TARGET

서른 일곱

15 Minutes Earlier

The first thing Jaemin did when he finally pried his eyes open was gulp in the air that was waiting at the gates of his parched lips. His irises pulsated, helplessly trying cling on to a distinguishable scenery among the obscure nude scape.

The head ached as if it was prodded at with knives, which, quite frankly, may have been the case.

As his eyes regained focus, he made out the dark figure that stood before him, not needing the remaining fragments of his sight to deduce that the figure was his counterpart,

"Josh hy..."

Stock still in front of him, orbs glazed over with a sheen layer of moisture, features twisted in a trepidation and laced with angst,

below the soles of his worn in combat boots, stretched a shadow-

"JOSH! SNAP OUT OF IT!" Jaemin lurched at the elder, grasping his shoulders and jarring the stilled figure,

The chestnut haired male regained focus by the fragments, gasping for air,

"Its the Stargift hyung, nothing is here to harm you,"

The elder locked gaze with Jaemin, brows knitted together apprehensively.

His mind was left with the muddled residue of trauma that he could, contrarily, feel prominently within his gut.

Nodding warily, Joshua ushered for Jaemin to follow the origins of the odd shadows, in which the one formerly attached to Joshua was retracting at an incrementally increasing rate, prompting the boys to rush.

His soul felt like it was hauled from his petrified vessel, hurled into a memory he never knew he had, although the discombobulation convulsed his memory, he was forced to relive it,

forced to plummet within the chambers of detached memories of a different him.

The more he thought back to it, the more Joshua's memories kept herding back to his hippocampus, and frankly, he was reluctant to dig further. His ingenuity warned him to not pry further.

For the sake of his sanity, he'd rather stay oblivious.

Because the glimmer of what he saw to be the life "Hong Jisoo," is something he wished not to dwell upon.

But he had a task at hand.

He had a purpose, as Joshua of Ursula Minor.

The distinctive tap of rubber soles and the dimmed noise of clamoring gear was absorbed by the cesspool of fear and tensity. All they could occupy their minds with was trailing the receding shadow to its whereabouts.

It seemed as if the numerous amount of adversities throughout the progression of their mission only piled:

They worked against guards,

security,

Stargifts,

targets,

their own minds, as it seemed.

Its quite baffling as one can be one's own enemy, it only prompts the skepticism of every entity that may obstruct the path to prosperity, and in Joshua's case:

the factors it would take for the aforementioned entities to be deemed an "enemy" would only exponentially shrink.

Every so often, the elder made sure to peer over his shoulder to assure Jaemin was trailing behind him, to avoid reliving the incident.

Joshua noticed that the lights of the corridor had began to flicker and fuse, the odor of a running gas stove overwhelming his nostrils. The hyper stimulation of all his senses was causing Joshua to intrinsically short-circuit. The nauseating smell of diesel fuel, the ringing within his ear, the air escaping his lungs-

Enough to concoct a recipe of disaster.

Soon, In his line of sight he saw a steel door, although, he perceived it as one would a mirage in a desert oasis, as a wave of relief washed over him upon the sight.

And so, as he approached the door, he rendered that it was slightly ajar.

Of course, it was most likely because the target most likely fleeted as soon as the two broke out of his cheap stunt, but the oddity of the situation still caused Joshua to feel the entailed apprehension.

Something deep within his gut was telling him that the target wasn't as simple minded as they let on.

Without delay, Joshua kicked in the door, causing quite the raucous, but he was more than sure their presence was acknowledged by the opposition anyways.

Thus Jaemin shone his LED flashlight upon what seemed like a storage room, decorated with boxes and files dispersed among the rather small room.

there was nothing especially apparent in the room that would indicate human inhabitance, albeit that would be the narrative the target would be trying to solicit.

This was quite bewildering to Joshua because the target definitely did not appear to value concealment in the slightest.

But what Joshua did uncover was behind the stack of boxes in front of them sat a miniature wooden doll, akin to that of those used as models within an conventional art class.

Joshua stilled, as the doll emulated a type of aura that mimicked a Starborn's, but on a mitigated scale-

"Hyung, I found another door, the map-thingie says the chip is this way,"

"Ok one sec,"

Without rationale, Joshua grasped the wooden doll, feeling the pads of his fingers spark in the nature analogous to the way they would spark when activating his gift, promptly shoving it into the satchel at his hip.

Whether he would regret this decision, was future Joshua's issue.

And the pair of ravenette orbs that watched as the two left the storage room only thinned.

Out of anticipation, the shadow beamed,

"interesting."

_

yes i did lowk steal the stargift from naruto but what yall gonna do, bite me?

sorry short chapter but school is killing me bruh