✓ the hooded princess • kim seungmin

t w e n t y o n e

It had been five minutes since they followed the man into the woods.

Five minutes look like a short amount of time, but when you're secretly following someone with the fear of being caught, you'd never realise how far you've walked.

There was a huge gap between the two and where the man were. The woods filled with silent, and every steps matter. It's like their lives are depending on the dried leaves.

Eunkyung's blood had faintly trailed from the start. Seungmin couldn't help but to glance everyone seconds with concern about the injured hand. How would he answer later if anyone asks him? On top of that, they were supposed to be home by now and the knights might have returned too. What if they realised both the princess and him were not home yet?

Sorts of thoughts played in his mind.

He could see the man was still frantically running away as if he knew someone was behind him at the moment. Every now and then, the duo needed to hide themselves behind the huge trunks to avoid getting caught. They didn't know if the man have any guns to that could injure them from afar.

A sound of water flowing faintly greeted his ears. Seungmin stopped the princess from walking further.

She gave him a questioning look.

"It's the river, we cannot pass through." he said as low as possible while pulling her to hide behind a tree.

Eunkyung looked to her side and saw the man disappearing behind a bush of chopped trunks, being covered with leaves. Ignoring Seungmin's words, she walked to where the bush was.

At this point Seungmin thinks someone else should replace his position for not being able to do anything. All the princess does was putting herself in danger after ignoring Seungmin's command.

"Eunkyung," he grasped her wrist. "Let's stop here, okay?"

She shook her head. The bush was just a few steps away, and she needed to catch him as soon as possible.

That's what she thought. Taking another step forward, she slowly loosen Seungmin's grip on her wrist.

However, luck too was against her. Sound of a dried leaf being stepped on broke the silence. Both of them froze and looked down to Eunkyung's feet, where the dried leaf was.

Bang!!

"Hide." Seungmin immediately took her hand back and ran to the farthest huge tree they could. Eunkyung looked back to see the man peeked from behind the bush with a gun pointed towards them. Her hand fumbled with the sleeves to take out her gun but she was pulled to hide, and the gun dropped to the ground.

Another shot was heard.

The princess closed her eyes as Seungmin embraced her tightly, "Do you have anything?" he whispered.

"The gun fell." she let out a shaky breath while looking up from his chest. "Next to you."

Bang!!

"Show up!"

Eunkyung flinched as the voice roared with the bullet pass next to them. Both of them slid down and the girl discreetly peeked her head to see the man getting down from the trunk. "He's looking away."

Seungmin nodded curtly and reached for the gun. Unfortunately, it barely reached his fingertips. The sound of footsteps appearing made adrenaline rushed in both bodies. Eunkyung slightly moved to the side to let Seungmin scoot closer.

As he did, another shot was released.

"Argh!"

"Seungmin!" she loudly gasped when the bullet hit his right arm. The guy groaned as he grasped the gun and Eunkyung helped him leaning on the trunk. "Oh my, w-where is it-"