ᴛʜᴇ ᴄʟᴇᴀʀ ᴇɴᴇᴍʏ || ᴊ.ᴡʏ + ᴄ.ꜱ

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟒𝟏

Summer was fizzling to an end even though the weather didn't seem to be on the same page, given the sweat on the brows of every uniformed male in the vicinity. But sweat wasn't the important part, as that was promised in every season in the military for the dutiful soldiers.

It was the switching seasons that held importance, and their own promises.

The end of summer signified another percentage knocked off of every enlisted's service, bringing them closer to completion.

For San's enlistment squad, it marked seven months out of the year and a half they'd promised themselves to the Republic of South Korea. This meant only 355 days left of saluting every ten seconds and shouting ninety-five percent of everything they said, crazily, those seven months of service just enough for the conduct to become second nature.

Apart from counting down the days until their freedom, the boys could feel an ounce of relief to be met with another Friday; the end to another gruelling week.

The control room was notoriously hectic with a plethora of operations going on at once and the abnormal overflow of superiors in a single space. Even so, it was consistent. The workflow, routines, routined outbursts...

Similar to any other ordinary day, surrounded by an array of busy monitors, San sat at his station switching his attention back and forth from his monitor to a dutifully working Kim Taehyung, or rather, Sergeant Kim Taehyung.

Naturally, he was busy screaming a junior's ear off about how everything involving him ultimately turned into a mistake, his birth firmly listed as the first. Granted, the actual phrasing used had been more extreme and garnished with profanities. To be expected, considering it was their one and only devoted dictator, Kim Taehyung.

Yunho side-eyed the scene from where he sat at his desk, currently on the phone reporting translations to headquarters from recent CCTV recordings that he'd analyzed from the north, his main role at the base. A far more exhilarating and taxing position than San's, San himself could easily attest to.

Yunho swiveled in his chair to face San, deep acorn eyes frozen in the back of his head in a permanent eye-roll, garnering a suppressed snort from San that the taller was quick to echo, both used to the dramatics that played out on the daily.

Not only was it a common occurrence that the two frequently snickered about together, but it was almost like a brain teaser they started their morning with and occasionally dabbled in during lunch, crafting probable reasons each time as to why Taehyung acted on his aggressions or, as Yunho liked to put it, "measured dicks with Jeon".

Yunho once suggested that the tyrant might've forgotten to pack rice cakes for lunch, which had San doubled over, overcome in a series of cackling at the thought alone that mochi was the cause of his long-lived mood swings.

Aside from it being funny, San imagined it might not stem too far from the truth. Taehyung might very well lose his mind in a mochi-less scenario, considering he snacked on it daily like it was the best thing on earth, yet it still wasn't enough to cure the foul moods that went hand in hand with reprimanding the team. It was blindingly obvious that his priority was to put the fear of God in his recruits. And, the reason?

Well, to solidify his reputation of being a merciless leader in an attempt to gain the respect of his superiors, of course. San recognized the same precept from his own brother.

The military environment could genuinely be summed up as a giant pissing contest, and none of them were immune to it.

Taehyung had proved to be as relentless as ever in his new position, and undoubtedly one of the most passionate when it came to the reprimanding of his underlings.