ᴛʜᴇ ᴄʟᴇᴀʀ ᴇɴᴇᴍʏ || ᴊ.ᴡʏ + ᴄ.ꜱ

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟐𝟖

Come the morning of, what the military referred to as, 'family day', the leads had all of their recruits up especially early to do thorough run-throughs before the ceremony took place, before all of their families gathered again in that large arena to see the boys they'd left returning as soldiers.

The recruits ate breakfast, as usual, everyone giddy because they knew, in due time, they'd be reunited with their families, before being led into the arena and onto the large field where they began rehearsing their marching formations, repeatedly running through each exercise they were supposed to be presenting to their families later on that day.

The goal was to show them what great soldiers they'd turned into, and every boy there was set on doing just that.

The day prior they'd spent the whole 24 hours deep cleaning each area they'd used during their time in the camp, and that helped put things into perspective for them, that this phase of their military training was really over. They wouldn't be considered recruits anymore, but real soldiers with important duties.

As they went through the motions, San purposely bumped shoulders with Hwa next to him, smiling at him, as if to say, 'we did it, we made it through.'

He could tell by the eye-smile that Seonghwa responded back with that he felt the same way.

While they, along with most of the others, could barely contain their happiness for the day ahead, Wooyoung felt the same he had every other day in that camp, honestly the same he'd felt most of his adult life even before getting there.

There was always someone barking orders, working him to the bone, while other people judged him and gave him a hard time.

No one cared about his emotions, and, in time, he eventually stopped caring too, or even acknowledging he had them, pushing them aside, writing them off as pointless. They only held him back.

Aside from his late parents, the only person who had ever expressed genuine care for him was his grandma, who essentially acted as his best friend back home, there for him as much as she could be, but their time together was limited to only the mornings and then briefly at night due to his work schedule.

Life was even more of a drag without her, though San had kept him entertained a bit. That didn't mean anything though. He didn't make friends, didn't want to, and didn't plan to.

Wooyoung emptied his head again and put all of his focus on the fancy footwork they were running through that they'd already gone over countless times.

San wasn't half as focused.

Over on the sidelines, his eyes kept wandering over, watching Taehyung and his brother stand there together and monitor the recruits while exchanging some words every now and then.

He was dying to know what in the world they were saying to each other. They looked serious, which wasn't surprising, but after Kai muttered something to his leader he noticed Taehyung swallow hard and flick his eyes away uncomfortably.

Was he coming clean to Kai? And, of all times, now?!

San's nerves calmed a bit when he saw his brother smile briefly about something Taehyung had said, but his nerves were still very much alive because he'd never been able to read his brother's emotions that well.

A sudden shout from one of the leads to get moving into the next formation drew his attention back, and he and his team moved automatically, knowing the formations forwards and backward after having it drilled into their heads about five million times.

When the time came closer for their families to arrive and the leads were satisfied with their performance, the recruits got a breaking period to allow them time to clean themselves up and look presentable, all of them scrubbing down in the shower and prettying themselves up more than usual.