Four days. They kept him under house arrest for just four days, but it might as well have been four lifetimes.
Stuffing his hands in his coat pocket, Jeon Jungkook walked down the corridors of Seoul National University, not even trying to look the least bit inconspicuous. Had he been looking straight ahead, focused on some blurry white spot on the linoleum floor, the stares of people would've been slightly more apparent. He was almost immune to it by now, the probing eyes and curious whisperings that flooded him from all sides almost every time he made a public appearance. But something was off today.
There seemed to be no muted talks, no muffled mutterings following him like a tail - people appeared to be trying their best to avoid him, in fact. They would incidentally look his way and avert their gazes just as quicky, pretending to not have noticed. It was one of the first times the school crowd was exhibiting anything close to normalcy around him, though it felt anything but normal.
"Hey, Kookster."
Now he knew why.
Jungkook ignored the mocking call, choosing to instead continue down the path towards the his designated laboratory for the day. Rushed footsteps overtook him, coming to a halt few paces ahead.
Anyone with an iota of common sense would've taken his heavy sigh as a goddamned hint and walked the other way. "I'm not in the mood, Ben."
"When are you ever in the mood, Jeon?" said boy asked, crossing his arms over his green windcheater jacket. "After twelve?"
His second-in-command bully friends cackled like he had just cracked the funniest joke in history. Jungkook was well aware of every pair of eyes fixed on the scene, waiting for some drama to unfold. As though there wasn't enough trouble brewing on the streets of South Korea on its own.
"What do you want?" Jungkook asked lazily, wishing nothing more than to be back under house arrest again, if it meant avoiding the baboon's face.
"We could ask you precisely the same," Ben said, stepping forward, smirking. "What do you want? Democratic Peoples' Republic of Zombies? That's what your dad wanted anyway."
Jungkook attempted to step around the corner, but Ben moved to the side to block his path. "Where are you running off to? Got another girl to shag?"
"Yeah, you guessed right," Jungkook spat, irritation bubbling in the pit of his gut. "Why? Too busy pulling my leg to get some for yourself?"
His words seemed to have struck the right nerve, because Ben growled dangerously and risked another step forward till the two stood eye to eye.
"At least my father's not a murderer," he hissed, and connected his fist with Jungkook's face.
The sickening crack that split the air overpowered his pain for a moment. Jungkook's back hit the wall, his face contorting as his spine pulsed with a momentary ache. He seemed to have hit the iron dustbin. The metallic taste coating his tongue was what had him staggering to his feet, a hand rising to limply to wipe the rivulet of blood flowing down the corner of his mouth.
Don't retaliate. Don't.
Jungkook's head spun a little as several pairs of curious eyes blurred into focus. Ben, a bloody fist clenched at his side, turned when the crowd parted behind them and Professor Lee Daehyun's figure came into view.
Daehyun quietly observed the scene, calculating eyes passing from one man to the next, before settling on Jungkook's figure slumped by the wall.
"Ben," he said evenly, not bothering to revert his gaze to the other boy, "wait for me outside my office. Now."
All the while grumbling under his breath, Ben tottered past gawking students and janitors down the corridor, but not before tossing Jungkook a nasty scowl over his shoulder.
"Mr Jeon," Daehyun spoke again, recapturing his attention. His calm demeanor almost completely masked the exasperation brewing underneath. "You are fifteen minutes late to class."
"I didn't mean to get caught up in the middle of this, Professor," Jungkook said, ignoring the burning of his lips.
"But you could choose to ignore it," Daehyun snapped, composed facade cracking. "What antics are you meddling in when you are supposed to be creating an antidote? Is this a sick joke to you?"
"Of course not, Professor Lee -" Jungkook started, but cut himself off when Daehyun turned to walk away, turning a deaf ear to his explanation.
At the end of the corridor, he halted and looked over his shoulder at the boy standing by himself in the middle of the hallway, with a legion of onlookers tracking his every move.
"Your father was the chief scientist of this institution for twenty-three years," Daehyun said, cold eyes boring into his own, rooting him to the spot. "And he did nothing. I wonder why I thought you'd be any different."
☯
[A/N] Dearest reader,
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