Detonate Me, Granulate Me | BTS

Chapter 14

Jungkook, Taehyung, and Jimin are rotated every day for the tests that Namjoon and Yoongi perform. The first few days they only see Namjoon and Yoongi drawing a few vials of blood from each of them, taking swabs of cheek tissue and attaching monitoring electrodes to their body to monitor their vitals. It's so they can have something to compare any results against, Namjoon explains, but Jungkook's never been great at science, so he doesn't try to understand it.

The days pass much more slowly than the training and lesson-crammed days at Paradisus. While they're all used to routine of being awake at seven, heading to the Foodhall at eight, followed by an entire day of lessons interspersed with lunch and dinner, they make their own regulations here. Suddenly, there's too much time during the day, not enough to do, and Jungkook finds himself borrowing one of Yoongi's old hoverpads and reading up on all the information about this world that he can.

Yoongi and Namjoon are helpful, too, as much as they can be. The way they work is fascinating, and also a little strange. Namjoon uses these things he calls pen and paper to write down his formulas. Apparently it helps him think, and it's also more secure when he's doing top secret work, more so than using things like hoverpads, which the government can tap into and access. There's a lot of secretive stuff going on here, lots of numbers and letters and formulas and mathematics and just too many things Jungkook doesn't quite understand, so he gives it up and just lets them do their thing.

Taehyung, for the most part, seems content here. Of course, Jungkook knows Taehyung would rather be in the Active Room fucking around on the beams or play equipment, but space is limited here, so there's much they can do for exercise apart from bodyweight training. So, Taehyung takes this opportunity to catch up on all the sleep he's never had while dragging Jungkook around the place when they were back at the institute. He's always napping during the day at random intervals, sometimes in the downstairs bedroom, sometimes at the table in the underground lounge while Jimin's doing some cleaning, wiping out the dirty corners of the room to make the aesthetics more resemble the immaculate institution rooms they're all used to.

Jimin adapts the best out of the three of them. Maybe it's his nature, the genes he has in his body that give him a natural bias towards humans and a loyal, trusting heart, and soon, even the ever-grumpy Yoongi is chatting and laughing with Jimin on the rare occasions that he comes downstairs to checks up on them during his lab breaks.

Other than the lack of amenities, life here is... pretty good. Peaceful, even. The sense of urgency and danger that Jungkook had always felt while he was at Paradisus, and during the first couple of weeks at the little hideout, disappears, replaced with something more tender and kind. And although Jungkook is accustomed to sleeping alone, valuing his personal space, it's just impossible to do here when he's sharing the same room, the same bed, with Jimin and Taehyung. The blanket-snatching and Taehyung's snoring drives Jungkook mad, and he has half a mind to kick Taehyung off the bed when Taehyung starts drooling on his chest, but Jungkook's no longer shying away from either of their touches. Although Jungkook still jolts when Jimin touches him, slings his arms around Jungkook's waist and pulls him in tight while deep asleep, he doesn't throw Jimin's arm off as he would've anyone else, and instead settles into Jimin's comforting warmth.

And as the days and weeks pass, the hideout starts to feel more and more familiar.

From the start of June, Namjoon stops bringing them pre made food and instead of dumps a crate of groceries downstairs and tells them to cook for themselves. None of them have ever cooked before, considering everything in Paradisus was provided to them in the Foodhalls, so their first couple of attempts turn out atrocious and absolutely inedible. Taehyung chucks entire vegetables into the pan without chopping them up first, mixes up the salt and sugar, then manages to set fire to the soup pot.

"It's a fucking soup pot," Yoongi says, rubbing his temples, when he comes down to survey the damage. "How the fuck did you set fire to a soup pot?"

Apparently, by pouring a fuck ton of oil into it and whacking the pot on the fire before any of the ingredients have even been taken out of the crate.

"It just... happened?" Taehyung says, tail between his legs, and Jungkook snorts. "Look! There's a first time for everything!"

"You're banned from the kitchen," Yoongi says, snatching the pot out of Taehyung's hands, then shoving it into Jimin's. "Jiminnie. You do the cooking from now. Taehyung, go clean out the sanitation unit or something."

It's unspoken now, that Jimin does the cooking, Taehyung does the washing and cleans the living room, while Jungkook's in charge of keeping the downstairs bedroom tidy. While the concept of family is foreign to Jungkook—to all of them, parentless Hybrida— Jungkook thinks that this might be what it feels like to have a family.

"Do you ever miss Paradisus?" Jungkook asks one afternoon, right after Yoongi's drawn another five vials of blood from each of them to test a new drug compound on. Both Jimin and Taehyung are in the bedroom with him, Taehyung lazing around and scrolling through some articles on the hoverpad while Jimin's combing the knots and tangles out of his tail. "Do you ever miss living there, before we learned the truth?"

"Honestly?" Jimin says, looking up at Jungkook, lips downturned. "Yeah. I don't know about you, but I had lots of friends in my grade. Sometimes I'd like to return to before all this shit happened, just spend the rest of my time there training and playing fetch."

"Also, catnip," Taehyung pipes in. "God, this place has no catnip. Or fish crackers."

"Your priorities," Jungkook mutters, rolling his eyes. "We're in a fucking underground hideout with an entire corporation trying to kill us, people telling us we're some kind of new experimental Hybrida, and all you can think about is catnip?"

"But this is our life now," Jimin says simply, grinning. "All we can do is forget about the crap that's happened and enjoy it while we can. Honestly, it's not too bad, being with you two." Jimin shrugs. "You're fun. I like hanging out."

"Aw, shucks," Taehyung says, rolling over and nuzzling into Jimin's side. "Was that a confession? I like hanging out with you too! More than Jungkook!" Jungkook lets out a wounded yelp, and Taehyung cackles.

"Although, I do have to say catnip is kinda gross," Jimin adds with a laugh, shoving Taehyung off and wrinkling his nose. "Too bad it's limited produce and only available to Paradisus branches, otherwise I'd go get some for you."

"If you manage to get me catnip, I'll bring you a bone or a chew toy or something," Taehyung says, grinning. He sticks his hand out in Jimin's face, pinky extended. "This is economics."

Jimin lets out a bark of laughter, then links his pinky with Taehyung's and stamps their thumbs together. "It's a promise."