Divergent | Jungkook AU

Chapter Eight

“THE FIRST THING you will learn today is how to shoot a gun. The second thing is how to win a fight.”

JK presses a gun into my palm without looking at me and keeps walking.

“Thankfully, if you are here, you already know how to get on and off a moving train, so I don’t need to teach you that.”

I shouldn’t be surprised that the Dauntless expect us to hit the ground running, but I anticipated more than six hours of rest before the running began. My body is still heavy from sleep.

“Initiation is divided into three stages. We will measure your progress and rank you according to your performance in each stage. The stages are not weighed equally in determining your final rank, so it is possible, though difficult, to drastically improve your rank over time.”

I stare at the weapon in my hand. Never in my life did I expect to hold a gun, let alone fire one. It feels dangerous to me, as if just by touching it, I could hurt someone.

“We believe that preparation eradicates cowardice, which we define as the failure to act in the midst of fear,” says JK.

"Therefore each stage of initiation is intended to prepare you in a different way.
The first stage is primarily physical; the second, primarily emotional; the third, primarily mental.”

“But what…” Yeonjun yawns through his words. “What does firing a gun have to do with…bravery?”

JK flips the gun in his hand, presses the barrel to Yeonjun’s forehead, and clicks a bullet into place. Yeonjun freezes with his lips parted, the yawn dead in his mouth.

“Wake. Up,” JK snaps. “You are holding a loaded gun, you idiot. Act like it.”

He lowers the gun. Once the immediate threat is gone, Yeonjun’s green eyes harden. I’m surprised he can stop himself from responding, after speaking his mind all his life in Candor, but he does, his
cheeks red.

“And to answer your question…you are far less likely to soil your pants and cry for your mother if you’re prepared to defend yourself.” JK stops walking at the end of the row and turns on his heel. “This is also information you may need later in stage one. So, watch me.”

He faces the wall with the targets on it—one square of plywood with three red circles on it for each of us. He stands with his feet apart, holds the gun in both hands, and fires. The bang is so loud it hurts my ears. I crane my neck to look at the target. The bullet went through the middle circle.

I turn to my own target. My family would never approve of me firing a gun. They would say that guns are used for self-defense, if not violence, and therefore they are self-serving.

I push my family from my mind, set my feet shoulder-width apart, and delicately wrap both hands around the handle of the gun. It’s heavy and hard to lift away from my body, but I want it to be as far from my face as possible.

I squeeze the trigger, hesitantly at first and then harder, cringing away from the gun.

The sound hurts my ears and the recoil sends my hands back, toward my nose. I stumble, pressing my hand to the wall behind me for balance.

I don’t know where my bullet went, but I know it’s not near the target. I fire again and again and again, and none of the bullets come close.

“Statistically speaking,” the Erudite boy next to me—his name is Kai—says, grinning at me, “you should have hit the target at least once by now, even by accident.” He is blond, with shaggy hair and a crease between his eyebrows.

“Is that so,” I say without inflection.

“Yeah,” he says. “I think you’re actually defying nature.”