Taehyung stepped out of the shadows and towards us slowly. His hands were still raised and we could see that they were shaking slightly. He had a nervous and cautious expression on his face as he scanned our faces and occasionally glanced at our fingers on the triggers. Tae wore a simple white striped shirt with denim jeans which was light blue in the light. His eyes flew back and forth between Jungkook and I, trying to read our thoughts. "I am not going to hurt you"
"Well I don't think I can guarantee the same Taehyung" Jungkook said. His gun was still pointed directly at Tae's forehead and he continued to slowly move closer to Taehyung, causing a bead of sweat to run down Taehyung's face.
"If I was going to do anything then I would have done it in the time I was standing in the corner"
"How long were you standing there?" I asked curiously.
"About five minutes" Tae replied. A shiver went down my spine as I imagined Tae watching us carefully in the dark corner for a full five minutes. I didn't even hear the door unlock and open let alone him creeping into the room to spy on us. I shrugged off the image and turned my attention back to Tae.
"I can get you out of here" Tae said, taking a small step forward. My cautiousness peaked up as if I was animal waiting to be attacked by their predator.
"Don't you fucking move" Jungkook growled. His finger had flown to the trigger, waiting for the next false move Tae made so he could pull it. I wasn't surprised at Jungkook's aggressiveness; Tae was part of this whole situation and was part of the reason why my friends are dead. Tae sighed and hung his head.
"You have to trust me... please. I am not one of the bad guys" Tae pleaded. There was a glimmer of hope in his eyes as he stared into Jungkook's, however Jungkook's intense gaze at Tae did not change in the slightest. Tae was still trembling in fear making his raised arms wobble like jelly. He was generally scared. Uncertainty filled my mind as I wondered what role Tae had to play in this: was he like J-Hope and Kai, forced to pay their debts to Yoongi or was he like Jin? Tae's shaking body told me that he was more like the two bodyguards, but how can I be sure? He could just be putting on an act to save his life.
"Give me a reason why we shouldn't just kill you now" I said. I moved my finger to the trigger making Tae gulp undeniably. His eyes wondered around the room as he desperately tried to think of something to say.
"I have two kids..."
"And I had two friends which are now dead thanks to you" I snapped. Tae sighed again and turned his head away.
"I never chose to work with Yoongi... I don't even know how I even got involved with this shit" Tae mumbled. His voice was soft and was clearly full of regret from the way he was almost whispering... unless that is an act too.
"Don't think for a second that I am going to believe that bullshit..." Jungkook started.
"Shhhh" I interrupted Jungkook, making his jaw drop in shock. I gestured for Tae to carry on and he nodded in acceptance. If Tae was lying, he would produce a different story to what Jin had told us and I had to be sure that I could trust Tae even a little bit.
"Yoongi and I were best friends in school... since we were little kids. He was a very happy, smart and normal kid indeed. We ended up going to the same secondary school and continued our friendship there. Everything was great until his uncle was killed by police by accident" Looks like Jin really wasn't bluffing about his back story I thought. I could tell Jungkook was thinking the same thing too from the way he scrunched up his nose as if he was thinking deeply about something familiar.
"After that, Yoongi wasn't the same. He became very depressed and got pissed off easily. He rebelled against the school because he hated 'authority' or something like that. In simpler terms, Yoongi wasn't the same person I had grown up with. He started shoplifting and doing drugs, even asking me to join him. Obviously I said no which caused us to have a huge argument and our relationship crumbled to dust" Tae lowered his arms down by his side but this time, Jungkook and I didn't stop him. I lowered my gun, still keeping it tight in my clenched hand, just in case Tae made any sudden movements.
Tae continued: "We both went our separate ways: after a few years I found a wife and we now have two kids and...."
"We don't give a shit about that. Tell us about your involvement in this game" Jungkook said, rolling his eyes and glancing down at my watch.
Tae gave us a look of pure hurt but cleared his throat to carry on with his story. "Years later, I heard a knock on my door and opened it to find Yoongi standing at my entrance, accompanied by Jin, J-Hope and Kai. I was so shocked to see him and I welcomed him into my home, assuming that he was lost and he needed someone to care for him. He didn't say much about why he had come to me even after the many times I had asked. He just told me that he needed a place to crash for a while. I was still cautious around him though because of my family. My kids are very young and I had told my wife all about Yoongi so she definitely wasn't happy to see him and some people she didn't know living in our house out of nowhere. However, Yoongi seemed as if he was back to being happy again. He was good with my kids and he offered to do some of the chores around the house and stuff like that. But anyways.... a few months later, Yoongi came up to me and told me that he needed my help with something"
Tae paused and looked up at us who were just staring at him with curiosity and caution. He glanced down at our loose grip on our guns and let out a deep breath. "As I was saying, Yoongi and I sat down to talk and I thought he was going to ask me for some money so he could get the hell out of my house but that wasn't so. He told me about what he did to some shopkeeper and how he went to prison along with Jin, Kai and J-hope, and how he was taken out of prison to make this game"
Jungkook and I exchanged looks at each other in confusion: what did he mean by taken out? Tae had a look of disappointment on his face as if he was reliving the moment and I momentarily felt sorry for him. I already didn't have that many friends and it would break me if Jimin or Namjoon ended up as psycho criminals. Well now they won't have a chance to thanks to Tae. Tae continued: "He told me all about this game and how I had to help him run it so it can go smoothly and I refused obviously. I tried to kick him out of my house and reject him from my life but he told me that I owed him for leaving him all those years ago and abandoning him. After that, he told me that if I didn't comply then my family would pay the price. Trust me, I had no choice but to help him... for my family's sake"
I stared into Tae's eyes, searching for any signs of mischief or dishonesty but I found the opposite. A tear ran down Tae's large eyes and his lips quivered in an attempt to keep back the rest of his tears. "I hate myself for not standing up to him", Tae's voice cracked, revealing all the tears he had made a desperate attempt to hold back, "now all these kids are dead and I helped with that. I was reason they died today when they had a whole life to live. I was too much of a coward to stop this from happening... I'm so sorry...."
Tae was interrupted by Jungkook who shoved his gun into his back pocket, walked towards Taehyung and pulled him into a hug. Tae, taken aback by Jungkook's actions, wrapped his arms around Jungkook loosely and and looked over at me. His eyes were full of hope that I would show any sign of forgiveness and to be honest, I didn't know what to do. He had to protect his family and I would do the same thing he did, no matter how badly I didn't want to do it. However, Tae could have a degree in acting and could have made the story all up.
"Okay, it wasn't your fault" I too, shoved my gun into my pocket to Tae's relief and he smiled. "But that doesn't mean we forgive you" Tae's smile dropped and he nodded understandably.
"If you want us to trust you, you have to tell us everything with no lies and no withdrawals" Tae nodded again. "Lie once, and a bullet is going straight through your head"
"Yeah" Jungkook agreed, letting go of Tae. "We need to know the best way to get out of here too. Preferably without running into Yoongi"
"That's going to be almost impossible" Tae said, making my heart droop a little. "Yoongi created this place; he knows the ins and outs and by now he might have sealed the whole place off but at the same time he probably hasn't. He will probably want you to feel hopeful that you could escape and then hit you with something life changing... literally"
"So how the fuck are we gonna get out here?" Jungkook asked, with a high pitched voice.
"To be honest, I have no idea: I didn't design the place. Yoongi has hidden cameras everywhere, watching your every move. That's how knew exactly when to order the kills if you didn't complete your task, so he definitely knows that we are here now" Tae shrugged his shoulders and looked frazzled at his thoughts.
I gasped and furrowed my brows as a sudden thought came to me. "Speaking of cameras and dares", Tae and Jungkook's heads turned towards me, "Jungkook, why did you shoot the corners of the room we were in when you had complete your dare?"
"Yeah, Yoongi tried to order your death but the machine malfunctioned" Tae added.
"Well when Jimin got shot, I saw where the bullet had come from and it was from one of the corners of the room. Before we went to the next room, I studied the corners and realised that there was some kind of bullet machine inside the walls but really shallow. When it got to my turn, I had a similar dare to Jimin so I knew that I would die a similar way so I took a lucky guess and shot the corners of the room which probably disabled the guns"
"Wow" Tae said with a blank stare on his face. "You are one smart teenager... but trust me, not smarter than Yoongi. Yoongi is always prepared for everything and anything"
I looked over at the door that used to be locked until Tae came in. It was slightly ajar and was moving backwards and forwards as if there was a wind moving it. "What's on the other side of that door?" I asked.
"There is another room then it's the outside" Tae answered.
"So then why don't we just go through that door?"
"I wouldn't trust that if I were you" Tae said, looking troubled and uneasy.
"Why?"
"Yoongi would never make it that easy. Look there was a detail that I missed out accidentally: Yoongi didn't come up with this idea; someone else came up with the idea of the game and needed Yoongi to carry it out for them so they broke Yoongi and the others out of prison so they could do it"
"Well who is it?" Jungkook and I chorused, almost shouting from the anticipation.
"Yoongi was broken out by..." BANG! I screamed and jumped as the sound of a gun going off rang in my ears. A body dropped to the ground by my feet and I looked down to see that it was Taehyung's. His face had turned pale and was frozen with a look of extreme shock and pain. Jungkook whipped out his gun and pointed it towards the door that Jungkook and I had come in, causing me to do the same.
"Whoever that was, come the fuck out!" Jungkook shouted. His hands were shaking along with his voice in fear. My heart was beating out of my chest as I waited for the gunner to show themselves. I glanced down at Tae on the ground: he was no longer moving and blood was seeping out of a wound that I could not even see. There was no way I could check to see if he was dead or not without taking my attention away from the gunner.
"Hello my star children, it's nice to see that you have come so far" The voice was deep and dark and it echoed around the room, filling us with anxiety. The figure stepped forward and into the light and I gasped and almost dropped my gun as it revealed itself as Yoongi.