Road to Utopia - NCT

12 - Predicting The Future

As soon as we heard the news, Jaehyun threw his dumbbells to the floor and rushed out of the room. I, unfortunately, was a little slower due to my ankle but I eventually managed to hobble out of the room and up the stairs.

When I reached the infirmary, it was crowded. Everyone who was at the HQ today must have been there (which must have been around 15, minus Taeyong and Ten who were managing the restaurant above). It was a struggle to actually see him but after Johnny ducked his head, he was visible. He was barely awake and his whole chest was covered in bandages.

"Sungchan, I told you he was awake, not that he was stable enough for visitors." Taeil scolded him while trying to push everyone out of the medics' room - to which he failed.

"It meant the same thing to me." He shrugged.

"Yeah, and we're here to...visit Yuta and his leg." Lucas lied.

A curtain around one of the beds opened swiftly. "Shut up, I'm fine. And you could have visited me earlier if you were that concerned." He shut the curtain after his outburst.

"Jeez, way to ruin our lie." Lucas muttered under his breath.

Taeil sighed. "Oh just stay but don't get in my way. How are you, Renjun?"

"Tired...and it hurts." He mumbled, half-closing his eyes.

"Hmm...that's expected, but I'll up the pain medication. Do you remember what happened? I'll let you sleep afterwards." He opened a cupboard brandishing a needle and stabbed it in the IV drip attached to Renjun.

"Dream's mission. Door was booby-trapped. Bang." He mumbled. He looked like he needed to sleep.

OK, that's good, no memory loss. Call me if you need anything." Taeil made his way towards the door while Renjun closed his eyes to sleep more. Before he left, he turned to us. "And please be quiet if you're staying. Yuta, don't get off the bed. I need to get more casting material and I can't mobilise it." He then left us in the medic bay.

After he left, the members also slowly started to leave after checking that Renjun was indeed alright. When I was the only one left, I got closer to Renjun to observe his features and confirm he wasn't too hurt. Apart from the chest wounds, and the slightly pained expression on his face, he seemed fine.

I was about to leave but a hand grabbed my arm. "Jisung, stay." Obviously, I did; I wasn't going to deny an injured person's request.

"Why...how...did you know I was going to be hurt?" He asked tiredly.

I fidgeted. I still hadn't worked that out. I knew Haechan was actually going to reach for the door, but by telling Renjun not to open it, I had made him open it and get hurt. Was I actually the reason he was hurt? Or if I hadn't said anything, would Haechan still get hurt or would Renjun still have been shot? "I...had an instinct that you would be hurt if you opened the door."

"Let me rephrase: how did you know I wanted to open the door? Because I did."

What? He did want to open the door? So my gut instinct was right.

"I don't know either. I think it felt too easy without getting caught or injured. I don't know why I specified you either." I answered honestly.

"I think he can predict the future" The curtain around Yuta's bed opened. "When I first met him, he said something would happen to my leg in two days. And what happens? Jungwoo trips over my leg and ends up sitting on it today."

"But you met him on Sunday, right? Today's Friday - or so I've been told."

"Then his abilities aren't always perfect. It's been 5 days and I've been expecting something bad to happen since then. The one time I let my guard down, of course, I get injured." Yuta grumbled, leaning back onto the bed to lie down. "But Jisung knew something bad would happen to you and me. Tell me that isn't creepy or suspicious!"

"If you can predict the future, Taeyong needs to know. It'll help so much with missions to overthrow the government."

"But I don't know if I can! What if it was just a gut instinct? Supernatural things like that can't exist, right?"

"Sure they can. Obviously, you've never seen Lucas down the whole ice-cream machine supply. Or Jungwoo eating 100 pounds of kimchi in one go. Maybe that's why they go well together." Yuta chuckled.

"They're together? Like dating?" I mean, it wouldn't surprise me.

Both of them laughed.

"As if!"

"They're great friends but I think if they dated, someone's ripping the other's arm off after 10 minutes." Renjun imagined. So they're not together then? They act very close though.

"Yeah, they act close but I think they'd get tired of each other after a while." Yuta added.

"Is anyone dating?" I asked. It wasn't information I needed, but it would be cool to know.

"I'm pretty sure someone in the base will be, but I have no idea. It's probably Ten or Jaehyun." Renjun speculated.

"Ah, my guess was also Jaehyun, maybe Doyoung since he goes out a lot." Yuta mused.

"Guess for what?" A new voice asked. It was just Taeil, who came back with a box in his hands; it must be the stuff for Yuta's leg.

"Jisung wanted to know if anyone's dating." Renjun piped up.

"Hmm...I believe there is someone, but I won't name-drop. If you want to ask around, feel free. It's not my place to say." He grabbed the stuff out of the box. "Jisung, I'm going to have to ask you to leave. I don't like having non-medics in the room when I'm working."

I nodded. "That's fine. Get well soon, you two!" I waved and left.

~~

After I had been kicked out of the medics' room, I went to the "hackers' room". Again, not a room, just a corner on the first floor. I was watching Haechan and Jaemin have a typing-speed contest for over an hour (Haechan won) before they stopped and worked on a code, which was extremely hard to understand. I sat behind them trying to understand but it looked like another language.

"You'll understand one day, Sungie." Jaemin patted my shoulder. "It's actually not too bad once you learn the characters."

"Sure, that's what they always say. I think it's going to take a few years then." I sighed. They're on another level of hackers.

"Oh, I just remembered something! Jisung, Mark and Taeyong wanted to see you! I was supposed to tell you like an hour ago but it slipped my mind." Haechan mentioned.

Literally just after he said that, Mark approached us.

"Jisung, can you come to the office? We need to talk."

END