Sempiternal: • Savages • || BOOK 6#

1. Looking for a reason

Jimin doesn't know how he should feel. Perhaps hopeful. After all, maybe Hajun is dead after all the agony and persecution he went through. Maybe he doesn't have to worry about anything anymore and is free. Something inside him tells him that's not the case. Is Hajun still out there? Is it just paranoia? Jimin finds himself convinced that this is not the case.

He will eventually reappear.

Unlike Niuk, who will not return.

Jungkook was kind enough to help him bury her. Leaving one of her scarves there to be more than a mountain of dirt and a couple of rocks. Disappointment is something that marks on others as well. They had such high hopes and expectations of those puppies she would have. Maybe keep some of them, care for them personally; a thousand different things and none of them make sense now.

Bam is another present problem. He is depressed, without his mate and without the puppies. Added to the injuries to his body he is nothing more than a sad figure cowering in the corner of the RV. Tucked into the now huge nest he once occupied with Niuk.

The good thing, the only thing that can be taken as positive, is that Hongjoong is well. For his health they decided to stay in one place for at least a week. Let him rest as he needs to and not take any kind of risk. It is enough to have lost someone from this group. Even if it was a pet.

"I think it was the fault of so much haste: we dropped a lot of things" Jin repeats, scratches his head. The ration of clothes and food looks less to what it was before so much chaos. Jungkook closes his eyes and mutters a curse in a whisper.

He must have guessed that was it. All that mess on the bridge was his belongings and he blew them up. Though he wouldn't have been able to retrieve them anyway, they were on the other side of the bridge. Trying to take them would have been not only suicidal, but also too foolish. Even for him. It never ceases to amaze Jungkook how everything can get even worse.

"I think I saw what happened," Yunho announces. "They were taking out the food while we were being attacked by others."

"What would they want to steal our instant soups for? What don't they eat meat?" asks Yoongi, incredulous that that would really happen.

"I doubt they're going to boil water because they were craving ramen." ironically crosses Jin's arms.

"There's no way the food walked out on its own," says Taehyung, "It must have been them taking it out."

"But what for? Are they really going to cook it?" insists Yoongi, confused and looking like he's the only one without complete information.

"Maybe they wanted to stop us at the cost of leaving us without supplies." grumbles Namjoon, grumpy at having the solution so easy and even annoying.

"That's... silly."

"It's tactical. They already used animals to take the focus off what they did" points out the taller one and none of them had noticed that part. Though paranoid, very analytical. "If we don't have food, we'd have to go back. At least that's what they must have thought. It's basic among animals. If you cut off the food source, they'll go where they know there is."

"What about my near-abduction?" stammers Hoseok, uneasy. Namjoon shrugs.

"Same thing: look for every possible way to get us back."

"I don't think it's that basic." replies Jungkook quietly, catches his eye and he just watches Jimin, sitting on top of the RV.

"Why do you say so?" Taehyung looks interested.

"They've been following him for months- years, it's not a trap to annoy or to get us back, it's to take us somewhere else, to do something none of us understand." exposes Jungkook. "If they wanted to kill us, they would have done it by now."