kicks ✓ || namgi || k.th

046: futile

chapter 46: futile
location: incheon detention center, south korea

It did not surprise Kim Namjoon in the least bit that his father was waiting for him at the detention center.

The police and the FBI had separated the group into two, taking Yoongi and Seokjin somewhere separate. It had happened so quickly that Namjoon hadn't been able to reach for Yoongi, hadn't been able to say goodbye. One moment he had been sitting around the fire, and the next he was waking up in a police van without Yoongi.

He had panicked, but then had stayed quiet. Look, listen, understand. They were all separated, all headed back to Korea, he could tell that much. So he whispered to his brothers, softly, while they were escorted from Wyoming to San Francisco and then across the ocean. It will be okay. We will all reunite. I promise. Except now Namjoon was here and he had no clue how he was going to keep that promise.

Hoseok, Jimin, Jungkook, and Taehyung were being held in confinement, but not in jail like Yoongi and Seokjin. They were placed in a room where they were fed and could sit, sharing one television for entertainment until somebody paid their bail to go home. Namjoon's father had already paid his bail.

"You know why I'm here," he said, sitting across from Namjoon. The room was a conference room usually used for meetings. Long windows covered one wall, showing the building's entrance from where they were. An intercom phone sat on the conference desk, and one of those high tech smart boards lined the wall opposite Namjoon. It was in no way a holding cell, but it sure felt like one.

"I do know why you're here."

"Do you have any clue how much shame you've brought not only to me and my company, but the entire nation? We've been the laughingstock of America for the past six weeks while you and your friends have skipped across the country like you're on a trip to Jeju Island! And what's more --"

"Father." Namjoon did his best to look his father in the eye. "You know how I got across America. Am I right?"

His father was quiet, and then, he spoke. "The A113 models were destroyed years ago. The one you came into possession of was faulty. It has been procured by the United States government and destroyed. There are no more vans, and you should forget the entire thing happened."

"How can I? Father -- you never told me about the Mikrokosmos Project. I thought you told me everything about Baepsae's history." Namjoon looked down at the desk. "I'm sorry for speaking out, but with everything I have been through, I feel I deserve to know."

"You do not. There are some secrets that are worth keeping, even from your own son."

And there are some secrets that you don't deserve to know, Namjoon thought to himself, like how much I love Yoongi. You'll never pry that from me.

"This adventure is over," Namjoon's father continued. "Your friends will either sit here and be drafted, or their parents will come pick them up and decide what to do with them. None of you are allowed back in America, at least until your military enlistments are completed. I'm sure we can revisit that once yours is completed as well. You have received your own draft notification, Namjoon. Now that you are no longer enrolled at a university in America, you are more than free to complete your time and become a real man, one who does not run away from his responsibilities."

"Father --" Namjoon bit his lip. His father wasn't wrong. All they had managed to do was run from the cops...though Namjoon had realized that everybody he had come into contact with was hiding something. His father. Yoongi. Sara. What was the truth? What was the reality he had been living in? The truth was they had found a van, and his father had the answers, and he would never get those answers at this rate.

"Father," he said, one more time, "why did you hide the Mikrokosmos Project --"

A huge bang rocked the entire building. The walls shook. Chairs fell over. Namjoon got up from where he was and looked behind him, then moved quickly out of the way as something massive was coming straight toward the windows.

Namjoon ducked at just the right time as the huge object barreled straight through the windows, shattering the glass and coming to rest right against the conference table. It looked like a huge rock, or a meteor. "You stay here," he heard his father yell as he still backed against the door, the furthest he could be from this...

And now that the smoke was clearing, Namjoon noticed that it was a car. A van, actually. A faded orange van that looked a hell of a lot like the purple van he had just crossed America in.

The room flooded with smoke as someone got out of the car. Namjoon could hear guards behind him, unable to open the door that his father had locked. Nobody could save them from this new threat, whatever it was.

An eerie tune echoed out in English, being sung by the person who had just driven a van into the detention facility.

The game of life is hard to play
I'm gonna lose it anyway
The losing card I'll someday lay
So this is all I have to say
Suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please

The dust settled to show a white man, in his fifties, sporting greying hair and a sweater vest. He swung the keys around his fingers and looked not at Namjoon, but at his dad. Then, he spoke in perfect Korean.

"Hello, Kim Youngchul. We have a score to settle."