Master's ( Jungkook / BTS )

Episode II: Approaching Storm

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Mr. Lee was right, it did rain that night. Thunder struck, waking me up from another nightmare; these days, having nightmares seemed to be a routinely thing. I've always had bad dreams, but ever since mother's funeral they've become more regular, waking me up at least once or twice a night.
     I reached out for my glass of water, but it was empty. I took a trip down to the kitchen and filled up my glass. On my way back up, I stopped by the basement door. I didn't notice at first, but as I neared the door, I saw Lina sitting against the door.
"What are you doing here?"
She looked up. "Oh, I didn't know you were still up."
"Mind if I join?" I asked, but I wasn't really waiting for an answer, I was going to sit with her either way.
"Not at all," she scooted over to make room for me. I took a seat next to her and we sat there in silence. I didn't know the reason behind her silence, but for me, I just wanted to enjoy her presence. Like always, she broke the silence, this time by slightly laughing to herself.
"Hey, what did I say about laughing around me?" I teased.
"Sorry, it's just that- never mind."
"No, tell me. What were you about to say?"
"It's just that, last time we were here, you were drunk and passed out."
I tried to recall that night. Before Lina found me I half-mindlessly drank an entire bottle of whisky and woke up in the living room covered in a blanket. I had assumed that that was her doing.
"If you could, could you not mention that to any of the others?"
"I promise," she stuck her pinky out and waited for me to do the same. I took my pinky and wrapped it around her's.
"Can I ask you something?"
"Hmm?"
"How come you don't need to wash your hand after touching me?"
"What?"
"Well maybe it's just the scientist in me, just happened to be an observation of mine, but after touching people you usually have to wash your hands or at least sanitize them. You've held my hands many times and each time you don't. Why is that?" She asked me.
I didn't know how to answer her. Now that I thought about it, she was right. The thing was, whenever I touched anybody, even just slightly, my skin would crawl, driving me crazy and in severe cases the sensations would even become unbearable. I've seen tons of doctors and they all told me it was all in my head, either that or they'll blame it on an allergy, which considering my medical tab didn't seem too bizarre. All this aside, I realized that when it came to Ah Lina, when I held her hand I was fine.
To test my realization I grabbed her hand and I felt nothing. How could this be? I reached for her other hand, nothing. I reached out and held her face in both my hands and looked into her eyes. She seemed as confused as me.
"Master, are you okay?" She tilted her head to the side and I let go of her face.
"Uhhh..." I was completely speechless. "You're smart, if I asked you a question, do you think you'd be able to give me an answer?"
"It depends, what's your question?"
"Let's say someone's allergic to something, but they find that they aren't allergic to a certain kind of that same thing-"
"Like apples?"
"Um, not exactly. But, would that be possible?"
"I mean, I wouldn't say it's completely impossible. It all depends on that person's immune system, I guess, and whether their body considers it to be a threat."
"What about certain people?" What if someone found themselves to be physically impossible to touch most people, could there be some others that wouldn't effect them? Would you consider that an allergy?"
She shut her eyes and thought about it. After a few seconds she opened them back up, "I don't think they're necessarily allergic to people; they might just not be compatible with them from a biological standpoint. Us humans, we have billions of bacteria living on our skin and I've heard of bacteria being able to evolve to destroy other bacteria without destroying themselves. I've never heard of any cases of this on people, but it's not a hundred percent unthinkable. Does that help a little?" She explained. This was probably easy for her to understand but to me all the words jumbled up into one big ball. I'll never question her intelligence ever again.
     I nodded, "Yeah, I guess so." I decided to rest the topic there.
     "Can I ask you something next, Master?"
     I nod.
     "Who's the most important person in your life?"
     I thought about it; no matter how deep I searched for it I couldn't find the answer to that question. I never had a good relationship with my mother, I was still looking for answers to father's mysterious death and people who I once considered my friends became liars and the one I trusted the most went behind my back, committed an unforgivable act and hurt me the most. I had nobody.
     "I change my mind," I turned away from her. She didn't try to get me to answer and I appreciated her for not trying to. After a few seconds of silence I decided to ask, "So, what are you doing up this late?"
     "I-" A flash of light shined across her face. Soon after the sound of thunder shook the ground and Lina curled up into a tiny ball.
     "You couldn't sleep, could you?" I said, realizing she had a fear of thunder.
     Keeping her head between her knees she nodded.
     "The thunder stopped, it's okay to look up now."
     She looked up just slightly, "Really?"
     "Really," I reassured her. "Anyway, aren't you a little too old to be scared of thunder?"
     "No," she took offense. "You probably have something you're afraid of too."
     "Whatever," I shook my head.
     "This is serious, what if something bad happens tomorrow because I didn't get enough sleep?"
     "Okay, okay, I'm sorry." I suddenly remembered being a kid and on nights like this Soojin would come into my room and sing me to sleep. I guess it wouldn't hurt to try. I started softly singing a random song.
     "What are you-"
     "Just be quiet and listen," I shushed and started singing again. She remained quiet the whole time I sang and after I finished I checked to see if she was still awake. She was out like a light, it actually worked, I couldn't believe it. Now that she was asleep, I had to be careful not to wake her. I tried my best not to as I carried Lina to her room. I put her in bed and pulled the covers over her. I looked at her sleeping face one last time before heading back to my room.

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      "What do you mean there's an issue with the Blaze Project?" I got up from my desk.
     "Sir, there was an error in the lab and we lost all samples of the vaccine," Mr. Lee restated once more.
     "Then make more."
     "It doesn't seem to be that easy. They had to get rid of all traces of the vaccine, but they need a sample of an uncorrupted vaccine in order to produce more."
     "So, you're telling me that if we find an uncorrupted sample we'd be able to produce more of the vaccine for Blaze?" I started thinking of a solution.
     "Yes, but that's an if, sir."
     "Where's Ah Lina?" I ignored him.
     "We contacted her already, she's currently in school, but she said she'd be here as soon as she could."
     "Thank you, you may leave," I dismissed him from my office. How could something like this happen? I reached for my phone and buzzed the lady working the front desk.
     "Who was in charge of supervising the team down in the lab?"
     "That would be team leader Jo, sir."
     "Connect me to him," I spoke into the receiver. I waited for the phones to connect.
     "President Jeon," I heard a man pick up.
     "Team leader Jo, you're fired." I hung up and slammed the phone back down. At the same time my door swung open, revealing a rather sweaty looking Ah Lina.
     "Sir," She panted. "I'm here."
     "Sit down."
     "There was an issue with the vaccine?" She asked in disbelief.
     "They all got contaminated," I explained.
     "That's impossible, unless they were all left exposed for some reason." She brought up an interesting point.
     "That's not what's important right now. Do you know if we have any remaining samples of the vaccine?"
     "We should still have the original sample down in the lab back home, but the door's locked."
     I had to find that key.

END OF EPISODE II
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