134340 |JJK FF|

Chapter 41

A month passed just like that.

In that month, living turned into routine work. The two woke up, rinsed their mouth, and then went hunting. Jeongguk was adamant about one thing: no meat. They would not hunt animals for food, he was especially stern about that. But he needn't have bothered, the only living organisms apart from them were trees.

It slowly became routine to wake up at dawn herself and be off to collect water, as Jeongguk continued dozing. He'd wake once she was back, and then they'd take turns collecting food and starting a fire. He'd taught her how to do that, from the kind of stone to use to how they'd have to be struck.

She prided herself slightly on her quick adapting to this new lifestyle. She did not feel as lost as she did when they had first landed here, and she felt like a pat on the back was deserved.

Right now, she was easing herself on the sand and rebraiding her hair, Proxima's light filling her eyes and Jeongguk's voice filling her ears.

"... they are known as experiments because they are our creation," Jeongguk was explaining. He could hardly remember how they started to talk about this. He supposed the octopuses had cropped up, which automatically led to what the Plutoians called experiments. Their creations, that was what those octopuses started as, like many others.

"They were the best we could recreate. As you said, they were already extinct when the Planet Shift took place. Scientists from about a hundred years ago experimented, much like the human who created us. The first few hundred would be under special care centres, I remember visiting one of them as a kid. Then once they started reproducing and their population soared, they were left to the open, and mass fertilisation was called off and they'd focus on another species,"

Jeongguk paused, then said, "My friend is one of them,"

"Yes?" Yumi used her voice for the first time in a while, "Your friend?"

"Mhm. Seokjin hyung is an Alpaca hybrid. Very rare. He used to be ambushed often, kids used to bombard him with questions, and he was always annoyed by it."

Jeongguk took a small breath at the thought of his friends. They still believed him to be dead. "... But--I'm sure it fed his ego too. He was obnoxiously cocky all the time,"

The words were composed themselves, but his voice added emotion to it. He glared at the sky as if daring it to give them more obstacles to pass.

Yumi stared at the sky for a moment, before quietly saying, "Tell me more."

Jeongguk glared at the sky more, then averted his eyes, "I met Yoongi and Taehyung hyung through that alliance I told you about. Hoseok and Seokjin hyung I have known since childhood. Seokjin hyung always maintained a neutral image between battles of two other clans. He is one of the protected kind anyway, so he does not have many enemies. I had a feeling he was on our side just cause, you know, I and Hoseok hyung were there..."

Jeongguk cleared his throat, "... got to know Taehyung and Yoongi hyung because we fought against the lions together. I remember wondering if I had to strangle them to assert dominance at the wee age of fifteen, despite them being older. Seokjin hyung still cracks up when he remembers it,"

Yumi choked. "You fought in a battle when you were fifteen?!"

Jeongguk frowned as if insulted, "Hey, I was a perfectly capable fifteen-year-old!"

"That's not my..." Then she remembered how rabbits used to be considered adults by the time they were twelve months old, and she paled drastically.

No, surely he was not considered an adult when he was a few months old? The thought of a one-year-old Jeongguk preparing to cast votes took over her brain, and she snorted.