Wild For You

18. I Will Find You

Dal sat in the back of a cab on his way home from another doctor's visit. The prognosis for him was the same; his heart a ticking time bomb within his chest. A chest rattling cough came over him as he tried to dispel the tickle he felt in his throat. The cough sounded bad enough that the driver of the cab looked at him in his rearview mirror.

"I'm fine," said Dal with a smile. "Just a cough."

The cab driver could clearly tell that it wasn't 'just a cough', but he wasn't paid to do anything but cart people about so he let the matter drop. The cab driver turned the dial on the radio up in an attempt to drown out the coughing as the thunder overhead started to rumble.

'...Breaking news. Citizens are warned to stay in their homes as a tiger is currently on the loose...'

'Tiger?' thought Dal, leaning forward a bit so he could hear the radio better.

'...The tiger was last seen running from a coffee shop after having disarmed the thieves there. No deaths have been reported, but citizens are to stay away from the tiger and to call the proper authorities if it is spotted.'

Dal leaned back in concern. Surely the news wasn't talking about his tiger. When he arrived back at the book shop, he couldn't pay the cab driver fast enough, half sprinting towards the door despite every part of his body protesting. He noticed the 'closed' sign and the darkened shop that only heightened his concern. As he jammed his key into the lock, he felt a few raindrops fall from the sky and hit his face.

"Namjoon?" Dal called out as he entered the book shop, not receiving an answer back.

Dal turned on the light switch, making his way down the aisles to see that the entire place was empty. When he reached the apartment, he unlocked the door to see that that too was empty. Namjoon and Ember were no where in sight.

Dal's heart panged when he realized that Ember was more than likely the tiger the news was warning people about. Ember was his family and had been his main reason for hiring Namjoon. He could care less if the book shop had to close when he died. What he cared about more was that Ember was taken care of.

A wave of exhaustion washed over him, but that didn't stop Dal from grabbing a raincoat and umbrella. He locked up the apartment and headed back through the book shop as his cough rivaled the thunder in the sky outside.

"I'm going to find you, Ember. Don't worry," said Dal as he hastily scribbled a note incase Namjoon returned in the meantime, leaving it on the front counter.

Dal moved to shut the light to the book shop back off, locking the door and rushing out into the storm to look for his family.

- - -

The four of them were all drenched as they ran from Yoongi's car to the book shop, especially since it took a while for Namjoon to be able to find the keyhole since the rain made it impossible to see anything in front of them.

"Glad we're not out in that anymore," mentioned Yoongi as he shut the door behind them once they had all entered. "No one should be out in that."

Namjoon made his way towards the front counter, freezing when he saw the hastily scribbled note there.

"No...no...no..."

"What's wrong?" asked Taehyung.

Namjoon grabbed the note off the counter and moved to hand it to Taehyung. He looked down at it and paled.

"I have to go after him," said Taehyung. "He could die out there."

Taehyung moved to walk towards the door, but sighed and came to a stop. He couldn't go too far from Gemini or he'd be a tiger again.