Detonate Me, Granulate Me | BTS

Chapter O9

When Jungkook comes to, it's already dark—or at least, the room he's in is completely dark. Jungkook reaches up to rub his eyes, only to find that he's completely immobilized, tied down to the bed, a tangled mess of wires and IVs poking under his skin, all over his body.

"Jungkookie?" There's a groaning sound next to him, and Jungkook cranes his head with great difficulty to see Taehyung on the bed next to his, similarly incapacitated. To Jungkook's right, someone shuffles, and Jungkook turns his head to see Jimin blinking blearily. "Jiminnie?"

"Where are we?" Jungkook croaks out. Now that he's a little more conscious, he's acutely aware of the pounding headache and sweat beading on his forehead. "What's going on?"

"This must be the ICU," Jimin says under his breath. He wiggles his arms, trying to get the needles out of his body, but the cuffs around his wrists are fastening him tight to the metal frame of the bed. "I was still half-conscious when the medical officer started moving us. They took us through the back of the medical office and down a cargo lift."

"Doesn't look like an intensive care unit to me," Taehyung remarks. He strains against the handcuffs to no avail. "I don't feel very cared for. Especially if they're locking us down like this."

Jungkook's fingers are tingling. He clenches his fist, and sharp pains travel along his arm, numb, tingling. His breath is short, shallow. The sweat is building up, a little burning churn squeezing his heart, prickling, hot, like... Like he's bleeding from the inside.

"Ha!" Jimin suddenly blurts out, breaking the silence. He wiggles a little, striking something together, and there's a dull blue light coming from Jimin's hands, filling the room. "Emergency glow stones. Had them hidden in my tail."

Now that there's more light, Jungkook can make out everything a lot better. There are six beds in the room, arranged in a circular pattern, the feet facing the centre, where a control panel is projecting their vital stats up on a hoverscreen. There's no visible door, the panels of the walls completely smooth, enclosing them like a cylinder. Jungkook looks closer at the beds. There's a series of numbers and letters engraved into the metal bar holding together the headboard of the beds, and Jungkook squints at the characters on the bed opposite his.

CND Kim Yugyeom #097. CND. Canidae.

"Hey, Jimin," Jungkook croaks, "does the name 'Yugyeom' sound familiar?"

Jimin frowns. "Yeah, that was the name of one of the kids who got taken away earlier this morning. Why?"

"Look at the headboards." Jungkook's eyes flicker to the next bed. FLD Park Jinyoung #009.. Jinyoung. Park Jinyoung, who'd mortally injured three medical officers this morning in his seizure. "They have names and numbers on them. Even the beds in our dorm aren't personalized like this."

"Im Jaebum, number eleven," Taehyung reads out, eyeing the bed next to Jimin. "Uh, Jimin, wasn't that...?"

"The final-year who was hauled off earlier this year," Jimin breathes. "Yeah. Suddenly started seizuring during training."

"But what do the numbers mean?" Taehyung asks. He twists around, angling his head so he can see his own headboard. "My name's on this thing. I'm number thirty."

Jungkook musters up the last of his energy so he can arch and see what's on his own bed. FLD Jeon Jungkook #091. "Ninety-one."

"Thirteen," Jimin says. There's a long silence as the three of them contemplate. "Maybe they're our ID numbers?"

Jungkook closes his eyes. Even if they were, this doesn't make sense, not for the Felidae and Canidae to be placed together in the same room of the ICU. Plus, if the medical officer had wanted to penalize Jungkook and Taehyung for breaking rules the rules and hiding a Canidae, they would've just simply given out penalties or demoted them, not incapacitated them and dragged them down to this room hidden out of sight. And what did the medical officer mean earlier when he said that Professor Kim would be interested?