Ego: Hit and Run (Taekook)

Let's Be Friends

~~~~~~~

His recurring nightmare always ended with screaming.

It started as an uncharacteristically brisk day for March, the breeze shuffling through Taehyung's disheveled hair.

He was late. As always. And his commanding officer would not be happy, as in, he might get fired before even completing his first work assignment.

"Get your ass in here, Kim." Was what his voicemail greeted him with as he checked his messages in the morning, Lieutenant Kim's tenor echoing in his sleep-riddled brain.

He was halfway down the Police Academy's hallway, juggling his daily schedule in one hand with his thermos in the other, when his phone rang from the confines of his coat. His steaming coffee spilled onto his fingers as he searched for the source of that annoying ringing somewhere within his coat pocket.

He hissed in pain, picking up the phone with a clipped "What do you want, Hyewon-ah? I'm busy," and proceeding to lick at his freshly scalded fingers.

There was silence on the other end of the call, eerily quiet, as it settled in the eye of the storm before being swept away by the torrent of the impending hurricane.

"Hyewon? Are you there?" Taehyung tried again, turning up the volume on his phone's speaker.

"T-tae-tae, I'm scared," came a shushed whisper from the other end of the line. Taehyung froze, body stunned into inertia by his befuddlement. "I never meant- I'm sorry, Tae. He told me, he said I would never get involved... " her voice faded away into soul-wrenching sobs.

That achingly familiar hysterical sound stirred Taehyung's shell-shocked mind into action.

"Shh, calm down, Won-ah... Take a deep breath for me, okay? In-" he began, mimicking the deep breathing he wanted to invoke into the speaker, "and out." He repeated this process a couple more times before advancing into interrogation mode.

"Now tell orabeoni what's happening, hmm?" he ordered, using his best instructional and collected voice to calm her down.

"I-I was staying over oppa's house, Joonwoo oppa's house-" Taehyung inhaled sharply at the mention of that name, but did not interrupt her speech, "and then these m-men showed up, I didn't see them, but I could hear them all, and then they started shooting at the guards, a-and oppa told me to go hide in his room, b-but he said he would come back and he-he hasn't and I'm scared Tae-tae, I'm so scared... " she finished, breaking into cries again.

Taehyung took a second to think, collecting his fear and anger and saving them for unraveling at another time.

"Okay, listen to me Won-ah, are you concealed from external sight of the doors and windows right now?" he asked, straining in efforts to hear her reply until she answered in affirmation. "Good, that's good. Here is what you are going to do. You're going to stay where you are, you got that honey? Right where you are. I am going to make some calls and get someone out to you right away. If anyone comes close to where you're hiding, be as still and quiet as possible, even if you think it's someone you know." He spoke assuagingly, as he himself began to sprint down the hallway and into Lieutenant Kim's office.

"Taehyung! Where the bloody fuck have you-" He was cut off by Taehyung's rushed explanations, face morphing from surprise to shock and finally settling into a mask of composure.

Taehyung spoke in soothing tones into the phone's speaker as Namjoon rattled off orders to the local police departments and wired them over into Daegu.