When I whisper your name,
even the moon smiles.
As if to ask,
Are you thinking of him
again?

■●■

"Tae?" I call his name out. The boy who is busy checking out if everyone is fine just hums in response making me groan, feeling oddly irritated over nothing in particular.

"You've called me like 10 times in a minute, Pepper. And whenever I reply you just groan like this and don't say anything," He complains. I am not in the condition to tell him about what is wrong when I don't even know myself. "What happened? Tell me." Taehyung asks, now his concentration fully on me.

"I don't know in particular but.." I trail off and starts dozing away. "Calm down. First clear your brain from everything," He guides me as I close my eyes and take deep breathes. But that odd feeling is still there as I groan again, now clearly irritated with myself as I open my eyes and look at my love but just then I feel something touching my lips.

My eyes widens when I feel Taehyung's face near me as the only possibility floods my mind. He winks and clicks his fingers. "Now I can hear the only thing you're worried of. Wow, my technique worked," He keeps on praising himself as I sit there, still stunned even though we have already shared endless kisses since we got together.

"You want to know about the religious stone and where is it now, right?" He asks carefully. I look down at my hands and sigh. "No matter how many times I try to remove that thought but it still comes back." I confess, truthfully.

Guess I don't want to agree with my thoughts that frustrate me internally.

"Let me confess something," He says while plopping his hands in his front and looks at me with his sharp puppy eyes. "I get that thought too." He purses his lips.

"But where can we get some useful information about it? So yeah.. I normally drop the idea," Sighing, he supports his back with the chair and closes his eyes.

"Though my inner self is forcing me to know about it but Pepper, our safety is more important than our desires."

"Thinking about the stone again?" Jin comes from the side as he settles himself beside us. "Taehyung at least you can't say that you're mind's at peace right now. Everything is so messy as it looks like you have stuffed shit in there."

"Hyung..!" Taehyung whines.

"But you know already, it ain't so safe here and-"

"And what?" Jin asks, now all serious as I get tensed up. I never have seen this side of him- it is also not quite good to witness. "To be honest, I don't think Slake will be at peace even after we go back to our village. For sure he will continue to bribe us."

"But we don't even know what's a religious stone. Where to find it is just beyond thinking," Both of them just nod their heads, agreeing to what I said. "Even no one knows about it. No proper information, its whereabouts and specially its cons. Who knows if its deadly?" I sigh.

"Who said no one knows?" A voice interrupts our talk as the three of us turn towards the kid who is standing just beside me.

I didn't even notice his presence.

"Who are you kiddo?" Taehyung asks jokingly as his hand is in the air to to ruffle the kid's hair but the latter steps back instantly. "I'm not a kiddo for your information and yeah I know about the stone you all are talking about."

"What's your name, man?" Jin asks him. The 'man' proudly looks at Jin and takes a deep breathe.

"I'm Haeguk. Son of Captain Jaeshik."

Wow, he doesn't even object about Jin calling him a man.

"Because that's exactly what he wants to hear."

"Yes that's what I want and come with me if you are really curious about the stone," He signals us to follow him as the three of us instantly follow the guy who is running before us.

Our journey consists of many areas where people are sleeping, playing, eating; basically doing their daily chores. Some of them bows and gives their condolences for nana's death. Some even starts crying when they get to know about it. It's been a while but still, no one is familiarised that their queen is now dead.

All of them are raged, we barely are able to control them to not go back and attack Slake and his men. Because everyone and even they know it themselves, that's not gonna make anything easier and better.

"Where are you guys going?" Hoseok asks. He tags along with us when he sees us moving towards another checkpoint building.

Yup, we're going to another building and all of us are kind of worried about how that 'kid' like 'man' just walked out of the security without anyone's knowledge. That isn't good for kids to do that.

"Another checkpoint- to gather information," Jin keeps it short and pants. At points, we even need to run to follow the kid's pace.

"These are signs of ageing," Taehyung mumbles which I am able to hear clearly. May be Hoseok does too as he looks at me while biting his lips.

"I heard it Tae and thanks for informing me," Jin deadpans, causing us all to laugh around. Jin just rolls his eyes at our childishness. "Whatever."

"We have lost track of him!" The unexpected yell startles all of us as the girl who we were unaware that she is with us emerges from behind. "Why so shocked? I am following you guys since you left the building."

"Indeed you're in the team of professional spies," Taehyung states as a matter of fact and turns around, looking for the young 'man'.

"Stop exaggerating, Pepper."

"You can't stop me from thinking, Taehyung."

He turns towards me with amusement hovering his face. The twists and turns are evident on his face when he thinks about his shittiest reply.

And yes, he is a little shit.

Coming towards me, slowly yet steadily, he slides his hand around my waist. I know he wants to see my 'blushing' face but dude.. I ain't so sensitive.

He is coming dangerously towards my ear as I shock myself at how good I am in not expressing my emotions easily. Because I know my insides are burning up because of how deep and melodious his voice sounds even in my thoughts.

"Jealous of how this deep voice can make anyone fall on her knees?"

How close he is to me and how hard it is to not grab him by his neck and kiss him with all my might.

"I prefer Kiwoo's though."

He snickers.

In jealousy.

Hehe..

"Grandma!"

The little boy is crouching on his knees in front of a quite old lady who is smiling affectionately at him. The way she is looking at him with eyes filled with love and affection shows how strong their relationship is.

But the lady takes us aback by doing some hand movements- all of us to get confused.

Hand movements? Does that mean she is..

"Is she deaf and dumb?" Eunbi murmurs under her breathe. His brother pinches her arm and glares at her. "That sounds rude, Eunbi." Taehyung shakes his head.

"Why are you staring at us like that? Come here!" The boy signals us to come towards them.

Everyone is hesitant, don't know what for. But no one steps forwards except me. I just keep on looking at the old woman whose gaze is now on me, the same smile is the signature of how she is feeling in company of new people around her.

The criss cross of wrinkles on her face makes her look like a little mess of beautiful old age. The way her hair are white and colour of clothes she is wearing makes her look more peaceful and gentle.

She takes out her hand slowly and looks up at me. At first I don't understand the gesture but when the boy interprets me that she wants to hold my hand, I gently caress it.

And by that time I don't even realise that the others are now on their knees, surrounding us.

"Grandma! They want your help," The boy has a totally different personality with her grandmother. The one with us is something sort of trouble maker. Indeed the love of grandparents makes the kids loose their mature side even if they are old enough to have their own kids.

The lady gestures that we don't understand with her left hand as her right one is engulfed in mine. We just look blankly at the two who are communicating with each other.

"She is willing to tell you but first she wants to know the reason," The boy conveys her message .

We all stiffen. Although the answer is clear to everyone but it sounds odd that we will just handover the stone after finding it, to the man who practically ruined our tribe, have killed a number of people including their queen and is the main reason behind everything bad.

"There are a number of reasons," Jin starts and I agree with him taking the lead. He is the eldest and knows how to talk in a sophisticated way. "But the most important one is in order to save our tribe, we need to sacrifice something, no matter how precious it is."

The boy stands there, confused and shocked for a while. He neither blinks nor does any movement, we rethink about the error in our answer in the mean time. But we are relieved once he moves again and talks to the old lady.

Her face turns into confusion as well as scared. May be she preaches that stone a little too much so she is worried? Or may be she is thinking we won't be able to get it? Eitherwise we need to get that stone out of its place before it gets too late and that bastard totally ruins our tribe.

"She says she can't easily tell you about the stone. Because to get it you need to go through some really crazy places which is another way to give yourself to the go-"

"Stop right there," Taehyung stops him. The boy looks at him, shocked which is basically a normal expression for everyone now.

Shock.

That emotion is quite expected at every stage and I know what the boy was going to say next that made Taehyung to interrupt him.

"No matter how hard it gets.." I sigh and stand up, straight. While looking at the people who are standing behind me and I know each one of them is going to stay by my side till the very end. "We all are going to do anything for the tribe."

The sudden feel of pride and thoughts filled with full enthusiasm enters my mind- my whole body gets energised.

Hands around either side of my shoulder indicates my friends giving me the moral support I've needed ever since I was small but didn't get because of how cruel and cunning the city people can get. Keeping all of that aside, I know who my true friends are.

"Because we all are always going to be together," Jin says proudly.

"Till our last breathe."