Underwater || BBH

40. Past. Present. Future

B A E K H Y U N

I don't get nervous before missions. I haven't felt the the jitter in my bones and the accelerated, irregular heart since my very mission. I stopped growing nervous before these kinds of things long before I was a leader, how can I lead a group onto a battle ground of they can feel my nerves?

I should be paying attention in this meeting, listening to my team as we sit around the table in the meeting room, upstairs at the bar. We had our meeting with NCT, we had a basic plan down, which should have made me feel better, yet there was still something gnawing at the back of my brain.

The talking of my team was muffled, my ears held a slight ring that I could only hear in between the loud thumps of my heart and my slow breaths. I took the time to move my eye around the room, settling on each and every member of my team.

Kim Junmyeon, my second in command and my longest friend. When I was promoted to team leader and given instructions to pick my team members carefully as they will be my team for life, I knew he had to be on my team.

He had the face and look of leader, frankly everything about him screams leadership. Somehow, even with being younger than me, he managed to show me uttermost respect, he followed every command that I ever gave to him, even before I became his leader.

He quickly fell into the self-appointed role of father figure, seeing as some members lacked that in their life, me being one of them.

When I went through my darkest moments of trying to navigate this leadership thing, he was always there to pick me back up and keep all of us on our feet. When I struggled with my own guilt from my own actions, he told me that I have other people to think about before myself.

My eyes travel over to the shorter male with black rimmed glasses and short hair, the quiet hacker. He was a harder cookie to crack, he came from a hard life and had the 'I don't need anyone's help' kind of attitude, I think I pestered him for months about joining my team. Every time I asked him, he told me to piss of and that he's a lone wolf.

He knew how much off a hot head I could be, so it was no surprise that I found myself in fist fight with another agent that had something smart to say about my family.

When I reached my maximum capacity of rage and anger, and there was nothing that could stop me from breaking that kids nose, Kyungsoo stopped me. I think to this day he only joined because he didn't want me killing anyone.

The next to join my ranks was Kim Minseok, the crazy explosives expert that managed to fool everyone by his feline exterior. His now ebony mullet that used to be a bleach blonde buzz cut when I first met him, lay curly and over his eyes as I look at him.

"I'll plant these minor bombs around the place as a backup-backup plan." His voice was still muffled, yet I still managed to stifle out a laugh at his explosive tendencies.

I still remember each and every time we had to evacuate headquarters because he caused a small explosive in the explosives den. Every team needs a person who isn't afraid to handle a live grenade, he was a wildcard but he was so worth it.

Next was Park Chanyeol, he never used to be this muscular and built. When he first joined the agency, he was tall and lanky with an attitude as big as he was. There was something about the slightly younger guy that I found really admirable, he wasn't embarrassed by little things and was willing to take anything on.

I admired his need and want to be better, he would get the shit kicked out of him at training and he always got back up. I wanted him to be better, I wanted him to be the greatest, so I made sure to do that.