, and lost their homes, was because of I.N. The reason they were being caught in some dungeon in the middle of nowhere (which readers know as the castle, but since they were blindfolded, and because there are no windows in the dungeon, they didn't know their whereabouts) was because of I.N.

Thinking of these he acted out of pure rage and hate, and went charging at I.N out of nowhere. He grabbed his collar and started to punch him with nothing but anger.

"This! This is all because of you! If you had just used your teeny tiny brain a little you would have known not to trust those bastards! But no!”, he dragged on the no, laughing menacingly. “You just never had brains did you?! Why else would you call some other people and not come at us yourself you useless piece of-"

"Seungmin enough! Get off of him!"

The other two tried to desperately separate the youngers, when they did Minho was holding Seungmin back whilst Felix was just kind of stooping down beside I.N since they weren't all that close, and Felix had also put some kind of blame towards I.N.

Seungmin's eyes were, anger turned to sadness as he cried, sniffing every now and then.

"We-  we lost our home because of you! We were living just fine! Now we lost everything.. all because of you!"

Seungmin was struggling to breathe now, and he was weakened. Minho pulled him into his arms, giving him a warm hug despite the cold air. 

I.N knew what he did. He knew he destroyed them. But why didn't this give him satisfaction? Why was he feeling sorry for them, his rivals? Why was he starting to regret what he did? When he looked at Seungmin, hopelessly crying into Minho's chest, his heart ached. Questions filled his mind, and he knew what he needed to do, even though his pride would hurt and it would be difficult, and although he knew it would be of no use, he decided on apologizing.

"I'm sorry...", he muttered, quietly but enough for the rest to hear.

They all looked at I.N, shocked. Felix first doubted him, because he lied to them before, and he wasn't going to trust easily. Although when he looked at the boy's face, filled with tears and regret, he knew he was sincere.

I.N wiped his tear-filled face with his arm, pouting a bit.

He took their silence as a signal to continue.

"I'm sorry I destroyed your home by telling the soldiers where you live in. Sorry I kidnapped you to give you to the soldiers. I just thought that.. if I eliminated you, my rivals, I would finally be on top." He scoffed at his idiocy once he thought back.

"I took the wrong way to success.. and now I'm stuck with you all on the way. I know you won't forgive me and I just wanted to put it out there. If you are going to mock me or punch me, you have my permission. I deserve it anyway. If you don't want to though, then nevermind."

They were all silent, as I.N hung his head down. The cats glanced at each other, communicating with their eyes while Seungmin was in deep thought.

He chose to think with a clear mind now, because acting out of pure spite and anger won't help their situation, and he knew that.

"I don't accept your apology", he said, catching the others' attention.

I.N laughed dryly, and tried to say something but was interrupted by Seungmin continuing.

"But I don't hate you either. That doesn't mean I trust you. We'll have to work together to get out of here somehow, so even just until then, we're allies. Understood?"

Minho smiled like a proud father, and ruffled Seungmin's hair. He really had grown up, and this was proof.

Felix also smiled at Seungmin, proud of his friend's rational thinking. This was why he still tried to match up to him, a small part of him admiring him, but he would never tell him that.

Seungmin got up and went to I.N, holding out his hand.

"So.. deal?"

I.N looked at the hand in front of him, thinking for a while. But really, what was there to think about? This was really the best choice in their situation, unless he wanted to die by himself.

He took the hand offered, and shook it.

"Deal."

They all smiled at each other, but they were then rudely interrupted by the door of the staircase opening.

The soldier who opened the door smirked when he saw Seungmin and I.N shaking hands.

"You know, forming an alliance or something isn't going to help you get out of here."

Seungmin frowned at the guard, the others glaring at him too.

"Bastard! Why are you doing this? Where are we? Answer me!", Minho said through gritted teeth,slamming on the bars.

The soldier laughed, putting his arms up.

"Easy with the questions, snake. Don't worry, I'll answer all of them."

Sceptical about him still, they silently allowed him to continue.

"So, to first answer your question, you have been selected as the next jesters since no other jester is in the kingdom. Thieves do not leave as much reaction as compared to normal folks men and hence we chose you."

They were, once again, shocked. This time in a way their souls would leave their body in a cartoon manner. I.N looked like his eyes would bulge out at any moment, Minho and Felix's mouths could hold any big bread, and Seungmin looked like an innocent puppy,with his eyebrows furrowed.

The soldier nodded his head awkwardly a few times, slapping his own thigh.

"Uh yeah I'll give you time to uh process that. Pretty much a lot to take in, really."

The boys' minds were in some kind of corn maze. What did they just hear? Selected to be the king's jesters?? It was well known in the kingdom that selected jesters didn't come back anymore, making the jesters move out of the kingdom secretly. It was rumoured that they were killed when they weren't able to make the king laugh or amuse him. Minho and Seungmin thought back to their parents, and now they were in the same position. What on earth? Was it in their blood to amuse the king or something? To just disappear out of the world just like that? Everything was a mess.

Seungmin finally asked after a short while of silence.

"So..we're in the castle, to..  to act as ...jesters for the king?".

The soldier nodded his head, and still, words were stuck in their throats.

But if you thought about it, thieves really were the best option if jesters weren't in the kingdom anymore. No one would care if they disappeared, and as a plus, they were the best thieves, the people annoying the kingdom the most. People would even be happy about their disappearance.

"I'm sorry we had to do this, however it was his orders, and we didn't want the people to freak out about him randomly selecting people.", the soldier apologized, and scratched his nape.

"You can call me Jackson.", he smiled.

After a moment of silence, Felix smiled back at Jackson.

"Alright...Jackson"

𝔱𝔬 𝔟𝔢 𝔠𝔬𝔫𝔱𝔦𝔫𝔲𝔢𝔡. . .

𝑁𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑑𝑒𝑐𝑖𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢'𝑟𝑒 𝑐𝑙𝑜𝑢𝑑𝑒𝑑 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒𝑟, 𝑛𝑜𝑟 𝑠𝑎𝑑𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠, 𝑛𝑜𝑟 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢'𝑟𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑦. 𝐸𝑚𝑜𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑜𝑓𝑡𝑒𝑛 𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑏 𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔. 𝐴𝑙𝑤𝑎𝑦𝑠 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑎 𝑐𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑟 ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑑 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑘 𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦 𝑡𝑜 𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑎 𝑔𝑜𝑜𝑑 𝑑𝑒𝑐𝑖𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛.

Mythical creatures are awesome. I can't believe Seo Changbin, someone out of this world descended today.