Doom, Death, and Destruction (A Tale of Superpowered BTS)

chapter 12

  "So who are you?" Namjoon questioned as the girl breathed shakily, staring at Jin with glossy eyes.

  "I'm Yunghee. My name's Yunghee." She reached her hand out to Seokjin and before he could move away she pressed her fingers against his skin and watched as steam billowed off their skin. She couldn't feel any pain, instead his skin was like the steady warmth of a summers day. "Is this real?"

  "No, you're dreaming." Hoseok spat out, rolling his eyes at the clueless look she shot him.

  "I feel like I am." Her words pushed past her lips slowly, an accent of uncertainty filling them. "How did this happen."

  "To you or us?" Yoongi said with a scowl. "You were an accident." His words cut through the air, cruel and unrepentant. "The vial you broke had a serum to make mutants, you got contaminated. For us, it isn't any of your buisness."

  "Yoongi." Seokjin shot him a look then smiled weakly at the scared girl. "Most of us were born this way. But that doesn't really matter. You won't be staying with us. We are just taking you to an asylum for mutants, from there on they can help keep you safe and take you home." Her fingers on his skin sent an odd chill through him. He could feel goosebumps raising on his skin and his breathing ease as the cool relaxed his lungs.

  "Yunghee." Jungkook raised his voice and flushed when everyone looked at him. His lips stretched into a weary smile in response. "I'm sorry, this is all my fault. I pushed you."

  "It's okay." Yunghee choked her words out. "You didn't mean to." Her words sounded insincere to her. She meant it, but she was shocked. Both literally and figuratively unfortunately.

  "We're being chased by Primatech." Namjoon spoke up and stared her down seriously. They were ignoring the matter at hand and that was dangerous.

  "The paper company?" Her eyebrows twisted in disbelief as she leaned against the wall of the train.

  "Primatech is a torture facility not a paper company, idiot." Hoseok glared at her unrepentant. Of course his eyes wandered just a little bit too low as he flexed his hands, looking away from her.

  "It's both." Namjoon said loudly, making sure he had everyone's attention. "The paper company is just a front. They specialize in mutants. They traffic and experiment on mutants to prepare proper defense against the possibility of a riot. They work separately from the government, but sell their findings to the proper departments. I don't know how much of a connection they have with them, so I don't know if the police will be looking for us. We have to be careful."

  "How could the government work with them?" Jungkook felt Taehyung dig his fingers into Jungkook's thigh, trying to express his feelings. But his mind wouldn't co-operate, he couldn't find the words to interpret his thoughts.

  "I don't now how to do this." Yunghee could barely keep her voice low as she spoke, her eyes widening. "I'm addicted to my phone. I'm a stereotypical kid of my generation, I have no pain tolerance, I am not ready."

  "Do you think any of us were ready for this?" Jimin finally spoke up. His eyes were burning with tears as he stared at her. He didn't want his life to fall apart like it was.  "I had a solid path ahead of me, I was going to make it up the ranks, I was going to be just like my father." His words made Namjoon stiffen look away.

  "Good thing you won't be." Hoseok snapped. The subjects were ignorant of Namjoon's pain at those words, they had no idea who his father was. He planned to keep it that way. Maybe one day they could forgive him for what he did, but he knew they would forgive him for who he was.

  "You worked for them." Yunghee picked up the clues and looked at Jimin.

  "We did." He pointed to Taehyung, himself, and Namjoon. "Taehyung and I are mutants because of the serum, just like you. Namjoon, he is natural."

  "We shouldn't be telling her all this." Yoongi pursed his lips and tried to calm his abilities. He could feel it pulling at his skin.

  Yunghee shrank under his glare and pulled her cardigan closer to her as she started to shiver. A few seconds ago she felt fine but suddenly her skin was crawling. She could feel the cold closing in on her. She knew she was getting hypothermia, somehow she knew it was because of the serum. She licked her lips and stare up at the metal ceiling as her tongue scrapped across freezing lips.

  "You're turning blue." Namjoon mumbled. He got up and walked towards her. He touched her skin and winced at the cool flesh that met him. He felt a plummeting in his stomach as he took her chin in his fingers and looked into her eyes, testing her responsiveness. There was a chance she wouldn't survive.

  "Should I touch her?" Seokjin looked at the former lab assistant, not sure how to help.

  "What if you melt her!" Jungkook looked at the girl horrified.

  "He has a point." Namjoon shook his head and collapsed on the ground beside her. "We don't know how your abilities mix." He could feel the tension building in his chest. It was stressful. Two of the group were his family, but they were out of commission. Four of them hated him, and one of them was an innocent. He didn't know how to get through this. As he stared at Yunghee his fathers disappointment filled his mind.

  His dad was right. He would never be a leader, he could never be great. He was incapable of being a strong man. If he tried to lead them, they would find only pain and troubles. Yet they were all looking at him, expecting him to have an answer.

  He rubbed his forehead and breathed deeply. When they touched there was steam, yet there was no sign of any water. That meant that somehow when Seokjin touched her there was sublimation of some kind. The chemicals on her skin must have been reacted with his. The same chemicals that stopped him from burning must have a variant that stopped her from getting frostbite.
 
  If Seokjin stayed close to her there was a chance they could negate the effects of her abilities maturing. Siwon had tested with placing opposites together. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. It all depended on whether or not placing them together would lead to their abilities overworking to replace missing components.

  "She might just die on us?" Jimin stared at her with disbelief. He had seen people fall apart from the different experiments. He never thought that maybe him and Taehyung had managed it because they had something else. For all he knew Siwon hit him up with something else without him noticing. But she didn't get that, just a curse.

  "At least something interesting happened before I died." Her lips curled into an amused smile as she leaned her head against the metal wall.

  "Death isn't that welcoming." Seokjin stared at her in disbelief. He had greeted the reaper on many occasions. He found the darkness roaming at his mind. He had only come back because Siwon wouldn't let him go. Because he didn't want to die.

  "I'm not an idiot." Was her whispered response as a shiver shook her body. Yunghee watched as Namjoon stared at her with intense eyes before he wiped a finger against her skin, rubbing at it.

  "Seokjin hold her."

  "What?" Her words started to slur as she stared at Namjoon confused.

  "She's going to melt!" Jungkook looked panicked as he sat up.

  "She isn't a snowman." Yoongi said as he looked at Jungkook incredously. Seokjin faltered and looked at Namjoon.

  "She is only secreting chemicals, she isn't manifesting anything else. Just give her warmth and both of you should be fine." Namjoon closed his eyes, hoping he was right. Maybe he was wrong and he just killed off two people. Maybe the chemicals didn't matter at all. Maybe they were just fire and ice, opposites that should never meet.

  Seokjin pulled Yunghee into his chest. Her forehead weakly hit his chest and she shuddered against his body as steam poured from every bit of flesh that touched. He could feel her cold inching at his body. He breathed in deeply and bit his dried lip, shocked by the lack of resistance in his lungs. His asthma had always bothered him. His abilities stole his air and the warmth suffocated his lungs. Yet her chill brought balance to his chest. The cold gently opened his lungs, clearing the heat from his body.

  "What are you experiencing?" Namjoon narrowed his eyes at them, not sure how they were reacting to each other.

  "I can breathe." Seokjin mumbled looking at the girl in his arms.

  "Your abilities mainly affect your lungs, thats where they collect the fuel to manifest themselves." Namjoon's eyebrows furrowed as his thoughts organised themselves. "It makes sense that she would balance the heat distribution out. Asthmatic sufferers commonly find trouble in environments that are both too cold, and too hot." His gaze fell on the girl who was flushed and squeezing her eyes shut. "Are you overheating?"

  "No." She croaked out, refusing to open her eyes.

  "Prude." Yoongi muttered getting a holler of approval from an amused Hoseok.

  "Embarrassment then," Namjoon trailed off then chuckled. "Don't get embarrassed, he's keeping you from freezing and hitting the lowest stage of hypothermia." He didn't need to say what it was, obviously it was death. "When she reaches a steady temperature, you can let her go. I wouldn't suggest letting go sooner in case the cold hastens her bodies reactions." He looked at Seokjin as he spoke, still taking control.

  "I understand." Seokjin nodded and looked down at Yunghee again. His eyes felt light when he looked at her. It was an odd way to describe his feelings sure, but to him it made sense. When he held her, he could breathe freely, he could think without the steady but sure weight of heat weighing on his mind.

  "I don't want to die." Her lips brushed against his shirt as she spoke. Sure, she wouldn't begrudge death if it happened, but she didn't actually want to die.

  "You won't, don't worry kid." Namjoon ruffled her hair and stood up, making his way over to Jimin again. He didn't notice Jungkook staring at him with a conflicted expression, trying to process who Namjoon was.

He didn't care to notice.

  He was scared about what others thought about him. He was raised a disappointment. The only people that had never been disappointed in him were Siwon (who was killed by Primatech) and Jimin (who was currently immobile in pain). He didn't want to get close to anyone else and chance harming them, or worse yet, disappointing them too. He still couldn't look at Taehyung. He knew when his cousin gained his coherency back the kid would be back to hating him. Taehyung's hatred would evolve into bitterness and self-hatred. Namjoon didn't know how to stop it. His cousin was surrounded by people he hated and there was nothing Namjoon could do to make it better for him.