My Destiny | Taekook

Chapter 16.5: Intruder Alert

Saturday morning
Song: Airplane pt.2

Taehyung's heart raced. Bogum's answer gave rise to a million more questions. An intruder? Who? Is this the first time this is happening? The smoke cleared and all agents in the vicinity were steady on their feet, hands aimed towards the entrance of the dome.

Bogum waved his hand in a circular motion and a shield of water appeared in front of them. "State your purpose in coming here," he demanded as a blurry figure emerged from the smoke.

It was Jungkook.

Jungkook was dressed in a checkered black and white shirt with baggy cargo pants. If it were anyone else, they might have looked peculiar, but it seemed that Jungkook would look great in anything. Jungkook crooned, "There's my aye-aye."

"God, you couldn't have made a more dramatic entrance," Namjoon told him off. Bogum and the other agents lowered their defences. All of them were in awe, especially Bogum, who asked Jungkook how he had gotten past the holographic pit of snakes. Jungkook drawled, "I dove right into the pit of snakes intending to kill them, only to realise that they disappeared." Bogum, along with many other agents, could not conceal the amusement that showed on their faces. A few agents subconsciously backed away from Jungkook.

Jungkook strutted towards Taehyung, who panicked for a good few seconds, wondering how he should react. Thank you for coming? Why on Cvuldir did you blow the door down? What are you doing here? Are you an agent of Anpanman? "I'll train with you," Jungkook offered. Taehyung gulped.

"Only agents of Anpanman are allowed to use the facilities," Bogum notified him, gesturing to the agents to disperse and resume training. "I would just watch Taehyung train then," Jungkook declared. Bogum nodded, but quickly warned him, "Don't touch any of the facilities. We don't need you blasting down any more equipment."

Jungkook muttered an apology, and passed a wad of cash to Bogum to repair the doors he slammed down, though Bogum declined. "I'll volunteer to facilitate Taehyung's training!" someone piped up enthusiastically. Taehyung was appalled to see who the voice belonged to - Seoyeon, the semi-finalist who went up against Jungkook in the tournament. She's an agent of Anpanman? Upon noticing the shocked expression on Taehyung's face, Seoyeon explained, "Hey there, I'm Seoyeon, Bogum's little sister. I'm an agent of Anpanman too."

~

Seoyeon ran through several fitness tests with Taehyung, including balance beam tests, shuttle runs and agility tests. Halfway into his eighth round of shuttle runs, Taehyung twisted his right ankle in a specific direction, unquestionably worsening the sprain from his climb up the mountain the day before. Ignoring the sprain in his foot, Taehyung carried on with the training.

The way that Taehyung grimaced and slowed down at certain points during training did not go unnoticed. "Seoyeon, I'll take over from here," Jungkook offered. Seoyeon sighed, "For the sixth time, Jungkook, no." Disregarding her response, Jungkook took a step towards Taehyung. Seoyeon snapped, "You can't just step in whenever you want. You're not an agent."

Eventually, Taehyung tired out from training. Seoyeon advised that he take a break despite his persistent grunts that he would be fine. Finally won over, Taehyung slumped onto one of the benches at the side of the glass dome, panting heavily from his overexertion. Jungkook passed him a bottle of water.

Taehyung huffed, "You could've knocked politely on the glass dome doors instead of blasting them open." He rubbed at his ankle, trying to soothe the sprain.

"Then it wouldn't be as cool, would it?"

"Then you wouldn't have gained a bad reputation among the agents of Anpanman."

"Heh. I believe they think I'm cool. Besides, I would've called you if I had your number instead of blasting the doors down," Jungkook said, handing his phone to Taehyung. Taehyung snorted. He keyed in his number in Jungkook's phone and saved his own name as "Taehyung | the cutest". Taehyung passed the phone back to Jungkook. Jungkook sniggered, and modified the contact name to something else.

Now that's more like it.

"Did you at least bring food with you?" Taehyung asked. Priorities. Jungkook flinched, shaking his head when he realised that Taehyung was not joking.

Taehyung sighed. "Seoyeon, I'm ready to resume training!" he declared.

~

At the end of training, Taehyung had an infuriating throb in his right ankle. He sat on a bench, shrugged his shoe off and started massaging his ankle. "You should've told Seoyeon that you hurt your ankle." Taehyung tilted his head upwards to look at Jungkook, who was holding something in his hand.

"Yeah, you're saying I should stop training when it has just started? I'm weak enough as it is," Taehyung scowled, continuing to nurse his ankle. He winced as his thumb pressed onto a particular spot.

Jungkook walked over. He unscrewed what seemed to be the cap of a tiny bottle in his hand. He then poured two or three droplets of the yellowish liquid onto his fingers and rubbed them onto Taehyung's ankle. Taehyung squirmed and tried to move his ankle away but Jungkook used his other hand to grip onto his heel.

"What the hell!" Taehyung exclaimed.

"Calm down. It's medical oil to treat your sprained ankle," Jungkook said, his posture calm and collected.

Taehyung rolled his eyes but he let Jungkook go ahead with whatever he was doing.

"Should I bother asking where you got the medicine from?"

"I came prepared."

"You came expecting me to get injured," Taehyung said loftily.

Jungkook sighed. "I'd take 'thanks' as a response for nursing your ankle."

"So you did expect me to get injured." Taehyung flinched when Jungkook rubbed that same spot on his ankle.

"It's your first time training. You're bound to get injured," Jungkook rationalised.

"I get it. I'm weak." Fury and resentment coated Taehyung's words, but those feelings were mostly directed towards himself. Taehyung despised himself for being weak.

Jungkook was dead quiet for a solid minute before he muttered, "You're not weak for practising self-care. You're not weak for recognising your weaknesses. To tell you the truth, you are strong for having the will to train, and to strive to improve yourself. Taehyung, that makes you incredibly strong." Jungkook's tone was conclusive. Taehyung remained quiet.

When Jungkook was done with applying the medical oil, Taehyung mumbled, "Thank you."

~

"How was training?" Jimin chirped as Taehyung entered the house, exhausted from the day's training. "Oh god, you looked like you've died," Jimin muttered as Taehyung slumped into the couches, unwilling (or rather, unable) to move another muscle.

With half-lidded eyes, Taehyung sighed, "Real tiring. You should've seen where they train. This giant glass dome. Everything there was super cool. Pity that the doors were blasted open by Jungkook. Now there's a hole in the dome."

"Jungkook's in... what's that called again? Anpanman?" Jimin cocked his head. He went into the kitchen to get a glass of water and offered it to Taehyung, who replied, "No. Jungkook came. I think he wanted to join Anpanman. Made a huge scene and everything. Blasted the goddamn doors open." Taehyung's words were slurred together. His eyes struggled to flutter open, and they eventually shut tightly.

"I see," Jimin murmured, watching over Taehyung until he was sound asleep. Jimin's voice quieted to a whisper as he said, "You fool. Jungkook went to find you."