ODDS OF SURVIVAL - TAEKOOK

CHAPTERTEN

Once Taehyung had recovered enough of his senses to get in the car, the drive home was silent and uncomfortable.

Not that silence between them was usually companionable, but this was uncomfortable on an entirely new level.

They both stared ahead at the road, trying hard not to think about what had just happened, but so affected by it that they couldn't think of anything else.

Jungkook cast a few glances at Taehyung from the corner of his eye, thinking they should probably talk.

In therapy they always told him to talk about things. It would probably help both of them to talk about what they'd both just been through, but he couldn't bring himself to say a word. He wasn't even sure which one of them had the more traumatizing experience.

He'd nearly been killed, and got a front-row seat to two other men being murdered. Taehyung had been a safe distance away and hadn't seen the looks on their faces, been spattered with their blood, watched the bodies go slack as life was torn out of them.

Taehyung hadn't experienced those things up close, but he'd pulled the trigger that caused them. Jungkook thought, in some ways, that could be worse.

The drive back to the plant nursery from the collection of rural homes they'd been scavenging from was nearly an hour, and it was getting dark by the time they arrived.

Nearly a full day spent, several gallons of fuel burned driving there and back, and they had very little to show for it other than emotional trauma and a new pair of pliers.

It was hard not to be angry about what a waste the entire day had been, but it was also hard to summon the energy to be properly angry at the moment. Maybe he could be angry about it tomorrow.

Taehyung didn't speak for the rest of the day. When they got home, he latched the gate after Jungkook drove the car inside the fence, then went into the storage shed they'd made into their residence and left Jungkook to unload the car on his own.

Again, Jungkook couldn't quite muster the strength to be angry about it. Or maybe he was angry, but it felt too distant for him to express it. None of his emotions seemed to be working properly.

They were still there, or at least he had the vague sense that they were, but everything was so muted that he couldn't actually feel them. Or anything, really. Like his body was running on routine or instinct or whatever, and he was just along for the ride.

He watched his hands unload the packs he'd stolen off of the two dead men, but still couldn't make himself open them just yet.

Instead he set them, along with the guns he'd collected from them, in the smaller shed where they kept their tools and other equipment, deciding he could deal with them another time.

The bag Taehyung had been carrying to collect things wasn't very full, but when he opened it to see where he should put its contents he paused.

On top of a few cans of food and an unopened bottle of liquid soap were three bars of chocolate. Not the garbage milk chocolate candy bars they used to have at every checkout lane or gas station, but the high-quality, extra dark, stone-ground organic kind that was hard to find anywhere outside of big cities full of pretentious foodies.

Taehyung brought him chocolate.

That meant something. It was significant in a way that Jungkook couldn't fully comprehend at that moment, but a twinge in his chest cut through the emotional fog.

Even though he couldn't assign a name to it, the feeling was very distinctly there. It felt important. Big. Like a reaction to this was due on his part, but right now he was so lost all he could do was stand there, staring down into the bag for a few moments at the Big, Important Chocolate with its overcomplicated emotional demands.