Patience is the key to success. Everything will eventually work out in the end. Rushing things will only make matters worse. That was my life motto. At least one of them. That is what I came to conclude today.
For instance, women. Marvelous creatures if dealt with with care and patience. But just one mistake or a slip of the tongue and you could open the gates to damnation. Therefore, going back to our topic, nothing good came out of being overly hasty. As a matter of fact, everything could come to an end.
"MOTHEEEEER! I'm too young and handsome to die," I pleaded as my hands held onto the quivering wall. The only thing separating us from plummeting to the ground a hundred or so feet below us was one clumsy step.
"Shut your yap already! Then maybe this mountain would stop shaking too hard!" Taehyung, who had the audacity to blame our near death on me, snarled.
I was speechless. "Oh! Oh, really?! You blasted fool!" My outburst was making my grip weaker but I couldn't handle his arrogance a second longer. To hell with us dying. "If you hadn't thrown yourself over these rocks trying to get up the mountain faster and instead followed the damned paved pathway like I originally suggested, maybe we wouldn't be stranded up here holding on to crumbling dust for dear life!"
"I'm not wasting a second until I get into that cave up there and save Lara," he argued.
"Brilliant. Yes. Like us dying on the way there could save her any faster."
After our outburst, we grew too tired to argue anymore and the bright sun above our heads didn't make it any easier. We were so close to the cave Lara could be held hostage in, but we couldn't move an inch closer. We had already exerted most of our energy climbing up this ridiculously high mountain and we couldn't afford to make one more clumsy mistake. God only knew what awaited us up there. Thankfully, after our knees began to grow weak from the long wait, the heavens took pity on us and the quivering of the rocks ceased.
You would think the fool would have learned from his mistake, but just as soon as I uttered the words "I think it stopped moving--," he skipped onto the nearest stable footing and raced ten steps ahead of me. By the time I had managed to catch up and the cave was in full view, he had already disappeared.
Starting to panic, I lost my footing and stumbled a couple of steps forward but my hands held onto a solid wall just in time, saving me an ungraceful fall on all four. When I looked up, I could recognize Taehyung's back in the dim lighting of the cave. He had also managed to acquire a sword and it was currently resting on the side of a man's neck.
Good God, the man was fast.
In front of Taehyung stood a man with his back to him. It wasn't long before I recognized said man as Namjoon, the prince, and our kidnapper. And they both stood before a metallic cage that held the pale-as-a-sheet Lara.
The pitiful, gaunt look on her face twisted my guts with rising rage. Despite knowing close to absolutely nothing about what was going on and why Lara was kidnapped in the first place, I couldn't help feeling disgusted at the extents one would go for because of their selfish needs. Her tear-smeared, flushed face proved that she had been crying for longer than a lady should. And by her smudged and tattered dress, it was evident that she hadn't been treated kindly either.
"I'll give you to the count of three to get her out," Taehyung seethed as Namjoon stood motionless.
"I would advise you to be quick," I added as I walked towards them.
"One."
Namjoon's hand finally came to life and reached for his back pocket to pull out a single, rusty key. But once it was out in his grip, he took his time examining the cage's lock.
"Two!" Taehyung snarled, his patience at its limits as Lara stood behind the bars with her fingers curled around them.
"Alright!" Namjoon snapped and took to unlocking the cage. The door groaned on its hinges as it opened and Lara slipped out.
"Three, you filthy animal."
I had barely managed to pull her to my side before Taehyung had somehow tackled Namjoon against the wall, with the sword now being pressed dangerously into the prince's throat.
"Give me one reason why I shouldn't end you right now," Taehyung seethed, his face a breath away from Namjoon's.
Lara struggled against my grip to separate the two but I held her back. This wasn't her fight. Neither was it mine.
"For starters," Namjoon on the other hand, didn't seem to be bothered much by all this. In fact, he seemed too confident for someone about to meet his fate. "You wouldn't cherish the sight of me dead for very long. Because you will regret this."
"Who's going to save your sorry arse this time?" Taehyung sneered. "That big friend of yours we shot dead on the way here?"
For a second so brief I could have only imagined it, Namjoon's confidence faltered. Then his eyes fell on something behind us by the cave's entrance and an arrogant smirk slid onto his face.
"My circle of acquaintances is quite large, you must know. I might have had a friend or two more that you could have missed." As he uttered these words, I heard Lara's soft gasp.
"There's another one."
A blink of an eye would be an exaggeration. Actually, it was several, continuous blinks of my eye as I tried to fathom the sudden, fleet transformation of situations. One would almost think I had excessive blinking issues.
And I could only whisper, "Oh Lord, have mercy."
Let me break it down as clearly and simply as my mind was able to comprehend it. First, we'd all turned around to find a grey-haired man with a dagger advancing towards Taehyung. Of course, figuring out saving his life was a priority over finishing off Namjoon's, Taehyung turned his sword to fend off the older man's attack. And just to make matters worse, Lara had somehow slipped out of my reach and was pulled by Namjoon who had just been set free by Taehyung. The rest is pretty self-explanatory, to be frank.
We were trapped once again: Lara as a hostage with Namjoon's arm tight around her, the other holding a sharp rock against her neck that he'd obtained somewhere by his feet.
"Let her go." Taehyung, who had frozen in the mid his attack, spoke with his eyes shifting between his attacker on hold, and the rough rock scraping the side of Lara's neck. She struggled against Namjoon's hold, shooting her right leg out but her movements soon ceased when the sharp rock scratched her skin.
In that motionless second between standoff and fighting, all four pairs of eyes watched for a single movement to signal an attack. Taehyung's sword and the man's dagger gleamed in the eerie, weak light. I wasn't going to underestimate the old man for his smaller weapon because by the way he held it like it was a natural extension of his own limb, I knew the man was a skilled killer.
I shuffled to the side and awaited an attack from either one of our enemies. Being weaponless and too far to make a sudden movement, I felt helpless. I knew that only one side would walk away from this. God damn, if Jungkook was here, he could have already knocked them all out of their senses. His fingers might be soft and fleeting on the piano's keys, but when in fists they could knock out a grown man. I began to regret coming here instead of him.
A man's sudden yelp of pain snatched my attention back to Lara, who now had her teeth clamped to Namjoon's wrist.
"You bit--!" But before he could utter another sound, I launched myself onto him, tackling him to the ground. I heard the clang of metal against metal as the other two men advanced towards each other with a mighty cry. I only caught a glimpse of the old man swiveling in Taehyung's direction but my friend was quick to dodge to the side in one fluid motion. Then my attention was harshly snatched by a painful blow to my jaw. Namjoon now had the upper hand and was on top of me, with his hand around my neck. His mocking eyes ticked me off in the wrong way and I sent a flying fist into one of them, throwing him off me, howling in pain. I had a hunch that with these men, there was no honor or code in fighting. All that matters is the win and they'll take no chances. If they expect us to lose the upper hand on more time and get beaten in a bloody flash, then they guessed wrong. My mediocre martial skills were holding up, despite this being my first fight. But I felt no pleasure in this; I did receive a couple of blows that were sure to leave an ugly bruise or two. Getting back on my feet, I rubbed my cheek with my palm and watched Namjoon slowly get back on his own.
"Shall we take a short breather?" I suggested with one eyebrow raised, half teasing and half hoping he would actually agree.
But apparently not, as with renewed vigor he advanced towards me, his head lowered, aiming for my middle.
I could have stopped it, I promise. But my gaze wandered off to Lara who held a rock the size of her head with both hands. Following her line of vision, I could only guess where that rock was going. Straight into the back of the old man's head. He had his back to her and Taehyung was blocking the man's quick attacks with his sword.
"Lara! Get away!" Just then I was sent flying back as Namjoon butt his head into my stomach and knocked the breath out of me. It took me a minute to regain my composure and stand straight, but it also took me a minute to realize that the whole cave had fallen into complete and utter silence. The rock lay on the ground by Lara's feet. Taehyung was standing with the sword by his side and our two attackers were no longer giving either one of us any attention. No one was even moving anymore.
But when I tried taking a step towards them, I realized what was really going on. They couldn't move. I blinked my eyes in disbelief when I saw blue sparks that seemed to sizzle in the ground our feet.
What in the bloody hell was going on?!
Struggling against the invisible force that seemed to pin my feet to the ground, I frantically searched Taehyung and Jimin's faces for an explanation but they were all focused on something else. Someone else.
A man I had never seen before stood by the cave's entrance, the sunlight shining behind him brightly, making him seem almost unearthly.
But since when did the sun shine in blue?
Slowly, as if cautious of breaking some sort of invisible spell, Namjoon and the old man were the first to flex their feet and share a look of disbelief between each other, like an unlikely turn of events was in their favor. They were the only ones among us to be able to move their legs.
I didn't understand why Taehyung wasn't making any effort to react to all this because hell, I thought we should be starting to worry about our lives. Until I caught a glimpse of the side of his face. And I understood that the stranger was not on our side. He was helping Namjoon instead.
Fury, beyond the darkest shades of red, blazed in Taehyung's eyes which were fixated on our unexpected visitor still standing by the cave's entrance. And from the veins pulsing in Taehyung's shaking fists, I knew he was not pleased to see him. Even Lara's face was an unsettling mixture of disbelief and sorrow as she watched the stranger slowly step forward towards us, his face devoid of any emotions.
Then he spoke. "Now hand her over."