Glitchers

Chapter 1

"It's you again! You never learn, do you?" Jungkook sighs at the rebellious Taehyung. "Why am I the one who is always blessed to see your face?" He sarcastically snorts at the rebel.
Taehyung remains quiet but smirks at Jungkook.
"Speak something... you never remain quiet!" Jungkook says as he verifies the complaints received. The paper is filled with complaints received from the glitchers against rebels, with only a few against thieves.
"Yoongi.. Yoongi!" Jungkook examines the names on that list, "There are four complaints against Yoongi. I have to catch him again." He exasperates.

"Problem, ranger?" Taehyung sneers at the muscular ranger. Standing behind the bars, he looks around the patrol station. This is like a second house for him since he gets caught by Jungkook almost every day.
Jungkook glares at him, annoyed, but Taehyung gives him a scornful laugh.

"You know Yoongi, right?" Jungkook asks him.
"Yeah... not much of a fan though!" Taehyung shrugs uninterested.
"Do you know where he is?"
He gives a smug smile to the younger expecting an answer, and mocks at him,"I might!" And then turns away from the ranger.

“Taehyung!” Jungkook controls himself from shouting at the rebel. “Why do you keep making mistakes and end up here? Don’t you learn at all? Can’t you be like the others and let me live peacefully?”
“Ranger, I don’t want to harm you in any way, but I have to live... I need money and I will not let anything get in my path!” Taehyung says stone-faced.
“Then rot here!”
“Ouch! Words like those don’t sound good when you speak. Aren’t you the angel?” Taehyung mocks him again, trying to test his patience.

Jungkook is often addressed as an angel by the Glitchers in his town, town Ruby, as he takes utter care in protecting them from any harm. Even though he is very young, he is determined to maintain peace around him. He is the youngest of all the rangers and the most skillful one. So, he is assigned to take rebels under control.

“Taehyung! Tell me where Yoongi is!!” Jungkook asks in a threatening voice but Taehyung is accustomed to it. He doesn't even look bothered.

“I am bored now!” He goes away from the bars and settles down near the wall. “I won’t go to house today. Get food for me too.” Taehyung fake-yawns and takes out the jackstones from his pocket, annoying Jungkook even more by ignoring his words.

Jungkook has had enough. He unlocks the cell and punches Taehyung in his face which makes the elder groan a little. Taehyung doesn’t fight back because he knows that fighting a ranger who's in duty will get him punished for a week and he has to temporarily move to different town after that. He can’t afford to do that as each town has different rules of their own.

Jungkook hits the wall in frustration and settles down beside Taehyung. “What do you want, Taehyung?”
Taehyung stays quiet for a moment ans just takes deep breaths, looking like he is forcing himself not to go against the other, but then opens his mouth, “Money!” he answers as he wipes the blood coming out of his mouth with his palm.

Taehyung snorts. “You know nothing, Jungkook. You want to stay blind. You are a coward-” Jungkook enraged, punches him again and walks out of the cell, locking Taehyung inside.
“I am not a coward!” Jungkook screams and storms away.

***

“Teacher, can I know how we get the food we eat?” an elementary school kid asks his teacher, Seokjin.
“You are too young to understand it.” Jin crouches down to the kid’s level and ruffles his hair. “I'll tell you when you grow up.”
“Okay!” The kid flashes a smile and runs away into playground.
Jin helplessly stares at the kid who is running away. He then sighs and walks towards his house.

In this world, house means a place where random groups of people stay together. All of them are of same gender; male. None of the people know how they are born, how the population continues, how the food they eat is produced…
All they know is that, the Lords give them money for the work they do. The meager amount of money they earn is not enough and so, thieves are quite common in this world. The money they have, fetches them food. There are vending machines in all the Glitchers' towns. Food can be purchased from those machines and no matter what, Glitchers can’t seem to break the machines. The Perfects collect the money from the machine and bring the food packets time the towns. Those packets are refilled into the machines by the working Glitchers.
Occasionally, there will be some broken vending machines, which the normal people think that the rebels broke. In that case, the food packets and the money are quietly taken away by the Glitchers. Next day, the Perfects repair it and put the blame on rebels, punishing them even thought they protest that they aren't guilty.