Lost and Found (Jirose)

His Riddle

The minutes ticked by as Jimin waited, sweat rolling down his temple.

Distant gunshots echoed, making him squeeze his eyes shut as he gripped his gun more tightly, suppressing his trembling by pressing his chin against the cool muzzle he held up at ready.

He cried inwardly, thinking about Kris, Tao and Luhan over the ceaseless gunfire, the hateful heart-stopping popping noises reaching a crescendo as the fierce shootout turned vicious.

Were they okay? Were they able to hold out against Chanyeol's men? And what's going to happen when they run out of bullets? I'm supposed to be out there with them!

The supposedly covert operation to face off Chanyeol without drawing the attention of his new crew of henchmen went south pretty quickly.

Chanyeol, it seemed, had been expecting Jimin to drop by any day, as he said before whipping out his gun and shooting.

Jimin's reflexes saved him as he dodged and fled with Kris and the other two. Armed men appeared out of nowhere, blocking their exit with their guns.

Jimin and his trio veered away, diving behind the vehicles in the underground parking as bullets ricocheted off metal.

It was chaos, a brutal siege they were totally unready for. Jimin resigned himself to the fact that this time, he wouldn't be able to escape Death.

"Chim! Focus!" Kris snapped. He was crouching behind the vehicle next to the pickup Jimin had taken refuge behind.

"There's too many of them..." Jimin said in despair. He hated the defeated whine in his voice.

Kris paused to return the fire briefly, before ducking back down to speak.

"Not yet! Chanyeol hasn't gone too far— I saw him take the elevator. And I bet you anything Yeri is somewhere up there. If anything, we have to extract her—"

The hail of bullets showed no sign of abating. Kris turned back to Jimin.

"I'm going to cause a distraction. When I say so, you have to make a run for the stairs okay?" He pointed to the exit stairway, which was a good few metres away, and absolutely uncovered.

It would be almost suicide if he ran right now into open fire.

"You can do it," Kris encouraged, "just run, and don't look back."

Jimin glanced at Luhan and Tao a few cars down from his spot, shooting expertly with clinical efficiency as they reloaded and fired again with barely any change in expression. 

"Alright," Jimin said quickly, his throat dry, "just don't do anything rash and...and stay safe."

Kris saluted. "Roger boss, don't worry about us," he winked, "we've been in way worse scrapes than this."

So saying, he took out a small hand-grenade and pulled out the pin. "On three. 1, 2, RUN!"

Kris lobbed the grenade and it exploded in smoke mid-air. Confused shouts and barked orders rang out as the thick fumes blanketed the area, hiding the shooters from each other.

Jimin took off at Kris' shout, sprinting as fast as he could under the cover of the smokescreen before the shootout resumed once more.

He was halfway up the stairs when the unmistakbale ping of gunfire echoed again, causing him to freeze for one long moment.

Don't look back.

Wrenching his gaze away, Jimin continued scaling up the stairs until he burst on to the landing and entered an empty corridor. His footsteps echoed as he advanced cautiously, holding up his gun next to his face.