Dark Matter | JJK

16. The Three Brothers

Jungkook clasped the cylindrical vial with the two heads of the metal tongs, rotating the white cap. Once opened, he set the cap on a tray and observed the thread-thin bevel of the syringe needle penetrating through a second layer of covering across the vial's brim. He then tore open the secondary covering and eyed the hypodermic needle attached to the bottom of the vial. Form across the plethora of lab equipment separating the two, he locked eyes with Petra.

"So this is how they inject it in."

Jungkook carefully poured the neon green contents of the vial into a distillation flask connected to a cable that displayed the liquid's information on the monitor.

Petra clicked a spot on the touchscreen monitor. "0.5 milliliters of unadulterated Aenigmium. Density 1.24 grams per centimeters cube." She looked up from the screen. "Corresponds to the levels found in Im Changhoon's body."

Jungkook nodded grimly, eyes hovering above the now empty vial. He picked up the white cap between two gloved fingers and rotated it while holding it to the light. Just when he was about to dismissively put it back down on the tray, he noticed a ripple in the green liquid stuck to the underside of the cap. Holding it in his left hand and prodding the cap with a pair of tongs, he successfully removed the square piece of paper stuck to the underside.

"Hey," he said, holding the paper towards Petra. "Look at this. Was stuck in the cap."

The girl squinted her eyes at it before placing the paper on the tray, dabbing it with a sterilized ball of cotton and unfolding it with gentle fingers. Under the bright white lights of the laboratory, the handwriting seemed awfully familiar.

Namjoon, who had been sitting so quietly on a chair a few feet away from them that Jungkook forgot he was even there, walked up to the counter next to him. Together, they silently read the words:

I am closer than you think.

The same rushed handwriting. The same kanji symbol for power imprinted in black ink at the corner of the page.

Namjoon exhaled sharply. "We know one thing for sure now." The other two looked at him. "We were definitely not overthinking it the last time. This goes deeper than we understand."

"Where's Mr. President now?" Jungkook asked, anger bubbling in the pit of his stomach. "He ordered us to keep it confidential. Look at how many people we lost."

"Where is he, really?" Petra said. "It's been a whole of two days since the attack and he hasn't even addressed the country yet."

"President Kim is sick," Namjoon said, eyeing the note. When the two scientists looked at him with their eyebrows raised in incredulity, Namjoon sighed. "Well, that's what the media says and the public know. Truth is, he's hiding."

"What?" exclaimed Petra, narrowing her eyes. "Hiding? When his country needs him the most?"

"Precisely. He doesn't want to address the crowd."

"But why?"

Joon braced his palms against the experiment counter, intensely eyeing the smooth white surface. Jungkook didn't even attempt to read his expression; his hyung was anything but an open book.

When he finally looked up, there was uncertainty glimmering in his eyes. "I have to tell you something."

☯

The eight of them sat quietly at the dining table of Jungkook's shared apartment. The journey from the university to his home had been terrifying in every sense of the word. Jungkook kept his eyes clenched shut throughout the ride in the car, refusing to look through the window and glimpse at the catastrophe that had marred his city. But he knew, even as the car bumped over the dilapidated roads and continuously crashed into rubble, that no matter how hard he tried to blur the image of that day from his mind, it would always be there, a constant reminder of the purgatory this once paradise had become.